John Chapter 10 verse 1 Holy Bible

Pulpit Commentary

Pulpit CommentaryVerses 1-21. - 5. Christ the Shepherd of the flock of God. The discourse which now follows was the Lord's parabolic or allegoric reply to the conduct of the Pharisaic malignants. These men, claiming to be infallible guides of the ignorant, to be veritable shepherds of the flock of God, had ignored the advent of the true and good Shepherd, had opposed the Divine call and supreme claim of the Messiah, had set themselves to disturb and dislocate the relations between him and those who saw his glory and found in him the Consolation of Israel. They had excommunicated the adoring disciple who had passed out of lifelong darkness into marvelous light. They had exaggerated the faint glimmer of light which had broken upon their own blindness into true vision. They had said, "We see," and thus shown themselves to be willfully in the wrong. Their sin abode upon them. The fold of God's sheep was something different from their own expectations and definitions. Their way into it proved that they did not know its true nature. To meet this crisis our Lord delivers a triad of related and parallel pictures, which differ from the ordinary parable (παραβολή). The parable is a picture which is complete in its elf, and invites the reader to discover some answering spiritual truth. It consists of a careful setting forth of some physical fact, some fragment of biography, some personal or domestic detail. It is true to life and experience, and embodies some ethical principle or religious emotion; and while it does not explicitly teach either, yet it suggests them to the inquiring mind. The parables of the synoptic Gospels are not exclusive or rigid in their form. The so-called parable of "the Pharisee and the publican" and that of "the good Samaritan" are at once transformable into patterns or principles of action. The element of its own interpretation is also conspicuous in that of "the rich man and Lazarus" and "the rich fool." With these latter specimens of our Lord's teaching may be compared the allegoric illustrations of the present discourse. These pictures are "transparencies" (Godet), through which the Savior's spiritual teaching pours its own illumination. They both alike differ from the "fable," a form of address in which personal characters and activities are attributed (as in the apologue of Jotham, etc.) to the irrational or even to the inanimate creation. The first of the similitudes before us has more of the character of the parable proper, because it does not at once carry its own interpretation with it. Vers. 1-6 represent in parabolic form the claims of those who aspired to provide a "door," i.e. a sure and safe entrance to the theocratic fold. In vers. 7-10 our Lord interprets and expands the first representation by giving special significance to the words he had already used, adding something to their meaning, and contrasting his own position with that of all others. From the eleventh to the eighteenth verse he once more reverts to the original picture, and claims to occupy a relation to the sheep of God's band of far more intimate and suggestive kind than what was connoted by the door into the fold. He is "the good Shepherd." In that capacity he adds other and marvelous features. The parabolic or allegorical language passes away into vivid description of the leading features of his work. The parable at last glows into burning metaphor. In the first paragraph our Lord gives a parabolic picture of flock and fold, door and porter, robber and shepherd. In the second paragraph he emphasizes the relation between the door and the fold, claiming to be "the Door." In the third he illustrates the function and the responsibility of the true "Shepherd," and the relation of the shepherd to the flock, and he claims to be the Shepherd of Israel. Verses 1-6. - (1) The parable of the fold and flock, the door and the porter, the robber and the shepherd. Verse 1. - Verily, verily, betokens the deep solemnity and importance of the matter in hand, but not a complete break in the circumstances - neither a new audience nor a new theme. The adoption by Jeremiah (Jeremiah 23:1-4), by Ezekiel (34.), and by Zechariah (Zechariah 11:4-17) of similar imagery to denote the contrast between the true and false shepherds, and the anticipation by the prophets of a time when the true and good Shepherd would fulfill all Jehovah's pleasure, throws vivid light on these words of our Lord. Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that entereth not by the door into the fold of the sheep, but climbeth up some other way, the same is a thief and a robber. Several commentators of eminence have maintained that by "the door," in this first verse, our Lord (as in ver. 7) meant at once to designate himself. This is not necessary. He rather summons the Pharisees to recognize the fact that there is a door, a way of sure and divinely appointed admission to the "fold of the sheep," through which the veritable Shepherd passes, bringing his flock with him by well-known voice and manner. Later on, our Lord claims to be the one Way' by which all under-shepherds can gain true access to the flock, and all the sheep of God's pasture can find protection and freedom; but here he suggests the principle of discrimination between a true shepherd and a thief or robber. The κλέπτης is one who is selfishly seeking his own ends, and would avoid detection; the λῃστής is one who would use violent means to secure his purpose (Judas was a "thief," Barabbas was a "robber"). The false shepherd disdains the door, and climbs up some other way along his own selfish lines of action (ἀλλαχόθεν is used in this place only, equivalent to "from some other quarter than the ordinary home of the shepherd"). His purpose is not to benefit the sheep, but to seize them, or slaughter them for his own purposes (Ezekiel 34:8). The Lord suggests that many have assumed to sustain the relation of shepherd to the flock and fold of God, with no inward call either of commission or profession. They have been eager to insist on their own rights, have mistaken their own narrow traditions for the commandments of God, have imposed upon starved and worried souls their own selfish interpretations of that commandment, and have shown that they had no legitimate access to the hearts of men.

Ellicott's Commentary

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers(1) Verily, verily, I say unto you.--This formula is not used at the beginning of a fresh discourse, but is, in every case, the solemn introduction of some development of our Lord's deeper teaching. (Comp. Note on John 1:51.) We are not, then, to regard this chapter as a new subject, but as part of the teaching commenced in John 9:35, and arising out of the sign of healing the blind man. This sign is present to their thoughts at the close of the discourse, in John 10:21.He that entereth not by the door into the sheepfold.--The special form which the discourse here takes has been thought, with a probability which does not fall far short of certainty, due to the actual presence of a sheepfold with the shepherds and their flocks. (See John 5:2.) We know that Bethesda was near the "sheepgate," and we have seen that it is not improbably to be identified with a covered portion of the Pool of Siloam. (See Note on John 5:2.) In any case, there must have been sheepfolds sufficiently near to make it possible that they had arrived at one, and the change in the central points of the allegory find their most natural explanation in thoughts of the shifting scene on which it is based. The description of such a scene, by Bochart, written more than two centuries ago, has been borne out by all modern travellers. We have to think of an open fold, surrounded by a wall or railing, into which, at eventide, the shepherds lead their flocks, committing them, during the night, to the care of an under-shepherd, who guards the door. In the morning they knock and the porter opens the door, which has been securely fastened during the night, and each shepherd calls his own sheep, who know his voice and follow him to the pasturage. (Comp. Thomson, The Land and the Book, vol. i., pp. 299-302.) . . .