vid, although as a weak
type and prelude only of the true fulfilment, to which he occupies the
same relation, as does the gathering from the Babylonish captivity to
the gathering by Christ. If, after all, we wish to urge the Plural, we
must not, by any means, sever our verse from ver. 5, and declare this
to be the sense: _first_ will I raise up to you shepherds; _then_, the
Messiah. We must, in that case, following _C. B. Michaelis_, rather
supplement: specially one, the Messiah. In _none_ of Jeremiah's
prophecies are there different stages and degrees in the salvation;
everywhere he has in his view the whole in its completion. Where this
is overlooked, the whole interpretation must necessarily take a wrong
direction, as is most clearly seen in the case of _Venema_. But there
is no reason at all for laying so much stress on the Plural. Every
Plural may be used for designating the idea of the whole species; and
this kind of designation was here so much the more obvious, that the
bad species, with which the good is here contrasted, consisted of a
series of individuals. With the bad pastoral office, the Prophet here
_first_ contrasts the good one; _then_ he gives, in ver. 5, a more
detailed description of the individual who is to represent the species,
in whom the idea of the species is to be completely realised. The
correctness of this interpretation is confirmed by the comparison of
the parallel passage in chap. xxxiii. 15, which, almost _verbatim_,
agrees with that under consideration, and in which only one descendant
of David, viz., the Messiah, is spoken of And that is quite natural;
for, in that passage, there is no antithesis to the bad shepherds,
which was the cause that here, at first, the species was made
prominent. And another confirmation is afforded by Ezek. xxxiv. With
him, too, one good shepherd is mentioned in contrast with the bad
shepherds.--The words: "And they feed them" stand in contrast to "Who
feed my people," in ver. 2. The shepherds mentioned in ver. 2 ought to
feed the flock; but, instead of doing [Pg 412] that, they feed
themselves (compare Ezek. xxxiv. 2); the shepherds, however, mentioned
in our verse, really feed. The former are shepherds in name only, but,
in reality, wolves; the latter are shepherds, both in name and reality.
[Hebrew: pqd] must be taken in the signification "to be missing,"
"lacking." (Compare the Remarks on chap. iii. 16.) There is an allusion
to [Hebrew: la pqdtM] in ver. 2