With what pathos does the prophet Ezekiel portray this pastoral scene when he speaks of the infinite compassion of the divine shepherd of Israel, who never slumbers nor sleeps! In the { 304} thirty-fourth chapter, the eleventh verse, the promise to scattered Israel is, "For thus saith the Lord God: Behold, I, even I, will both search for my sheep, and seek them out. As a shepherd seeketh out his flock in the day that he is among his sheep that are scattered; so will I seek out my sheep, and will deliver them out of all the places where they have been scattered in the cloudy and dark day. And I will bring them out from the people, and gather them from the countries, and will bring them to their own land, and feed them upon the mountains of Israel by the rivers, and in all the inhabited places of the country. I will feed them in a good pasture, and upon the high mountains of Israel shall their fold be; there shall they lie in a good fold, and in a fat pasture shall they feed upon the mountains of Israel.... I will seek that which was lost, and bring again that which was driven away."
The climax of the shepherd figure, as it is used in the tenth chapter of the Gospel of John, is reached in Christ's saying, "I am the good { 305} shepherd: the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep," and in the twenty-third Psalm, in the passage, "Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for thou art with me: thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me." Only those who have heard the howling of a faithful shepherd at the approach of a wild beast to the flock can clearly realize how literally true is this saying of Christ's: "The good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep."
Of all the shepherds I have known or have known about in my native land, the commanding figure of one--Yusuf Balua'--rises most prominently before me. I never want to forget old Yusuf. He was over sixty when I first knew him. He was every inch a shepherd, having known no other vocation in all his life. I knew that elemental man in the "lowlands," where I spent two winters with my father, who was called thither to erect several farmhouses for the lord of the land. Yusuf, as he himself expressed it, "revered" my father; therefore, I { 306} was always welcome to visit Yusuf at his cave in the rocky gorge, and to roam with him and his flock whenever my duties as my father's helper permitted.