How to read this page

An Intertextuality Pair — one connection between two passages, shown as linked verse cards: the Later text and the Earlier text it quotes, alludes to or echoes. The Significance essay explains why the link matters and where it points in Christ.

Reference Type— how explicit the link is: Quotation, Allusion, or Echo
Connection Method(s)— how it carries meaning: e.g. Typology, Promise-Fulfillment, Analogy, Longitudinal Theme
Found via— where the connection was identified, e.g. the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge or an Anchor-Text Network

Graph View — tap the constellation icon in the top bar to see this page's connections as a web of light: gold points are passages, and the coloured threads are the connection types. Click any type in the graph's own legend to filter it in or out, and use the expand control for the full-screen night sky.

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Intertextuality Pair

Mark 6:34 → Numbers 27:17

Allusion

Later text

Mark 6:34BSB

When Jesus stepped ashore and saw a large crowd, He had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd. And He began to teach them many things.

Earlier text

Numbers 27:17BSB

who will go out and come in before them, and who will lead them out and bring them in, so that the congregation of the LORD will not be like sheep without a shepherd.”

+ 2 more earlier texts

Earlier text

1 Kings 22:17BSB

So Micaiah declared: "I saw all Israel scattered on the hills like sheep without a shepherd. And the LORD said, 'These people have no master; let each one return home in peace.'"

Earlier text

Ezekiel 34:5BSB

They were scattered for lack of a shepherd, and when they were scattered they became food for all the wild beasts.

Walk the Square · a single-voice walk of this pair around the Clowney square13:31

Significance

The "sheep without a shepherd" image evokes Israel's covenant history of failed leadership. Ezekiel 34 pronounces judgment on Israel's corrupt shepherds, promising God himself will shepherd his flock and raise up David's successor. Jesus' compassion reveals God's promised shepherd-care, and his response—teaching and feeding (6:34-44)—fulfills the shepherd's dual responsibility of instruction and provision. Mark implies Jesus is both Yahweh (who shepherds his flock, Isa. 40:11) and the Davidic shepherd-king (Ezek. 34:23), with the feeding miracle echoing Moses providing manna and reinforcing new exodus typology.

Found via: Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Reference Type: Allusion
Connection Method(s): Typology + Promise-Fulfillment