Chapter 34

Per MSB outline, 34 begins the last major division of Ezekiel's book, and is called Prophecies of Israel's Restoration.  This is further divided into four sub-points.  The first, that 34 starts, is called A regathering of Israel to the Land.  It starts with the promise of a true shepherd in 34, punishment of the nations in 35, and Purposes of restoration in 36, and tomorrow in 37, The Valley of Dry bones, as a picture of restoration.  So to the text:

Starts with a new prophecy, addressed to the shepherds of Israel.  In fact it tells Ezekiel to "prophesy against the shepherds".  So the section on the restoration of Israel starts with a chastisement of their current shepherds.

The first 6 verses charge the shepherds with looking after themselves and neglecting their sheep.  They do not help the weak, search for those lost and bring them back, but they do rule harshly over the ones nearby.  So the sheep have been scattered.  They have scattered because the shepherds don't feed them.  There is nothing for them when they are with the shepherds, they go hungry when they are there, they are just taken advantage of when they are with the shepherds.  So they leave.  They scatter.  They are spread everywhere.  So if we see the sheep as the chosen, they have gone out.  It says they roam over every high hill, which seems a reference to all the high places where they worshiped. (No, in 2020 I don't think that's what this means.)  They are scattered and have no one to search for them. 

2026 - I cannot find the right place to put this comment.  It should go at the end of vs 10 but my notes below have no break at that spot.  I'd have to insert this where it doesn't really belong.

This first section of Chapter 34 is another example of the repetitive nature of Ezekiel.  We have three parts here:  In vs 2 "say to those shepherds", in vs 7, "hear the word of the Lord", and in vs 9, "hear the word of the Lord" is repeated.  Look at what each of the three actually does:

Think of this as the phases of a trial.  In vs 2, we have the reading of the charges.  This is accusation.  You feed yourselves and not the flock.  Isn't your job supposed to be feeding the flock?

Then in 7, The verdict.  You DID feed yourselves instead of the flock, you DID let them wander and be scattered, you DID allow them to be killed by the wild beasts from which you should have protected them.  Guilty!

And finally vs 10, the sentence.  God, as judge, says he is against them.  They will be held accountable for their actions.  They will be removed as shepherds because of their selfishness and their irresponsibility.

So it sounds redundant, but there is a different purpose to each repetition.  A legal case is presented, considered.  A verdict is rendered, and then sentence is pronounced.  Did the earlier redundancies do this?

But...shouldn't there be two witnesses?  Where are they?

2022 - This verse:

5 So they were scattered, because there was no shepherd, and they became food for all the wild beasts. My sheep were scattered; [Eze 34:5 ESV]

Because the shepherds neglected their duties, because they didn't help the oppressed but instead oppressed them, the sheep scattered.  That's what sheep do.  This makes clear that the shepherds bear additional responsibility for the disposition of the flock. There is a hierarchy, and in God's hierarchy, those nearer the top have more to answer for - not only for themselves but for what happened to those for whom they were managers.  This is not like our modern businesses where rank is only about privilege and responsibility actually declines with advancement.  In God's hierarchy, you might want to think long and hard about promotion.  It is sure to be a burden, over and above what you already bear.

Vs 7 starts with "Therefore...", and goes on that since the shepherds fed themselves and not the sheep, and let the sheep wander offer so that the sheep became prey, God will do this:

10 "...I will require my sheep at their hand and put a stop to their feeding the sheep. No longer shall the shepherds feed themselves. I will rescue my sheep from their mouths, that they may not be food for them." [Eze 34:10b ESV]  Looking ahead to the inter-testamentary period when there were no prophets from God at all?  Or a change in attitude among the people that strips the shepherds of any respect?  MSB implies that God wasn't talking necessarily about priests, and uses the fate of King Zedekiah as an example of the removal of the shepherds.  I am not seeing from the context so far that this would be correct.  Just seems bringing the sheep back to the flock has always been a job for prophets and priests.  But in Jesus' case, also Kings. 

2024 - Or perhaps this is about the dissolution of the priesthood.  It was the high priest and the rest of the priests in Jesus' time that plotted successfully to have the Romans kill him.  The good shepherd murdered by the bad.  And after 70 AD, no more priests - no more shepherds - at all, but instead the Holy Spirit abiding in every saved person.  That sure seems more to the point in this passage.

Maybe that's the deal.  Vs 11:

11 "For thus says the Lord GOD: Behold, I, I myself will search for my sheep and will seek them out. [Eze 34:11 ESV]

No more shepherds, whoever they are.  God Himself will seek His own sheep.  God Himself will bring back His sheep from all the places they have been scattered, back to the land of Israel, and He will be their shepherd, and make them lie down.  (2024 - That phrase in 12, "on a day of clouds and thick darkness", tells us where this is.  The Sixth seal, because once the church is raptured out, God's plan to restore Israel moves back to the top.  And yet...it reads more like a Millennial prophecy.  I just don't know of any other verse confirming that there will be darkness to begin the Millennial?  Maybe...THIS is the verse that tells us that will be the case!)  This verse summarizes:

16 I will seek the lost, and I will bring back the strayed, and I will bind up the injured, and I will strengthen the weak, and the fat and the strong I will destroy. I will feed them in justice. [Eze 34:16 ESV]  God just does not like those who are without a care, healthy, happy, and whole.  He is the physician, and He seeks the sick. 

2020-This could be a foretelling of the end of the priesthood in 70 AD, and it has not returned and won't until the Millennial.  The priests are no longer there to make intercession and yearly sacrifices.  All that has been replaced by Jesus, our current and future High Priest.  God has done away with Kings following the Babylonian conquest - no king ever again ruled in Jerusalem, and after the second fall, in 70, there has been no priest either.  I think these verses in 34 are analogous to the verses where God puts away the Kings.

2022 - or, if we include this verse:

12 As a shepherd seeks out his flock when he is among his sheep that have been scattered, so will I seek out my sheep, and I will rescue them from all places where they have been scattered on a day of clouds and thick darkness. [Eze 34:12 ESV]

Perhaps clouds and thick darkness refer to the rapture?  Is there a trumpet or a bowl where the whole world goes dark?  I think maybe this happens at the beginning of the pouring out of God's wrath.  If so, the seeking may be about the angel who gleans that day, and separates the wheat and the tares.  Thick darkness can certainly refer to the dwelling, the presence, the action of God.  When He takes it all over at the end, he will pull his people out first.  This needs to be in the end times study.   -Maybe not.  Vs 13 implies that the people referenced are Israel, and not those in Christ.  Maybe....

I think these next verses are Millennial in that they talk about the day of the Lord as shown by the phrase "a day of clouds and thick darkness" and it speaks to the return of the Jews to Jerusalem.  Surely this did not refer to the return from Babylon, nor to the return of 1948.  This is about the highways filled with returning Jews that will come in the Millennial. 

2023 - The time when there are no shepherds seems to me today to be the time after 70 AD.  Since that time, there has been no high priest in Israel, no Levitical priests, no Aaronic priests.  Since that time, (vs 11), the Father draws, the Spirit convicts, and Jesus advocates on behalf of those for whom he died.  Looked at in this way, these verses are about the church age - the Age of the Gentiles.  God has foregone an earthly priesthood - except as the church spreads the gospel - and does the shepherding all himself.   FURTHER, though, in vs 13 I see the re-gathering of the Jews from all over the world.  The 144,000, tgt, and the Millennial.  Surely that is also referenced here.

2023 - When is the day of "clouds and thick darkness"?  Besides the reference here in Ez 34:12, I found three more uses of the phrase:

2 Clouds and thick darkness are all around him; righteousness and justice are the foundation of his throne. [Psa 97:2 ESV]

2 a day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and thick darkness! Like blackness there is spread upon the mountains a great and powerful people; their like has never been before, nor will be again after them through the years of all generations. [Joe 2:2 ESV]

15 A day of wrath is that day, a day of distress and anguish, a day of ruin and devastation, a day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and thick darkness, [Zep 1:15 ESV]

Joel 2:2 is in the same chapter as Peter referenced on the Day of Pentecost.  You old men will dream dreams and all that.  I think we will see this again as tgt grows near.  As for the Zep quote, that looks to me like Seventh Seal/First Trumpet time period.  I think that one corresponds to this one:

12 When he opened the sixth seal, I looked, and behold, there was a great earthquake, and the sun became black as sackcloth, the full moon became like blood, 13 and the stars of the sky fell to the earth as the fig tree sheds its winter fruit when shaken by a gale. 14 The sky vanished like a scroll that is being rolled up, and every mountain and island was removed from its place. 15 Then the kings of the earth and the great ones and the generals and the rich and the powerful, and everyone, slave and free, hid themselves in the caves and among the rocks of the mountains, 16 calling to the mountains and rocks, "Fall on us and hide us from the face of him who is seated on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb, 17 for the great day of their wrath has come, and who can stand?" [Rev 6:12-17 ESV].

A long quote, but in its entirety it seems pretty unmistakable.

And if this is what Zephaniah was referencing, then so was Joel, and so is Ezekiel.  Isn't it interesting that in Rev 7, the 144,000 are sealed, and they begin evangelizing the Jews, and bringing them home to Israel.  This is too much for mere coincidence.  This is God, this is inspired prophecy.  And just look at the verses - and the incredible time span - that is brought together in this phrase.

2025 - So I have once again keyed in to the phrase in vs 12, "...I will deliver them from all the places to which they were scattered on a cloudy and gloomy day.", as translated in the NASB95.  ESV uses the phrase "...a day of clouds and thick darkness."  KJV says "...in the cloudy and dark day."  Just a day or so ago I noticed a similar phrase in Eze 32:7-8.  7 When I blot you out, I will cover the heavens and make their stars dark; I will cover the sun with a cloud, and the moon shall not give its light. [Eze 32:7 ESV].  So the first place we ought to look to understand this phrase in chapter 34 is back in 32.  It is the closest reference, it is the same writer - but depending on translation, it is not the same.

I cannot find that note I made just in the last couple of days where I decided that.   The note said that this darkness in the sky, in that particular prophecy, might in fact be a reference to the darkness caused by abundant smoke going up during and after a battle, rather than referencing the Sixth Seal.  And yet...there was something in there also where I thought I decided that prophecy had not come true...I wish I could find it.  I remember thinking what a big deal it was at the time that those heavenly signs might not "always" mean literal heaven.  But I have searched and can't find the note.  I know it was in the last few days - a week at most.

The big deal is in trying to place the prophecy about Egypt.  This one, in Chapter 34, is about Israel.  This one, I think, especially given the variability of interpretations, must be about the sixth seal.  So at the sixth, we have the rapture, all the saved are taken out, and the SoP starts to persecute the Jews.  We know these signs in the heavens occur at the sixth seal.  The signs, and the then the following persecution, are the time when the Jews get scattered on a day of clouds and thick darkness.  And at the Pre-Millennial judgment, after Jesus conquers at Armageddon and establishes his kingdom, we will have the sheep and goats - the judgment of the Jews at the end of TGT.  But...if we take vs 23...God will judge at the Pre-Millennial, and THEN Jesus takes over...and that is not how I have understood this judgment in the past.  So I may still have it all wrong.

I just hope I can remember it this time!  Where could that other recent note be???

2023 - This verse:

15 I myself will be the shepherd of my sheep, and I myself will make them lie down, declares the Lord GOD. [Eze 34:15 ESV]

Now does that remind you of anything?  Like maybe this:

2 He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters. [Psa 23:2 ESV].

Gives me chills!  Whoever though of the 23rd Psalm as a prophecy about tgt!!!  Never have associated David with eschatology!

So then we get amplification of vs 16.  God says He intends to judge between sheep and sheep.  To me, the implication of this wording is that God will judge Israel, those who are brought home to the land.  Though God brings them home, there will still be judgement.  Those who try to assume authority, who shove their way to power over the weak and sick, God will judge. 

2023 - This would have to be the Pre-Millennial judgment.  Sheep and sheep is very much like a bema judgment, and indeed in vs 17 both sheep and goats are mentioned.  This seems a reach, but does it show that some of those deceived by the SoP will remain loyal to him, in their greed, after his true nature is recognized?  That these will advance themselves by ratting out their brothers?  And at the end of TGT, we will have the sheep and goat judgment and the disloyal will be thrown into hell, and the faithful will go into the Millennial?  I mean...written out, it doesn't even seem like that great a stretch. 

It sums up this way:

23 And I will set up over them one shepherd, my servant David, and he shall feed them: he shall feed them and be their shepherd. 24 And I, the LORD, will be their God, and my servant David shall be prince among them. I am the LORD; I have spoken. [Eze 34:23-24 ESV]

Clear reference to the Millennial Kingdom.  Can't see it being about anything else.  He will be their shepherd- one shepherd.  No Levites, no Aaron's, no Catholic Priests, no mullahs, no caliphs.  Jesus will be the only priest, the only help, the only way.  Further implication is that they will remain scattered until this shepherd arrives.  Even then, because they will reject him the first time, the sheep remain scattered.  I don't think these prophecies will be truly fulfilled until the latter days.  It is that particular return that is in view.  MSB says this sheep and sheep are a progression.  After judging the shepherds, the sheep also will be judged, and the abusive sheep won't fare well.  MSB says this refers to Mt 25:31-46.

2022 - The sheep and goat judgment seems indicated here.  At the end of t/gt, pre-Millennial.  Not all who are brought home will enter.  This implies that not all Israel, gathered back to Zion, will believe.  I had previously thought this judgment was very much about saved Jews and unfaithful or faithful Gentiles.  But it seems to be a lot more involved than that.  Many Jews won't make it, even though God compels them to return to Zion.  This is Eze 34:17-24.

2025 - Yes, this year I agree even more that this pretty much has to be sheep and goat.  A judgment of the living.  We know that is a characteristic of the Pre-Millennial judgement and that the sheep and goat is Pre-Millennial, so this ties them together, makes them the same.  The sheep will go into the kingdom with Christ and rule and reign for a thousand years, the rest go to hell.  I think there will be Jews who do not turn to God under the New Covenant, nor during tgt.  Not all Israel will be saved, even at this time.  But this will be Jesus judging the house of Israel, both Israel and Judah, just prior to the Millennial Kingdom.  Only saved Jews will go in.  And perhaps this is where the army that Satan leads at the end of the Millennial will come from.  It will be made up of the Gentiles, who are once again shut out of the Kingdom of God's Chosen Nation.  They will be unsaved.  They will be very jealous, they will think they are treated unfairly, and Satan will fan that jealousy into an army.  And that will be it for the remaining Gentiles on earth.

2026 - Sheep and goat?  Seems even more correct this year.

This first part might be another description of the angel harvesting the earth in Rev 14:16.  All Israel comes home to Jerusalem, all gathered in one place.

11 "For thus says the Lord GOD: Behold, I, I myself will search for my sheep and will seek them out. 12 As a shepherd seeks out his flock when he is among his sheep that have been scattered, so will I seek out my sheep, and I will rescue them from all places where they have been scattered on a day of clouds and thick darkness. 13 And I will bring them out from the peoples and gather them from the countries, and will bring them into their own land. And I will feed them on the mountains of Israel, by the ravines, and in all the inhabited places of the country. 14 I will feed them with good pasture, and on the mountain heights of Israel shall be their grazing land. There they shall lie down in good grazing land, and on rich pasture they shall feed on the mountains of Israel. [Eze 34:11-14 ESV].

This is shepherding, not harvest, but the effect is the same.  The good are gathered.  And what happens after the good are gathered, what happens when the sheep are all together?

17 "As for you, my flock, thus says the Lord GOD: Behold, I judge between sheep and sheep, between rams and male goats. 18 Is it not enough for you to feed on the good pasture, that you must tread down with your feet the rest of your pasture; and to drink of clear water, that you must muddy the rest of the water with your feet? 19 And must my sheep eat what you have trodden with your feet, and drink what you have muddied with your feet? 20 "Therefore, thus says the Lord GOD to them: Behold, I, I myself will judge between the fat sheep and the lean sheep. [Eze 34:17-20 ESV].

Is this the sheep and goat judgment in different words.  It comes I think at the end of the 70th and the beginning of the Millennial.  Is this that same time? 

It sure seems to fit…Vs 22 says “I will judge between one sheep and another”.

All these are living at the end of the 70th, protected by God through the end times.  Some did well in the last testing, the final testing.  Some did not.  Only some will get in. 

2026 - Look at the continuation in vs 23:

23 And I will set up over them one shepherd, my servant David, and he shall feed them: he shall feed them and be their shepherd. 24 And I, the LORD, will be their God, and my servant David shall be prince among them. I am the LORD; I have spoken. [Eze 34:23-24 ESV].  Sure sounds like the Millennial begins right after the judgment.

Under the new King, Jesus, they will be secure in their land even from beasts, rain will come in its season, the earth will yield its increase.  This verse:

27 And the trees of the field shall yield their fruit, and the earth shall yield its increase, and they shall be secure in their land. And they shall know that I am the LORD, when I break the bars of their yoke, and deliver them from the hand of those who enslaved them. [Eze 34:27 ESV]  Implies that the Jews will be enslaved again in the future.  Not just scattered and living elsewhere, but enslaved.  Hitler's camps?  Something like that.  Perhaps the attack on the woman with the child who flees to the desert?  Antichrist will try and enslave all that he can find maybe?

2024 - This verse:  25 "I will make with them a covenant of peace and banish wild beasts from the land, so that they may dwell securely in the wilderness and sleep in the woods. [Eze 34:25 ESV].  Think of how the world will have to change for this covenant to be necessary.  From where will all these wild beasts in Israel come?  The world will be a wilder, less organized, less civilized place when this happens.  Conditions will be much more like they were in Ezekiel's time than they are now.  The world is going to "fall apart" during tgt.  We will be knocked back to the stone age.  The whole sword, famine, beasts, and pestilence thing shows up too many times to be anything but literal.

The last few verses of this chapter speak not only to a return of the people, but a revitalization of the whole land of Israel.  It will bloom, it will produce for its people.  Israel as a nation will be prominent in the whole world, in a way that can only be attributed to the supernatural intervention of the God of Israel.  They are His human sheep, and He is their God.

2023 - This verse:

29 And I will provide for them renowned plantations so that they shall no more be consumed with hunger in the land, and no longer suffer the reproach of the nations. [Eze 34:29 ESV].  Look at the last part of this verse.  Only here, at the end of tgt, will worldwide anti-Semitism finally go away!

MSB says this refers back to the new covenant promised Israel in Jer 31:31-34.  A new heart, an internal understanding that the Jews will have and that will bring them back to their homeland.  This is about Israel's ultimate restoration AFTER the age of the Gentiles - this is me, not MSB talking now.  This covenant with Israel will be the Millennial kingdom, ruled by Christ.  For 1000 years, this will be the case.  Peace, calm, an extraordinary time, and an extraordinary place is what will happen to Israel.  But I don't think Gentiles are part of this covenant.  Gentiles are under a different covenant.  We are the church, and the promises to the church are the promises to the Gentiles.  The church is the vehicle God has set up for the world during this intervening time between the casting off of Israel for their unfaithfulness, and then aggravated by their rejection of Christ, and the time at the end when God will bring about all His promises to them, in full, and restore them to their pre-eminent place among the peoples and nations.