Ezekiel 34:21, commentary and pictures

Ezekiel 34:21 belongs to the instruction of Ezekiel 33 and Ezekiel 34 that calls for making straight paths for the feet so the lame are not turned out of the way. That instruction is the truth of God and not a pleasing fable, it applies directly to those living in the last days, and it must be read and studied with the utmost stretch of understanding to know what it means for that time.

The verse portrays those who should care for the flock, especially unfaithful shepherds, as using force and strength against its weak and diseased members, driving them away until they are scattered. The chapter's rebuke applies to ministers who reject God's truth, trample His law, and destroy the paths the people should follow, while faithful shepherds instead feed and guide the flock. The diseased represent vulnerable people who need care, and pushing them away puts them on Satan's battleground, exposing them to temptation and spiritual ruin so that they falter and fall.

Those who act unkindly and without sympathy in this way fulfill the verse, and those responsible will answer to God in the judgment for the souls harmed by their conduct. Thrusting with side and shoulder means oppressing God's children with hard, harsh, bitter, cutting words from the mouth. That harsh spirit among brethren must be searched after, taken away, and confessed, lest it stand against the guilty when there is no mediator between an offended God and guilty humanity and no atoning blood to wash away sin.

The verse also means treating a heavily burdened brother with hardness instead of sympathy, pressing against him while his heart is stricken over his children going astray and losing interest in truth, withholding the soothing comfort that would ease his anguish like Job's comforters. The verse describes holding off and pushing aside an interested person instead of helping her, as in the treatment of Sister Graham, who was slow to bear her whole weight on the truth and did not yet see it in all its importance, yet loved it and saw it was clear and would fully embrace it if a right course were pursued toward her. That wrong course holds such a person in uncertainty and doubt and leads her to question whether she has been deceived, yet the Lord loves her, and if she follows on to know the Lord she will know His goings forth are prepared as the morning.

The verse was fulfilled when those in spiritual darkness thrust with side and shoulder against those who had received light from Jesus and proclaimed that the hour of His judgment is come. That thrusting was hostile opposition and pressure against the light-bearers to hold them in the companies bound by cords and keep them from standing separate, done by church members in darkness joined by ministers and leading men who rejected the light themselves and would not let others receive it. The verse means crowding and pushing fellow believers while professing zeal for the truth, being very strenuous and exacting toward brethren.

That course comes through Satan standing in the midst with his evil angels exulting, tempting by exalting some and driving others to harsh zeal. It brings reproach upon the truth, makes the truth disgusting and an abhorrence, makes those who do it a stink to the surrounding places, and makes them as a people accountable to God for the wretched influence cast against the truth. The verse is to be studied when deciding whether to remain under the influence of one who has apostatized and speaks against the truth. It calls for individual conversion, forming a character after the divine similitude, and preparing with joy to meet the Lord when He comes in the clouds of heaven with power and glory.