What Does Ezekiel 34:3 Mean in the King James?
Ye eat the fat, and ye clothe you with the wool, ye kill them that are fed: but ye feed not the flock.
The analysis reads the King James wording.
King James Version The King James Version, first published in 1611. Selah Verse shows the standard text.
THE KEY
The word translated “feed” is also the verb for shepherding: the charge is to nourish the flock, but these shepherds make the flock their food.
THE MEANING
This verse names a relationship turned inside out: those entrusted with nourishing the flock consume its fat, take its wool, and kill its strongest, while withholding the care they owe. It speaks wherever authority draws sustenance from the people it exists to tend.
WHAT THIS UNDOES
The lie it dissolves is that taking from people under your care can count as caring for them; a shepherd’s title does not make consumption nourishment.
THE ROOT
תִרְעוּ
tir'u
GROWS FROM
רעה
ra'ah
To tend as a shepherd, including feeding and caring for a flock
The verb translated “feed” shares its root with the word for “shepherd”: feeding is built into shepherding. The verse shows that relationship reversed, the flock’s fat becomes the shepherds’ food, while the flock itself is left untended.
ALSO GROWS
ro'eh: Shepherd; one who tends a flock
רֹעֶה
The shepherd is defined by tending; the verse indicts the gap between that role and the shepherds’ actions.
mir'eh: Pasture; a place of feeding
מִרְעֶה
The pasture is where the flock receives nourishment, the provision these shepherds withhold.
THE PATTERN
A shepherd’s charge is to nourish the flock; consuming the flock turns care into predation.
Son of man, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel, prophesy, and say unto them, Thus saith the Lord GOD unto the shepherds; Woe be to the shepherds of Israel that do feed themselves! should not the shepherds feed the flocks?I am the good shepherd: the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep.Feed the flock of God which is among you, taking the oversight thereof, not by constraint, but willingly; not for filthy lucre, but of a ready mind;THE THREAD
And he blessed Joseph, and said, God, before whom my fathers Abraham and Isaac did walk, the God which fed me all my life long unto this day,Genesis 48:15 names God as the one who “fed” the speaker all life long; its Hebrew verb רעה (ra’ah), “to shepherd/feed,” is the root beneath “feed” here. The shared word exposes the reversal: proper shepherding nourishes the one in its care, while these shepherds consume the flock.
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