Jeremiah 23:1 - Meaning and Application

Here is a warning for careless shepherds. The time is coming when God will call them to account for the trust he gave them. “Woe to the shepherds,” that is, to the rulers in both church and state, who were supposed to guide, feed, protect, and care for the people under them. They do not own the sheep. God calls them “the sheep of my pasture,” people who belong to him and for whom he has provided good pasture.

Woe to those who were commanded to feed God’s people, and claimed to do so, but instead scattered the flock. They did this through violence, oppression, neglect, and failure to look after the people’s good. By not visiting them and not doing their duty, they effectively drove them away. Wild beasts scattered the sheep, but the shepherds were guilty too, because they should have kept the flock together. God will visit them for their evil deeds and deal with them as they deserve. Since they would not visit the flock in faithful care, God will visit them in judgment.

Here is comfort for the neglected sheep. Even if the under-shepherds take no care of them, waste no effort on them, and betray them, the chief Shepherd will look after them. “When my father and my mother forsake me, then the Lord will take me up.” Even if the church’s interests in the world are neglected by those who should care for them, and those leaders put their own private interests first, the church will not therefore fail. God will keep his promise, even when the people he uses do not do their duty.

The scattered Jews would at last return to their own land and be settled there again under good government (Jeremiah 23:3, Jeremiah 23:4). Even if only a remnant of God’s flock remained, he would gather that remnant. He would find them wherever they were and make a way to bring them back from all the countries where he had driven them. Their scattering was a judgment from God because of the sin of their shepherds, but God’s mercy would gather the sheep when the shepherds who betrayed them were removed. They would be brought back to their former homes, like sheep to their folds, and there they would be fruitful and increase in number.

The fact that former shepherds abused their office does not mean that the office should end. If some have misused a sacred calling, that is no reason to abolish it. “They destroyed the sheep, but I will set shepherds over them who will make it their business to feed them.” Before, the people lived in constant fear and disturbance. Now they would fear no more and be no longer dismayed. They would face no danger from outside and no terror within. Before, some were always being lost to wild beasts. Now none would be missing. Though the church may have had long seasons of trouble, that does not mean things must always stay that way. Rulers such as Zerubbabel and Nehemiah, though they lived with less outward splendor than Jehoiakim and Jeconiah, were far greater blessings to the people than those kings had been plagues. The church’s peace does not depend on the outward greatness of its rulers.

Messiah the Prince, the great and good Shepherd of the sheep, would be raised up in later days to bless his church and become the glory of his people Israel (Jeremiah 23:5, Jeremiah 23:6). The house of David seemed completely ruined by the warning against Jeconiah (Jeremiah 22:30), which said that none of his offspring would sit on David’s throne. Yet this promise fully protects the honor of God’s covenant with David. It raises the house from ruin to greater glory than before, brighter even than Solomon’s reign. This book has fewer prophecies of Christ than Isaiah does, but this one is striking. The prophet is surely speaking of Christ, and of no one else.

The opening words show that its fulfillment would be long delayed. “The days are coming,” but they were not yet here. “I will see him, but not now.” Yet everything else shows that the fulfillment would be glorious. Christ is spoken of as a branch from David, the man called “the Branch” (Zechariah 3:8). His appearance was humble, his beginning small, like a bud or sprout. He seemed to come up out of the ground, yet he would grow green, strong, and full of fruit. He came from David’s family when it looked like a root in dry ground, buried and unlikely to live again. Christ is the root and the descendant of David (Revelation 22:16). In him the horn of David grows strong again (Psalm 132:17, Psalm 132:18). He is a branch raised up by God, whom God set apart and sent into the world, giving him his mission and his gifts. He is a righteous Branch, because he is righteous himself, and through him many, in fact all who belong to him, are made righteous.

He is also spoken of as the King of his church. This Branch will be lifted up to David’s throne, and there he will reign and prosper, unlike the kings of David’s line who then were going backward in all they did. He will establish a kingdom in the world that will overcome every opposition. In the great chariot of the eternal gospel he will go forward, conquering and to conquer. If God raises him up, God will also make him prosper, because he will bless the work of his own hands. What pleases the Lord will succeed in the hands of those to whom he gives it. He will prosper because he will carry out justice and righteousness throughout the earth, over the whole world (Psalm 96:13).

The kings of David’s house then were unjust and harsh, and it is no surprise that they did not prosper. But Christ, through his gospel, will break Satan’s usurped power, establish a perfect rule of holy living, and, as far as that rule is received, make the world righteous. The result will be holy safety and peace in the minds of all his faithful subjects. In his days, under his rule, Judah will be saved and Israel will live safely. That is, all the spiritual children of believing Abraham and praying Jacob will be protected from heaven’s curse and from hell’s malice. They will be freed from the demands of God’s law and delivered from Satan’s attacks. They will be saved from sin, both its guilt and its power, and then they will dwell safely and be quiet, with no fear of evil. See (Luke 1:74, Luke 1:75). Those who will be saved later from the wrath to come may dwell safely now, for if God is for us, who can be against us? When Christ rules in the soul and holds first place there, the soul lives in peace.

He is also called “The Lord our righteousness.”

The Lord is called our righteousness, and that tells us who he is and what he does. As God, he is Jehovah, the special name that points to his eternal being and self-existence. As Mediator, the one who stands between God and people, he is our righteousness because he has satisfied God’s justice for human sin. He has brought in an everlasting righteousness and gives it to us in the covenant of grace, the gracious agreement God makes with believers. When we accept that covenant by faith, that righteousness becomes ours.

This name also means that Christ is our righteousness in a way no creature could ever be. He is a sovereign, all-sufficient, and eternal righteousness. All our righteousness comes from him, stays by him, and is found in union with him. In him, we become the righteousness of God.

This is not only something he is, but something he is known for. “This is the name by which he shall be called” means God will appoint him as our righteousness, and his people will confess him that way. Israel, and every true believer, will call on him by this name. We are justified before God, which means declared right with him, only by this righteousness. It gives us our plea before him, our forgiveness of guilt, and our welcome into his favor. We have nothing else to bring except this: Christ has died, and even more, he has risen again, and we have taken him as our Lord.

This great salvation would come to the Jews in the later days of their state, after their return from Babylon, and it would be so glorious that it would outshine the deliverance from Egypt. Then people would no longer speak mainly of the Lord bringing Israel up out of Egypt, but of the Lord bringing them up from the north. Jeremiah had said something like this before (Jeremiah 16:14, Jeremiah 16:15), but here it points more clearly to the days of the Messiah, the promised king. It is not only comparing the two rescues, with the second greater than the first, but also the two stages of the church’s growth after those rescues.

The pattern is striking. About 480 years after the exodus from Egypt, Solomon’s temple was built (1 Kings 6:1), and Israel had reached the peak of its national glory. About 490 years, that is, 70 weeks, after the return from Babylon, Messiah the Prince set up the gospel temple, the church under the gospel (Daniel 9:24, Daniel 9:25). The spiritual glory of God’s people in the second period, especially as it comes into the gospel church, is far greater and more wonderful than all the outward glory Israel had in Solomon’s day. That earlier glory was nothing compared with the glory that surpasses it.