Jeremiah 23:1

Woe be unto the pastors,.... Or, "O ye shepherds" or "governors", as the Targum; the civil rulers and magistrates, kings and princes of the land of Israel; since ecclesiastical rulers, the priests

Woe be unto the pastors that destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture! saith the LORD. This forms the epilogue to the denunciations of the four kings in Jeremiah 21:1-14; Jeremiah 22:1-30.

CHAPTER 23 Woe against wicked pastors; the scattered flock shall be gathered; Christ shall rule and save them, : against false prophets, , and mockers of the true, . There is the like woe against the pastors denounced . Interpreters judge that by the pastors are to be understood the civil magistrates, for he denounceth the judgments of God against their ecclesiastical officers. The civil magistrates at this time in Judah were great tyrants; and whereas God had committed his people (whom he calls the sheep of his pasture) to them in trust, that they should protect and govern them, and that they might live under them godly and peaceable lives, in all prosperity, they had acted quite contrary to their trust, and worried the people like wolves, instead of feeding them like shepherds. God took notice of their oppressions, and by the prophet denounceth this woe against them, to verify that of Solomon, .

Jeremiah 23:1 Woe be unto the pastors that destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture! saith the LORD.Ver. 1. Woe to the pastors,] i.e., To the rulers and chieftains, whether in the State or Church; woe to the wicked of both sorts; and why? They destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture.] So he calleth the people, how bad soever, because of the covenant with their fathers.

XXIII. (1) Woe be unto the pastors . . .—The message that follows in Jeremiah 23:1-8 comes as a natural sequel to that of Jeremiah 22. The unfaithful shepherds who had been there denounced are contrasted with those, more faithful to their trust, whom Jehovah will raise up. As before, in Jeremiah 2:8 and elsewhere, we have to remember that the “pastors” are (like the “shepherds of the people” in Greek poets) the civil rulers, not the prophets or the priests, of Israel. The parallelism with the prophecy of Ezekiel 34, delivered about the same time in the land of exile, is suggestive either of direct communication between the two writers, or of traditional lines of thought common to the two priest-prophets. The sheep of my pasture.—The words assert the claims of Jehovah to be the true Shepherd of His people. (Comp. Psalms 79:13; Psalms 100:3.)

CHAPTER XXIII Sequel of the discourse which commenced in the preceding chapter. The prophet denounces vengeance against the pastors of Israel who have scattered and destroyed the flock of the Lord, 1, 2. He concludes with gracious promises of deliverance from the Babylonish captivity, and of better times under the Messiah, when the converts to Christianity, who are the true Israel of God, shadowed forth by the old dispensation, shall be delivered, by the glorious light of the Gospel, from worse than Chaldean bondage, from the captivity of sin and death. But this prophecy will not have its fullest accomplishment till that period arrives which is fixed in the Divine counsel for the restoration of Israel and Judah from their various dispersions, of which their deliverance from the Chaldean domination was a type, when Jesus the Christ, the righteous Branch, the Root and Offspring of David, and the only legitimate Heir to the throne, shall take unto himself his great power, and reign gloriously over the whole house of Jacob, 3-8. At the ninth verse a new discourse commences. Jeremiah expresses his horror at the great wickedness of the priests and prophets of Judah, and declares that the Divine vengeance is hanging over them. He exhorts the people not to listen to their false promises, 9-22; and predicts the utter ruin that shall fall upon all pretenders to inspiration, 23-32, as well as upon all scoffers at true prophecy, 33-40. NOTES ON CHAP. XXIII Verse 1. Wo be unto the pastors] There shall a curse fall on the kings, princes, priests, and prophets; who, by their vicious conduct and example, have brought desolation upon the people.

Jeremiah 23:1-8. See introd. summary to section. We should have expected, as the natural sequel to the three preceding passages, a direct reference to the reign of Zedekiah. Probably we may attribute the absence of it to Jeremiah’s unwillingness to attack one whom he recognised as merely a weak tool in the hands of the princes, the “shepherds” of Jeremiah 23:1. But see further on Jeremiah 23:5-8. Du. and Erbt make the whole passage to be late, while individual parts have been disputed, e.g. 7, 8 by Gi. and with some hesitation by Co. Others than Du. reject the most striking vv., viz. 5, 6, but Co. (so Gi.) emphatically maintains their genuineness. See notes below.

The pastors - shepherds, i. e., civil rulers Jeremiah 2:8. The sheep of My pasture - literally, of My pasturing, the sheep of whom I am shepherd. The people do not belong to the rulers but to God.

THE AGAIN OF THE FLOCK, Jeremiah 23:1-8.1. Pastors — Shepherds.