THE REJECTION OF THE GOOD SHEPHERD (DURING THE ROMAN AUTHORITY) The prophet moves on from the era of the Maccabees with their conquests by a divine arm, to the Roman era, in which the Messiah appears, the Grantor of conquest; who is rejected by, by the Jews, who accused Him as a national traitor against Caesar; persistently proclaiming that they have no king but Caesar. The horror of their stand appear more clearly in the action of Judas who delivered his Lord fot thirty pieces of silver; a bitter portrait of rejection of the Good Shepherd, and receiving the ‘antichrist, as their shepherd. 1‐ A lamentation on the rejecters 1 ‐ 3 2‐ Self‐destruction 4 ‐ 6 3‐ Denying themselves the grace 7 ‐ 11 4‐ Betraying the Messiah 12 ‐ 14 5‐ Receiving the antichrist 15 – 17 1‐ A LAMENTATION ON THE REJECTERS: Rejecting the Lord Christ turned Israel into a whole desolation; hence the prophet laments it saying: “Open your doors, O Lebanon, that fire may devour your cedars. Wail, O Cypress, for the cedar has fallen. Because the mighty trees are ruined. Wail, O oak of Bashan, for the thick forest has come down. There is the sound of wailing shepherds, for their glory is in ruins. There is the sound of roaring lions, for the pride of the Jordan is in ruins” (1 – 3).. In this lamentation it is noticed: (1) Desolation is so extensive to cover Lebanon, Bashan, and Jordan. Rejecting the Lord Christ made them fall under an extensive collective strike; when they cried out, saying: “His blood on us and on our children”. Its extension is not confined to the location but even spread to the different kinds of trees, from cedars burning with fire, to cypress and oak trees of Bashan wailing; as well as the thick trees of the forest, etc. (2) He calls on nature to wail on man who denied his Creator and rejected His salvation work; and even betrayed Him for thirty pieces of silver. (3) What he mentioned here has been literally realized; for it was the custom of the enemies when they take over a fertile land, to cut off its trees to use their wood, or burn them with fire as an action of desolation. (4) Symbolically, to what does Lebanon refer in saying: “Open your doors, O Lebanon that fire may devour your cedars”. The enemies have entered into Lebanon through its doors, namely through the entrances of the mountains that lead to the city, to destroy its cedars she cherishes. In the last chapter we spiritually saw how Lebanon refers to the migration to the holy church to carry in us the sweet fragrance of Christ; to be said: “The fragrance of your garment is like the fragrance of Lebanon” (Songs 4: 11). While Lebanon also refers to the fertile church that bears the features, fragrance of the Lord, and the fruition of His Holy Spirit. It also refers, according to St. Dedymus the blind, to paganism (apostasy from faith), and to haughtiness; (5) Saying: [When the Groom in the Song of songs calls on the church of those who conquered, He says to her: “Come with Me from Lebanon My spouse” (Song 4: 8) …. To come to Him who calls her from ignorance and lack of faith to the holy knowledge and the perfect faith]. (6) What dwell upon the cedars, the cypress, the oak trees, and the dense trees of the forest, refer to the congregation of the Jews who rejected the Savior Messiah; and to the sins that lie in the soul, and cause man to be denied salvation. St. Dedymus the blind: sees in the haughty cedars to the haughty, and to the demon of pride, saying: [In Isaiah it came against those fruitless trees: “For the day of the Lord shall come upon everything proud and lofty; upon everything lifted up – and it shall be brought low” (Isaiah 2: 12); then goes on to say: “Upon the cedars of Lebanon that are high and lifted up, and upon all the oaks of Bashan” (Isaiah 2: 13). Those wild trees that refer to pride …..will be consumed by fire together with the corrupt; “Lebanon will fall by the Mighty One” (Isaiah 10: 34).. Also according to St. Dedymus the blind: [If the cedars refer to the pride of the great, the cypress, little trees, refer to those who submit to them. If the cedars refer to the wise and the knowledgeable in their own eyes, the cypress refer to those who follow their lead. Hence, when fire consumes the cedars, the cypress wail on account of the fall of the mighty before their eyes. As to the oaks of Bashan, they refer to the forests with trees laden with leaves but no fruit; representing the hypocrites who have the appearance of religion, but deny its power. The same apply to the dense trees of the forests. (7) The prophets then moves to talk about the shepherds who forsook their shepherding work, and started to wail, for the lions roar to devour, and no one is there to rescue; and now the proud Jordan because of its dense forests and its trees among which the beasts hide, was in ruins. These are the broad lines of the lamentation set by the prophet about every soul that denies the work of salvation in her; it would open up her doors before the enemy, and loses all her trees; On her nature would wail, and the spiritual destruction would eternally dwells. 2‐ SELF‐DESTRUCTION: “Thus says the Lord my God: ‘Feed the flock for slaughter, whose owners slaughter them and feel no guilt; those who sell them say: ‘Blessed be the Lord, for I am rich, and their shepherds do not pity them’” (4, 5) Having rejected the Messiah, the slain lamb, they brought themselves forth to perdition and destruction. By rejecting salvation for no price, they will be slaughtered by their possessors, who feel no guilt, for they are worthy of being slaughtered. Selling them their possessors come to be happy for they represented a burden on them, and say: ‘Blessed be the Lord, for I became rich. By that he probably portrays the condition of the Jews, who, after rejecting the Savior, they were scattered in several countries, where they were bitterly persecuted; and every country wished to get rid of them as a heavy burden on them. It is amazing how God allows for the wicked to have cruel shepherds to chastise them, saying: Their shepherds have no pity on them”. Shepherds are from God. In casr He is pleased with His people, He says: I shall give you shepherds according to My heart to shepherd you with knowledge and understanding (Jeremiah 3: 15), in the pastures of divine wisdom (Ephesians 4: 11; 1 Corinthians 12: 28). But in case is displeased with His people, He leaves them to themselves to feed in the “pastures of the wisdom of this age” (1 Corinthians 2: 6); and delivers them to a pasture of an debased mind (Romans 1: 28), and of “reviled passion”(Romans 1: 26) The good shepherds set forth with their herds into the bosom of God to feel secure; whereas the wicked, push them on out of God to perish; hence the Psalmist says: “Those who are far from You shall perish; You have destroyed all those who desert you for harlotry; but it is good for me to draw near to God, that I may declare all Your works” (Psalm 73: 27, 28). When they rejected the Good Shepherd, the Savior Messiah, they were denied the good shepherds; and the Lord delivered them to shepherds who have no pity on them………… for, “I will no longer pity the inhabitants of the land, says the Lord, but indeed I will give everyone into his neighbor’s hand, and into the hand of his king. They shall attack the land, and I will not deliver them from their hands” (6). He called them “the inhabitants of the land”, for they have rejected the heavenly Messiah who came to lift them from earth up to heaven. They remained on earth, and were counted as “the inhabitants of the land”, and they even bore the nature of the earth, that bore no heavenly love, nor a wide heart; but everyone delivers his neighbor to affliction and oppression to perish. 3‐ DENYING THEM THE GRACE: It was the custom in the old for the shepherd to hold two staffs, by one he chases away any wild beast that attacks the herd; and by the other he leads the herd so as not deviate from the right path. But the Lord appears holding two staffs, the one called “beauty” (or grace) and the other called “bonds” (or unity). By His grace He leads us in His heavenly green pastures, to make us in need of nothing; and by “unity” He binds us all together in Him by the spirit of divine love According to St. Dedymus the blind: [By these two staffs God leads both the Jews and the Gentiles, as His rational sheep. The two staffs may refer, as well, to His work as Savior and King. Anyway, by the Jews’ rejection of the Messiah King, the Lord broke the staff of grace and they were denied of the divine help, lost the blessings; and because they broke His covenant, they lost His compassionate care. “I will not feed you, let what is dying die, and what is perishing perish; let those that are left eat each other’s flesh” (9). Not out of disregard of the sheep, but for the sake of His regard for human freedom, He left them to themselves. He says: “I dismissed the three shepherds in one month. My soul loathed them, and their souls also abhorred Me” (8).Who are those three shepherds whom the Lord dismissed, and whom the Jews have lost? According to St. Jerome they are Moses, Aaron, and Miriam, who died before the Jews entered into the promised land. By rejecting the Lord Christ, He most probably means, that the Jews lost His triple care: as A Priest, as a King, and as the Grantor of prophecy; namely they were denied His atonement intercession (His priesthood), His Kinghood as a Conqueror Leader who leads them to victory; and as the Grantor of prophecy who reveals to them the secrets of the life to come. In the old, the king was other than the priest, other than the seer or the prophet; but in Christ, these three gathered together on an exalted and unique level. 4‐ BETRAYING THE MESSIAH: God did not intend to present such a dark portrait of what will come upon the circumcised people because of their rejection of the Messiah, without revealing that the betrayal of Judas against his Lord for thirty pieces of silver represents a betrayal by the people as a whole; having set on Him the price of a mortal slave. “Then I said to them, if it is agreeable to you, give me my wages, and if not refrain; so they weighed out for my wages thirty pieces of silver. And the Lord said to me ‘throw it to the potter’ – that princely price they set on me. So I took the thirty pieces of silver and threw them into the house of the Lord for the potter” (12, 13). (1) What is the silver set as a price for betraying the Lord? According to St. Dedymus the blind: [Let us take the wages and the silver from the spiritual aspect. Silver most probably refer to the divine knowledge and Word, like saying: “The words of the Lord are pure words, like silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times” (Psalm 12: 6); and as it came in the book of proverbs: “The tongue of the righteous is choice silver” (Proverb 10: 20) (here the word tongue means words). Yet, the word ‘silver’ should not be always taken in good sense; for, about the prodigal Jewish priests, the Lord says: “Your silver has become dross” (Isaiah 1: 22). Here He does not accuse the silver in itself, but their deceptive words. About those who utter such words, the Lord says: “People will call them ‘rejected silver’, because the Lord has rejected them” (Jeremiah 6: 30). In the same way we may understand what is said in the proverbs that the silver given for deception should be considered “like earthenware covered with silver dross” (proverb 26: 23). Having rejected the deceivers and the breakers of the commandments. In the same way we may understand what is said in the proverbs that silver given for deception should be considered like earthenware covered with silver dross (Proverbs 26: 23); the words of those who care only for the earthlies, about whom Isaiah said: “Their voice come from the earth” (Isaiah 8: 19). There are, therefore, several kinds of silver: As the people of circumcision set the wages of Him who suffered for their sake as thirty pieces of silver (Matthew 20: 18; Mark 10: 5; John 10: 15) …….. they paid deceptive silver ……and uttered deceptive words. In Christianity, as well, there are those whose doctrines are wrong, “those who walk in craftiness, and handle the word of God deceitfully” (2 Corinthians 4: 2); who understand the word of God according to their own discretion; of whom we should beware, and count their silver as deceptive. It is as though, presenting deceptive words, the Jews and the heretics, sell the Lord for deceptive silver. (2) Counting Him as a slave, they set His price as thirty pieces of silver (Exodus 21: 32). The figure 30 probably refers to the defilement of the five senses; namely, the price of the betrayal of the Lord Christ is the defilement of our senses to the account of His enemy – the devil, instead of sanctifying them for Him. (3) What does he mean by throwing the silver into the house of the Lord for the potter (13)? According to St. Dedymus the blind, the deceptive silver paid as a price for betraying the Lord Christ, are thrown into the house of the Holy Book, namely, the house of the potter, where there is the testing fire that would expose their deception, and reveal their contradiction with the prophecies concerning the Lord. (4) The potter, dealing with dust and mire, together with fire, throwing the silver into the house of the potter proclaims the nature of their earthly heart of dust, not fit to be put in palaces or treasure houses, but in dust. (5) By that price they bought “a potter’s field”, called the (field of blood), to bury strangers in (Matthew 27: 7), as a reference to the acceptance of the Gentiles, to be buried together with the Lord Christ, with the price of His blood, to rise together with Him. According to St. Jerome: [The price of Christ is the location of our burial. The field was called “the field of blood”, the field of the blood of the Jews, but the location of our burial; on account of that we are strangers and foreigners, and have no place of rest. He was crucified and died; and we were buried together with Him]. (6) He ends his talk about the rejection and betrayal of Christ by saying: “Then I cut in two my other staff (Bonds), that I might break the brotherhood between Judah and Israel” (14). According to St. Dedymus the blind: [The two staffs will bond together as one staff, as it came in Ezekiel 37; when the Jews, at the end of time, return and accept the Lord Christ, to come to be, together with Judah (the church of the New Covenant), one, by their entrance into faith]. 5‐ ACCEPTANCE OF THE ANTICHRIST: Having rejected the Lord Christ the Good Shepherd, they were denied the divine grace, and the unity (the bond) together in the Lord, by breaking up the two staffs, and accepted the vain care of the antichrist; saying: “And the Lord said to me: ‘Next, take for yourself the implements of a foolish shepherd. For indeed I will raise up a shepherd in the land who will not care for those who are cut off, nor seek the young, nor heal those that are broken, nor feed those that still stand. But he will eat the flesh of the fat, and tear their hooves in pieces” (15). Commenting on this text, St. Dedymus the blind says: [forsaking them in their shame, God raised up for them a foolish shepherd who lacks any experience of shepherding, who leads those who chose him a shepherd to perdition; who will not care for those who are cut off to bring back the ones who have gone astray for vanity’ nor seek the young, nor heals those that are broken, nor feed those who still stand. Running after his own benefit, he eats the flesh of the fat, and tears the hooves of those under his care in pieces. He is not like the shepherds given by the Lord, saying: “I will give you shepherds according to My heart, who will feed you with knowledge and understanding” (Jeremiah 3: 15). For, would it be possible for them not to be good shepherds whose head is He who lays His life for the sheep (John 10: 15)?....... It is said: “When the chief shepherd appears, you will receive the crown of glory that does not fade away” (1 Peter 5: 4). The shepherds who eat the flesh of those of their portion, seek their own pleasure, assuming that they find glory in their shameful deeds; “whose god is their belly” (Philippians 3: 19), to be their servants instead of being the servants of Jesus Christ. On those, the apostle writes: “Those who are as such do not do not serve our Lord Jesus Christ, but their own belly” (Romans 16: 18). What does he mean by “tearing the hooves in pieces?”. While “the good shepherds keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace” (Ephesians 4: 3), the bad shepherds tear the hooves of their flock, namely, tear the unity off. As a fruition of the evil of the people; God will give them up to a foolish shepherd who scatters them and himself; saying: “Woe to the worthless shepherd who leaves the flock; a sword shall be against his arm, and against his right eye. His arm shall completely wither, and his right eye shall be totally blinded” (17). About this sword that destroys the arm and right eye of the worthless shepherd, St. Dedymus the blind says: The Word of God particularly threatened the worthless shepherds………. For God says in Isaiah: “If you are willing and obedient, you shall eat the good of the land, but if you refuse and rebel, you shall be devoured by the sword” (Isaiah 1: 19, 20); And in Jeremiah He says about the avenging sword: “I will stretch My hand against the inhabitants of the land, says thye Lord” (Jeremiah 6: 12) to perish …… The avenging sword against the arm and the right eye of the worthless shepherd will touch the two senses of work and meditation; His arm will wither like a dead member, and his right eye will be blinded]. In this, St. Dedymus the blind sees a prophecy about the antichrist who will have a strong arm through the signs and wonders he will do (2 Thyessalonians 2: 9); whereas his right eye refers to his deceptive views, claiming to have the perfect knowledge, even though he is a liar (1 Timothy 6: 20). ‘Elymas’ the sorcerer, who was his symbol, perverting the straight ways of the Lord by his magic works and lies; his works were put to no avail, and was blinded not seeing the sun for a time (Acts 13: 10).
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