The Epochal Horizon, Part 1
As we move into the epochal horizon we can note that there is a fair amount of overlap (both with the textual and the canonical horizon). Before delineating the obvious overlaps, however, let’s set up the larger epochal horizon. Patrick Fairbairn gives a good help here when he writes:
This passage evidently points, both as to its subject, and the language it employs, to a quite similar and earlier prophecy of Jeremiah (chap. xxiii. 1-6), where, in like manner, the false shepherds are denounced and judged, that the way might be opened up for the appearance of the Lord’s true shepherd. In both prophecies alike, what is meant by the shepherd is manifestly not priests or prophets, but kings and rulers…[1]
Here is one of the great foci of the passage: the promise of a King. Fairbairn rightly connects this passage with that of Jeremiah 23:1-6. In both passages there is the promise of a future “shepherd,” that is a King, who will rescue God’s people and usher in a time of peace and of security. Both passages are set in the larger context of the prophecies concerning the coming Messiah: God’s anointed one.
Dr. Daniel I. Block notes the larger context of the messianic prophecies in his commentary on Ezekiel. He writes:
The shepherd will be David. Although this ruler is explicitly identified as David only twice outside this book, Ezekiel’s identification of the divinely installed king as David is based on a long-standing prophetic tradition. On the one hand, the 8th-century prophet Hosea had looked forward to the day when the children of Israel would “return and seek Yahweh their God and David their King.” On the other hand, Ezekiel’s diction is closer to Jer. 30:8-10, which also combines the appointment of David with the anticipated restoration of the nation. There is no thought in these prophecies of the resurrection of the historical king, as some kind of David [revived]. Ezekiel’s use of the singular “shepherd,” and his emphasis on … “one,” also preclude the restoration of the dynasty in the abstract, that is, simply a series of kings. He envisions a single person, who may embody the dynasty but who occupies the throne himself.[2]
Dr. Block has noted that the messiah, or the “divinely installed King,” as David had a long-standing tradition in Israel’s prophetic history. He gives evidence in the examples of Hosea and Jeremiah. His comments stress, as well, the centrality of David in this passage.
In their sins the people of Judah had broken the Davidic Covenant, and as a result God had abandoned His dwelling place among them, in the temple on Mt. Zion.[3] At stake in their disobedience was the fulfillment of God’s promise to David: that one of his descendants would reign on his throne forever. Such a danger must have undoubtedly been in the back of the minds of the people of Judah as they foresaw Jerusalem laid waste and as they were shuttled off to a foreign land.
With such a background, then, it becomes evident why God revealed to the people that this “true shepherd” would be David. The prophecy was to be a boost to their confidence in God’s trustworthiness. He had not forgotten, nor abandoned, His covenant with David. This true shepherd was to be of the Davidic line, he was to be the anointed of God, the Messiah, just as 2 Samuel 7:1-17 says. For our purposes in this discussion we could simply look to verses 12-13:
When your days are fulfilled and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring after you, who shall come from your body, and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever.
The immediate context of that passage is referring to David’s son Solomon. But as one reads the history of Solomon you find a man far short of God’s standard, a man who divides the kingdom in half, and who eventually dies, leaving the nation wondering who is this anointed son of David that was to come and establish an eternal throne? They continued to wait for his appearing.
[1]Patrick Fairbairn, Ezekiel and the Book of His Prophecy. (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1863).
[2]Daniel I. Block, The Book of Ezekiel: Chapters 25-48. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998). 297-298.
[3]See I.M. Duguid, “Ezekiel.” In New Dictionary of Biblical Theology. ed. Graeme Goldsworthy and D.A. Carson. (Downers Grove: IVP, 2000). 230.
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