Mazmur 78:71-72

78:71 He took him away from following the mother sheep, ¹ 

and made him the shepherd of Jacob, his people,

and of Israel, his chosen nation. ² 

78:72 David ³  cared for them with pure motives; ⁴ 

he led them with skill. ⁵ 

Yesaya 40:11

40:11 Like a shepherd he tends his flock;

he gathers up the lambs with his arm;

he carries them close to his heart; ⁶ 

he leads the ewes along.

Yeremia 23:4-6

23:4 I will install rulers ⁷  over them who will care for them. Then they will no longer need to fear or be terrified. None of them will turn up missing. ⁸  I, the Lord, promise it! ⁹ 

23:5 “I, the Lord, promise ¹⁰  that a new time will certainly come ¹¹ 

when I will raise up for them a righteous branch, ¹²  a descendant of David.

He will rule over them with wisdom and understanding ¹³ 

and will do what is just and right in the land. ¹⁴ 

23:6 Under his rule ¹⁵  Judah will enjoy safety ¹⁶ 

and Israel will live in security. ¹⁷ 

This is the name he will go by:

‘The Lord has provided us with justice.’ ¹⁸ 

Yehezkiel 34:23-25

34:23 I will set one shepherd over them, and he will feed them – namely, my servant David. ¹⁹  He will feed them and will be their shepherd. 34:24 I, the Lord, will be their God, and my servant David will be prince ²⁰  among them; I, the Lord, have spoken!

34:25 “‘I will make a covenant of peace with them and will rid the land of wild beasts, so that they can live securely ²¹  in the wilderness and even sleep in the woods. ²² 

Yehezkiel 37:24-26

37:24 “‘My servant David will be king over them; there will be one shepherd for all of them. They will follow ²³  my regulations and carefully observe my statutes. ²⁴  37:25 They will live in the land I gave to my servant Jacob, in which your fathers lived; they will live in it – they and their children and their grandchildren forever. David my servant will be prince over them forever. 37:26 I will make a covenant of peace with them; it will be a perpetual covenant with them. ²⁵  I will establish them, ²⁶  increase their numbers, and place my sanctuary among them forever.

[78:71]  ¹ tn Heb “from after the ewes he brought him.”

[78:71]  ² tn Heb “to shepherd Jacob, his people, and Israel, his inheritance.”

[78:72]  ³ tn Heb “He”; the referent (David, God’s chosen king, mentioned in v. 70) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[78:72]  ⁴ tn Heb “and he shepherded them according to the integrity of his heart.”

[78:72]  ⁵ tn Heb “and with the understanding of his hands he led them.”

[40:11]  ⁶ tn Heb “in his bosom” (so KJV, NAB, NASB, NRSV), an expression which reflects closeness and protective care.

[23:4]  ⁷ tn Heb “shepherds.”

[23:4]  ⁸ tn There are various nuances of the word פָּקַד (paqad) represented in vv. 2, 4. See Ps 8:4 (8:5 HT) and Zech 10:3 for “care for/take care of” (cf. BDB 823 s.v. פָּקַד Qal.A.1.a). See Exod 20:5; Amos 3:2; Jer 9:24; 11:22 for “punish” (cf. BDB 823 s.v. פָּקַד Qal.A.3). See 1 Kgs 20:39 and 2 Kgs 10:19 for “be missing” (cf. BDB 823 s.v. פָּקַד Niph.1).

[23:4]  sn There is an extended play on the Hebrew word פָּקַד which is a word with rather broad English equivalents. Here the word refers to the fault of the shepherds/rulers who have not “taken care” of the sheep/people (v. 2), the “punishment” for the evil they have done in not taking care of them (v. 2), and the fact that after the Lord assigns new shepherds/rulers over them they will be cared for in such a way that none of them “will turn up missing” (v. 4).

[23:4]  ⁹ tn Heb “Oracle of the Lord.”

[23:5]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “Oracle of the Lord.”

[23:5]  ¹¹ tn Heb “Behold the days are coming.”

[23:5]  ¹² tn Heb “a righteous sprig to David” or “a righteous shoot” (NAB).

[23:5]  sn This passage and the parallel in Jer 33:15 are part of a growing number of prayers and prophecies regarding an ideal ruler to come forth from the Davidic line who will bring the justice, security, and well-being that the continuing line of Davidic rulers did not. Though there were periodic kings like Josiah who did fulfill the ideals set forth in Jer 22:3 (see Jer 22:15), by and large they were more like Jehoiakim who did not (see Jer 22:13). Hence the Lord brought to an end the Davidic rule. The potential for the ideal, however, remained because of God’s promise to David (2 Sam 7:16). The Davidic line became like a tree which was cut down, leaving only a stump. But from that stump God would bring forth a “shoot,” a “sprig” which would fulfill the ideals of kingship. See Isa 11:1-6 and Zech 3:8, 6:12 for this metaphor and compare Dan 4:14-15, 23, 26 for a different but related use of the metaphor.

[23:5]  ¹³ tn Heb “he will reign as king and act wisely.” This is another example of the use of two verbs joined by “and” where one becomes the adverbial modifier of the other (hendiadys). For the nuance of the verb “act wisely” rather than “prosper” see Amos 5:13; Ps 2:10 (cf. BDB 968 s.v. שָׂכַל Hiph.5).

[23:5]  ¹⁴ sn This has been the constant emphasis in this section. See 22:3 for the demand, 22:15 for its fulfillment, and 22:13 for its abuse. The ideal king would follow in the footsteps of his illustrious ancestor David (2 Sam 8:15) who set this forth as an ideal for his dynasty (2 Sam 23:3) and prayed for it to be true of his son Solomon (Ps 72:1-2).

[23:6]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “In his days [= during the time he rules].”

[23:6]  ¹⁶ tn Parallelism and context (cf. v. 4) suggest this nuance for the word often translated “be saved.” For this nuance elsewhere see Ps 119:117; Prov 28:18 for the verb (יָשַׁע [yasha’] in the Niphal); and Ps 12:6; Job 5:4, 11 for the related noun (יֶשַׁע, yesha’).

[23:6]  ¹⁷ sn It should be noted that this brief oracle of deliverance implies the reunification of Israel and Judah under the future Davidic ruler. Jeremiah has already spoken about this reunification earlier in 3:18 and will have more to say about it in 30:3; 31:27, 31. This same ideal was espoused in the prophecies of Hosea (1:10-11 [2:1-2 HT]), Isaiah (11:1-4, 10-12), and Ezekiel (37:15-28) all of which have messianic and eschatological significance.

[23:6]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “his name will be called ‘The Lord our righteousness’.”

[23:6]  sn The Hebrew word translated “justice” here is very broad in its usage, and it is hard to catch all the relevant nuances for this word in this context. It is used for “vindication” in legal contexts (see, e.g., Job 6:29), for “deliverance” or “salvation” in exilic contexts (see, e.g., Isa 58:8), and in the sense of ruling, judging with “justice” (see, e.g., Lev 19:15; Isa 32:1). Here it probably sums up the justice that the Lord provides through raising up this ruler as well as the safety, security, and well-being that result (see vv. 5-6a). In the NT this takes on soteriological connotations (see 1 Cor 1:31 in its context).

[34:23]  ¹⁹ sn The messianic king is here called “David” (see Jer 30:9 and Hos 3:5, as well as Isa 11:1 and Mic 5:2) because he will fulfill the Davidic royal ideal depicted in the prophets and royal psalms (see Ps 2, 89).

[34:24]  ²⁰ sn The messianic king (“David”) is called both “king” and “prince” in 37:24-25. The use of the term “prince” for this king facilitates the contrast between this ideal ruler and the Davidic “princes” denounced in earlier prophecies (see 7:27; 12:10, 12; 19:1; 21:25; 22:6, 25).

[34:25]  ²¹ tn The phrase “live securely” occurs in Ezek 28:26; 38:8, 11, 14; 39:26 as an expression of freedom from fear. It is a promised blessing resulting from obedience (see Lev 26:5-6).

[34:25]  ²² sn The woods were typically considered to be places of danger (Ps 104:20-21; Jer 5:6).

[37:24]  ²³ tn Heb “walk [in].”

[37:24]  ²⁴ tn Heb “and my statutes they will guard and they will do them.”

[37:26]  ²⁵ sn See Isa 24:5; 55:3; 61:8; Jer 32:40; 50:5; Ezek 16:60, for other references to perpetual covenants.

[37:26]  ²⁶ tn Heb “give them.”