here to do with the kings only, and not with the
people. To them it could not serve for an excuse that their wickedness
was naturally connected with that of the people. This _natural_
connection was not by any means a necessary one, as appears from the
example of a Josiah, in whose case it was broken through by divine
grace. Nor were they justified by the circumstance, that they were rods
of chastisement in the hand of God. To this the Prophet himself
alludes, by substituting, in ver. 3: "I have driven away," for "you
have driven away," in ver. 2. All which they had to do, was to attend
to their vocation and duty; the carrying out of God's counsels belonged
to Him alone. From what we have remarked, it plainly follows that we
would altogether misunderstand the expression "flock of my pasture," if
we were to infer from it a contrast of the _innocent_ people with the
guilty kings. _Calvin_ remarks: "In short, when God calls the Jews the
flock of His pasture, He has no respect to their condition, or to what
they have deserved, but rather commends His grace which He has bestowed
upon the seed of Abraham." The kings have nothing to do with the moral
condition of the people; they have to look only to God's covenant with
them, which is for them a source of obligations so much the greater and
more binding than the obligations of heathen kings, as Jehovah is more
glorious than Elohim. The moral condition of the people does, to a
certain degree, not even concern God; how bad soever it is, He looks to
His covenant; and when more deeply viewed, even the outward scattering
of the flock is a gathering.

Ver. 2. "_Therefore thus saith the Lord the God of Israel, against the
shepherds that feed my people: Ye have scattered my flock and driven
them away, and have not visited them; behold, I visit upon you the
wickedness of your doings, saith the Lord._"

In the designation of God as Jehovah the God of Israel, there is
already implied that which afterwards is expressly said. Because God is
Jehovah, the God of Israel, the crime of the kings is, at the same
time, a _sacrilegium_; they have desecrated God. It was just here that
it was necessary prominently to point out the fact, that the people
still continued to [Pg 407] be God's people. In another very important
aspect, they were indeed called _Lo-Ammi_ (Hos. i. 9); but that aspect
did not here come into consideration. _Calvin_: "They had estranged
themselves from God; and He too had, in