REJECTION OF THE TRUE SHEPHERD 399
united in the person of the Messiah, and have always in the consciousness of the Church been associated with Christ. If Israel had received Him, they would have found in Hint their Prophet, Priest, and King ; they might even, as Pusey suggests, " have been held under Him " (i.e., by human representatives of Him) ; but having rejected Him, these three offices, which, originally appointed by God, were mediatorial in their character, and were held on earth by those who were meant to represent and foreshadow Him who is the " One Mediator between God and man " were " cut off," that is, abolished, as an outward sign that through their rejection of Christ their relations with God were broken off.
The second half of the 9th verse describes the rupture between the Good Shepherd and the people as a whole, including those who ought to have acted as shepherds, but only misled and devoured the flock. It also, it seems to me, indicates the reason why " the three shepherds " were cut off.
Commentators generally view the cutting off of the three shepherds " as an act of God s loving-kindness toward the sheep of His pasture," l and as part of the beneficent care of the Good Shepherd for the flock. So it might have been, if delivered from their false shepherds, the people as a whole had turned to Him Who was sent to them of God to seek and to save, and Who in His one person combined the offices of Prophet, Priest, and King. But as not only the leaders, both civil and religious, but the people in general, took up more and more an attitude of opposition and hostility toward Him, the " cutting off" of the three " shepherds," or the abolition of the three mediatorial offices, which is the outward sign of the suspension of God s covenant relationship with them, must certainly be regarded also as an act of judgment on the nation as a whole.
And, if it be asked, what other expression of the beneficent activity of the Good Shepherd on behalf of the
1 Wright.
