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Scandinavian Journal of the Old Testament
An International Journal of Nordic Theology
ISSN: 0901-8328 (Print) 1502-7244 (Online) Journal homepage: https://www.tandfonline.com/loi/sold20
The Decline of the Shepherd Metaphor as Royal
Self-Expression1
Jørn Varhaug
To cite this article: Jørn Varhaug (2019) The Decline of the Shepherd Metaphor as
Royal Self-Expression1, Scandinavian Journal of the Old Testament, 33:1, 16-23, DOI:
10.1080/09018328.2019.1599623
To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/09018328.2019.1599623
Published online: 03 May 2019.
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Scandinavian Journal of the Old Testament, 2019
Vol. 33, No. 1, 16-23, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09018328.2019.1599623
2019 The Editors of the Scandinavian Journal of the Old Testament
The Decline of the Shepherd Metaphor as
Royal Self-Expression1
Jørn Varhaug
University of Agder,
PB 422, 4630 Kristiansand S, Norway
jorn.varhaug@uia.no
ABSTRACT: In the Old Testament, shepherd is a common metaphor of king-
ship, and this metaphor is sometimes also used to denote the Israelite god as a
ruler (See for instance HALOT entry רעה) In Assyrian Babylonian Egyptian . , ,
and Greek works this metaphor is remarkably more common in pre-exilic li-
terature than in the later Greek and Roman literature, where it is almost absent.
In this article I argue that shepherding was central to Assyrian and Babylo-
nian ruling class identity, while absent as royal self-expression in the Per-
sian, Achaemenid Empire. The imageries of these empires were influen-
tial as models for court life throughout the Ancient Near East, and beyond.
Key words: Shepherd, Shepherd-king, Psalm 23, Royal self-expression
The Shepherd in Psalm 23
Psalm 23 starts with the shepherd-metaphor, “Yahweh is my shepherd”, “He
makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters.”,
“Even though I walk through the darkest valley”, “your rod and your staff,
they comfort me.” We know that “rod and staff” were parts of the royal rega-
lia throughout the Ancient Near East, at least from the last half of the second
millennium BCE, as is also maintained in Genesis 49,10 “The scepter (שבט)
shall not depart from Judah, nor the rulers staff (מחקק)”.2 The ancient reader
did not only imagine the shepherd as tending sheep, but also as a ruler, lead-
ing his people as he read Psalm 23. When St. Jerome chose to translate Psalm
23,1 with “Dominus regit me”, “The Lord rules me” in the Vulgate, he was
probably closer to the first reading than he was in his later Psalterium iuxta
Hebraeos where he writes “Dominus pascit me”, though pascit is a more
direct translation of the Hebrew רעה (to pasture). Until post-exilic times, to
rule was to pasture, as I will show in the following.
1. The article is based on a paper read at the annual meeting of the Norwegian Soci-
ety of Old Testament Studies in Oslo October 2016.
2. Though the word used for staff in Genesis 49:10 is another than that which is used
in Psalm 23,4 (ןמשע) it seems reasonable to regard them as synonyms, as also Cor-
ney, “Rod and Staff.”
©
The Decline of the Shepherd Metaphor 17
The Shepherd in Israel
Shepherding seems to have been central in the historical imagination of Isra-
el. Abraham, Moses and David were shepherds according to the narratives.
Amos the prophet was a shepherd. In Israel it was plausible to see the annual
shearing as an event worthy of royal attention (2 Samuel 13,23ff.) When the
pharaoh asked the sons of Jacob of their occupation they answered: “Your
servants are shepherds” (Genesis 47,3). Yahweh looked with favor upon the
fat-portion-offerings of Abel the herdsman, but not on the crops that Cain
brought (Genesis 4,4). Through and through the shepherd identity is common
to many of the Old Testament main characters. This must have been an im-
portant part of Israelite tradition and self-understanding in the time when
these texts had their origins. In Numbers 31,32 675000 sheep are related as
the divided spoil after the battle with the Midianites. According to 1 Kings
8,63 Solomon sacrificed 120,000 sheep when he consecrated the new temple.
If these numbers should be only partly plausible, the amount of sheep in Isra-
el must have been immense. Nathan’s parable seems to imply that some
families had many sheep while the poorer families bred only few (1 Samuel
12; Job 1,3; 42,12). The quarrel between the servants of Abram with those of
Lot (Genesis 13,7) and the tale of how Jacob got much of Laban’s herd
(Genesis 31,29-43) are also indications that sheep breeding was a common
motif in Israelite oral narratives. Consequently, when the shepherd-metaphor
was used to describe leadership, the metaphor source language was familiar
among the Israelites, at least in pre-exilic times. The metaphor also has some
of its most elaborate expositions in the Old Testament prophetic material,
especially in the long passages in Ezekiel 34,2-24 and Zechariah 11,3-17.
Here shepherds of various kinds are described, and some are bad. Sheep also
come in diverse kinds, as when Ezekiel accuses the Israelites as the sheep: “Is
it not enough for you to feed on the good pasture? Must you also trample the
rest of your pasture with your feet? Is it not enough for you to drink clear
water? Must you also muddy the rest with your feet?” (Ezekiel 34,18).3 But,
the shepherd-metaphor is also less visible in some areas of the Old Testament
than other. In the so-called later prophets, Malachi, Zephaniah, Joel and
Third-Isaiah, shepherd-metaphors are absent. While they do have a central,
and even dominating role, in several of the main prophets, first Isaiah, Jere-
miah and Ezekiel.
3. For the most prominent instances in the Old Testament, Hosea 4,16; Isaiah 40,11;
Micah 7,14; Ezekiel 34,2-23; Psalm 28,9; 2 Samuel 5,2; 7,7; 1 Chronicles 11,2; 17,6;
Psalm 78,72; Jeremiah 3,15; 23,24; Zechariah 11,4-9; Proverbs 10,21; see for in-
stance BDB רעה. A more extensive analysis of the different occurrences may be
found in Regine Hunziker-Rodwelt’s dissertation, Hirt und Herde, 2001.
18 Jørn Varhaug
Egypt and Mesopotamia
Egyptian material is usually relevant if one wishes to study traditions longi-
tudinally. In Egypt there are elements of literature and iconography in a con-
tinuous stream from the first known pharaohs until our time. There are also
several examples of the shepherd-metaphor in Egyptian literature. According
to Jan Assmann the reference, “good shepherd,” was a metaphor representing
the king in the middle kingdom and an image of a god in the new kingdom.4
He made the development of this metaphor one of the most important argu-
ments for his main idea in his book Herrschafft und Heil, that the rulers were
models for the gods. Of the royal regalia, the hook and the whip are present
already from the second dynasty (around 2800 BCE), in the old kingdom.
The Egyptian crook is usually interpreted as the shepherd’s instrument. Con-
sequently, the shepherd-metaphor is indeed very old in Egypt. But it is fair to
say that the shepherd metaphors first became largely prominent in Egyptian
inscriptions as the so-called Hyksos came to power towards the second in-
termediate period between the middle kingdom and the origins of the new
kingdom, around 1550 BCE. In earlier scholarly literature the term Hyksos
was translated “shepherd-kings”, but more recently Egyptologists tend to
think that this has to do with a mistranslation by Josephus in his discussion
of the Egyptian historian Manetho (Against Apion 1.14). However, some of
the pharaohs who are described as “good shepherd” in this period, as
Amenophis II and Sethos I. In their contexts, the metaphor as used by these
kings is related to military strategic skill. They keep their soldiers alive, and
lead them to victory. Merenptah refers to the period before his reign (1213-
1203) as when Egypt had no shepherd.5 In the later dynasties and in the Ptol-
emaic period some pharaohs continued to use the shepherd-title but then as a
formula.
The main corpus of literature where the shepherd-metaphor has its in-
stances is in the eastern and north-eastern part of the Fertile Crescent. It has
to do with the area of Syria, Anatolia and Mesopotamia. The shepherd-king is
already present in the Sumerian King lists. There “Dumuzid the shepherd” is
ranked as the fifth pre-dynastic king, figuring in several of the available rem-
nants of Sumerian literature. But it is by the rise of the Assyrian Empire that
we find the instances where this metaphor becomes standard language as a
synonym for ruler. There is a 3rd millennium Sumerian fragment where
Inanna the young goddess denies marrying Dumuzid, she would rather have a
farmer than a shepherd as spouse. In a later 2nd millennium fragment we
meet the corresponding goddess Ishtar who now loves the shepherd.6 Ham-
murabi is described as “the shepherd of the oppressed and of the slaves” in
the prologue of his law code. In the epilogue he claims: “The great gods have
called me, I am the salvation-bearing shepherd, whose staff is straight, the
good shadow that is spread over my city; on my breast I cherish the inhabit-
4. Assmann, Herrschaft und Heil, p. 49.
5. Hunziker-Rodwelt, Hirt und Herde, p. 22-23.
6. Jacobsen, The Treasures of Darkness, pp. 142 and 201.
The Decline of the Shepherd Metaphor 19
ants of the land of Sumer and Akkad”. In the material describing Assyrian
royal presentations presented by Ursula Magen (1986:18) there are 14 exam-
ples where the king is represented as a shepherd.7 It is possible to find a large
amount of Akkadian literature where gods and kings are regarded as shep-
herds, and the acts of ruling are described as shepherding. But from the Per-
sian Achaemenid period, 550 BCE, the metaphor disappears, not only from
the Persian Empire, but also from the contemporary Greek and Egyptian
texts.
Absence in Greek and Roman material
Several years ago, I read the ninth century BCE Greek epic Iliad. There I
observed that the shepherd-metaphor was very prominent, as many scholars
have noted. We can observe a standard-phrase there, “shepherd of his peo-
ple.” Agamemnon, Nestor and several others of the kings are denoted as this,
“Agamemnon, the shepherd of his people.” The word ποιμὴν (shepherd) can
be read 53 times, in 46 different verses. Of these, nine times the term refer to
the literal trade of shepherding, while the other 37 verses refer to shepherding
as a standing metaphor for rule. The most ordinary form is the nominative of
the root ποιμέν, ποιμένα λαῶν (25 times), while the dative ποιμένι λαῶν is
slightly less frequent (19 times). About three years ago I found the large book
of Plutarch on the parallel lives of the famous Greeks and Romans, two and
two, compared. Here there are absolutely no instances of the shepherd-
metaphor. Also, an analysis of the Greek historian Thucydides and the Ro-
man historian Livy show complete absence of this kind of metaphor, though
some of the earlier heroes are related to herdsmen. There are still a few sig-
nificant instances in the Greek and Roman literature where rule is discussed
at the borders of this metaphor. One is in the first book of Plato’s Republic.
Socrates there has a discussion with Thrasymachos the sophist of whether
justice is preferable to injustice. In Thrasymachos’ opinion a leader should no
more seek justice and benefit for all than a shepherd does so. He argues with
Socrates, it seems to me that you think that “… the neat-herds are consider-
ing the good of the sheep and the cattle and fatten and tend them with any-
thing else in view than the good of their masters and themselves; and by the
same token you seem to suppose that the rulers in our cities, I mean the real
rulers, differ at all in their thoughts of the governed from a man's attitude
towards his sheep”. In Plato’s Republic Thrasymachos is the main antagonist
who utilizes an in-built criticism of the shepherd-metaphor.8 The rest of this
famous philosophical work can be regarded as a refutation of this opinion. In
Suetonius’ book “Twelve Caesars” we find the shepherd-metaphor once.
Tiberius (Roman emperor 14 AD unto 37 AD) once describes himself as a
shepherd: “A good shepherd shears his flock; he does not flay it.” In nine
different and rather strange instances we meet shepherds in Virgils Aenead,
7. Magen, Ursula, Assyrische Königsdarstellungen, pp. 120-125.
8. A fastidious discussion of this has been made by Pyper, The Triumph of the Lamb.
20 Jørn Varhaug
especially in this first instance it seems to refer to shepherds as an archaic
concept of ruler. For instance, those who betray the Trojans are named
Dardanian shepherds, but they do not seem to be herdsmen but leaders. After
a survey through historians and philosophers, one can conclude that the
shepherd-metaphor is only seldom applied, and when it is applied, the refer-
ences are made in such a way that the shepherd-metaphor is framed in archa-
ic ways, unsuited to communicating a positive message in the pre-Christian
era.9
The Assyrian self-representation
The metaphor consequently seems to have been universal for several centu-
ries, while absent later. Why were the shepherd-metaphors so generally ap-
plied in the late second-millennium BCE when it later could almost disap-
pear? We do have records of the coronation of Ashurbanipal, the last great
Neo-Assyrian king. In some of these texts Ashurbanipal’s coronation-
ceremony is described. I think those records may give us one significant clue.
A. T. Olmstead has translated much of the available text corpus from the
library of Ashurbanipal and put together texts to make a meaningful history
based on the sources. He has written in this way concerning the coronation of
Ashurbanipal 673 BCE:
Despite the warning [of the gods], the ceremonies [of Assurbanipal’s’ initia-
tion] were gone through with on the 12th of Airu (May), while the feast of the
goddess Gula was being celebrated. Men of Assyria, great and small, from
the lower and the upper seas were collected and ordered to swear by the great
gods that they would protect the position of Ashur-bani-apal as crown prince
and afterwards as ruler of Assyria. Accompanied by the rejoicing of the
whole army in camp, Ashur-bani-apal entered into the Succession House and
was exalted above his brethren. On the next day, the 13th, the ceremonies of
“shepherdship” were to be carried out. Adad-shum-usur gives the directions.
When the crown prince shall come to the court of the temple, he shall enter
the reed hut. He shall seat himself and pray, then he shall turn and come from
the shrine. The Shearer shall enter that he may eat bitter herbs, and they shall
make him drink out of a vessel made from a skull. The gate of the enemy’s
domain shall be in gloom. Actually, the ceremonies of shepherdship were car-
ried out by Nabu-nadin-shum, who sealed the message from his lips and sent
it to the king by special messenger [Esarhaddon, the father of Assurbanipal
was then on his hazardous campaign to Egypt].10
From this text-arrangement the shepherd-metaphor is significant, not only
as a symbol, but as a dramatic act of multiple sequences. Omens were signif-
9. The shepherd metaphor, to some degree, reappear in preserved material from the
end of the first century BCE, prominently in Dio Chrysostom,Orations1:12-13; 3:41;
4:44; The New Testament, The Shepherd of Hermas, Basil of Caesarea and Eusebius.
10. Olmstead, History of Assyria, pp. 389-390.
The Decline of the Shepherd Metaphor 21
icant to the Assyrian kings, of these, the study of the entrails of sheep is es-
pecially frequent.11
In the period when the Neo-Assyrian Empire was at the height of its pow-
er in the early seventh century BCE, other empires in the known world were
petty in comparison. Ashurbanipal’s father, Esarhaddon, conquered Egypt.
Consequently, the Assyrians completely dominated the civilized world in
this period. From European history we know well how some courts estab-
lished standard models for other courts. Especially characteristic examples
are that of Charlemagne (742?-814) and Louis XIV (1638-1715). They
changed, each in his time, the court traditions in the whole of Europe. In
some lesser degree one can probably claim that traditions at courts have al-
ways found inspiration from each other. Generally, it seems that most court
traditions have developed as negotiations between older customs and interna-
tional new tastes.
The shepherd-image as standard expression of royalty remained through-
out the Assyrian period. In the ethnographic literature some researchers have
been interested in why some traditions erode while other traditions continue
unaltered through generations. Among these researchers is the recently de-
ceased Norwegian scholar Fredrik Barth (1928-2016) who made theories
based on extensive field studies. Among these are his studies of the
Bakhtaman-society in New Guinea in 1968 and 1982. Here he found that
seldom performed but spectacular initiation-rites had exceptional capabilities
to communicate traditions. Through the strains that the members had to expe-
rience, the tribe was able to recreate the same complicated ritual sequence in
a seemingly identical manner even if it was only arranged every tenth year. It
was the sensory pageantry of the event that made this into a groundbreaking
sequence of experiences, not only for those who were to be initiated, but also
to the many other members of the tribe according to Barth. Furthermore, he
claimed that the imagery that accompanies the rites becomes main elements
in the cultural daily discourse. Consequently, initiation rituals performed with
an elevated level of sensory pageantry would be able to define traditions.12
The Assyrian court as model
The Assyrians had significant power internationally in this period, and as in
other Empire’s history exactly the throne succession was critical, as we know
from several ancient and modern examples. The succession would be the
topic of many conversations, especially among the nobles throughout the
empire and further. So, both the initiation ceremony itself, as well as the ex-
pectation and the political significance of what happened would make the
ceremony to a major ground-breaking experience that would leave high pre-
cision memories in the minds of the contemporary. When the shepherd-
metaphor was demonstrated ritually in these ceremonies, and then further
11. Ibid p. 455.
12. Barth, Cosmologies in the Making, especially p. 84.
22 Jørn Varhaug
used in correspondence and iconography, such expositions became popular,
and even domineering in all cultures that were in contact with the Assyrians
of this era.
Why did the shepherd-metaphor disappear from court language?
How did it come to an end then? The second Isaiah points forward to Cyrus,
the new king who arises. He is given the same apposition as Yahweh in
Psalm 23,1, “my shepherd” (רעי). But this was not how Cyrus would repre-
sent himself. While the Neo-Babylonian Empire had been a less well-
administrated version of the Assyrian Empire, with traditions mainly in con-
tinuity, the Persian Achaemenid Empire represented something new. A great
amount of sheep probably did still exist in the Ancient Near East, but the
ruler was no longer a shepherd. Herodotus gives an entertaining exposition of
the Persians in his 3rd book when he tells the narrative of Cambysses’ expe-
dition to conquer “the long-lived Ethiopians”. According to the story the
Persian agents visited the Ethiopian king in advance to evaluate his strength.
In the conversation, it becomes clear that the Ethiopians ate boiled meat
while the Persians ate bread made of wheat. According to Herodotus “It did
not surprise him [the Ethiopian king], if they [the Persians] fed on dirt, that
they died so soon”. Wheat was probably the main produce of food in the
culture where the ruling families of the Persian Empire had their origins. As
sheep seemingly had such a small relevance to them, they did not identify
with the imagery of the previous rulers.13 In this period and later, the Assyri-
ans, and especially Sardanapallus, as the Greeks named Ashurbaniapal, be-
came an example of luxury, sloth and other vices. Also, Agamemnon, who
sacrificed his own daughter Iphigenia and who captured Briseis, the “prize”
of Achilleus, was a problematic character improper as a model for rulers. The
shepherd of Thrasymachos in Plato’s Republic is a cynical exploiter, unlike
the wise philosopher-rulers the work recommends.14 Consequently, it is pos-
sible to express the reason why the shepherd metaphor as a standard image
for the ruler disappeared in the following three closely related points:
1. From Persian times, the international model monarchs were no long-
er related by traditions to the trade of shepherding.
2. In the pre-Persian times shepherd-imagery was demonstrated in sig-
nificant acts of royal self-presentation, as coronation-rituals and royal
correspondence. The Persian rulers did not use such imagery.
3. There were established an understanding of the pre-Persian shepherd-
kings as abominable, characterized by violence, luxury, sloth and
other vices.
13 A rather extensive collection of texts from the Achaemenid-period is assembled
by Kurth, The Persian Empire. Here the Persian food is described several places,
especially pp. 5, 712 and 742 emphasize the increased focus on agriculture.
14. The shepherd-king or Sardanapallus as example of cynical exploitation or vices is
described in several ancient sources as Diodorus, Universal History, II.27; Aristotle,
Nicomacian Ethics, I; Epictetus, Discourses; Plato, Republic, I.
The Decline of the Shepherd Metaphor 23
Psalm 23 in different contexts
To read Psalm 23 is to imagine the ancient psalmist as a sheep related to a
shepherd. It is true, as several commentaries claim, that this metaphor has
been plausible and relevant throughout history, but it has not had the same
meaning in different cultures and time periods. In recent centuries, the rural
pastoral reference of the metaphor has been more exclusive, while in the pre-
Persian period when much of the Old Testament had its origins, the shep-
herd-image was a conventional part of royal self-presentation imposed upon
the society through art, literature and well-directed initiation-rituals.
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