Ezekiel 34:18 — meaning, Hebrew and Greek word study, commentary
Ezekiel 34:18
Seemeth it a small thing unto you to have eaten up the good pasture, but ye must tread down with your feet the residue of your pastures? and to have drunk of the deep waters, but ye must foul the residue with your feet?
a little or few (often adverbial or compar.) · interrogative particle + noun, common masculine singular absolute
up
תִּרְע֔וּtir.'U
H7462
to tend a flock · verb, qal imperfect, 2nd person masculine plural
good
הַטּוֹב֙ha.tOv
H2896
good (as an adjective) in the widest sense · definite article + adjective, masculine singular absolute
pasture
הַמִּרְעֶ֤הha.mir.'Eh
H4829
pasture (the place or the act) · definite article + noun, common masculine singular absolute
down
תִּרְמְס֖וּtir.me.Su
H7429
to tread upon (as a potter · verb, qal imperfect, 2nd person masculine plural
feet
בְּרַגְלֵיכֶ֑םbe.rag.lei.Khem
H7272
a foot (as used in walking) · preposition + noun, common feminine dual construct + pronominal suffix, 2nd person masculine plural
residue
וְיֶ֙תֶר֙ve.Ye.ter
H3499
properly · conjunction + noun, common masculine singular construct
pastures
מִרְעֵיכֶ֔םmir.'ei.Khem
H4829
pasture (the place or the act) · noun, common masculine plural construct + pronominal suffix, 2nd person masculine plural
drunk
תִּשְׁתּ֔וּtish.Tu
H8354
to imbibe (literally or figuratively) · verb, qal imperfect, 2nd person masculine plural
deep
וּמִשְׁקַעu.mish.ka'-
H4950
a settling place (of water) · conjunction + noun, common masculine singular construct
waters
מַ֣יִםMa.yim
H4325
water · noun, common masculine plural absolute
foul
תִּרְפֹּשֽׂוּןtir.po.Sun
H7515
to trample · verb, qal imperfect, 2nd person masculine plural + paragogic nun
residue
הַנּ֣וֹתָרִ֔יםha.No.ta.Rim
H3498
to jut over or exceed · definite article + verb, niphal active participle, masculine plural absolute
feet
בְּרַגְלֵיכֶ֖םbe.rag.lei.Khem
H7272
a foot (as used in walking) · preposition + noun, common feminine dual construct + pronominal suffix, 2nd person masculine plural
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
Matthew 23:13 But woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye shut up the kingdom of heaven against men: for ye neither go in yourselves, neit…
Luke 11:52 Woe unto you, lawyers! for ye have taken away the key of knowledge: ye entered not in yourselves, and them that were entering in ye hindered…
Numbers 16:9 Seemeth it but a small thing unto you, that the God of Israel hath separated you from the congregation of Israel, to bring you near to himse…
Numbers 16:13 Is it a small thing that thou hast brought us up out of a land that floweth with milk and honey, to kill us in the wilderness, except thou m…
2 Samuel 7:19 And this was yet a small thing in thy sight, O Lord GOD; but thou hast spoken also of thy servant’s house for a great while to come. And is…
Isaiah 7:13 And he said, Hear ye now, O house of David; Is it a small thing for you to weary men, but will ye weary my God also?
Ezekiel 34:2-3 Son of man, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel, prophesy, and say unto them, Thus saith the Lord GOD unto the shepherds; Woe be to the…
Ezekiel 16:20 Moreover thou hast taken thy sons and thy daughters, whom thou hast borne unto me, and these hast thou sacrificed unto them to be devoured.…
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Ezekiel 34:17–end
The prophet has no more to say to the shepherds, but he has now a message to deliver to the flock. God had ordered him to speak tenderly to them, and to assure them of the mercy he had in store for them. But here he is ordered to make a difference between some and others of them, to separate between the precious and the vile and then to give them a promise of the Messiah, by whom this distinction should be effectually made, partly at his first coming (for for judgment he came into this world, Joh 9:39, to fill the hungry with good things and to send the rich empty away, Luk 1:53), but completely at his second coming, when he shall, as it is here said, judge between cattle and cattle, as a sh…
Not content with appropriating to their own use the goods of others, they from mere wantonness spoiled what they did not use, so as to be of no use to the owners.
deep waters--that is, "limpid," as deep waters are generally clear. GROTIUS explains the image as referring to the usuries with which the rich ground the poor (Eze 22:12; Isa 24:2).
Adam Clarke on Ezekiel 34:18
Have eaten up the good pasture - Arrogate to yourselves all the promises of God, and will hardly permit the simple believer to claim or possess any token of God's favor.
Ye must foul the residue with your feet? - Ye abuse God's mercies; you consume much upon yourselves, and ye spoil more, on which the poor would have been glad to feed. There are some who would rather give food to their sporting dogs than to the poor around them, who are ready to starve, and who would be glad of the crumbs that fall from the table of those masters!
John Gill on Ezekiel 34:18
Seemeth it a small thing unto you to have eaten up the good pasture,.... This is directed to the rams and he goats, to the people of power and wealth, or who had the key of knowledge and instruction; who, by their conduct, showed as if it was not enough for them to eat and drink the best of things themselves, to enjoy their wealth and riches, and keep their posts of honour and profit, and the revenues of them, in church and state:
but ye must tread down with your feet the residue of your pastures? and to have drunk of the deep waters, but ye must foul the residue with your feet? but they must oppress the poor, by taking away from them that little they have; or by making their lives uncomfor…
The Church Fathers
God's pastures are good, and God's springs are pure. We have them in the holy Scriptures.
For indeed the shepherds drink most pure water, when with a right understanding they imbibe the streams of truth. But to foul the same water with their feet is to corrupt the studies of holy meditation by evil living. And verily the sheep drink the water fouled by their feet, when any of those subject to them follow not the words which they hear, but only imitate the bad examples which they see. Thirsting for the things said, but perverted by the works observed, they take in mud with their draughts, as from polluted fountains.
But these things he spoke against the shepherds: now he speaks to the sheep, that is, to the people: and to the flock of both kinds of livestock, that is, the sheep and the goats: and not only to the sheep and goats, but also to the rams and the bucks, who are the leaders in the flocks, to whom he says: Was it not enough for you to feed on the good pastures of the Scriptures? But in addition, you were trampling on the remnants of your pastures with your feet. And while you were drinking the purest waters of God's teachings, you were disturbing the remaining waters with your feet, so that my people would eat and drink trampled pastures and tainted waters because of your fault, which in itself was good but became corrupted and violated. Indeed, this is what all heretics do, they pick apart the words of the Scriptures and, to the best of their ability, stain them. But even the ecclesiastical men who do not preserve the truth of the doctrines, but instead fabricate them from their own hearts, and hold their presumption as a teacher, are held captive by a similar error.
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
Dictionary and topics
Selfishness · General scriptures concerning — General scriptures concerning
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
Jehovah Himself will seek His flock, gather it together from the dispersion, lead it to good pasture, and sift it by the destruction of the bad sheep. - Eze 34:11. For thus saith the Lord Jehovah, Behold, I myself, I will inquire after my flock, and take charge thereof. Eze 34:12. As a shepherd taketh charge of his flock in the day when he is in the midst of his scattered sheep, so will I take charge of my flock, and deliver them out of all the places whither they have been scattered in the day of cloud and cloudy night. Eze 34:13. And I will bring them out from the nations, and gather them together out of the lands, and bring them into their land, and feed them upon the mountains of Israel,…
The goats were the powerful, unrighteous members of the community.
Rashi on Ezekiel 34:18
Is it little for you that the strongest among you graze on the good pasture? If only you would not [also] tread the residues with your feet, and would let the rest of My flock eat them! But even the residue of your pasture you tread with your feet! And is it not enough for you that you drink the clear water, that you must tread the remainder with your feet?
the clear water [Heb. וּמִשְּׁקַע מַיִם,] lit. sunken water, the clear water, whose mud sank. It was not made murky with [the movement of] the feet. The symbolic meaning is as stated by the Targum: Is it little for you that [you] feed yourself the best food, and your attendants must eat the residue of your food? And [that] you drink the…
