Since you push away with your side and shoulder, and gore all the weak 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;
- BSB Since you shove with flank and shoulder, butting all the weak ones with your horns until you 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,
- 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 13:14–16The ruler of the synagogue, being indignant because Jesus had healed on the Sabbath, said to the multitude, “There are six days in which men ought to work. Therefore come on those days and be healed, and not on the Sabbath day!”
- Deut 33:17The firstborn of his herd, majesty is his. His horns are the horns of the wild ox. With them he will push all the peoples, to the ends of the earth. They are the ten thousands of Ephraim. They are the thousands of Manasseh.”
- Zech 11:16–17For, behold, I will raise up a shepherd in the land, who will not visit those who are cut off, neither will seek those who are scattered, nor heal that which is broken, nor feed that which is sound; but he will eat the meat of the fat sheep, and will tear their hoofs in pieces.
- Ezek 34:3–5You eat the fat, and you clothe yourself with the wool, you kill the fatlings; but you don’t feed the sheep.
- Zech 11:5Their buyers slaughter them, and go unpunished. Those who sell them say, ‘Blessed be Yahweh, for I am rich;’ and their own shepherds don’t pity them.
- Dan 8:3–10Then I lifted up my eyes, and saw, and behold, there stood before the river a ram which had two horns: and the two horns were high; but one was higher than the other, and the higher came up last.
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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.