Revelation 7:16-17

Here is the promise of the loving care of the Divine Shepherd for his flock.

The picture of the shepherd is something in which both the Old and New Testament delight.

"The Lord is my shepherd," begins the best loved of all the psalms ( Psalms 23:1 ). "O Shepherd of Israel," begins another ( Psalms 80:1 ). Isaiah pictures God feeding his flock like a shepherd, holding the lambs in his arms and carrying them in his bosom ( Isaiah 40:11 ). The greatest title that the prophet can give to the Messianic king is shepherd of his people ( Ezekiel 34:23 ; Ezekiel 37:24 ).

This was the title that Jesus took for himself. "I am the good shepherd," ( John 10:11 ; John 10:14 ). Peter calls Jesus the Shepherd and Bishop of our souls ( 1 Peter 2:25 ), and the writer to the Hebrews speaks of him as that great shepherd of the sheep ( Hebrews 13:20 ).

This is a precious picture in any age; but it was more meaningful in Palestine than it can ever be to those who live in cities. Judaea was like a narrow plateau with dangerous country on either side. It was only a very few miles across, with on one side the grim cliffs and ravines leading down to the Dead Sea and on the other the drop to the wild country of the Shephelah. There were no fences or walls and the shepherd had to be ever on the watch for straying sheep. George Adam Smith describes the eastern shepherd. "With us sheep are often left to themselves; I do not remember to have seen in the East a flock without a shepherd. In such a landscape as Judaea, where a day's pasture is thinly scattered over an unfenced track, covered with delusive paths, still frequented by wild beasts, and rolling into the desert, the man and his character are indispensable. On some high moor, across which at night hyenas howl, when you met him sleepless, far-sighted, weather-beaten, armed, leaning on his staff, and looking out over his scattered sheep, every one on his heart, you understand why the shepherd of Judaea sprang to the front in his people's history; why they gave his name to their king, and made him the symbol of Providence; why Christ took him as the type of self-sacrifice."

Here we have the two great functions of the Divine Shepherd. He leads to fountains of living waters. As the psalmist had it: "He leads me beside still waters" ( Psalms 23:2 ). "With thee is the fountain of life" ( Psalms 36:9 ). Without water the flock would perish; and in Palestine the wells were few and far between. That the Divine Shepherd leads to wells of water is the symbol that he gives us the things without which life cannot survive.

He wipes the tear from every eye. As he nourishes our bodies so he also comforts our hearts; without the presence and the comfort of God the sorrows of life would be unbearable, and without the strength of God there are times in life when we could never go on.

The Divine Shepherd gives us nourishment for our bodies and comfort for our hearts. With Jesus Christ as Shepherd nothing can happen to us which we cannot bear.

-Barclay's Daily Study Bible (NT)