The Shepherd of Israel and the Good Shepherd

Old Testament: Ezechiel 34:11, 16, 23

... Behold I myself will seek my sheep, and will visit them. ... I will seek that which was lost: and that which was driven away, I will bring again: and I will bind up that which was broken, and I will strengthen that which was weak. ... And I will set up one shepherd over them, and he shall feed them, even my servant David: he shall feed them, and he shall be their shepherd.

New Testament: John 10:6, 11, 14, 16

This proverb Jesus spoke to them. But they understood not what he spoke to them. ... I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd giveth his life for his sheep. ... And other sheep I have, that are not of this fold: them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice, and there shall be one fold and one shepherd.

The connection

Ezechiel condemns Israel's shepherds, its kings and priests, for feeding themselves instead of the flock, scattering the sheep and abandoning the weak and lost. In response God promises to shepherd His people Himself: to search out the lost, bind up the broken, and in the end "set up one shepherd," His servant David, over them. Christ claims this role explicitly and goes further than the promise itself: not merely feeding the flock but laying down His life for it, something no hired shepherd would do. His gathering of "other sheep... not of this fold" into "one fold and one shepherd" is the direct fulfilment of Ezechiel's one-shepherd promise, now extended beyond Israel. Verse 6 itself marks the moment before that meaning was grasped: the parable told, not yet understood.

Moral sense

Let yourself be found; and if you shepherd others, feed them rather than fleeing like a hireling.

Anagogical sense

The definitive ingathering, "one fold," finally realised rather than only promised.

Warrant

Checked in the Greek: poimen stands over both, at Ezechiel 34:23 in the Septuagint and at John 10:11, 10:14 and 10:16, so the title is the same word and not only the same role.

Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraph 754.

The verses

Ezechiel 34:11 · Ezechiel 34:16 · Ezechiel 34:23 · John 10:6 · John 10:11 · John 10:14 · John 10:16

All entries at Dunk's Bible Palace

“He must increase, but I must decrease.”-John 3:30

All Glory To Jesus Christ, Faithful and True

Night Watch

Whole word

Searches the text you choose, then shows every text for the verse you click. Accents and vowel points are ignored, so Greek and Hebrew can be typed plainly.

Texts. Latin: Clementine Vulgate, public domain. Hebrew: Westminster Leningrad Codex via morphhb, text public domain, morphology CC BY 4.0. Greek New Testament: SBLGNT, CC BY 4.0. Septuagint: Swete 1909 via lxx-swete, CC BY-SA 4.0, with Wisdom 3:4 to 17 and Ecclesiastes from LXX-Swete-1930. Verse mapping between the numbering systems: UBS versification tables, MIT. Dictionary words: Latin from William Whitaker's WORDS via Open Words, MIT; Hebrew lemmas from morphhb with glosses from Strong's Hebrew dictionary via the Open Scriptures Hebrew Lexicon, public domain; Greek lemmas from MorphGNT, CC BY-SA 3.0, with glosses from Dodson's Greek Lexicon, public domain.
The Fathers. St Thomas Aquinas, Catena Aurea, in John Henry Newman's translation of 1841, public domain, transcribed at isidore.co. The four Gospels only. Each comment is shown under the passage Thomas set it against, which can be several verses wide.
The Fathers quoting a verse. Philip Schaff, ed., The Ante-Nicene Fathers and The Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers (1885 to 1900), from the electronic edition of the Christian Classics Ethereal Library, used for non-profit study with thanks. A passage appears under a verse where that edition's editors identified the Father quoting or alluding to it. Their own introductions and notes are left out, and so are the apocryphal writings the collection also contains. Verse numbers are carried from the King James numbering of that edition to the Douay by the UBS versification tables.
Why some columns are blank. A text is shown only where the published tables establish which verse corresponds. Where they do not, or where the book does not exist in that language, the column says so rather than showing a verse that looks right and is not.

“And had broken their pitchers, they held their lamps in their left hands.” Judges 7:20

Break the pitcher, and let the lamp within give its light.

Dunk

Drag a star and its neighbours follow · scroll or pinch to zoom · tap a star to read it

Scriptural Patristic Traditional Interpretive Larger stars have more links After Hildegard of Bingen, Scivias I.6, in the manner of Blake and Michelangelo

Brightest first, by links

Scriptural Patristic Traditional Interpretive Hover or tap an entry to see where its type is fulfilled

Drag nodes to rearrange · scroll or pinch to zoom · tap a node for detail

Alpha → Omega, in order