Ezekiel 34:13, commentary and pictures

The sheep are God's people, whom He calls His flock, His beautiful flock, now scattered in the cloudy and dark day but about to be gathered to a good pasture. God Himself, as the true Shepherd who heals and gives life, will search out His flock and deliver them from all places where they were scattered. He will bring them out from the people, and gather them from the countries, and bring them to their own land, and feed them upon the mountains of Israel by the rivers and in all the inhabited places of the country in good and fat pasture and a good fold where they lie down.

That shepherd care means seeking the lost, bringing again the driven away, binding up the broken, and strengthening the sick. It means feeding the flock and causing them to lie down, making a covenant of peace, making them and the places round about His hill a blessing, sending showers of blessing in season, and causing them to know that the Lord their God is with them as men of His pasture. This stands against unfaithful shepherds who should have blessed and fed the needy and helpless with comfort and tender care but ate the good pasture, fouled the waters, and neglected the lost, the driven away, the broken, and the sick. Faithful shepherds must therefore receive the Lord's truth as food for the flock, since rejecting it leaves the people without proper spiritual care.

The shepherd's work of searching for lost and straying sheep and bringing them back to the fold rests on ministers in caring for church members. Moses was drawn nearer to the great Shepherd and learned in that nearness to seek the straying and care for the afflicted and weak. There is a special call to the erring, the weak and trembling, and even those who have apostatized from the truth to come fully into the fold, with a special duty laid on God's people to go and search for these lost sheep. The promise includes rescuing the flock so it will not be spoiled by taking it out of the hands of a self-exalting, unfaithful shepherd-physician who was chosen if he would heed admonition. That man exalts self, is ambitious to be as God, repeats the suggestions of Satan, discourages ministers and makes their work exceedingly hard, brings confusion, neglects the vineyard, and creates dissension and strife by a crooked course while refusing increased light and evidence and refusing to acknowledge God and reform; God will keep the flock Himself, appoint true teachers and faithful physicians, and the worker will soon be greatly humbled unless he breaks away from Satan.

For the colored people of the South this gathering means desert places where the outlook is forbidding becoming as the garden of God. It means souls brought out of darkness and ignorance into marvelous light, past injury repaired by multiplied missionaries and volunteers, God's Spirit poured out on those who respond, and a work done in the strength of Christ that fills heaven with rejoicing. The very near gathering brings comfort and holy cheer to believers waiting for the same Jesus who ascended to come again very soon to meet all the redeemed in the city of God. The chapter is therefore to be studied for individual knowledge of what the Lord requires and for spiritual discernment about one who has made a wrong choice, showing God's dealing with apostasy and return in that if the one who chose wrong turns to do what is lawful and right none of his sins will be mentioned and he will surely live and be known by his actions, calling for watching and praying, trusting the living Word, daily conversion, and forming a character after the divine similitude in the little time granted to prepare to meet the Lord with joy when He comes in the clouds of heaven with power and glory.