They were like sheep. The people. They were harassed and driven away by none other than their leaders. It was the leaders job to love, protect, nurture and provide for the people. Instead the leaders used their permission to serve themselves. And the Lord had to step in.

Woe to the shepherds of Israel, who have been feeding themselves! Shouldn’t the shepherds feed their flock? ³ You eat the fat, wear the wool, and butcher the fattened animals, but you do not tend the flock. ⁴ You have not strengthened the weak, healed the sick, bandaged the injured, brought back the strays, or sought the lost. Instead, you have ruled them with violence and cruelty. ⁵ They were scattered for lack of a shepherd; they became food for all the wild animals when they were scattered. Ezek 34:2-5

In this we exactly the role of a leader. They are to strengthen the weak, heal the sick, bandage the injured, bring back the strays and seek out the lost. That is leadership. Bad leaders use the benefits of the role to serve themselves.

So the Lord has to step in for his people. He has to shepherd the flocks himself.

¹¹ “For this is what the Lord God says: See, I Myself will search for My flock and look for them. ¹² As a shepherd looks for his sheep on the day he is among his scattered flock, so I will look for My flock. I will rescue them from all the places where they have been scattered on a cloudy and dark day. ¹³ I will bring them out from the peoples, gather them from the countries, and bring them into their own land. I will shepherd them on the mountains of Israel, in the ravines, and in all the inhabited places of the land. ¹⁴ I will tend them with good pasture, and their grazing place will be on Israel’s lofty mountains. There they will lie down in a good grazing place; they will feed in rich pasture on the mountains of Israel. ¹⁵ I will tend My flock and let them lie down.” This is the declaration of the Lord God. ¹⁶ “I will seek the lost, bring back the strays, bandage the injured, and strengthen the weak, but I will destroy the fat and the strong. I will shepherd them with justice.

This was both a now and a not yet prophecy. God himself was going to bring people back from the land. He was going to shepherd them. And he was going to bring judgment against the bad shepherds. This happened when Babylon returned to Jerusalem and they were restored.

But it will happen again. In the sense that there is prophet undertone. There will one day be that Israel will be fruitful, established, and no longer harassed by its enemies. “They will no longer endure the insults of the nations” (v. 29). That certainly hasn’t happened yet.

There’s a lit of richness here in the teaching about leadership. It is about what good leadership looks like and bad leadership. In the end the Good Shepherd will be the one who truly leads the people and read about that in the New Testament (John 10). Jesus is a direct fulfillment of this Scripture as He is the shepherd who comes to spiritually shepherd the sheep. Sheep that were yet again harrassed and helpless because of their leaders.

Under the new covenant, Jesus is our leader. We still have earthly leaders in the church and in our nations, but Jesus is the ultimate leader. We listen to him and follow his voice. We live in his kingdom following his ways. We honor the ways of the land until they clash with the ways of Jesus and his kingdom, then we honor Jesus. Nice words now, but growing ever more dangerous.