Verse 6
Many of the Jews who heard these words did not understand what Jesus was talking about. They did not respond to the Shepherd’s voice. They could hardly have failed to understand the relationship between shepherds and sheep that was so common in their culture. Nevertheless they did not grasp Jesus’ analogy of Himself as Israel’s true Shepherd.
The Greek word paroimia ("figure of speech") occurs elsewhere in John’s Gospel (John 16:25; John 16:29) but never in the Synoptics.
"It suggests the notion of a mysterious saying full of compressed thought, rather than that of a simple comparison." [Note: B. F. Westcott, The Gospel According to St. John: The Authorised Version with Introduction and Notes, p. 152.]
A similar word, parabole ("parable"), appears often in the Synoptics but never in the fourth Gospel. Both words, however, have quite a wide range of meanings encompassing many kinds of figurative language.
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