And God Said by Joel M. Hoffman

Author:Joel M. Hoffman
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780312565589
Publisher: St. Martin's Press

SHEPHERDS

Before we get started we need a bit of Hebrew grammar to help us understand the words here. The Hebrew word for “shepherd” is ro’eh. In Hebrew, the suffix -i means “my,” and when the suffix attaches to a word that ends in a vowel sound, that sound frequently drops out. So “my shepherd” in Hebrew is the one word ro’i. The vowel sound at the end of ro’eh (-eh) drops out when the suffix -i is added to the word. In Psalm 23 we find the word ro’i.

Shepherds in the Bible

Shepherds used to be commonplace. Every community had livestock that lived in herds—primarily sheep and goats—and therefore had someone in charge of the herds. That person was the ro’eh.

Our first warning sign that something has gone wrong in the translation is that a common, familiar word like ro’eh has been translated as a rare, unfamiliar one. While “ro’eh” was common in Hebrew, “shepherd” is uncommon in English. We know that this is always a mistake. We also know that sometimes this sort of mismatch results in only a slightly wrong translation, but sometimes it misses the mark completely. Here we have the latter.

To understand why the mistake is so serious, we have to look at how ro’eh is used elsewhere in the Bible.

Exodus 2:16– 20 is a good place to start. The priest of Midian had seven daughters who were tasked with drawing water and filling troughs so that their father’s flock could drink. But they had a problem in the form of shepherds who would come and drive them away from their work. Moses rescues the daughters from the shepherds, helps provide water for the flock, and saves the daughters so much time that they return early to their father, who wonders how it is possible for his daughters to come home so quickly. Their father is so impressed with the man who helped them that he has Moses brought before him and, as a token of appreciation, offers Moses his daughter Zipporah.

Using a daughter as a thank-you gift violates American social customs, but perhaps even more jarring is the image of the shepherds. They are fierce troublemakers. Moses demonstrates his courage by standing up not to a king, not to an armed warrior, but to a shepherd. The daughters even use the language: “[Moses] saved us from the shepherds.” Why would shepherds be so fearsome?

Next we look at Jeremiah 25:35, one of three verses in a row that have shepherds in them. In 25:35, one effect of God’s wrath is that “the shepherds shall have no way to flee.” (The Hebrew is considerably more poetic.) Conquering the shepherds is a sign of God’s power. This can only be because, as in Exodus 2, the shepherds themselves were mighty. The image in Jeremiah here is not one of God stepping on ants but rather of overpowering a mighty adversary. And this is confirmed in the second half of the verse—“. . . nor will the mightiest of the

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