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Augustine of Hippo

Nicene & Post-Nicene · AD 325–500 · 7,530 passages across 62 books

Commentary

1,101–1,120 of 7,530
Ezekiel 34:17 · 2 passages

And as for you, O my flock, thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I judge between cattle and cattle, between the rams and the he goats.

What are he-goats doing here in God’s flock? In the same pastures, at the same springs, he-goats, though destined for the left hand, are mixing with those of the right hand, and those who are going to be separated are first tolerated. And this is to exercise the sheep in a patience after the likeness of God’s own patience.
If you really think, brothers, what a very great blessing it is to be God’s flock, you must be filled even in the midst of these tears and troubles of ours with very great joy.
Ezekiel 34:18

Seemeth it a small thing unto you to have eaten up the good pasture, but ye must tread down with your feet the residue of your pastures? and to have drunk of the deep waters, but ye must foul the residue with your feet?

God’s pastures are good, and God’s springs are pure. We have them in the holy Scriptures.
Ezekiel 34:20

Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD unto them; Behold, I, even I, will judge between the fat cattle and between the lean cattle.

He makes no further mention of the he-goats. He mentioned them once, so that we would know they exist. He knows them well. After that he speaks as if all are sheep.
Ezekiel 34:21

Because ye have thrust with side and with shoulder, and pushed all the diseased with your horns, till ye have scattered them abroad;

If we lament the many sheep that are straying outside, woe to those whose shoulders and sides and horns have brought it about. It is only strong sheep who would do this. Who are the strong? Those who rely on their own righteousness. None but those who called themselves just divided the sheep and drove them outside. Shoulders bold at shoving, because they do not bear God's burden; evil sides, conspiracies of friends, companions in obstinacy; horns lifted up, high and mighty pride. Shove with sides and shoulders, flail with your horns, drive outside what you have not bought. Certainly this is your whole case, that you are just and others are unjust, and it was unfitting that the just should remain with the unjust, unfitting, that is to say, that the corn should remain among the weeds, unfitting that the sheep should feed among the goats until the shepherd should come who would make no mistake in separating them.
Ezekiel 34:22

Therefore will I save my flock, and they shall no more be a prey; and I will judge between cattle and cattle.

Just as we must abominate their injustice and cruelty, so we must praise the mercy of our Shepherd, who is truly our God; he will save his sheep. Perhaps, my brothers, he is doing this when we say this, doing it through the least of his servants, doing it perhaps through unworthy servants. Let him save his sheep; let them hear the voice of their Shepherd and follow him. Do not let them look for a proof of the church from the mouth of people. Let them look for it from the mouth of God, look for it from the mouth of Christ. Whoever he calls ungodly is ungodly, whoever he calls just is just, whoever he calls a sheep is a sheep, whoever he calls a goat is a goat. He himself is truth, let him speak, let the church be sought from him. Tell us, Lord, where is your church?
Ezekiel 34:23

And I will set up one shepherd over them, and he shall feed them, even my servant David; he shall feed them, and he shall be their shepherd.

You will readily understand, brothers, that it is a prophecy of Christ coming to people from the seed of David, if you realize the dates. This prophet Ezekiel lived in the time of the captivity, which resulted from the exile of the people to Babylonia. From the time of David to the time of the exile there are fourteen generations.
Ezekiel 34:24

And I the LORD will be their God, and my servant David a prince among them; I the LORD have spoken it.

Pay close attention, brothers. Note the unity of the godhead, and yet the distribution of persons, in case we should say that he who is the Father is the Son, or that he who is the Son is the Father.
Ezekiel 34:25

And I will make with them a covenant of peace, and will cause the evil beasts to cease out of the land: and they shall dwell safely in the wilderness, and sleep in the woods.

What is “in the desert”? In solitude. What is in solitude? Inside, in the conscience. It is a solitude indeed, because not only do no other human beings cross it, they do not even see it. Let us dwell there in hope, because we are not yet there in fact. After all, everything we have outside chops and changes with the storms and trials of the world. The desert is inside; that is where we should interrogate our faith.
Ezekiel 34:26

And I will make them and the places round about my hill a blessing; and I will cause the shower to come down in his season; there shall be showers of blessing.

There is also, of course, the bad sort of thunder shower, that knocks down the house built on sand, that it is a great thing even for the house founded on the rock to stand up against. That is the thunder shower of temptation, bent on devastation, not on irrigation, of the earth.
Ezekiel 34:27

And the tree of the field shall yield her fruit, and the earth shall yield her increase, and they shall be safe in their land, and shall know that I am the LORD, when I have broken the bands of their yoke, and delivered them out of the hand of those that served themselves of them.

[The fruitful trees are] in the plain, on level ground, not in rugged places, in a relatively easy life. Having things fairly easy in this life, with nothing steep or rugged, toilsome, difficult to cope with, this he calls the plain. Such is the life of many of the faithful in the church of God, who have their wives and husbands, children, families. They are like trees in the plain; they are not strong enough to climb anything steep or rugged. But only let them receive the shower; these trees too will give their fruit.
Ezekiel 34:29

And I will raise up for them a plant of renown, and they shall be no more consumed with hunger in the land, neither bear the shame of the heathen any more.

The church has been raised up to such a pinnacle in the name of Christ that all who curse are now put to shame and dare not curse anymore.
Ezekiel 34:31

And ye my flock, the flock of my pasture, are men, and I am your God, saith the Lord GOD.

O how blessed we are with such a possession and such a possessor! Because as well as him possessing us, we also possess him. He possesses us in order to tend us, and we possess him in order to tend him. But we tend him with worship as God, he tends us with cultivation as a field.
Ezekiel 36:20

And when they entered unto the heathen, whither they went, they profaned my holy name, when they said to them, These are the people of the LORD, and are gone forth out of his land.

All these sacraments may be possessed by the evil person; but to have charity and be an evil person is not possible. This therefore is the peculiar gift of the Spirit: he is the one and only fountain. To drink of it, God’s Spirit calls you: God’s Spirit calls you to drink of himself.

HOMILIES ON 1 JOHN 7:6

Ezekiel 36:26 · 2 passages

A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh.

Free will is always present in us, but it is not always good. For it is either free of justice, while serving sin, and then it is evil; or it is free of sin, while serving justice, and then it is good. But the grace of God is always good and brings about a good will in a person who before was possessed of an evil will. It is by this grace, too, that this same good will, once it begins to exist, is expanded and made so strong that it is able to fulfill whatever of God’s commandments it wishes, whenever it does so with a strong and perfect will.

ON GRACE AND FREE WILL 15:31

God by his grace takes away the stony heart from unbelievers and forestalls merit in people of good will in such a way that their will is prepared by what goes before grace, but that grace is not given through some merit of human will.
Ezekiel 36:27

And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them.

God promises that he will cause them to do those things that he commands to be done. Nor indeed does he here overlook the merits, but rather the evil deeds, of those to whom he shows that he will return good things for evil, by the very fact that he causes them to have good works from that point on, when he causes them to carry out the divine commands.

PREDESTINATION OF THE SAINTS 11:22

Ezekiel 44:2

Then said the LORD unto me; This gate shall be shut, it shall not be opened, and no man shall enter in by it; because the LORD, the God of Israel, hath entered in by it, therefore it shall be shut.

What means this closed gate in the House of the Lord, except that Mary is to be ever inviolate? What does it mean that 'no man shall pass through it,' save that Joseph shall not know her? And what is this - 'The Lord alone enters in and goeth out by it' - except that the Holy Ghost shall impregnate her, and that the Lord of angels shall be born of her? And what means this—'it shall be shut for evermore' - but that Mary is a virgin before His Birth, a virgin in His Birth, and a virgin after His Birth?
Ezra 5:1

Then the prophets, Haggai the prophet, and Zechariah the son of Iddo, prophesied unto the Jews that were in Judah and Jerusalem in the name of the God of Israel, even unto them.

Both Haggai and Zechariah, the one within the year after the other, began to prophesy that which seemed to pertain to the restoration of the temple, as was foretold so long before. [EXPLANATION OF THE PSALMS 112.1]

Ezra 6:7

Let the work of this house of God alone; let the governor of the Jews and the elders of the Jews build this house of God in his place.

Ezra, the priest of God, restored the law, which had been burned by the Chaldeans in the archives of the temple. For indeed he was full of the same spirit with which the Scriptures had previously been filled. [De Mirabilibus Sacrae Scripturae, 2.33]

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