by Susan Lohmann
Why does God make so many references to his people as being like sheep in the Bible? Sheep and/or shepherds are found in over 500 verses, so it is important to really understand what sheep are all about. Baby lambs are generally born in the spring, so this is the perfect time to flesh out more details about sheep, to better understand references to them in God’s word. I raised lambs and was in 4-H as a teenager; we also had a small flock for about 30 years on our New Jersey farm. Our kids all showed sheep at the local fairs and our flock was involved in dozens of live nativities over the years. The more years I worked with sheep, the more the Bible’s references to them made sense. I hope I can impart some of these insights!
Let’s first review a sheep’s physical characteristics. They are sort of funny looking and have proportionally short legs, making running and any other athletic pursuits difficult. This was particularly true in biblical times when nutrition was not as good and sheep were not being bred specifically for size as they often are now. A sheep’s only means of defense is to outrun their enemy (hard with short legs and your body covered in wool) or to butt/ram your opponent. Butting is an effective means of defense against people (I have been butted and knocked off my feet by many a ram), but not so useful if your opponent is much larger than you, or comes up to you quickly before you can set up a charge and ram sequence.
Sheep have only one row of teeth in the front of their mouth. They actually rip grass by using their lower incisors against a pad on top and then chew the grass with their molars in the back. Therefore, biting is not a way of defense and their short stiff legs also eliminate kicking as a choice to protect themselves. Once you understand how defenseless these animals are, you realize why they need a shepherd!
Sheep are often safest when they stay together in a fairly tight flock – it makes penetration hard for a predator. A coyote or panther will target an individual sheep or lamb that has separated from the flock to attack, which is why the shepherd will go off to retrieve one sheep that had wandered off (Mt. 18:12, Lk. 15:2-7). We too can get into trouble when we spend time away from our shepherd and from our Christian community (Is. 53:6).
Sheep are not known to be very intelligent either. This is another reason why they need a good shepherd. Compared with more intelligent animals, when lambs are born they have a much harder time finding their mother’s milk (her wool doesn’t make this any easier – in modern times we shave the udder area!). If lambs do not start drinking colostrum (the nutrient-rich first milk from their mother) within approximately one hour, their chance of survival is very slim. The mother will often reject them completely if they are not up and nursing by that time. As the ewe delivers her lambs, an intelligent and vigilant shepherd would be attentive to possibly help the delivery itself and especially to assist the lambs in getting up and finding the milk. This has not changed in modern times, and I spent many sleepless nights on duty to see that all this went smoothly.
Sheep are flighty and easily panicked, and they seem to forget easily (who does that sound like?). Our sheep were beautifully tamed and trained as they competed in 4-H shows, went to Christmas and Easter productions at churches, and were handled and visited daily. Yet every once in a while, something slightly unusual would occur: a different dog would be nearby or a strange group of people would come into their pen to visit them, and the sheep would act like they had never been touched in their lives! (Jn. 10:5) They would run around the field like wild animals on a prairie and even get separated from one another. The one that got separated would really panic and try to jump the fence or crash into the shed, etc. If you have never worked with sheep and seen this happen, it’s hard to even imagine; these sweet dog-like pets would suddenly go berserk. But we are so much like that! Something throws us off our routine and we get very anxious, act in un-Christlike ways, run away from our church family, and sometimes do quite stupid things. We forget we have a shepherd at all (Ps. 23:1) and may return to an old addiction or a group of people that are very worldly; we may forget all that God, our good shepherd, has done for us.
In John 10, Jesus refers to himself as the good shepherd of his people and teaches us that sheep know the voice of the shepherd. Sheep remember the voice of the person that feeds and cares for them. I can be walking with a group of people past my sheep with everyone talking, and the sheep will completely ignore the conversation. However, if I start talking, even briefly, they will hear it and immediately start “baaing” out to me and run over to the fence where I am passing. This concept helps us to understand how the shepherds kept track of their own sheep in the “folds” out in the wilderness. Sheep were not safe from predators overnight, so pens with high fences were constructed out in the grazing land and several shepherds would bring their different flocks of both sheep and goats into these folds at night. One wonders how they separated one flock from another in the morning, but this was easily done as the sheep would follow their own shepherd’s voice out of the fold when called (Jn. 10:3-4). In the same way, we can hear the Holy Spirit nudging us or guiding us in a decision.
I hope this helps you to understand how utterly helpless sheep are without a shepherd, just as we are without Christ. We are to constantly run to the Lord, our shepherd, just as sheep do–so we can be guided, protected, and kept from straying.
Susan Lohmann is a sheep farmer and horse trainer. She and her husband, Richard, are members at Living Hope Church with five adult children and nine grandchildren.
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