The Lord’s Anointed
1 Samuel 16:1b, 6-7, 10-13a
The choice of the shepherd boy David isn’t the first time God showed a special love for a shepherd. Men described as shepherds in salvation history, who had a special relationship with God, include Abel (Gen 4:4), Abraham (Gen 13:5; 24:34-35), Isaac (Gen 26:14), Jacob (Gen 30:32-43), Moses in Midian (Ex 3:1), David (1 Sam 16:11-19; 17:14-15), the Prophet Amos (Amos 1:1), and Jesus the Lord (Ps 23:1; Jn 10:1-3, 11, 15, 17).
There is a connection between David “shepherding the sheep” and the way David will describe Yahweh as shepherding the “flock” of His people (for example, see Ps 23:1; 80:1). It will become a reoccurring image not only of God as the Divine Shepherd but of the role of Israel’s kings and priests as the good shepherds or failed shepherds of their people (1 Kng 22:17; 2 Chr 18:16; Jer 23:1-4; Ez 34:5, 8). It is also an image of the Redeemer-Messiah who the prophets promise will come as the “Shepherd of His people” (Is 40:11; Ez 34:12, 23-24). The shepherd imagery is one of the most frequently used symbolic images of the prophets. One of the most significant “shepherd” passages is from the 6th century BC prophet Ezekiel who lived four centuries after David. God instructed Ezekiel to write: I shall raise up one shepherd, my servant David, and put him in charge of them to pasture them; he will pasture them and be their shepherd (Ex 34:23). This passage is a prophecy of the coming of God’s anointed, Jesus of Nazareth. See the chart on the symbolic images of the prophets.
The New Testament will use the same “shepherd” imagery to describe Jesus’ role as the Redeemer-Messiah:
- Jesus identifies Himself as the Shepherd sent to find the “lost sheep” of His people (Mt 15:24).
- Those who belong to Jesus recognized His voice and are obedient in the same way sheep know the voice of their shepherd (Jn 10:1-3).
- Jesus is the “Good Shepherd” who lays down His life for His sheep (Jn 10:11, 15, 17).
- Jesus is the Divine Shepherd of the sheep by “the blood that sealed an eternal covenant” (Heb 13:20).
- Jesus is the Chief Shepherd who seeks the lost who have “gone astray like sheep but who are returned to the shepherd and guardian of your souls” (1 Pt 2:25).
- Jesus will return to give the faithful sheep of His flock the crown of glory (1 Pt 2:25; 5:4).
- Jesus will make His Vicar, St. Peter, the shepherd of His earthly kingdom and responsible for “feeding” the lambs and sheep of Jesus’ Church (Jn 21:15-17).
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Michal E Hunt, Copyright © 2014; revised 2023 Agape Bible Study; used with permission
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