[Moses] himself expounded [it], saying: “Lest the people of the Lord be as sheep without a shepherd.” For by these words three [things] are chiefly signified. First: that the people is like sheep, which cannot be without a shepherd without the greatest and most certain perils. For if they are thrown to the jaws of wolves, [the wolf] will be able to snatch [any] one it wishes; nor can they in any way protect themselves. It is added that they are exceedingly imprudent and stolid — so much so that those who have sometimes seemed rather stupid were called “a little sheep” (as [was] Fabius Maximus), or were signified by the emblem of a “sheepish [man]” (as [was] that Brutus [called] a ram by Tarquin); and [so] that by them foolishness is noted, [in] the proverbs “to live a sheep’s life” [προβατίου βίον ζῆν] and “a sheep’s character” [προβάτων ἦθος]. Whence also Aristophanes wittily said, in his Wasps,—
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—[of a man] “to sit in council with a sheepish breast”; but Diogenes called an unlearned man — though otherwise adorned with rich attire — “gold-fleeced” [χρυσόμαλλον]. When some one [sheep] of the flock begins to go before, thither generally all the rest follow — even if they rush into an otherwise dangerous place or river. Without a shepherd they cannot even find grass fit for pasture; they do not keep a gregarious fellowship among themselves, but if any terror befalls, or if the appetite of some grass spied here and there, or [some grass] held out by some thief, [or] the desire of salt draws them, they are scattered and dissipated far and wide. Nay, even without a shepherd they cannot put off that woolen [fleece] of theirs — which, with the hotter sun, is most troublesome to them — or, when by the gift of it they are wont to be of the greatest profit to men, [they cannot] give it to anyone. So any people whatsoever, if it have not a president by whom it is ruled, is exposed to the injuries of other peoples; and in this very [thing], those who are more powerful, stronger, and bolder seize and vex the others. And [in proportion] as each [man] more abandoned in wickedness and audacity exists, [he] who begins to incite the people this way or that, him all follow — and, a little after, [they follow] another. Seditions, tumults, discords, and intestine wars are stirred up. Whence it is necessary that that people slip away and be reduced to nothing. One [man] fear drags one way; another way, lust, ambition, [and] avarice drag others. If there be even anything of good in such a people, that [good] they neither communicate with others, nor keep, without trouble and tedium, [even] to themselves. “Troublesome,” Antisthenes was wont to say (in Philo, indicating [it] a little after), “a burden, [is] a good man.” How necessary, then, [is] a prince to them? — namely, that by the judgment of some wise [man] their imprudence, folly, levity, [and] impetuosity may be ruled, [that they may be] coerced by [his] authority, [and] defended and helped by [his] resources. Philo, in that book in which he shows “every good man to be free,” says: “Just as over goats, oxen, [and] sheep preside the goatherds, oxherds, and shepherds — but the flocks cannot preside over the shepherds — so also the common crowd, not unlike cattle, has need of a curator prince; which order is [that] of good men, set over their [own] flocks.” The same necessity of a prince the example of bees also teaches, [in] Seneca (bk. 1 On Clemency, ch. 19); and in these verses in the Antigone, Sophocles:
For there is no greater evil than anarchy [Ἀναρχίας γὰρ μεῖζον οὐκ ἔστι κακόν]; this [it is that] destroys cities, and lays homes waste [Αὕτη πόλεις τ’ ὄλλυσιν, ἥδ’ ἀναστάτους …[and] makes households [desolate] [οἴκους τίθησιν].
The second, of the three [things] proposed before, is that this people is the Lord’s own — that is, His sheep and His flock; as also the prophet David says (Ps. 94 [95]): “He is the Lord our God: but we [are] His people, and the sheep of His pasture.” Now indeed it concerns not only the sheep, but also their Lord, that a shepherd be not lacking to them. For what fruit will He take from the sheep, unless there be present a shepherd who leads them, pastures [them], and guards [them]? What milk, what fleeces, what flesh will He expect from them, if they are left [as] prey to wolves, thieves, and cattle-rustlers? if they be shorn by no one, if the mange of them be cured by no one, if at last they are consumed by famine? So indeed, how shall there flourish, in God’s people, God’s worship and religion; how shall justice stand, and the sanctity of the laws; how shall there cling the memory of so many portents brought forth in Egypt, and of so many benefits received hitherto, and [how shall there stand] the most just praise [of God], if there be no prince over that people? This, namely, those sad voices, so often repeated in the book of Judges, indicate: “In those days there was no king in Israel, but every one did that which seemed right to himself.” The third [thing], which Moses indicates, is that he asks that not just anyone be set over the people after him, but such a one as may truly be a shepherd.
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…[a true shepherd he may] be. For among princes there are sometimes some [who are] inert, mercenaries, despisers of the sheep, devourers, and Tyrants. But Moses demands a shepherd — [one] who both, with great solicitude, may lead the sheep of the Lord to the most healthful pastures of sacred doctrine and of an upright life, may go before them by example and authority, may defend them from the ferocity of wolves and other wild beasts, may fortify them with dogs most sagacious and most vigilant, may protect [them] from thieves and robbers, may segregate the scabby ones lest they rub their scab upon the rest by a certain contagion, may care for the weak, may lead [them] into the sheepfolds and pens at the fit time, [and] may greatly love and cherish all and each. For, on account of these causes, even the Gentile Poet of the Greeks [Homer] is wont to call the King ποιμένα λαῶν [“shepherd of peoples”]. And in the book cited before, On the Freedom of the Good Man, Philo says: “The Homeric name of ‘shepherd’ nature has not willed [to belong] more [to any] than to good men. For Kings — namely those who perform less the most excellent parts of their dignity — are pastured more than they pasture, given over to loves, to drinkings and feasts (that I may say nothing of gold and silver, and other more precious things, which they crave).” And to such [princes] — whether they be Ecclesiastical or political — pertains that most grave complaint and threat of the Lord in Ezekiel (ch. 34). For at the very beginning, “and it was made,” says the prophet, “the word of the Lord: Thus says the Lord God: Behold, I myself [come] upon the shepherds; I will require my flock at their hand, and I will make them cease, so that they feed not the flock any more, neither shall the shepherds feed themselves any more; and I will deliver my flock from their mouth, and it shall no more be food for them.” But perhaps Moses used this similitude also because — that which among the Egyptians (from whose servitude they were now being freed) was for a contempt and reproach — he was teaching [was] to be held in the highest place. For those [Egyptians] despised shepherds, as is said in Genesis 46, v. 34 — so much so that (as, in Josephus, bk. 1 Against Apion, the Egyptians’ own writer and priest Manetho reports), for the sake of insult, by an Egyptian name they called the Jews themselves, or their princes, ὕκσως [Hyksos]. For that [word], with Josephus as interpreter, means either “captive shepherds,” or at any rate “kings of shepherds.” Moreover, of the same similitude — which is most easy and most useful — there is frequent use in other places of Scripture: 3 Kings, last, v. 17; 2 Paralipomenon 18, v. 16; Judith 11, v. 15; Ezekiel 33, vv. 5 & 8; Matt. 9:36; Mark 6:34.