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Bible Dictionaries
Sheep, Shepherd
Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament
or SHEEP, SHEPHERD
ἀμνός, ‘lamb’: John 1:29; John 1:36, Acts 8:32, 1 Peter 1:19; with the classical acc. plur. ἄρνας, Luke 10:3 (where Cod. A reads πρόβατα), and the diminutive from the same stem, ἀρνίον, in John 21:15 (אABC2 [Note: designates the particular edition of the work referred] ) and (of Christ) Rev. passim (Revelation 5:6 to Revelation 22:3). All three words are used only figuratively in NT.
πρόβατον, ‘sheep’: Matthew 9:36; Matthew 12:11-12; Matthew 18:12, Luke 15:4; Luke 15:6, John 2:14-15; John 2:10, Revelation 18:13, and (figuratively) Matthew 7:15; Matthew 10:6; Matthew 10:16; Matthew 15:24; Matthew 25:32 f., 26:31, Mark 6:34; Mark 14:27, John 10, 21 (15. C*D) 16, 17, Acts 8:32, Hebrews 13:20, 1 Peter 2:25; its diminutive προβάτιον in John 21:16-17 (B, C, Tisch., WH [Note: H Westcott and Hort’s text.] ).
ποἰμιη, ‘flock’: Luke 2:8, 1 Corinthians 9:7, and (fig.) Matthew 26:31, John 10:16; its diminutive ποίμνιον, always figurative, in Luke 12:32, Acts 20:28-29, 1 Peter 5:2-3.
ποιμήν, ‘shepherd’: Matthew 9:36; Matthew 25:32, Mark 6:34, Luke 2:8; Luke 2:15; Luke 2:18; Luke 2:20, John 10:2; John 10:12, and (fig.) Matthew 26:31, Mark 14:27, John 10:11; John 10:14; John 10:16, Ephesians 4:11, Hebrews 13:20, 1 Peter 2:25.
ἀρχιποίμην chief shepherd’ (fig.), 1 Peter 5:4.
ποιμαίνω, ‘shepherd,’ ‘tend,’ a flock; Luke 17:7, 1 Corinthians 9:7, and (fig.) Matthew 2:6, John 21:16, Acts 20:28, 1 Peter 5:2, Judges 1:12, Revelation 2:27; Revelation 7:17; Revelation 12:5; Revelation 19:15.
βόσκω, ‘feed a flock ‘: Matthew 8:30, Mark 5:11, Luke 8:32; Luke 15:15; οἱ βοσκοντες, Matthew 8:33, Mark 5:14, Luke 8:34. βόσκω is fig. only in John 21:15; John 21:17.
1. The sheep of Palestine are still the broadtailed breed of Biblical times (Exodus 29:22, Leviticus 3:9; Leviticus 3:11 Revised Version NT 1881, OT 1885 ‘fat tail’). The tail is from 5 to 15 inches wide, and weighs from 10 to 15 lb., sometimes even as much as 30 lb., supplying 10 lb. and upwards of pure fat, which is packed for winter use. The sheep are white, though some have brown faces: only the rams have horns. They ‘find pasture’ (John 10:9) in the lower lands in winter and on the mountains in summer, the best pastures being in S. Palestine (the Negeb and Gerar) and on the plain to the E. of the Jordan; but even ‘the pastures of the wilderness’ (Psalms 65:12, Joel 2:22) are welcome in spring, when grass and flowers have grown which are burnt up in summer. The shepherd leads his sheep (John 10:4) during the day in the cool months, but in the hotter part of the year from sunset to early morning, when he brings them back to the fold (John 10:1; John 10:16) or leaves them to lie under a prepared shelter in the bushes (Song of Solomon 1:7). The fold (αὐλή) is a low flat shed or series of sheds, with a yard surrounded by a wall (John 10:1; cf. Numbers 32:16, Judges 5:16, Zephaniah 2:6); on cold nights the flocks are shut in the buildings. The wall is surmounted by a fence of sharp thorns to keep out the wolves (John 10:12) and other wild beasts (Isaiah 31:4, 1 Samuel 17:34); jackals and hyaenas prey almost up to the walls of Jerusalem, while leopards and panthers often leap over the high fence of the fold, and the shepherd is still at times known ‘to lay down his life for the sheep’ (John 10:11). Robbers are as great a source of danger; a lamb or a kid is sometimes carried off by a bird of prey, and there are deadly snakes in the limestone rocks. The Gospel parable does not exaggerate the rejoicing of the shepherd when he has recovered a sheep that has gone astray ‘upon the mountains’ (Matthew 18:12-13, Luke 15:4).
The shepherd keeps watch by night in the open air (Luke 2:8, cf. Nahum 3:18), sometimes using a temporary shelter or a shepherd’s tent (Song of Solomon 1:8, Isaiah 38:12), which recalls the nomad habits of the early Israelites and their Semitic ancestors (Hebrews 11:9, Genesis 4:20). On the march he carries a bag or wallet (Matthew 10:10), a staff (Matthew 10:8, Psalms 23:4), and a sling (1 Samuel 17:40). At the watering-places (Psalms 23:2) the sheep answer to the shepherd’s call (John 10:3-4), and, when they have drunk, move on at his word to make room for another flock. A shepherd is sometimes followed by several flocks, but each comes or goes at a separate call, and he often knows each sheep by a name (John 10:3). Sheep-dogs (Job 30:1) are not mentioned in the NT, but they must have been used, as they are still, to protect the flock and keep the sheep together.
2. Sheep were used for food (Revelation 18:13), and their milk for drink (1 Corinthians 9:7, Deuteronomy 32:14); their skins were used for tents and for a baggy kind of coat (μηλωτή, Hebrews 11:37). The importance of sheep to a pastoral people like the Israelites is emphasized by one of their favourite names, Rachel, which means ‘ewe’ (W. R. Smith, Rel. Sem. [Note: Semitic.] 2 [Note: designates the particular edition of the work referred] 311), and by the choice of a lamb for the Paschal Supper in their most sacred festival. Every morning, also, and every evening, they had to offer in sacrifice ‘a he-lamb without blemish for a continual burnt-offering’ (Numbers 28:3-6), with two he-lambs in addition every Sabbath day (Numbers 28:9). Seven he-lambs and one ram were required at every new moon, on every day of the Passover, and at the Feast of Weeks (Numbers 28:16-31), at the Feast of Trumpets, and on the Day of Atonement (Numbers 29:1-11). At the Feast of Tabernacles (Numbers 29:12-38) this offering was included on the eighth day, but was doubled on each of the first seven days, with varying numbers of bullocks. Goats were generally used for sin-offerings, but a leper in the day of his cleansing (Luke 17:14) had to bring a he-lamb for a guilt-offering, besides a he-lamb for a burnt-offering and a ewe-lamb, the two latter being commuted for a pair of turtle-doves in the case of the poor (Leviticus 14:10-22). Any of the common people, also, might substitute for the male goat of the ordinary sin-offering a female lamb without blemish (Leviticus 4:27-32). This piacular offering of sheep was a Semitic practice which is found also in ancient Cyprus, and was adopted by Epimenides at Athens when he was summoned from Crete to purify the city from the Alcmaeonid pollution. (W. R. Smith, Rel. Sem. [Note: Semitic.] 2 [Note: designates the particular edition of the work referred] note G).
3. The interest of these sacrificial requirements centres in the NT round the representation of Christ as ‘the Lamb’ (Revelation 5:6; Revelation 22:3). To some extent, of course, the figure is suggested by ‘the meekness and gentleness of Christ’ (2 Corinthians 10:1, Matthew 11:29), the perfect realization in Him of the spirit of beautiful confidence and loving obedience which we associate with Psalms 23 (cf. Ecce Homo, chs. i. and ii. pp. 5, 6, 10, 12). But where the figure is explained, it is always in a sacrificial sense: ‘He was led as a sheep to the slaughter’ (Acts 8:32); ‘redeemed … with precious blood, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot, (even the blood) of Christ’ (1 Peter 1:18-19); ‘a Lamb standing as though it had been slain’; ‘worthy is the Lamb that hath been slain’ (Revelation 5:6; Revelation 5:12); ‘the book of life of the Lamb that hath been slain from the foundation of the world’ (Revelation 13:8). In the same way John the Baptist hailed Jesus of Nazareth as ‘the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world’ (John 1:29). It is superfluous to say (with Alford) that the reference is not to the Paschal lamb, ‘which did not suggest atonement for sin’; on every day of the feast, as we have seen, lambs were offered as a burnt-offering; and if it was not Passover-time when John spoke, his hearers would readily understand his meaning from the sin-offering of the poor, or the morning and evening sacrifice of every day. These kept before the eyes of all Israelites the principle of substitution, the surrender of another life for the human life that was forfeited or consecrated (Hebrews 11:4; Hebrews 10:10). John may have uttered his prophecy at the time of the regular evening sacrifice, the time at which the prophecy was afterwards to be fulfilled (Matthew 27:45); but the language of Isaiah 53:7-12 would of itself explain the meaning of his words. The correspondence of Christ’s death with a sin-offering is distinctly assumed in Hebrews 13:10-13, and St. Paul also sees in the occurrence of that death at Passover-time the true Passover sacrifice of the Lamb (1 Corinthians 5:7). We need not be concerned to limit to any one ceremony the thought in the mind of the Baptist: the Lamb, in his words, was the atoning Lamb. Christ (as M. Dods suggests in Expos. Gr. Test.) may have revealed the truth to him after the return from the Temptation in the wilderness: He Himself three times foretold His coming death (Matthew 16:21; Matthew 17:22-23; Matthew 20:18-19) before He repeated the substance of John’s prophecy as His own (Matthew 20:28).
4. Christ is also ‘the Good Shepherd’ (John 10:11; John 10:14), ‘the Shepherd and Bishop (overseer, guardian) of souls’ (1 Peter 2:25), ‘the chief Shepherd’ (1 Peter 5:4). His people are His flock (John 10:16, Luke 12:32), as the chosen people of old were the flock of God (Psalms 77:20; Psalms 79:13; Psalms 80:1; Psalms 95:7; Psalms 100:3). As God undertook by the voice of His prophets to feed His flock (Isaiah 40:11, Ezekiel 34:14-15), so Christ pledges Himself ‘to give unto them eternal life’ (John 10:28; cf. John 6:48-58), to ‘guide them unto fountains of waters of life’ (Revelation 7:17). He requires of His sheep (John 10:14; John 10:27) the life of unquestioning obedience and trust which the Psalmist accepts with such happy contentment (Psalms 23): He promises that no one shall snatch them out of His hand if they hear His voice and follow Him, if they make themselves familiar with Him (γιγνώσκουσι, John 10:14) as He makes it His concern to know them and to know the Father. When He speaks of ‘the fold’ in which they will find protection, He calls Himself ‘the door’ (John 10:7-10) through which one must enter in to be made safe: He becomes the shepherd (John 10:11-16) as He passes from the thought of the fold to describe the flock. So later (John 14:6) He says, ‘I am the way,’ before He calls Himself ‘the truth and the life.’ No one ‘fold’ can include all His sheep (John 10:16): the flock is greater than the fold, the shepherd more essential than the door: and the one necessary condition of the Christian life is the personal devotion and obedience to the living Shepherd. Where that condition is observed, there may be many folds, ‘other sheep’; but He will know His own (John 10:14), and in the eyes of all at last ‘they shall become one flock, one shepherd’ (John 10:16).
In His more active ministry Christ found the appropriate figure for His disciples in the patient hard-working cattle which ploughed the earth to prepare it for men’s food, or carried the burdens of their daily life (Matthew 11:29-30): work under His guidance with the meek and lowly spirit is the secret of rest. It was as the shadows of the end fell upon Him that He returned to the OT figure of the sheep of God’s pasture: ‘Fear not, little flock’ (Luke 12:32), resumes the ‘Be not afraid’ of Luke 12:4 at the close of the perilous scene when the crowded courtyard was His refuge from the hatred of His enemies (Luke 11:37-54). So the beautiful pictures and promises of John 10 belong to the time of danger (John 10:39) in the closing winter (John 10:22) of His life, when He was being forced into the retirement (John 10:40) from which He came out at the risk of death to restore Lazarus to his sisters. The Shepherd’s care of His sheep is the gospel first for the sorrowful and helpless: ‘the whole portraiture of the Good Shepherd is a commentary on Isaiah 53’ (Westcott).
5. One other NT analogy is derived from the same figure. As rulers who ‘observe dooms from Zeus’ are called in the Iliad (i. 263, ii. 243, etc.) ποιμένες λαῶν (cf. Micah 5:4, Matthew 2:6), and he that receives authority over the nations ‘shall shepherd them with a staff of iron’ (Revelation 2:27; Revelation 12:5; Revelation 19:15), so the Church receives ποιμένας καὶ διδασκάλους among the gifts of its glorified Lord (Ephesians 4:11). Their duty is to ‘tend the flock of God’ (1 Peter 5:2), ‘the flock in the which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers’ (Acts 20:28): it is the false shepherds who ‘without fear feed themselves’ (Judges 1:12). In ‘tending’ the flock, the first and last duty is to ‘feed’ it: βόσκε τὰ ἀρνία μου, ποίμαινε τὰ προβάτιά μου, βόσκε τὰ προβάτιά μου (John 21:15-17). The shepherd’s ways with the sheep may be most winning and his music of the sweetest; but if he does not minister to them ‘the bread of life,’ other shepherds will have to be found who will ‘feed them’ (Jeremiah 23:4). As the shepherds themselves belong to the flock of Christ, they are also to be ‘examples to the flock,’ ‘and when the chief Shepherd shall be manifested, ye shall receive the crown of glory that fadeth not away’ (1 Peter 5:3-4).
Literature.—For the sheep and shepherds of Palestine see Thomson, The Land and the Book, pp. 201–205; Geikie, The Holy Land and the Bible, pp. 13, 81–84; Post in Hasting's Dictionary of the Bible iv. 487; Shipley and Cook in Encyc. Bibl. iii. 4441 (cf. ib. i. 711). There are expository sermons in F. W. Robertson, Serm. 2nd ser. (1875) 251; H. Alford, Eastertide Serm. (1866), 32, 62; B. F. Westcott, Revelation of the Father (1884), 77; A. F. W. Ingram, Good Shepherds (1898); A. G. Mortimer, Studies in Holy Scripture (1901), 161; also W. Lock on ‘the Sheep and the Goats’ in The Bible and Chr. Life (1905), 162. For connected subjects see Literature under Atonement, Church, Redeem, Rule (p. 539), Sacrifice.
Frank Richards.
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Hastings, James. Entry for 'Sheep, Shepherd'. Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament. https://www.studylight.org/dictionaries/eng/hdn/s/sheep-shepherd.html. 1906-1918.
