Later text
John 10:8BSB
All who came before Me were thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not listen to them.
Intertextuality Pair
Allusion
Later text
John 10:8BSB
All who came before Me were thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not listen to them.
Earlier text
"Woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of My pasture!" declares the LORD. Therefore this is what the LORD, the God of Israel, says about the shepherds who tend My people: "You have scattered My flock and driven them away, and have not attended to them. Behold, I will attend to you for the evil of your deeds, declares the LORD.
Earlier text
“Son of man, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel. Prophesy and tell them that this is what the Lord GOD says: ‘Woe to the shepherds of Israel, who only feed themselves! Should not the shepherds feed their flock? You eat the fat, wear the wool, and butcher the fattened sheep, but you do not feed the flock.
Jeremiah 23:1-2 is a woe on Judah's rulers: "Woe to the shepherds who destroy and scatter the sheep of My pasture!" Because they "scattered My flock," the LORD would gather the remnant Himself and "raise up for David a righteous Branch" (23:3, 5). When Jesus says, "All who came before Me were thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not listen to them" (John 10:8), He speaks within a shepherd discourse that takes up that indictment. The tie is clear in image, though not a quotation: the destroying shepherds return as the thief who comes "to steal and kill and destroy" (10:10), and the wolf that "scatters the flock" (10:12) uses skorpizō (G4650), cognate with the verb the Greek Old Testament uses for Jeremiah's scattering (diaskorpizō, G1287). Jeremiah promised that God would shepherd His flock Himself; Jesus says, "I am the good shepherd," and "I lay down My life for the sheep" (10:14-15). In Him the scattered find a Shepherd who gives life, "and have it in all its fullness" (10:10).