The Shepherd and Flock

In our country we do not realize the intimacy of a shepherd with his flock as they do in Syria and in parts of Southern Europe. It was my daily delight every day for many weeks and a dozen times a day, to watch a shepherd who had this almost incredibly close communion with his flock. Many times have I accompanied him through the green pastures and by the stream. If my shepherd wished to lead his sheep from one pasture to another, he went before them, and he was usually singing.

He led them with a song or with a sweet, low, wooing whistle like the call of a bird, and the sheep raised their heads from the herbage, looked at their guardian and guide, and followed on. I have heard his song and his low birdcall by the watercourse, and have seen the sheep follow his course over the rocky boulders to the still waters, where they have been refreshed. At noon he would sit down in a place of shadows, and all his flock crowded around him for rest. At night, when the darkness was falling, he gathered them into the fold.

We must realize an intimacy like this if we wish to understand the shepherd imagery of the Old Book. The communion is so intimate that the shepherd knows if one of his sheep is missing.
~ John H. Jowett