Secondary Bible Themes 9 - Flock, Sheep, Shepherd

Here is a list of themes in the Bible. One of these is shepherds and their flocks of sheep. From the beginning, farmers kept animals, so this would be a well known analogy.


"Now Abel was a keeper of sheep..." -Genesis 4:2. Being a shepherd is one of the oldest professions in the world. Also sheep are one of the oldest sacrifices to God.  Able's sacrifice of one of those sheep was pleasing to God.

Sheep was one of the five animals that were part of the Old Covenant. The sheep was the Passover sacrifice whose blood saved the Hebrews.

Also forerunners, or types, of Christ were shepherds.  Moses was a shepherd after he left Egypt. David was a shepherd before becoming king.  That is why he wrote the 23rd Psalm about God being our Shepherd. 

Jesus conforms this in the New Testament,  that he is the Good Shepherd in the parable of the lost sheep. Matthew 25:31-46 says we are God's sheep.

During the Ascention, Jesus tells Peter to tend sheep, commissioning pastors as his undershepherds. In fact,  the word pastor means shepherd.

The Gospels describe Jesus's death on the cross (during passover) as him being our Passover lamb,  whose blood over us s us from death. Revelation is full of language calling Jesus the lamb who was slain.

Even though Jesus was our Shepherd,  he became a sheep to die as the sacrifice for us, so that we didn’t have to.

In fact,
Genesis 22: A lamb for one man
Exodus 12: A lamb for a family
Leviticus 16: A lamb for the nation
John 1: A lamb for the whole world
Revelation 5: A lamb ruling the world