◄ Psalm 78:71 ►
from tending the ewes He brought him to be shepherd of His people Jacob, of Israel His inheritance.
Study Bible
from tending the ewes

This phrase highlights David's humble beginnings as a shepherd, a common occupation in ancient Israel. Shepherding was a vital part of the agrarian society, requiring diligence and care. David's experience with the ewes prepared him for leadership, teaching him responsibility and protection. This mirrors the biblical theme of God choosing the humble and lowly for great purposes, as seen in the lives of Moses and Gideon. The shepherd motif is significant throughout Scripture, symbolizing guidance and care, and is later used to describe Jesus as the Good Shepherd (John 10:11).

2Sa 7:8 Now then, you are to tell My servant David…
1Ch 17:7 Now then, you are to tell My servant David…
1Sa 16:11 And Samuel asked him, “Are these all the sons”…

He brought him

This indicates divine intervention and selection. God actively chose David, demonstrating His sovereign will in raising leaders. This act of bringing David from the fields to the throne underscores the biblical principle that God exalts the humble (1 Samuel 16:11-13). It also reflects the theme of God's providence and His ability to orchestrate events for His purposes, as seen in Joseph's rise to power in Egypt (Genesis 41:41).

1Sa 16:12-13 So Jesse sent for his youngest son and brought him in.…
1Sa 16:19-23 So Saul sent messengers to Jesse and said, “Send me your son…
2Sa 7:9 I have been with you wherever you have gone,…

to be shepherd of His people Jacob,

The term "shepherd" here is metaphorical, representing leadership and governance. David's role as king was to guide, protect, and nurture the nation of Israel, much like a shepherd with his flock. The reference to "His people Jacob" connects to the covenantal relationship God established with the patriarchs, emphasizing continuity and faithfulness. This shepherd imagery is prophetic of Christ, who is the ultimate Shepherd of God's people, fulfilling the promises made to Jacob (Micah 5:4).

2Sa 5:2 Even in times past, while Saul was king over us,…
1Ch 11:2 Even in times past, while Saul was king…
Ezk 34:23 I will appoint over them one shepherd, My servant David…

of Israel His inheritance.

Israel is described as God's inheritance, highlighting the special relationship between God and His chosen people. This concept of inheritance is rooted in the Abrahamic covenant, where God promised to make Abraham's descendants a great nation (Genesis 12:2). It signifies possession, care, and a lasting legacy. The idea of inheritance is also eschatological, pointing to the future fulfillment of God's promises through Christ, who secures an eternal inheritance for believers (Ephesians 1:11).

Deu 32:9 But the LORD’s portion is His people, Jacob…
Psa 33:12 Blessed is the nation whose God is the LORD,…
1Ki 8:51 For they are Your people and Your inheritance;…

Persons / Places / Events
1. David
The verse refers to David, who was taken from shepherding sheep to shepherding the people of Israel. David is a central figure in the Old Testament, known for his heart for God and his role as the second king of Israel.

2. Jacob
Represents the people of Israel, as Jacob's name was changed to Israel, and his descendants became the twelve tribes of Israel.

3. Israel
The nation chosen by God as His inheritance, whom David was appointed to lead as king.

4. Shepherding
The act of tending sheep, which symbolizes leadership and care. David's experience as a shepherd prepared him for his role as king.

5. God's Calling
The divine act of selecting and appointing David from a humble position to a significant leadership role over His people.
Teaching Points
God's Sovereign Choice
God often chooses unlikely individuals for significant roles, emphasizing His sovereignty and wisdom. David's selection as king from a shepherd's life illustrates that God values the heart over outward appearances.

Preparation through Humble Beginnings
David's time as a shepherd was not wasted; it was a period of preparation for his future leadership. God uses our current circumstances to equip us for future responsibilities.

Leadership as Service
True leadership, as exemplified by David, involves serving and caring for those under one's charge. This reflects the heart of God, who is the ultimate Shepherd.

Faithfulness in Small Things
David's faithfulness in tending sheep prepared him for greater responsibilities. We are called to be faithful in our current tasks, trusting that God will use them for His purposes.

God's Inheritance
The people of Israel are described as God's inheritance, highlighting their value and the responsibility of leaders to care for them. Believers today are also God's inheritance, called to live in a way that honors Him.
Bible Study Questions
1. How does David's journey from shepherd to king encourage you in your current life situation or calling?

2. In what ways can you be faithful in the "small things" God has entrusted to you, and how might this prepare you for future responsibilities?

3. How does the concept of God as a shepherd influence your understanding of His care and leadership in your life?

4. Reflect on a time when God used a humble or challenging situation to prepare you for something greater. How did this experience shape your faith?

5. How can you apply the principle of servant leadership in your family, workplace, or community, following the example of David and ultimately Jesus, the Good Shepherd?
Connections to Other Scriptures
1 Samuel 16
This chapter describes the anointing of David by Samuel, highlighting God's choice of David as king despite his humble beginnings as a shepherd.

John 10
Jesus refers to Himself as the Good Shepherd, drawing a parallel between David's shepherding role and Christ's leadership and care for His people.

Ezekiel 34
God promises to shepherd His people Himself, indicating the importance of righteous leadership and care, which David exemplified.
Sermons
Whole Psalm: Warnings Against UnbeliefS. Conway Psalm 78:1-72
God's Chosen OnesS. Conway Psalm 78:67-72
David, the Shepherd, Called to be KingE. L. Hull, B. A.Psalm 78:70-72
David's TrainingC. Kingsley, M. A.Psalm 78:70-72
People
Asaph, David, Ham, Jacob, Joseph, Psalmist
Places
Jerusalem
Topics
Behind, Care, Ewes, Feed, Giving, Heritage, Inheritance, Jacob, Lambs, Milk, Ones, Rule, Sheep, Shepherd, Suck, Suckling, Suckling-ewes, Tending
Dictionary of Bible Themes
Psalm 78:70-71

     5629   work, ordained by God
     7786   shepherd, king and leader

Psalm 78:70-72

     1220   God, as shepherd
     1680   types
     7735   leaders, political
     8130   guidance, from godly people

Library
Memory, Hope, and Effort
'That they might set their hope in God, and not forget the works of God, but keep His commandments.'--PSALM lxxviii. 7. In its original application this verse is simply a statement of God's purpose in giving to Israel the Law, and such a history of deliverance. The intention was that all future generations might remember what He had done, and be encouraged by the remembrance to hope in Him for the future; and by both memory and hope, be impelled to the discharge of present duty. So, then, the words …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture

Turning Back in the Day of Battle
I. We will first consider for a little while WHAT THESE MEN DID. They turned their backs. When the time for fighting came they ought to have shown their fronts. Like bold men they should have kept their face to the foe and their breast against the adversary, but they dishonorably turned their backs and fled. This, I am sorry to say, is not an unusual thing amongst professing Christians. They turn back; they turn back in the day of battle. Some do this at the first appearance of difficulty. "There …
Charles Haddon Spurgeon—Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 12: 1866

Limiting God
Among such sins of the first table is that described in our text. It is consequently one of the masterpieces of iniquity, and we shall do well to purge ourselves of it. It is full of evil to ourselves, and is calculated to dishonor both God and man, therefore let us be in earnest to cut it up both root and branch. I think we have all been guilty of this in our measure; and we are not free from it even to this day. Whether we be saints or sinners, we may stand here and make our humble confession that …
Charles Haddon Spurgeon—Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 5: 1859

Fifteenth Day for Schools and Colleges
WHAT TO PRAY.--For Schools and Colleges "As for Me, this is My covenant with them, saith the Lord: My Spirit that is upon thee, and My words which I have put in thy mouth, shall not depart out of thy mouth, nor out of the mouth of thy seed, nor out of the mouth of thy seed's seed, saith the LoThe future of the Church and the world depends, to an extent we little conceive, on the education of the day. The Church may be seeking to evangelise the heathen, and be giving up her own children to secular …
Andrew Murray—The Ministry of Intercession

Fourteenth Day for the Church of the Future
WHAT TO PRAY.--For the Church of the Future "That the children might not be as their fathers, a generation that set not their heart aright, and whose spirit was not steadfast with God."--PS. lxxviii. 8. "I will pour My Spirit upon thy seed, and My blessing upon thy offspring."--ISA. xliv. 3. Pray for the rising generation, who are to come after us. Think of the young men and young women and children of this age, and pray for all the agencies at work among them; that in association and societies …
Andrew Murray—The Ministry of Intercession

Centenary Commemoration
OF THE RETURN OF BISHOP SEABURY. 1885 THE RT. REV. SAMUEL SEABURY, D.D. FIRST BISHOP OF CONNECTICUT, HELD HIS FIRST ORDINATION AT MIDDLETOWN, AUGUST 3, 1785. On the ninth day of June, 1885, the Diocesan Convention met in Hartford. Morning Prayer was read in Christ Church at 9 o'clock by the Rev. W. E. Vibbert, D.D., Rector of St. James's Church, Fair Haven, and the Rev. J. E. Heald, Rector of Trinity Church, Tariffville. The Holy Communion was celebrated in St. John's Church, the service beginning …
Various—The Sermons And Addresses At The Seabury Centenary

"Thou Shalt Honor Thy Father and Thy Mother. "
From this Commandment we learn that after the excellent works of the first three Commandments there are no better works than to obey and serve all those who are set over us as superiors. For this reason also disobedience is a greater sin than murder, unchastity, theft and dishonesty, and all that these may include. For we can in no better way learn how to distinguish between greater and lesser sins than by noting the order of the Commandments of God, although there are distinctions also within the …
Dr. Martin Luther—A Treatise on Good Works

Indiscreet Importunity.
"I gave thee a king in mine anger." HOSEA xiii. 11. "Ye know not what ye ask." MATTHEW xx. 22. PSALM lxxviii. 27-31. That God sometimes suffers men to destroy themselves, giving them their own way, although He knows it is ruinous, and even putting into their hands the scorpion they have mistaken for a fish, is an indubitable and alarming fact. Perhaps no form of ruin covers a man with such shame or sinks him to such hopelessness as when he finds that what he has persistently clamoured for and refused …
Marcus Dods—How to become like Christ

The Mystery
Of the Woman dwelling in the Wilderness. The woman delivered of a child, when the dragon was overcome, from thenceforth dwelt in the wilderness, by which is figured the state of the Church, liberated from Pagan tyranny, to the time of the seventh trumpet, and the second Advent of Christ, by the type, not of a latent, invisible, but, as it were, an intermediate condition, like that of the lsraelitish Church journeying in the wilderness, from its departure from Egypt, to its entrance into the land …
Joseph Mede—A Key to the Apocalypse

The Second Continental Journey.
1827-28. PART I.--GERMANY. After John and Martha Yeardley had visited their friends at home, their minds were directed to the work which they had left uncompleted on the continent of Europe; and, on their return from the Yearly Meeting, they opened this prospect of service before the assembled church to which they belonged. (Diary) 6 mo. 18.--Were at the Monthly Meeting at Highflatts, where we laid our concern before our friends to revisit some parts of Germany and Switzerland, and to visit …
John Yeardley—Memoir and Diary of John Yeardley, Minister of the Gospel

The World's Bread
'And the apostles gathered themselves together unto Jesus, and told Him all things, both what they had done, and what they had taught. 31. And He said unto them, Come ye yourselves apart into a desert place, and rest a while: for there were many coming and going, and they had no leisure so much as to eat. 32. And they departed into a desert place by ship privately. 33. And the people saw them departing, and many knew Him, and ran afoot thither out of all cities, and outwent them, and came together …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture

Out of the Deep of Loneliness, Failure, and Disappointment.
My heart is smitten down, and withered like grass. I am even as a sparrow that sitteth alone on the housetop--Ps. cii. 4, 6. My lovers and friends hast Thou put away from me, and hid mine acquaintance out of my sight--Ps. lxxviii. 18. I looked on my right hand, and saw there was no man that would know me. I had no place to flee unto, and no man cared for my soul. I cried unto Thee, O Lord, and said, Thou art my Hope. When my spirit was in heaviness, then Thou knewest my path.--Ps. cxlii. 4, 5. …
Charles Kingsley—Out of the Deep

The Good Shepherd: a Farewell Sermon
John 10:27-28 -- "My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. And I give unto them eternal life, and they shall never perish, neither shall any pluck them out of my hand." It is a common, and I believe, generally speaking, my dear hearers, a true saying, that bad manners beget good laws. Whether this will hold good in every particular, in respect to the affairs of this world, I am persuaded the observation is very pertinent in respect to the things of another: I mean bad manners, …
George Whitefield—Selected Sermons of George Whitefield

Adam and Zaretan, Joshua 3
I suspect a double error in some maps, while they place these two towns in Perea; much more, while they place them at so little a distance. We do not deny, indeed, that the city Adam was in Perea; but Zaretan was not so. Of Adam is mention, Joshua 3:16; where discourse is had of the cutting-off, or cutting in two, the waters of Jordan, that they might afford a passage to Israel; The waters rose up upon a heap afar off in Adam. For the textual reading "In Adam," the marginal hath "From Adam." You …
John Lightfoot—From the Talmud and Hebraica

The Eighth Commandment
Thou shalt not steal.' Exod 20: 15. AS the holiness of God sets him against uncleanness, in the command Thou shalt not commit adultery;' so the justice of God sets him against rapine and robbery, in the command, Thou shalt not steal.' The thing forbidden in this commandment, is meddling with another man's property. The civil lawyers define furtum, stealth or theft to be the laying hands unjustly on that which is another's;' the invading another's right. I. The causes of theft. [1] The internal causes …
Thomas Watson—The Ten Commandments

"The Sun of Righteousness"
WE SHOULD FEEL QUITE JUSTIFIED in applying the language of the 19th Psalm to our Lord Jesus Christ from the simple fact that he is so frequently compared to the sun; and especially in the passage which we have given you as our second text, wherein he is called "the Sun of Righteousness." But we have a higher justification for such a reading of the passage, for it will be in your memories that, in the 10th chapter of the Epistle to the Romans, the Apostle Paul, slightly altering the words of this …
Charles Haddon Spurgeon—Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 17: 1871

A Jealous God
I. Reverently, let us remember that THE LORD IS EXCEEDINGLY JEALOUS OF HIS DEITY. Our text is coupled with the command--"Thou shalt worship no other God." When the law was thundered from Sinai, the second commandment received force from the divine jealousy--"Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in the heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I …
Charles Haddon Spurgeon—Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 9: 1863

Mosaic Cosmogony.
ON the revival of science in the 16th century, some of the earliest conclusions at which philosophers arrived were found to be at variance with popular and long-established belief. The Ptolemaic system of astronomy, which had then full possession of the minds of men, contemplated the whole visible universe from the earth as the immovable centre of things. Copernicus changed the point of view, and placing the beholder in the sun, at once reduced the earth to an inconspicuous globule, a merely subordinate …
Frederick Temple—Essays and Reviews: The Education of the World

Privilege and Experience
"And he said unto him, Son, thou art ever with me, and all that I have is thine." --Luke 15:31. The words of the text are familiar to us all. The elder son had complained and said, that though his father had made a feast, and had killed the fatted calf for the prodigal son, he had never given him even a kid that he might make merry with his friends. The answer of the father was: "Son, thou art ever with me, and all that I have is thine." One cannot have a more wonderful revelation of the heart of …
Andrew Murray—The Deeper Christian Life

Stones Crying Out
'For the priests which bare the ark stood in the midst of Jordan, until every thing was finished that the Lord commanded Joshua to speak unto the people, according to all that Moses commanded Joshua: and the people hasted and passed over. 11. And it came to pass, when all the people were clean passed over, that the ark of the Lord passed over, and the priests, in the presence of the people. 12. And the children of Reuben, and the children of Gad, and half the tribe of Manasseh, passed over armed …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture

The Deaf Stammerer Healed and Four Thousand Fed.
^A Matt. XV. 30-39; ^B Mark VII. 32-VIII. 9. ^b 32 And they bring unto him one that was deaf, and had an impediment in his speech [The man had evidently learned to speak before he lost his hearing. Some think that defective hearing had caused the impediment in his speech, but verse 35 suggests that he was tongue-tied]; and they beseech him to put his hand upon him. 33 And he took him aside from the multitude privately, and put his fingers into his ears, and he spat, and touched his tongue [He separated …
J. W. McGarvey—The Four-Fold Gospel

Purity and Peace in the Present Lord
PHILIPPIANS iv. 1-9 Euodia and Syntyche--Conditions to unanimity--Great uses of small occasions--Connexion to the paragraphs--The fortress and the sentinel--A golden chain of truths--Joy in the Lord--Yieldingness--Prayer in everything--Activities of a heart at rest Ver. 1. +So, my brethren beloved and longed for+, missed indeed, at this long distance from you, +my joy and crown+ of victory (stephanos), +thus+, as having such certainties and such aims, with such a Saviour, and looking for such …
Handley C. G. Moule—Philippian Studies

The Baptismal Covenant Can be Kept Unbroken. Aim and Responsibility of Parents.
We have gone "to the Law and to the Testimony" to find out what the nature and benefits of Baptism are. We have gathered out of the Word all the principal passages bearing on this subject. We have grouped them together, and studied them side by side. We have noticed that their sense is uniform, clear, and strong. Unless we are willing to throw aside all sound principles of interpretation, we can extract from the words of inspiration only one meaning, and that is that the baptized child is, by virtue …
G. H. Gerberding—The Way of Salvation in the Lutheran Church

An Exhortation to Love God
1. An exhortation. Let me earnestly persuade all who bear the name of Christians to become lovers of God. "O love the Lord, all ye his saints" (Psalm xxxi. 23). There are but few that love God: many give Him hypocritical kisses, but few love Him. It is not so easy to love God as most imagine. The affection of love is natural, but the grace is not. Men are by nature haters of God (Rom. i. 30). The wicked would flee from God; they would neither be under His rules, nor within His reach. They fear God, …
Thomas Watson—A Divine Cordial

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