May 18, Ezekiel 34
"And I will set up over them one shepherd, my servant David, and he shall feed them; he shall feed them and be their shepherd. And I, the LORD, will be their God, and my servant David shall be prince among them. I am the LORD; I have spoken." - Ezekiel 34:23-24
A good storyteller weaves the characters, events and circumstances of his subject matter together to make the whole cloth of his story. Ezekiel 34 is one of the richest, most densely woven pieces of story cloth in the Bible, combining characters, images, ideas and themes like strands in the story of Redemption. The story threads run into this chapter from what has gone before and run ahead into what will take place after Ezekiel's time.
When God made a covenant with Israel, he designed the nation to be a theocracy, with God himself as their king. Before his death, Moses foresaw that after the Israelites were living in the land God would give them, they would desire a king. By the time of Samuel, the people rejected God as king over them and wanted a human king to lead them and fight their battles for them. Samuel warned them about what it would be like to have a king, but they insisted and God allowed them to have a king of his choosing. All the dark things Samuel told them to expect from their king came true. Their kings were in fact, just as they said they wanted, kings like the nations around them had. And they, under the evil influence of evil kings, became just like the nations around them.
Chapter 34 shows the sad outcome of Israel's demand to replace the theocracy with a monarchy. God had described his people as sheep and their leaders as shepherds. Israel's kings had failed to be good shepherds. They had been selfish instead of selfless. They fed on the sheep instead for feeding them. They neglected the sick, weak and lost sheep. The kings, even the best of them, had serious flaws. As a group, the kings of Israel (and later Judah) had been total failures as shepherds. And the sheep suffered the consequences of the shepherds' failed leadership.
God said he would do what the shepherds had failed to do. He repeated personal pronouns I, me, and my more than a dozen times in this chapter. He would rescue their lost, feed the hungry, heal the sick and wounded and regather the scattered sheep.
The Lord removed the kings. The nation would never be reorganized as a nation. There would be no more monarchy. The religious leaders who rose to lead the people did no better than the kings had done. The scribes and priests, Pharisees and Sadducees were also selfish and self-serving bullies who cared nothing for their people.
God condemned not only the failed shepherds; he also condemned the strong sheep who bullied the weak and helpless ones. They spoiled the food and water of the others, caring only about themselves. Most of the prophets denounced the cruelty, greed and injustice that characterized the strongest Israelites as they took advantage of the poor among them.
This chapter looks ahead to a time when God would indeed set a king over his people. That king would be a descendant of David, but he would also be God himself. He would reunite divided and scattered Israel and bring them along with Gentiles into the sheepfold of the true Israel of God. That great Shepherd is none other than our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. His kingdom is not an earthly, political one with geographical boundaries. It is a spiritual kingdom. The covenant of peace he would make with the people would be a peace he purchased with his own blood on the cross.
Do you see how all these promises were and are fulfilled in Christ and his kingdom? Can you trace these story lines and themes into the New Testament? These words God gave Ezekiel look back and look ahead, weaving together what had gone before and giving a preview, of what was coming in the true Israel of God, the kingdom of Christ.
Think with me about this for a while: Why do we humans so often want what will destroy us? Why do we persist in wanting it, even after it hurt and impoverished us? These people wanted a king, and the king ruined them. But the desire for the return of the monarchy persisted. Even in the time when Jesus was on earth, the Jewish people still dreamed of a restored kingdom led by a great Davidic king.
How often do we want what will destroy us? The only escape possible is to surrender our rebellious desires and hearts to the true king of our lives, the Lord Jesus Christ. When we enthrone him in his rightful place on the throne of our lives, we won't continue to pursue the things that will destroy us.
Copyright © 2024 by Michael B. McElroy. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Today in God's Word—May 2024
East Tallassee Church of Christ
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