“My holy Name I will make known in the midst of My people Israel. I will not let My holy Name be profaned anymore, and the Gentiles will know that I am Yahweh, the Holy One in Israel.”
Ezekiel 39: 7
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Yahweh is the Good Shepherd
Psalm 23: A Psalm of David
In roughly 1000 BC, David wrote Psalm 23. In it, he refers to Yahweh as his Shepherd:
Yahweh is my Shepherd. I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters. He restores my soul. He guides me in the paths of righteousness for His Name’s sake.
Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil, for You are with me. Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You have anointed my head with oil. My cup overflows.
Surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of Yahweh forever.
Ezekiel 34: 1-16
In roughly 600 BC, Yahweh told Ezekiel to prophesy to the House of Israel and tell them about the role He would play as Israel’s Shepherd:
The word of Yahweh came to me saying, “Son of man, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel. Prophesy, and say to them, even to the shepherds, thus says Adonai Yahweh, ‘Ah, shepherds of Israel who have been feeding yourselves! Should not shepherds feed the sheep? You eat the fat. You clothe yourselves with the wool. You slaughter the fat ones, but you do not feed the sheep. The weak you have not strengthened. The sick you have not healed. The injured you have not bound up. The strayed you have not brought back. The lost you have not sought, and with force and harshness you have ruled them. So, they were scattered, because there was no shepherd, and they became food for all the wild beasts. My sheep were scattered. They wandered over all the mountains and on every high hill. My sheep were scattered over all the face of the earth, with none to search or seek for them.’”
“Therefore, you shepherds, hear the word of Yahweh, ‘As I live, declares Adonai Yahweh, surely because My sheep have become a prey, and My sheep have become food for all the wild beasts, since there was no shepherd, and because My shepherds have not searched for My sheep, but the shepherds have fed themselves, and have not fed My sheep, therefore, you shepherds, hear the word of Yahweh, ‘Thus says Adonai Yahweh, Behold, I am against the shepherds, and I will require My sheep at their hand and put a stop to their feeding the sheep. No longer shall the shepherds feed themselves. I will rescue My sheep from their mouths, that they may not be food for them.’”
“For thus says Adonai Yahweh, ‘Behold, I, I Myself will search for My sheep and will seek them out. As a shepherd seeks out his flock when he is among his sheep that have been scattered, so will I seek out My sheep, and I will rescue them from all places where they have been scattered on a day of clouds and thick darkness. And I will bring them out from the peoples and gather them from the countries, and will bring them into their own land. And I will feed them on the mountains of Israel, by the ravines, and in all the inhabited places of the country. I will feed them with good pasture, and on the mountain heights of Israel shall be their grazing land. There they shall lie down in good grazing land, and on rich pasture they shall feed on the mountains of Israel. I Myself will be the Shepherd of My sheep, and I Myself will make them lie down, declares Adonai Yahweh. I will seek the lost, and I will bring back the strayed, and I will bind up the injured, and I will strengthen the weak, and the fat and the strong I will destroy. I will feed them in justice.’”
Yahweh told Ezekiel that He would do the job that His priests had failed to do, even though it was their job. Yahweh would be Israel’s Shepherd in Person. By that, He meant that He would do it in human form.
In the late 1990s, while I was writing His Name is Yahweh, I asked one of my Jewish students if his mother would mind reading the book chapter-by-chapter as I was writing it. She was happy to do it. As quickly as I finished a chapter, I emailed it to her. Over the next few days, she read it and gave me her feedback.
I’ll never forget the time I sent her the chapter titled “Yahweh Has a Human Form”. I sent it late in the evening, and I received her response early the next morning. She told me that she could hardly wait to read the chapter when she saw the title.
She had been taught the Scriptures as a young girl in Hebrew School, but she had never heard anything about Yahweh’s human form. She told me that she had doubts before she read the chapter, but when she finished reading it, all she could say was, “Yahweh really does have a human form.”
The fact that Yahweh has a human form is all over the Tanach/Old Testament. The fact that Yahweh is our Shepherd is all over the Tanach/Old Testament as well. The fact that Yahweh performed the role of Shepherd in person is central to the Scriptures.
John 10: 11-18
“I am the Good Shepherd; the Good Shepherd lays down His life for the sheep. He who is a hired hand, and not a shepherd, who is not the owner of the sheep, sees the wolf coming, and leaves the sheep and flees, and the wolf snatches them and scatters them. He flees because he is a hired hand and is not concerned about the sheep. I am the Good Shepherd. I know My own and My own know Me, even as the Father knows Me and I know the Father. I lay down My life for the sheep. I have other sheep, which are not of this fold. I must bring them also, and they will hear My voice. They will become one flock with one shepherd. For this reason, the Father loves Me, because I lay down My life so that I may take it again. No one has taken it away from Me, but I lay it down on My own initiative. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. This commandment I received from My Father.”
The Messiah said that He is the Good Shepherd. He came to do the job that Yahweh told Ezekiel He would do.
Matthew 23: 37-39
“Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, the way a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were unwilling. Behold, your house is being left to you desolate! For I say to you, from now on you will not see Me until you say, ‘Blessed is He who comes in the Name of Yahweh!’”
Matthew 23: 37-39 is probably the saddest part of the New Testament. The Messiah was looking out over Jerusalem shortly before His death and lamenting what was coming, because the religious leaders in Judah had rejected Him.
Judah was about to be destroyed. And the reason? It was because the religious leaders rejected Yahweh.
Jewish religious leaders hated the Messiah because He threatened their social, economic, and political standing. Jewish people in Israel loved Him. He healed the sick, raised the dead, cleansed the lepers, and brought them into a close personal relationship with Yahweh.
The Messiah
The Messiah was simply being the Shepherd as He promised Ezekiel He would. He literally laid down His life for His sheep.
Following the Messiah’s death, Jewish religious leaders in Jerusalem did everything they could do to drive a wedge between Jewish people in Judah and their Messiah. In about 135 AD, Rabbi Akiva even went so far as to declare that anyone who accepted the Messiah as Yahweh was not Jewish and should be rejected by everyone, including the person’s family.
Things are changing. Yahweh is drawing His people to Him. That’s His job, not ours. We can tell people what we know, but we can’t heal their hearts. Only Yahweh can do that.
Isaiah 53: 3-5
He was despised and forsaken of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And like one from whom men hide their face He was despised, and we did not esteem Him.
Surely our griefs He Himself bore, and our sorrows He carried. Yet we ourselves esteemed Him stricken, smitten of Elohim, and afflicted. But He was pierced through for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities. The chastening for our well-being fell upon Him, and by His scourging we are healed.
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“The glory which You have given Me I have given to them, that they may be one, just as We are one; I in them and You in Me, that they may be perfected in unity, so that the world may know that You sent Me, and loved them, even as You have loved Me. Father, I desire that they also, whom You have given Me, be with Me where I am, so that they may see My glory which You have given Me, for You loved Me before the foundation of the world.” (John 17: 22-24)
