The king was to be a scribe who wrote the law so that he might fear the Lord and keep his statutes.12 A wise king would be centered on the law, learning himself how to internalize the law, thereby becoming an embodiment of the law. As Philo says, “Other kings indeed have staves for their scepters, but my scepter is the book of Deuteronomy, . . . a symbol of the irreproachable rulership which is copied after the archetype, the kingly rule of God.”13 As the OT continues, each of Israel’s kings and rulers is evaluated on whether he has internalized the Torah.
This internalizing of the law is exactly what Israel was called to do in Deut. 4:6 to become wise: “Keep them and do them, for that will be your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the peoples, who, when they hear all these statutes, will say, ‘Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people’” (emphasis added). Matthew, as the discipled scribe, goes to great lengths to show that Jesus not only teaches on the law but also internalizes it and thereby fulfills it.14 In fact, when Jesus teaches on a topic, Matthew makes sure to emphasize that Jesus performs it as well.
Jesus teaches his disciples to be meek (5:5), and Matthew describes him as meek and lowly of heart (11:29; 21:5).
Jesus calls them to not neglect justice, mercy, and faithfulness (9:13; 12:7), and he goes about as king and willingly touches a leper, a hemorrhaging woman, and a girl believed to be dead in the house of a gentile (chaps. 8–9).
Jesus tells his scribes to prioritize loving God and others (22:36–40), and his entire ministry is in service to God his Father and his people.
Jesus requires mercy and humility (5:7; 9:13; 12:7; 18:4; 23:12), and the scribe portrays him as merciful and humble. People who need help even cry out to him, “Have mercy” (9:27; 11:29; 15:22; 18:4; 20:30).
Jesus blesses those who are persecuted for the sake of the kingdom (5:10), and he himself suffers while Pilate declares, “What evil has he done?” (27:23).
Jesus teaches and demands faithfulness to the Torah (5:17–20; 23:1–2), and Matthew shows the sage faithfully keeping and interpreting the law throughout his life (8:4; 12:1–8; 15:1–20).
Jesus tells his disciples to turn the other cheek when someone strikes them (5:39), and in the trials Jesus allows others to spit in his face and strike him (26:67; 27:30).
Jesus teaches his disciples not to give pearls to pigs (7:6), and Jesus at first refuses to speak to the Canaanite woman (15:23), and also when he is at his trial he remains silent at key points (26:63; 27:12–14).
Jesus calls his disciples to be truthful in their speech (5:37), and while Jesus is on trial, he does affirm that he is the messiah while he is under oath (26:64).
Jesus teaches his disciples to pray that God’s will be done (6:10). In the garden, when Jesus faces the prospect of death, he uses the same words three times (26:37–44).
Jesus, as the sage, warns his disciples about mammon and keeping wealth for themselves (6:19). Jesus also does not store up treasure, has nowhere to lay his head (8:20), and denies the opportunity the devil gives to him to seize sovereignty over the whole world (4:8).
Jesus instructs his disciples to take up their crosses and follow him (16:24), and he also carries his cross (27:31–32).
Jesus blesses his people who mourn (5:4), so too he mourns and grieves (23:37).
Jesus calls his disciples to hunger and thirst for righteousness (5:6), and he hungers and thirsts for God’s kingdom to be manifested (9:38).
Jesus commands his disciples to be pure in heart (5:8), so too he is pure (4:10).
Jesus teaches his disciples that self-sacrifice will lead to honor and glory (16:24–27; 19:27–30), and he denies himself (4:8) and lays down his life, thereby receiving all authority (25:31–32; 28:18).
Jesus lives the law as the king showing the people the way of righteousness (3:15), a righteousness that even exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees (5:20).
Jesus did not come to set aside or nullify the law. Rather, he affirmed it, accomplished it, and brought it to reality. Jesus embodies and lives the law that he delivers in the Sermon and in the rest of the Gospel. The standard responsibility of ancient kings was the task of enacting justice for his people. Moreover, related to his procuring justice for the king’s subjects is the task of executing judgment upon the wicked.15 Matthew’s dramatization of the law throughout his Gospel cannot be separated from Jesus’s kingship because Matthew’s programmatic statement about Jesus’s ministry is that he “went throughout all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every affliction among the people” (4:23). The Sermon on the Mount is part of the wise king’s message about the kingdom of heaven. He teaches on the kingdom (Matt. 5–7), and then he heals every disease in anticipation of the kingdom (Matt. 8–9) and enacts the double love command.
Royalty and the Law of Christ
That the king is the living law is an old message, one that appears quite frequently in Hellenistic and OT literature. However, this message is also new because it is filtered through a new king. Unlike David, Solomon, and all the other kings, this king never breaks any of the laws. He embodies the law and teaches the people how to flourish under the law. For Jesus to fulfill the law at least partially means he comes and performs all it commands. In this way, Jesus does not abrogate the law but fulfills it. Not a jot or tittle goes away, because the law is wrapped up in him as the Davidic messiah. As Nolland says, “The fulfilment language represents a claim that Jesus’ programmatic commitment, far from undercutting the role of the Law and the Prophets, is to enable God’s people to live out the Law more effectively.”16 In one sense Jesus transcends the law, not by extending it or going beyond it, but by being a more perfect embodiment of the divine will than has ever happened before.17
The framework that Matthew has set up so far suggests that it is not until the arrival of Jesus, the divinely appointed heir of David’s throne, that the Deuteronomic curses (Deut. 27–28) begin to be reversed. Deuteronomy pronounces curses on those who lead the blind astray (27:18), who withhold justice from the foreigner (27:19), who do not uphold the words of this law (27:26). Jesus reverses the curses while in exile by fulfilling the law as the king: he heals the blind (Matt. 9:28–29; 11:5), shows mercy to a Canaanite woman (15:22), and keeps the law instead of abolishing it (5:17–20). The messiah’s apocalyptic appearance marks the end of the age of wrath and the renewal of God’s presence with Israel. The forgiveness of Israel’s sins provides the basis for the reestablishment of the kingdom of Israel. Jesus as the wise king reinforces the identity of the community of his kingdom. This community is in line with the Israel of old, but they also have their new king who embodies the law perfectly. The king as the living law continues in exile with Jesus acting as (1) their righteous shepherd and (2) enacting justice (healing them). It is to these themes that we turn.
The Righteous-Shepherd Motif
Jesus is not merely like David in his geographical movement but also in the way he carries out his kingship during his exile. One way he enacts his kingship is by being the Davidic righteous shepherd. In a defining and pivotal text, David’s kingship is linked with the idea of shepherding (2 Sam. 5:2). The context of 2 Sam. 5:2 concerns the transition from Saul to David. All the elders of Israel come to the king at Hebron. David makes a covenant with the people, and they anoint David as king over Israel (2 Sam. 5:3). The Lord defines for David what his kingship is to be. He says, “You shall be shepherd of my people Israel, and you shall be prince over Israel.”
2 Samuel 5:2 LXX 2 Samuel 5:2 MT
Σὺ ποιμανεῖς τὸν λαόν μου τὸν Ισραηλ, καὶ σὺ ἔσει εἰς ἡγούμενον ἐπὶ τὸν Ισραηλ. אַתָּה תִרְעֶה אֶת־עַמִּי אֶת־יִשְׂרָאֵל וְאַתָּה תִּהְיֶה לְנָגִיד עַל־יִשְׂרָאֵל׃
The word sometimes translated “prince” (ἡγούμενον) can also mean simply leader or ruler. Therefore, at the b
eginning of David’s rule, his kingship is defined by the metaphor of being a shepherd.
R. Hunziker-Rodewald correctly notes that, from the perspective of the narrative, the function of shepherding is the starting point for conceptions of David’s career and the presentation of his kingship is a “shepherdship” (Hirtenschaft).18 The Bible’s characterization of David’s story can be aptly summarized as a transformation from shepherding his father’s flock to shepherding Yahweh’s flock (2 Sam. 7:8; Ps. 78:70–71). Thus it is little surprise that Matthew, the Jewish scribe who knows his OT so well, picks up this motif and applies it consistently to Jesus. Though it is not sufficient to examine the occurrences of “shepherd” in Matthew, because all of Jesus’s ministry should be viewed under the lens of a shepherd, it is a good place to start. Matthew uses “shepherd” (ποιμήν) three times in his Gospel (9:36; 25:32; 26:31) and the verb ποιμαίνω once (2:6). The shepherd image is also implied in 15:24 and 18:12. The Gospel of Matthew employs the shepherd motif more than either Mark or Luke and explicitly links it to christological phrases like “Son of David” and “Son of Man” and typological themes like the “new Moses” and the “new David.”
As Willitts argues, the “Shepherd-King tradition and the phrase should be investigated within the sphere of a concrete-political Davidic Messianism.”19 As David was the shepherd of Israel, so too Jesus will shepherd his people. I will divide this section into two parts. First, I will step back and examine the relationship between kings/shepherds in the ANE and the Scriptures. Second, I will walk through five Matthean texts in which Jesus’s kingship is developed with the shepherd motif. My argument is that Matthew takes up the tradition of the historical and prophetic books to portray Jesus as the Davidic shepherd in his exile. This is set in contrast to the Jewish leaders, who are characterized as evil/false shepherds both explicitly and implicitly.20
Background to the Shepherd Motif
The shepherd metaphor is widespread in the ANE and Greco-Roman traditions and regularly connected to kingship and leadership. Many different deities of Mesopotamia are referred to as shepherds. The Greco-Roman world also linked a number of gods to the shepherd image: Hermes carries the lamb over his shoulders, and Pan is the god of herds and shepherds. The Iliad employs the image of a goat herder who separates and orders the flock as a hero-king.21 In the later Greco-Roman period, the philosopher (king/ruler) is the one who becomes the shepherd. Xenophon says the duties of a good shepherd and king are alike.22 The shepherd metaphor was evidently widespread in both the ANE and Greco-Roman literature and regularly linked to the gods and kings.
In the Hebrew Scriptures this pattern continues. Two primary traditions inform the shepherd/sheep metaphor. First, Yahweh is described as the shepherd of Israel. Jacob speaks of God as his shepherd (Gen. 48:15) and later uses the imagery again when he prays to the “Mighty One, . . . the Shepherd, the Rock of Israel” (49:24 NIV). The description of Yahweh as shepherd is also found in Ps. 80:1, “Give ear, O Shepherd of Israel, you who lead Joseph like a flock. You who are enthroned upon the cherubim, shine forth.” The metaphor of Yahweh as shepherd is also extended by David in Ps. 23: “The LORD is my shepherd.” At other times Yahweh is depicted as feeding, gathering, and carrying his flock. In the Moses/exodus tradition, Yahweh leads his people like sheep and guides them through the wilderness like a flock (Ps. 78:52).
Not only is Yahweh portrayed as a shepherd, but also the leaders who guide Israel are considered undershepherds of God’s people. According to Gen. 4:2, “Abel was a keeper of sheep.” Early in Genesis, the patriarchs are described as shepherds. When Pharaoh asks the brothers of Joseph, “What is your occupation?” they say to Pharaoh, “Your servants are shepherds, as our ancestors were” (47:3 NRSV). In Num. 27:17 Moses prays that God will provide a shepherd for them. Later the psalmist describes the role of Moses: “You led your people like a flock by the hand of Moses and Aaron” (Ps. 77:20). But the most prominent undershepherd in the Hebrew Scriptures is King David.
Since rulers were shepherds in the ANE and the Greco-Roman literature, this stamp on David’s past is natural. The first time a reader meets David is as the shepherd of his father’s flock, when Samuel comes to Jesse to anoint one of his sons as the future king. After Samuel has gone through Jesse’s children, and the Lord has rejected them all, he asks, “Are all your sons here?” And Jesse says, “There remains yet the youngest, but behold, he is keeping the sheep” (1 Sam. 16:11). David is first described as a shepherd. This characterization continues when David is appointed to the service of Saul as a musician in 1 Sam. 16. Saul summons David by sending messengers to Jesse with the request: “Send me David your son, who is with the sheep” (16:19). David’s identity as a shepherd also arises a few times in the Goliath narrative (17:15, 34, 40).
This task transforms when David becomes the shepherd of Yahweh’s people. The tribal leaders of Israel join together to make David king over their united kingdom. They say, “In times past, when Saul was king over us, it was you who led out and brought in Israel. And the LORD said to you, ‘You shall be shepherd of my people Israel’” (2 Sam. 5:1–2). David’s activity as a literal shepherd turns into a figurative, military, and national shepherding of Israel. The point is further emphasized when Nathan the prophet gives a promise to David from Yahweh in 2 Sam. 7:5–17.
Now, therefore, thus you shall say to my servant David, “Thus says the LORD of hosts, I took you from the pasture, from following the sheep, that you should be prince over my people Israel. And I have been with you wherever you went and have cut off all your enemies from before you. And I will make for you a great name, like the name of the great ones of the earth.” (2 Sam. 7:8–9)
The terms rulership and shepherding again cohere, as they do in 2 Sam. 5:2. The legacy of David as a shepherd continues to abide in the memory of Israel. In Ps. 78, amid a long recital of Israel’s story, this is what is said of David: the Lord “chose David his servant and took him from the sheepfolds; from following the nursing ewes he brought him to shepherd Jacob his people, Israel his inheritance. With upright heart he shepherded them and guided them with his skillful hand” (Ps. 78:70–72).
In the LXX, Ps. 151 also resumes the tradition of David as the shepherd of his people. David is described as the shepherd in verse 1, and it emphasizes his humility and faithfulness to his father’s sheep. Whenever the text slows down to give a summary of David’s kingship, it regularly employs the metaphor of a shepherd. According to the Hebrew Scriptures, David is the shepherd-king. In the Prophets, the use of the shepherd/sheep motif continues but is expended mainly in contrast to David and Yahweh (the good shepherds); the prophets castigate those leading the people as false shepherds (see Mic. 5:1–4; Jer. 23:1–6). Ezekiel explores the meaning of the exile, which also includes the hope of a Davidic messiah (Ezek. 34:23–24), and this whole section is notably framed with the most extended use of the shepherd/sheep metaphor.23
Jesus as the Davidic Shepherd in Matthew
With this background in mind, it is no surprise that Matthew employs the shepherd motif to further portray the nature of the Davidic messiah. While in exile, Jesus shepherds his people back to Yahweh by embodying the Torah as the wise king. The shepherd imagery is a fundamental vehicle for Matthean Christology. Five Matthean texts (2:1–6; 9:32–38; 15:21–28; 25:31–46; 26:30–35) employ the shepherd/sheep metaphor relative to Jesus’s ministry. The first text is found in Matthew’s introduction (2:6), while the last one is found in the conclusion (26:31); the theme stretches across the entire narrative. Though these two texts do not describe this ministry during Jesus’s exile, they set up and conclude how we are to view Jesus’s actions during his deportation.24 The distinctive themes found in the introduction and conclusion are developed and expanded upon through the rest of Matthew’s narrative.
For the sake of space, I will limit this discussion to the explicit references to Jesus as a shepherd, but readers should note that the theme encompasses the Gospel just as the fulf
illment quotations bracket large sections of the narrative.25 The explicit occurrences simply give readers categories for them to interpret the rest of the story.
The Development of the Davidic Shepherd Motif in Matthew
Matthew Motif
2:6 The royal shepherd
9:36 The ministering shepherd
15:24 The merciful shepherd
25:31–46 The shepherd-judge
26:31 The sacrificial shepherd
THE ROYAL SHEPHERD IN MATTHEW 2:6
The first explicit shepherd reference occurs in Matt. 2:6 and sets up how readers are to engage with the rest of the narrative. It comes in the birth and infancy narrative of chapters 1 and 2. In this larger context Matthew has the chief priests and the scribes answering Herod’s question about where the Christ is to be born but also curiously includes what type of messiah he will be (a shepherd). Herod asks where. Matthew gives an answer that includes both where and what kind. Matthew usually breaks his narrative flow to let his reader know that what just took place fulfills some prophecy. However, this is different. Matthew artfully places the fulfillment quote in the mouths of the actors in his narrative. Even more surprisingly, he puts the fulfillment quote on the lips of those opposed to Jesus. The chief priests and the scribes of the people read the Scriptures and even correctly know “where” the messiah is to be born, but they cannot see the deeper meaning relating to what kind of king. They have an understanding of the literal sense of the text but not the sensus plenior.
They can point to where the Davidic messiah is to be born, but they can’t recognize the messiah. In fact, as the narrative develops, this group will bring the messiah to his death (16:21; 20:18; 26:57; 27:41). The text the chief priests and scribes quote is a double citation, combining Mic. 5:2 (5:1 LXX) and 2 Sam. 5:2. Why does Matthew include the shepherd motif here? At the narrative level, it seems that Matthew desires to further define what type of king Jesus is going to be. He is not only born in the city of David, but he will also be a shepherd and ruler like David.26 The motif defines, characterizes, and typifies the type of kingship. This is in direct contrast to the current “ruler” (King Herod) they lived under. The combined metaphor of a ruler who shepherds his people would summon messianic and eschatological expectations. As W. D. Davies and Dale Allison note, “To a first-century Jew, a reference to a ruler coming forth to ‘shepherd my people Israel’ would have conjured up the eschatological expectation of the ingathering of the twelve tribes of Israel (cf. Ezek. 34:4–16; Mic. 5:1–9; Pss. Sol. 17; 4 Ezra 13.34–50; 2 Bar. 77–86), an expectation apparently shared by Matthew (19:28).”27 The kingdom Solomon’s sons split, this wise shepherd will unite.
Matthew, Disciple and Scribe Page 17
