Sheep

Sheep run the length of UPDV's narrative — as the firstborn of a herder's flock laid on the first altar, as the wealth of patriarchs and the wool-tribute of foreign kings, as the lamb led mute to the slaughter, and at last as the figure for the people who hear the voice of one shepherd. The animal is named in the same breath as Israel's earliest trades and Israel's last hope: a hundred thousand lambs paid as tax, a hundred sheep with one missing, a Lamb in the midst of the throne. The page below gathers those scenes — the sheep-side of UPDV's pastoral language, the complement to what the shepherd does with them.

Flocks and Their Country

UPDV places the great sheep-country east of the Jordan and along the Arabian frontier. The Song of Moses lists what the land of Bashan yielded: "Butter of the herd, and milk of the flock, With fat of lambs, And rams of the breed of Bashan, and goats, With the finest of the wheat" (Deut 32:14). Micah names Bozrah's flocks as a measure of multitude: Yahweh will gather Israel "as the sheep of Bozrah, as a flock in the midst of their pasture" (Mic 2:12). Ezekiel's Tyre-oracle catches the trade routes: "Arabia, and all the princes of Kedar, they were the merchants of your hand; in lambs, and rams, and goats, in these they were your merchants" (Ezek 27:21). Isaiah carries Kedar and Nebaioth into the temple's future: "All the flocks of Kedar will be gathered together to you, the rams of Nebaioth will minister to you; they will come up with acceptance on my altar; and I will glorify the house of my glory" (Isa 60:7). And the western coastland is given the same vocation in the same prophet: "And Sharon will be a fold of flocks, and the valley of Achor a place for herds to lie down in, for my people who have sought me" (Isa 65:10).

The land could also be unmade. Isaiah's oracle on Babylon closes with a refusal of pasture: "It will never be inhabited, neither will it be stayed in from generation to generation: neither will the Arabian pitch tent there; neither will shepherds make their flocks to lie down there" (Isa 13:20).

Property and Patriarchal Management

The book of Genesis records sheep among the household goods of the patriarchs and tracks their increase. Jacob's wage-arrangement with Laban turns on color and marking: "I will pass through all your flock today, removing from there every speckled and spotted one, and every black one among the sheep, and the spotted and speckled among the goats: and [of such] will be my wages" (Gen 30:32). The narrative follows the rods, the troughs, and the divisions of the flock through to the final separation: "And Jacob separated the lambs, and set the faces of the flocks toward the ringstreaked and all the black in the flock of Laban: and he put his own droves apart, and didn't put them to Laban's flock" (Gen 30:40).

Shearing and the Shearers' Feast

The shearing-season is a fixed point in the patriarchal and royal narratives. When Jacob fled Laban, the timing is given by the same vocabulary: "Now Laban was gone to shear his sheep" (Gen 31:19). Judah's encounter with Tamar is set the same way — "Judah was comforted, and went up to his sheep-shearers to Timnah" (Gen 38:12), and word reached Tamar: "Look, your father-in-law goes up to Timnah to shear his sheep" (Gen 38:13). The shearing was an occasion for feasting and for giving. Nabal, refusing David's men, defends his hoard in shearer-feast vocabulary: "Shall I then take my bread, and my water, and my flesh that I have killed for my shearers, and give it to men of whom I don't know from where they are?" (1Sam 25:11). The same scene closes with the feast itself: "And Abigail came to Nabal; and, look, he held a feast in his house, like the feast of a king; and Nabal's heart was merry inside him, for he was very drunk" (1Sam 25:36). Absalom's vengeance begins the same way: "And it came to pass after two full years, that Absalom had sheep-shearers in Baal-hazor, which is beside Ephraim: and Absalom invited all the king's sons" (2Sam 13:23).

Isaiah lifts the shearing-scene into one of UPDV's central similes for the suffering servant: "He was oppressed, yet when he was afflicted he didn't open his mouth; as a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and as a sheep that before its shearers is mute, so he didn't open his mouth" (Isa 53:7).

Fleece, Wool, and Tribute

The first fleece belongs to the Levite: "The first fruits of your grain, of your new wine, and of your oil, and the first of the fleece of your sheep, you will give to him" (Deut 18:4). On a larger scale, sheep are the medium of foreign tribute. Mesha king of Moab is identified by the trade itself: "Now Mesha king of Moab was a sheep-master; and he rendered to the king of Israel the wool of a hundred thousand lambs, and of a hundred thousand rams" (2Kgs 3:4). The chronicler measures Reuben's eastern victory in sheep: "they took away their cattle; of their camels fifty thousand, and of sheep two hundred and fifty thousand, and of donkeys two thousand" (1Chr 5:21). And the Arabians' tribute to Jehoshaphat is counted in the same currency: "the Arabians also brought him flocks, seven thousand and seven hundred rams, and seven thousand and seven hundred he-goats" (2Chr 17:11).

Sheepfolds, Folds, and the Cotes of David

Enclosures for sheep mark Israel's settlement, song, and royal beginnings. When the Reubenites and Gadites asked for the trans-Jordan, they framed the request around their flocks: "We will build sheepfolds here for our cattle, and cities for our little ones" (Num 32:16), and Moses' answer kept the same words: "Build yourselves cities for your⁺ little ones, and folds for your⁺ sheep; and do that which has proceeded out of your⁺ mouth" (Num 32:24). Deborah's song faults Reuben for staying among them in a time of war: "Why did you sit among the sheepfolds, To hear the pipings for the flocks? At the watercourses of Reuben, There were great searchings of heart" (Judg 5:16). The same word names the place David came from: "He chose David also his slave, And took him from the sheepfolds" (Ps 78:70).

The fold also carries a forward-looking sense. Jeremiah's regathering oracle promises return to the same enclosures: "And I will gather the remnant of my flock out of all the countries where I have driven them, and will bring them again to their folds; and they will be fruitful and multiply" (Jer 23:3). And Jesus, in John 10, names a fold and then opens its boundary: "He who does not enter by the door into the fold of the sheep, but climbs up some other way, the same is a thief and a robber" (John 10:1); "And other sheep I have, which are not of this fold: I must also bring them, and they will hear my voice; and they will become one flock, one shepherd" (John 10:16).

Sheep on the Altar

The first offerings recorded in UPDV are flock-offerings. Abel's gift is named as such: "And Abel, he also brought of the firstborns of his flock and of its fat. And Yahweh had respect to Abel and to his offering" (Gen 4:4). After the flood, Noah's altar takes "of every clean beast, and of every clean bird, and offered burnt-offerings on the altar" (Gen 8:20). At the binding of Isaac, a ram replaces the son: "And Abraham lifted up his eyes, and looked, and noticed a ram caught in the thicket by his horns. And Abraham went and took the ram, and offered him up for a burnt-offering in the stead of his son" (Gen 22:13).

The same sheep-economy fed the altar long after the patriarchs. The Arabian flocks of Kedar and the rams of Nebaioth are named as coming up "with acceptance on my altar" (Isa 60:7). And the prophet's portrait of the silent lamb in Isaiah 53 stands at the seam between the altar-economy and what it figured.

The Sheep of Yahweh's Pasture

Where Israel speaks of itself as Yahweh's, the figure most often given is the flock. Isaiah names the divine shepherding of the flock in tender language: "Like a shepherd, he will shepherd his flock; he will gather the lambs in his arm, and carry them in his bosom; [and] will gently lead those that have their young" (Isa 40:11). The psalter brings the people themselves into the scene. Asaph cries out, "O God, why have you cast [us] off forever? Why does your anger smoke against the sheep of your pasture?" (Ps 74:1). The complaint becomes a vow in the next book: "So we your people and sheep of your pasture Will give you thanks forever: We will show forth your praise to all generations" (Ps 79:13). And the controlling line of the shepherd-psalm names the same relation from the side of the sheep: "Yahweh is my shepherd; I will not want. He makes me to lie down in green pastures; He leads me beside still waters" (Ps 23:1-2).

David, owning the guilt of the census, lifts the figure on behalf of the people he has wronged: "Is it not I who commanded the people to be numbered? It is I who have sinned and done very wickedly; but these sheep, what have they done?" (1Chr 21:17).

Lost, Scattered, and Hunted

The same figure carries indictment. Jeremiah looks toward the northern enemy and asks Judah, "Lift up your⁺ eyes, and look at those who come from the north: where is the flock that was given to you, your beautiful flock?" (Jer 13:20). The exile is the dispersal of those flocks: "My people have been lost sheep: their shepherds have caused them to go astray; they have turned them away on the mountains; they have gone from mountain to hill; they have forgotten their resting-place" (Jer 50:6); "Israel is a hunted sheep; the lions have driven him away: first, the king of Assyria devoured him; and now at last Nebuchadrezzar king of Babylon has broken his bones" (Jer 50:17).

Ezekiel makes the same charge against Israel's leaders. The word comes "against the shepherds of Israel who have been shepherding themselves," with the question, "Should not the shepherds shepherd the sheep?" (Ezek 34:2). The complaint widens to the leaders' luxury at the flock's expense: "Does it seem a small thing to you⁺ to have fed on the good pasture, but you⁺ must tread down with your⁺ feet the remainder of your⁺ pasture? And to have drank of the clear waters, but you⁺ must foul the remainder with your⁺ feet?" (Ezek 34:18). The result is the scattering Yahweh sees: "My sheep wandered through all the mountains, and on every high hill: yes, my sheep were scattered on all the face of the earth; and there was none who searched or sought [after them]" (Ezek 34:6). Jeremiah's promise meets the same scattering with the gift of true shepherds: "And I will set up shepherds over them, who will shepherd them; and they will fear no more, nor be dismayed, neither will any be lacking" (Jer 23:4).

The Stricken Shepherd and the Scattered Sheep

On the night of his betrayal Jesus identifies his disciples with the sheep of Zechariah's oracle: "All you⁺ will be offended: for it is written, I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered abroad" (Mark 14:27). The figure runs both ways here — what falls on the shepherd falls through to the sheep.

The Voice the Sheep Know

Jesus' self-claim in John 10 turns on what the sheep do. They recognize a voice: "To him the porter opens; and the sheep hear his voice: and he calls his own sheep by name, and leads them out" (John 10:3). And he names the act that defines the shepherd toward them: "I am the good shepherd: the good shepherd lays down his soul for the sheep" (John 10:11). The scope of the flock then opens: "And other sheep I have, which are not of this fold: I must also bring them, and they will hear my voice; and they will become one flock, one shepherd" (John 10:16).

The Lost Sheep

The parable in Luke makes a single missing animal the figure for a single returning sinner: "What man of you⁺, having a hundred sheep, and having lost one of them, does not leave the ninety and nine in the wilderness, and go after that which is lost, until he finds it? And when he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing. And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and his neighbors, saying to them, Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep which was lost. I say to you⁺, that even so there will be joy in heaven over one sinner who repents, [more] than over ninety and nine righteous persons, who need no repentance" (Luke 15:4-7).

Returned to the Shepherd, Led by the Lamb

The post-resurrection writings keep the figure of the sheep on the side of the people. Peter writes to those who had wandered, "For you⁺ were like sheep that go astray; but have now been returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your⁺ souls" (1Pet 2:25). The benediction of Hebrews names the resurrection in the same language: "Now may the God of peace, who brought again from the dead the great shepherd of the sheep with the blood of an eternal covenant, [even] our Lord Jesus" (Heb 13:20). Peter looks to the consummation: "And when the chief Shepherd will be manifested, you⁺ will receive the crown of glory that does not fade away" (1Pet 5:4). And the vision of John fuses the two figures the page has gathered — the lamb on the altar, the sheep in the pasture — into one: "for the Lamb that is in the midst of the throne will be their shepherd, and will guide them to fountains of waters of life: and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes" (Rev 7:17).