(1) Verily, verily, I say unto you.--This formula is not used at the beginning of a fresh discourse, but is, in every case, the solemn introduction of some development of our Lord's deeper teaching. (Comp. Note on John 1:51.) We are not, then, to regard this chapter as a new subject, but as part of the teaching commenced in John 9:35, and arising out of the sign of healing the blind man. This sign is present to their thoughts at the close of the discourse, in John 10:21.
He that entereth not by the door into the sheepfold.--The special form which the discourse here takes has been thought, with a probability which does not fall far short of certainty, due to the actual presence of a sheepfold with the shepherds and their flocks. (See John 5:2.) We know that Bethesda was near the "sheepgate," and we have seen that it is not improbably to be identified with a covered portion of the Pool of Siloam. (See Note on John 5:2.) In any case, there must have been sheepfolds sufficiently near to make it possible that they had arrived at one, and the change in the central points of the allegory find their most natural explanation in thoughts of the shifting scene on which it is based. The description of such a scene, by Bochart, written more than two centuries ago, has been borne out by all modern travellers. We have to think of an open fold, surrounded by a wall or railing, into which, at eventide, the shepherds lead their flocks, committing them, during the night, to the care of an under-shepherd, who guards the door. In the morning they knock and the porter opens the door, which has been securely fastened during the night, and each shepherd calls his own sheep, who know his voice and follow him to the pasturage. (Comp. Thomson, The Land and the Book, vol. i., pp. 299-302.)
It is to some part of such a scene as this, passing before our Lord's eye as He taught, that we have to trace the words which follow. But we must remember that His mind and theirs were full of thoughts ready to pass into a train like this. "Thy servants are shepherds, both we and also our fathers" (Genesis 47:3), was the statement of the first sons of Israel, and it was true of their descendants. This truth was bound up with their whole history. The greatest heroes of Israel--Abraham, Jacob, Moses, David--had all been shepherds, and no imagery is more frequent in prophecy or psalm than that drawn from the shepherd's work. We must fill our minds with these Old Testament thoughts if we would understand this chapter. Let any one, before commencing it, read thoughtfully Psalms 23, Isaiah 40:11, Jeremiah 23:1-4, Ezekiel 34, and especially Zechariah 11:4-17, and he will find that he has the key which unlocks most of its difficulties. We have, then, the scene passing before their eyes, and the Old Testament thoughts of the Shepherd, connected as they were, on one hand with Jehovah and the Messiah, and on the other with the careless shepherds of Israel, dwelling in their minds; and we have, in the events which have just taken place, that which furnishes the starting-point, and gives to all that follows its fulness of meaning. The Pharisees claimed for themselves that they were shepherds of Israel. They decreed who should be admitted to, and who should be cast out from the fold. They professed to be interpreters of God's truth, and with it to feed His flock. Pharisees, shepherds! what did they, with their curses and excommunications, know of the tenderness of the Shepherd who "shall gather the lambs with His arm, and carry them in His bosom, and shall gently lead those that are with young"? Pharisees feed the flock of God! What had they, with their pride and self-righteousness, ever known of the infinite love and mercy of God; or what had their hearts ever felt of the wants and woes of the masses of mankind? This poor blind beggar was an example of their treatment of the weaker ones of the flock. In spirit, if not in deed (John 9:22; John 9:34), they had thrust him out from the fold of God. The true Shepherd had sought and found this lost sheep, who is now standing near, in His presence and in that of the false shepherds. He teaches who the Shepherd and what the flock of God really are.
On the meaning of "the door," see the fuller expansion in John 10:7-9.
Climbeth up some other way.--Or, more exactly, climbeth up from elsewhere--i.e., from some part of the fence, away from the door where the porter is watching.
The same is a thief and a robber.--The former of these words means the petty thief who commits the smaller or unobserved robbery. The latter means the brigand or highwayman, and is applied, e.g., to Barabbas and to the two crucified with our Lord. The words are repeated in John 10:8. They are probably joined together to express, in all its fulness, the idea which is common to both. If we press the individual sense of each, it may be that the false shepherds united the meaner faults and the greater crimes.
(1) At the Feast of Tabernacles there was a practice, one of those which witnessed to a feeling wider than that of those who acted in it, of offering up seventy oxen for the seventy nations of the world, the number being taken partly from the list in Genesis, and partly from a vague idea of its sanctity. The number seventy was thus brought before the people with the recognition of the heathen world as within the hope of salvation, and the minds of men were prepared for the mission of the Seventy, which followed at no long interval.
5.Christ the Shepherd of the flock of God. The discourse which now follows was the Lord's parabolic or allegoric reply to the conduct of the Pharisaic malignants. These men, claiming to be infallible guides of the ignorant, to be veritable shepherds of the flock of God, had ignored the advent of the true and good Shepherd, had opposed the Divine call and supreme claim of the Messiah, had set themselves to disturb and dislocate the relations between him and those who saw his glory and found in him the Consolation of Israel. They had excommunicated the adoring disciple who had passed out of lifelong darkness into marvelous light. They had exaggerated the faint glimmer of light which had broken upon their own blindness into true vision. They had said, "We see," and thus shown themselves to be willfully in the wrong. Their sin abode upon them. The fold of God's sheep was something different from their own expectations and definitions. Their way into it proved that they did not know its true nature. To meet this crisis our Lord delivers a triad of related and parallel pictures, which differ from the ordinary parable (παραβολή). The parable is a picture which is complete in its elf, and invites the reader to discover some answering spiritual truth. It consists of a careful setting forth of some physical fact, some fragment of biography, some personal or domestic detail. It is true to life and experience, and embodies some ethical principle or religious emotion; and while it does not explicitly teach either, yet it suggests them to the inquiring mind. The parables of the synoptic Gospels are not exclusive or rigid in their form. The so-called parable of "the Pharisee and the publican" and that of "the good Samaritan" are at once transformable into patterns or principles of action. The element of its own interpretation is also conspicuous in that of "the rich man and Lazarus" and "the rich fool." With these latter specimens of our Lord's teaching may be compared the allegoric illustrations of the present discourse. These pictures are "transparencies" (Godet), through which the Savior's spiritual teaching pours its own illumination. They both alike differ from the "fable," a form of address in which personal characters and activities are attributed (as in the apologue of Jotham, etc.) to the irrational or even to the inanimate creation. The first of the similitudes before us has more of the character of the parable proper, because it does not at once carry its own interpretation with it. Vers. 1-6 represent in parabolic form the claims of those who aspired to provide a "door," i.e. a sure and safe entrance to the theocratic fold. In vers. 7-10 our Lord interprets and expands the first representation by giving special significance to the words he had already used, adding something to their meaning, and contrasting his own position with that of all others. From the eleventh to the eighteenth verse he once more reverts to the original picture, and claims to occupy a relation to the sheep of God's band of far more intimate and suggestive kind than what was connoted by the door into the fold. He is "the good Shepherd." In that capacity he adds other and marvelous features. The parabolic or allegorical language passes away into vivid description of the leading features of his work. The parable at last glows into burning metaphor. In the first paragraph our Lord gives a parabolic picture of flock and fold, door and porter, robber and shepherd. In the second paragraph he emphasizes the relation between the door and the fold, claiming to be "the Door." In the third he illustrates the function and the responsibility of the true "Shepherd," and the relation of the shepherd to the flock, and he claims to be the Shepherd of Israel. Verses 1-6. -
(1)The parable of the fold and flock, the door and the porter, the robber and the shepherd. Verse 1.- Verily, verily, betokens the deep solemnity and importance of the matter in hand, but not a complete break in the circumstances - neither a new audience nor a new theme. The adoption by Jeremiah (Jeremiah 23:1-4), by Ezekiel (34.), and by Zechariah (Zechariah 11:4-17) of similar imagery to denote the contrast between the true and false shepherds, and the anticipation by the prophets of a time when the true and good Shepherd would fulfill all Jehovah's pleasure, throws vivid light on these words of our Lord. Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that entereth not by the door into the fold of the sheep, but climbeth up some other way, the same is a thief and a robber. Several commentators of eminence have maintained that by "the door," in this first verse, our Lord (as in ver. 7) meant at once to designate himself. This is not necessary. He rather summons the Pharisees to recognize the fact that there is a door, a way of sure and divinely appointed admission to the "fold of the sheep," through which the veritable Shepherd passes, bringing his flock with him by well-known voice and manner. Later on, our Lord claims to be the one Way' by which all under-shepherds can gain true access to the flock, and all the sheep of God's pasture can find protection and freedom; but here he suggests the principle of discrimination between a true shepherd and a thief or robber. The κλέπτης is one who is selfishly seeking his own ends, and would avoid detection; the λῃστής is one who would use violent means to secure his purpose (Judas was a "thief," Barabbas was a "robber"). The false shepherd disdains the door, and climbs up some other way along his own selfish lines of action (ἀλλαχόθεν is used in this place only, equivalent to "from some other quarter than the ordinary home of the shepherd"). His purpose is not to benefit the sheep, but to seize them, or slaughter them for his own purposes (Ezekiel 34:8). The Lord suggests that many have assumed to sustain the relation of shepherd to the flock and fold of God, with no inward call either of commission or profession. They have been eager to insist on their own rights, have mistaken their own narrow traditions for the commandments of God, have imposed upon starved and worried souls their own selfish interpretations of that commandment, and have shown that they had no legitimate access to the hearts of men.
10:1-5 Here is a parable or similitude, taken from the customs of the East, in the management of sheep. Men, as creatures depending on their Creator, are called the sheep of his pasture. The church of God in the world is as a sheep-fold, exposed to deceivers and persecutors. The great Shepherd of the sheep knows all that are his, guards them by his providence, guides them by his Spirit and word, and goes before them, as the Eastern shepherds went before their sheep, to set them in the way of his steps. Ministers must serve the sheep in their spiritual concerns. The Spirit of Christ will set before them an open door. The sheep of Christ will observe their Shepherd, and be cautious and shy of strangers, who would draw them from faith in him to fancies about him.
Verily, verily, I say unto you,.... To the Scribes and Pharisees, who had taken it ill that they should be thought to be blind; and who had cast out the man that Christ had cured of blindness, for speaking in favour of him; and who had traduced Christ as an impostor, and a deceiver, and set up themselves to be the shepherds of the flock, and the guides and rulers of the people; all which occasion the following parable; the design of which is to show, that Christ is the true and only shepherd, who was appointed, called, and sent of God, whose the sheep are, whose voice they hear, and know, and whom they follow; and that they, the Scribes and Pharisees, were thieves and robbers, and not shepherds of the flock; who were not sent of God, nor did they come in at the right door, but in another way, and usurped a domination, which did not belong to them.
He that entereth not by the door into the sheepfold: the sheepfold, with the Jews, was called and this, as their writers say (o), was an enclosure sometimes in the manner of a building, and made of stone, and sometimes was fenced with reeds, and in it was a large door, at which the shepherd went in and out, when he led in, or brought out the sheep. At tithing, which was done in the sheepfold, they made a little door, so that two lambs could not come out together; and to this enclosure is the allusion here; and by the "sheepfold" is meant the church of God; see John 10:16; and a good fold it is, Ezekiel 34:14. The church may be compared to a sheepfold, because it is separated from the world: it is where the people of God, and sheep of Christ are gathered together; where there is a strict union between them; have society with each other; keep one another warm and comfortable; and where they are fed and nourished, and are preserved; and where they lie down and have rest; and which, like a sheepfold, will be taken down, and not always continue in the form it now is: and by "the door" into it, is meant Christ himself, as appears from John 10:7; faith in him, a profession of him, and authority from him. Now he that does not come into the church of God, whether as a member of it, or officer in it, at this door,
but climbeth up some other way; by hypocrisy and deceit: or, like the prophets of old, who ran and were not sent; prophesied when they were not spoken to, but took their place and post by usurpation:
the same is a thief and a robber; steals into the church, or into an office in it, and robs God or Christ of their power and authority; and such were the Scribes and Pharisees: the Persic version renders the words, "whoever does not introduce the sheep through the door of the sheepfold, know that that man is a thief and a robber"; which these men were so far from doing, that they would not suffer those that were entering to go in, Matthew 23:13. The difference between a thief and a robber, with the Jews, was, that the former took away a man's property privately, and the latter openly (p).
(o) Maimon & Bartenora in Misn. Becorot, c. 9. sect. 7. (p) Maimon. Hilchot Genuba, c. 1. sect. 3.
He that entereth not by the door into the sheepfold.--The special form which the discourse here takes has been thought, with a probability which does not fall far short of certainty, due to the actual presence of a sheepfold with the shepherds and their flocks. (See John 5:2.) We know that Bethesda was near the "sheepgate," and we have seen that it is not improbably to be identified with a covered portion of the Pool of Siloam. (See Note on John 5:2.) In any case, there must have been sheepfolds sufficiently near to make it possible that they had arrived at one, and the change in the central points of the allegory find their most natural explanation in thoughts of the shifting scene on which it is based. The description of such a scene, by Bochart, written more than two centuries ago, has been borne out by all modern travellers. We have to think of an open fold, surrounded by a wall or railing, into which, at eventide, the shepherds lead their flocks, committing them, during the night, to the care of an under-shepherd, who guards the door. In the morning they knock and the porter opens the door, which has been securely fastened during the night, and each shepherd calls his own sheep, who know his voice and follow him to the pasturage. (Comp. Thomson, The Land and the Book, vol. i., pp. 299-302.)
It is to some part of such a scene as this, passing before our Lord's eye as He taught, that we have to trace the words which follow. But we must remember that His mind and theirs were full of thoughts ready to pass into a train like this. "Thy servants are shepherds, both we and also our fathers" (Genesis 47:3), was the statement of the first sons of Israel, and it was true of their descendants. This truth was bound up with their whole history. The greatest heroes of Israel--Abraham, Jacob, Moses, David--had all been shepherds, and no imagery is more frequent in prophecy or psalm than that drawn from the shepherd's work. We must fill our minds with these Old Testament thoughts if we would understand this chapter. Let any one, before commencing it, read thoughtfully Psalms 23, Isaiah 40:11, Jeremiah 23:1-4, Ezekiel 34, and especially Zechariah 11:4-17, and he will find that he has the key which unlocks most of its difficulties. We have, then, the scene passing before their eyes, and the Old Testament thoughts of the Shepherd, connected as they were, on one hand with Jehovah and the Messiah, and on the other with the careless shepherds of Israel, dwelling in their minds; and we have, in the events which have just taken place, that which furnishes the starting-point, and gives to all that follows its fulness of meaning. The Pharisees claimed for themselves that they were shepherds of Israel. They decreed who should be admitted to, and who should be cast out from the fold. They professed to be interpreters of God's truth, and with it to feed His flock. Pharisees, shepherds! what did they, with their curses and excommunications, know of the tenderness of the Shepherd who "shall gather the lambs with His arm, and carry them in His bosom, and shall gently lead those that are with young"? Pharisees feed the flock of God! What had they, with their pride and self-righteousness, ever known of the infinite love and mercy of God; or what had their hearts ever felt of the wants and woes of the masses of mankind? This poor blind beggar was an example of their treatment of the weaker ones of the flock. In spirit, if not in deed (John 9:22; John 9:34), they had thrust him out from the fold of God. The true Shepherd had sought and found this lost sheep, who is now standing near, in His presence and in that of the false shepherds. He teaches who the Shepherd and what the flock of God really are.
On the meaning of "the door," see the fuller expansion in John 10:7-9.
Climbeth up some other way.--Or, more exactly, climbeth up from elsewhere--i.e., from some part of the fence, away from the door where the porter is watching.
The same is a thief and a robber.--The former of these words means the petty thief who commits the smaller or unobserved robbery. The latter means the brigand or highwayman, and is applied, e.g., to Barabbas and to the two crucified with our Lord. The words are repeated in John 10:8. They are probably joined together to express, in all its fulness, the idea which is common to both. If we press the individual sense of each, it may be that the false shepherds united the meaner faults and the greater crimes.
(1) At the Feast of Tabernacles there was a practice, one of those which witnessed to a feeling wider than that of those who acted in it, of offering up seventy oxen for the seventy nations of the world, the number being taken partly from the list in Genesis, and partly from a vague idea of its sanctity. The number seventy was thus brought before the people with the recognition of the heathen world as within the hope of salvation, and the minds of men were prepared for the mission of the Seventy, which followed at no long interval.
5. Christ the Shepherd of the flock of God. The discourse which now follows was the Lord's parabolic or allegoric reply to the conduct of the Pharisaic malignants. These men, claiming to be infallible guides of the ignorant, to be veritable shepherds of the flock of God, had ignored the advent of the true and good Shepherd, had opposed the Divine call and supreme claim of the Messiah, had set themselves to disturb and dislocate the relations between him and those who saw his glory and found in him the Consolation of Israel. They had excommunicated the adoring disciple who had passed out of lifelong darkness into marvelous light. They had exaggerated the faint glimmer of light which had broken upon their own blindness into true vision. They had said, "We see," and thus shown themselves to be willfully in the wrong. Their sin abode upon them. The fold of God's sheep was something different from their own expectations and definitions. Their way into it proved that they did not know its true nature. To meet this crisis our Lord delivers a triad of related and parallel pictures, which differ from the ordinary parable (παραβολή). The parable is a picture which is complete in its elf, and invites the reader to discover some answering spiritual truth. It consists of a careful setting forth of some physical fact, some fragment of biography, some personal or domestic detail. It is true to life and experience, and embodies some ethical principle or religious emotion; and while it does not explicitly teach either, yet it suggests them to the inquiring mind. The parables of the synoptic Gospels are not exclusive or rigid in their form. The so-called parable of "the Pharisee and the publican" and that of "the good Samaritan" are at once transformable into patterns or principles of action. The element of its own interpretation is also conspicuous in that of "the rich man and Lazarus" and "the rich fool." With these latter specimens of our Lord's teaching may be compared the allegoric illustrations of the present discourse. These pictures are "transparencies" (Godet), through which the Savior's spiritual teaching pours its own illumination. They both alike differ from the "fable," a form of address in which personal characters and activities are attributed (as in the apologue of Jotham, etc.) to the irrational or even to the inanimate creation. The first of the similitudes before us has more of the character of the parable proper, because it does not at once carry its own interpretation with it. Vers. 1-6 represent in parabolic form the claims of those who aspired to provide a "door," i.e. a sure and safe entrance to the theocratic fold. In vers. 7-10 our Lord interprets and expands the first representation by giving special significance to the words he had already used, adding something to their meaning, and contrasting his own position with that of all others. From the eleventh to the eighteenth verse he once more reverts to the original picture, and claims to occupy a relation to the sheep of God's band of far more intimate and suggestive kind than what was connoted by the door into the fold. He is "the good Shepherd." In that capacity he adds other and marvelous features. The parabolic or allegorical language passes away into vivid description of the leading features of his work. The parable at last glows into burning metaphor. In the first paragraph our Lord gives a parabolic picture of flock and fold, door and porter, robber and shepherd. In the second paragraph he emphasizes the relation between the door and the fold, claiming to be "the Door." In the third he illustrates the function and the responsibility of the true "Shepherd," and the relation of the shepherd to the flock, and he claims to be the Shepherd of Israel. Verses 1-6. -
(1) The parable of the fold and flock, the door and the porter, the robber and the shepherd. Verse 1. - Verily, verily, betokens the deep solemnity and importance of the matter in hand, but not a complete break in the circumstances - neither a new audience nor a new theme. The adoption by Jeremiah (Jeremiah 23:1-4), by Ezekiel (34.), and by Zechariah (Zechariah 11:4-17) of similar imagery to denote the contrast between the true and false shepherds, and the anticipation by the prophets of a time when the true and good Shepherd would fulfill all Jehovah's pleasure, throws vivid light on these words of our Lord. Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that entereth not by the door into the fold of the sheep, but climbeth up some other way, the same is a thief and a robber. Several commentators of eminence have maintained that by "the door," in this first verse, our Lord (as in ver. 7) meant at once to designate himself. This is not necessary. He rather summons the Pharisees to recognize the fact that there is a door, a way of sure and divinely appointed admission to the "fold of the sheep," through which the veritable Shepherd passes, bringing his flock with him by well-known voice and manner. Later on, our Lord claims to be the one Way' by which all under-shepherds can gain true access to the flock, and all the sheep of God's pasture can find protection and freedom; but here he suggests the principle of discrimination between a true shepherd and a thief or robber. The κλέπτης is one who is selfishly seeking his own ends, and would avoid detection; the λῃστής is one who would use violent means to secure his purpose (Judas was a "thief," Barabbas was a "robber"). The false shepherd disdains the door, and climbs up some other way along his own selfish lines of action (ἀλλαχόθεν is used in this place only, equivalent to "from some other quarter than the ordinary home of the shepherd"). His purpose is not to benefit the sheep, but to seize them, or slaughter them for his own purposes (Ezekiel 34:8). The Lord suggests that many have assumed to sustain the relation of shepherd to the flock and fold of God, with no inward call either of commission or profession. They have been eager to insist on their own rights, have mistaken their own narrow traditions for the commandments of God, have imposed upon starved and worried souls their own selfish interpretations of that commandment, and have shown that they had no legitimate access to the hearts of men.
He that entereth not by the door into the sheepfold: the sheepfold, with the Jews, was called and this, as their writers say (o), was an enclosure sometimes in the manner of a building, and made of stone, and sometimes was fenced with reeds, and in it was a large door, at which the shepherd went in and out, when he led in, or brought out the sheep. At tithing, which was done in the sheepfold, they made a little door, so that two lambs could not come out together; and to this enclosure is the allusion here; and by the "sheepfold" is meant the church of God; see John 10:16; and a good fold it is, Ezekiel 34:14. The church may be compared to a sheepfold, because it is separated from the world: it is where the people of God, and sheep of Christ are gathered together; where there is a strict union between them; have society with each other; keep one another warm and comfortable; and where they are fed and nourished, and are preserved; and where they lie down and have rest; and which, like a sheepfold, will be taken down, and not always continue in the form it now is: and by "the door" into it, is meant Christ himself, as appears from John 10:7; faith in him, a profession of him, and authority from him. Now he that does not come into the church of God, whether as a member of it, or officer in it, at this door,
but climbeth up some other way; by hypocrisy and deceit: or, like the prophets of old, who ran and were not sent; prophesied when they were not spoken to, but took their place and post by usurpation:
the same is a thief and a robber; steals into the church, or into an office in it, and robs God or Christ of their power and authority; and such were the Scribes and Pharisees: the Persic version renders the words, "whoever does not introduce the sheep through the door of the sheepfold, know that that man is a thief and a robber"; which these men were so far from doing, that they would not suffer those that were entering to go in, Matthew 23:13. The difference between a thief and a robber, with the Jews, was, that the former took away a man's property privately, and the latter openly (p).
(o) Maimon & Bartenora in Misn. Becorot, c. 9. sect. 7. (p) Maimon. Hilchot Genuba, c. 1. sect. 3.