Since you shove with flank and shoulder, butting all the weak ones with your horns until you have scattered them abroad,
Parallel translations
- WEB Because you thrust with side and with shoulder, and push all the diseased with your horns, until you have scattered them abroad;
- KJV Because ye have thrust with side and with shoulder, and pushed all the diseased with your horns, till ye have scattered them abroad;
- NKJV Because you have pushed with side and shoulder, butted all the weak ones with your horns, and scattered them abroad,
- NASB Since you push away with your side and shoulder, and gore all the weak with your horns until you have scattered them abroad,
- NLT For you fat sheep pushed and butted and crowded my sick and hungry flock until you scattered them to distant lands.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
The strong sheep shoved, pushed, and gored the weak until they were scattered. God sees the bullying that drives others away.
Overview
The imagery of thrusting 'with side and with shoulder' and butting 'with your horns' depicts aggressive, domineering behavior within the community. Such conduct scatters the vulnerable—the very harm God set out to undo. The verse exposes how the strong can replicate the sins of the false shepherds, and it grounds the rescue promised in v.22.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 6
- Luke 13:14–16But the synagogue leader was indignant that Jesus had healed on the Sabbath. “There are six days for work,” he told the crowd. “So come and be healed on those days and not on the Sabbath.”
- Deut 33:17His majesty is like a firstborn bull, and his horns are like those of a wild ox. With them he will gore the nations, even to the ends of the earth. Such are the myriads of Ephraim, and such are the thousands of Manasseh.”
- Zech 11:16–17For behold, I will raise up a shepherd in the land who will neither care for the lost, nor seek the young, nor heal the broken, nor sustain the healthy, but he will devour the flesh of the choice sheep and tear off their hooves.
- Ezek 34:3–5You eat the fat, wear the wool, and butcher the fattened sheep, but you do not feed the flock.
- Zech 11:5whose buyers slaughter them without remorse. Those who sell them say, ‘Blessed be the LORD, for I am rich!’ Even their own shepherds have no compassion on them.
- Dan 8:3–10Then I lifted up my eyes and saw a ram with two horns standing beside the canal. The horns were long, but one was longer than the other, and the longer one grew up later.
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Christ at the center
The promise of one Shepherd-King David, a new heart and new Spirit, and the river of life flowing from the temple all stream toward Christ, the good Shepherd who gives the Spirit.
How Ezekiel 34:21 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Hebrew word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.