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December 6

Ezekiel 34: 23-24

²³ I will place over them one shepherd, my servant David, and he will tend them; he will tend them and be their shepherd. ²⁴ I the Lord will be their God, and my servant David will be prince among them. I the Lord have spoken.

Over the centuries covered in the Old Testament, God continually communicated with his people through the prophets, giving them clear guidance and promises. Ezekiel was one of those prophets, living in a very difficult time.  Because of their disobedience to God,  the people of Israel found themselves exiled in Babylon, a strange land with strange Customs and strange gods.  Yet even then,  God continued to communicate with them and make promises for the future.

Throughout our scriptures,  one very powerful recurring image is that of the shepherd, with references to God and to Christ fulfilling that role.   It was an image that would be well understood, for many were employed as shepherds inthose times.  But here we have another of God’s promises, that David would shepherd the human flock.  But King David was dead – Ezekiel living some 400 years after his death, and this is a direct reference to the fact that from David’s ancestors would come a shepherd, Jesus, the Good Shepherd.