The Shepherds and the Branch

Every “pastor” in the KJV of Jeremiah is, in Hebrew, a shepherd.¹ Chapters 21–23 are “on pastors or rulers of the people, with promise of the king Messiah (23:1–6).”² The shepherds fail, the house of David is weighed, and the Lord promises to gather the flock and raise a Branch to David, whom the Church’s chapter headings name as the Messiah.³

Shepherds who scatter

The charge comes early. In Jer. 2:8 the pastors stand beside the priests, “they that handle the law,” and the prophets. In Jer. 10:21 they “have not sought the LORD: therefore they shall not prosper, and all their flocks shall be scattered.” Yet in Jer. 3:15 the Lord already promises “pastors according to mine heart, which shall feed you with knowledge and understanding.”

Sources differ a little on who these shepherds are: “pastors or rulers of the people,”² “pastors (religious leaders),”⁴ and, at 3:15, “faithful pastors (church leaders).”⁵ See Jeremiah 3 and Jeremiah 10.

The house of David weighed

To the king the Lord says, “Execute ye judgment and righteousness” (Jer. 22:3), for “David’s throne stands or falls according to the obedience of the kings.”³ Jehoiakim is set beside his father: “did not thy father eat and drink, and do judgment and justice, and then it was well with him?” (Jer. 22:15). His injustices are “particularly evident when compared to the righteous deeds of his father, Josiah.”⁶

Then the verdicts: Coniah’s seed will not prosper “sitting upon the throne of David” (Jer. 22:30), and of Jehoiakim, “He shall have none to sit upon the throne of David” (Jer. 36:30). The page for Jeremiah 22 takes up Coniah, the signet, and his place in Matthew’s genealogy.

The Lord gathers, and raises a Branch

“Woe be unto the pastors that destroy and scatter the sheep of my pasture!” (Jer. 23:1). Then the Lord says what He will do: “I will gather the remnant of my flock” (Jer. 23:3), “I will set up shepherds over them” (Jer. 23:4), and:

Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will raise unto David a righteous Branch, and a King shall reign and prosper, and shall execute judgment and justice in the earth. (Jer. 23:5)

This is “the Branch, who is the King (the Messiah).”³ “The Branch and the King are the Lord Jesus Christ when He returns to earth to reign.”⁴ The King’s work, to “execute judgment and justice,” is the Hebrew phrase commanded of the king in 22:3 and said of Josiah in 22:15; it is said of the Lord Himself in Jer. 9:24 and of the Branch again in 33:15.¹ For the Branch in Isaiah, see Isaiah 4 and Isaiah 11.

His name is “THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS” (Jer. 23:6). The name of Judah’s last king, Zedekiah, means “The Lord (is) righteousness.”⁷ On one reading the name-title echoes his, “the last regnant king of Judah who was dethroned and exiled to Babylon, but pointing forward to the future Davidic Messiah.”⁸ After the exile no descendant of David reigned, and so “this prophecy remained to be fulfilled by a future Davidic descendant.”⁸ See Jeremiah 23.

The promise repeated

“David their king, whom I will raise up unto them” (Jer. 30:9) is “David, their king (the Messiah).”³ “Jesus, who is the King David of the latter days, is a branch of the ancient line of King David.”⁴ Then: “He that scattered Israel will gather him, and keep him, as a shepherd doth his flock” (Jer. 31:10).

“Branch” (Hebrew ṣemaḥ) occurs in Jeremiah only at 23:5 and 33:15.¹ There the Lord says, “will I cause the Branch of righteousness to grow up unto David” (Jer. 33:15). In 33:16 the KJV gives the name to the city. Church manuals read this two ways, as the city “called after him”⁹ or as a rendering to be corrected so that the name stays with the Branch;⁴ Jeremiah 33 takes it up. The verse after says, “David shall never want a man to sit upon the throne of the house of Israel” (Jer. 33:17). Prophecies of the Branch and of David’s throne “have reference almost exclusively to his second sojourn on planet earth.”⁹

The Good Shepherd

Ezekiel has the promise too: “I will set up one shepherd over them, and he shall feed them, even my servant David” (Ezek. 34:23). The footnote at 34:24 points back to Jer. 23:5 and 30:9, and “the Messiah will be their Shepherd.”³ Nephi sees the gathering end the same way: “there shall be one fold and one shepherd; and he shall feed his sheep” (1 Ne. 22:25). And Jesus says, “I am the good shepherd: the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep” (John 10:11); “there shall be one fold, and one shepherd” (John 10:16).

Sources

1. Westminster Leningrad Codex, with morphology, Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible (OSHB), openscriptures/morphhb. ↩ ↩ ↩
2. “Jeremiah”, Bible Dictionary. ↩ ↩
3. The Holy Scriptures (Latter-day Saint editions), text and chapter headings, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. ↩ ↩ ↩ ↩ ↩
4. Chapter 25: Prophecies of a Latter-day Gathering (Jeremiah 23; 30–31; 33; 46–51; Obadiah), Old Testament Student Manual: 1 Kings–Malachi (2003). ↩ ↩ ↩ ↩
5. Chapter 23: As Ye Sow, So Shall Ye Reap (Jeremiah 1–19), Old Testament Student Manual: 1 Kings–Malachi (2003). ↩
6. Chapter 24: The Babylonian Captivity (Jeremiah 20–22; 24–29; 32; 34–45; 52; Lamentations), Old Testament Student Manual: 1 Kings–Malachi (2003). ↩
7. “Zedekiah”, Bible Dictionary. ↩
8. Matthew L. Bowen, “Ominous Onomastics: Symbolic Naming and Paronomasia in Old Testament Prophecy”, in Prophets and Prophecies of the Old Testament, ed. Aaron P. Schade, Brian M. Hauglid, and Kerry Muhlestein (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2017), 21–46. ↩ ↩
9. Chapter 13: The Establishment of Zion (Isaiah 1–12), Old Testament Student Manual: 1 Kings–Malachi (2003). ↩ ↩