Do you get confused when you read prophecy? Have you wondered how some people can read it and make perfect sense of it? Have you taken time to study it? Have you studied the history and context surrounding the prophecy? Or have you read a few verses without it?
Reading and understanding prophecy requires work. We need to know more than the few verses of prophecy. We need to know the history prior to the prophecy. We need to know the context in which the prophecy was written. Finally, we need to put the pieces together.
Ezekiel was of the priestly line. He was one of those taken into exile to Babylon nearly six-hundred years before Jesus. The temple had been destroyed. The Israelites had been conquered. They were crying out for deliverance. Ezekiel’s call to prophecy came at the time he would have begun to serve as a priest in the temple.
With this history in mind, when Ezekiel prophecies that David would feed and shepherd God’s people, he was not speaking of King David. He was speaking of someone in the line of David. When he spoke of David being a prince among them, he is speaking of a son, for the son of a king is a prince.
How do we interpret this prophecy? Ezekiel is prophesying about Jesus coming. Jesus is of the line of David from a human perspective. We interpret being the prince as Jesus being the Son of God. And we know now that Jesus called Himself the Good Shepherd. He is our provider and protector. He cares for us and loves us.
I pray we all seek to know the history and context of prophecy. I pray we take time to study Scripture. I pray each one of us knows that Jesus is our Good Shepherd who loves and cares for us. Know history. Know context. Study Scripture. Jesus is the Good Shepherd. Jesus cares for you. Jesus loves you.
Ezekiel 34:23-24 I will set up over them one shepherd, my servant David, and he shall feed them; he shall feed them and be their shepherd. And I the Lord will be their God, and my servant David shall be prince among them; I the Lord have spoken.
Marty Pressey 