Burder gives an interesting quotation from the Gentlemen’s Magazine for May, 1764, wherein there is a description of the sheep-walks of Spain: “Ten thousand compose a flock, which is divided into ten tribes. One man has the conduct of all. He must be the owner of four or five hundred sheep, strong, active, vigilant, intelligent in pasture, in the weather, and in the diseases of sheep. He has absolute dominion over fifty shepherds and fifty dogs, five of each to a tribe. He chooses them, chastises them or discharges them at will. He is the praepositus, or the chief shepherd, of the whole flock” (Oriental Customs, No. 1310).
Thus we have an illustration of the text. Christian ministers are pastors or shepherds; but there is one over them all. Jesus is the “chief Shepherd.” He superintends them, cares for them, assigns them their several positions, and rewards or punishes them.