Contrary to popular thinking, to be a shepherd in King David's time was NOT an upwardly mobile position. It was scraping the bottom of the job barrell. It often, like in David's case, fell to the youngest, who had no seniority with which to argue or bump another brother from a better job.
To be a shepherd demanded that you be present 24/7 with the sheep, protecting, providing, and guiding the ornery, dumb, stinky, flock. It was an unending task, day and night, summer and winter, fair weather and foul. One biblical record of this is found in Jacob's complaint about his shepherding life to his father-in-law Laban in Genesis 31:40:
"This was my situation: the heat consumed me in the daytime and the cold at night, and sleep fled from my eyes. It was like this for the 26 years I was in your household."
Without such a faithful, ever-present, ever-watching shepherd, life for a sheep could be torturous or...very, very short. WHO WOULD CHOOSE TO BE A SHEPHERD?
YHWH, the LORD, has!
"He tends his flock like a shepherd; He gathers the lambs in his arms and carries them close to his heart; he gently leads those that have young" Isaiah 40:11.
As astounding as it is to consider, the MOST HIGH has taken on the MOST LOWLY of all jobs: to shepherd you and me...to protect us in our weakness, to provide for us in our inability, to guide us in our lostness.
"You stoop down to make me great" Psalm 18:35 (NIV). What a glorious, merciful Shepherd. YHWH has stooped to make us great in that Great Shepherd of the sheep, the Lord Jesus Christ (Hebrews 13:20). Next we will look at this great, stooping Shepherd in John 10.
But for now...worship the Shepherd, sheep. Worship the Almighty who has stooped to save, to care for...you and me.
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