34:21. Because ye have thrust with side and with shoulder, and pushed all the diseased with your horns, till ye have scattered them abroad.—Because the rich, learned and exclusive have shoved aside the weaker ones, and have, by their earthly power, pushed out of the churches all His flock, those not “at ease in Zion.”—Amos 6:1; Isa. 66:5.
34:22. Therefore will I save My flock, and they shall no more be a prey; and I will judge between cattle and cattle.—Therefore will God Himself save His own in these troublous times, by teaching them Present Truth; and they shall “come out of her” (Rev. 18:4), out of the churches altogether, so that the clergy and the “best” people can no longer exploit them.
34:23. And I will set up one Shepherd over them, and He shall feed them, even My servant David; He shall feed them, and He shall be their Shepherd.—God has established Jesus (David) the Beloved (Jer. 23; 4, 5; John 10:11), and Pastor Russell as a faithful and wise under-shepherd, to bring forth from the Bible Storehouse truths new and old, to feed the sheep.
34:24. And I the Lord will be their God, and My servant David a prince among them; I the Lord have spoken it.—Jehovah (not the eternal-torment Molech God) will be their God, and His beloved Son and his under-shepherds shall occupy exalted places among them. In the Times of Restitution the Beloved Christ, Head and body, (David, beloved) will be the true Shepherd to the earthly flock, the Jews.
34:25. And I will make with them a covenant of peace, and will cause the evil beasts to cease out of the land: and they shall dwell safely in the wilderness and sleep in the woods.—With the truly Christian flock God will make a covenant of the peace that passeth understanding (Phil. 4:7); and with the Jews will make the New Covenant through its Mediator, The Christ. He will cause the roaring lion (Isa. 35:9), Satan, to cease from troubling (Job 3:17), and will forever restrain in oblivion the evil governments. His flock shall dwell securely, even in the wilderness condition, until their change come (Job. 14:14), and shall rest in the cooling shadows (Cant. 2:3), in the refreshing truths brought forth from the Storehouse by righteous, strong teachers and leaders among them.
34:26. And I will make them and the places round about My hill a blessing; and I will cause the shower to come down in his season; there shall be showers of blessing.—The Lord will make the Truth people, His flock, and everything and every condition related to His Kingdom, a blessing to others (Mal. 3:10); they shall be the Seed of Abraham, to bless all the families of the earth. (Gal. 3:8.) God has caused showers of truth to descend upon His flock at their appointed times, down-pours of spiritual blessing in the “Studies in the Scriptures.” At the appointed time of the beginning of returning favor to the Jews, 1878, the latter rains began to fall in Palestine, making that fertile land a fit habitation again for the chosen nation.
34:27. And the tree of the field shall yield her fruit, and the earth shall yield her increase, and they shall be safe in their land, and shall know that I am the Lord, when I have broken the bands of their yoke, and delivered them out of the hand of those that served themselves of them.—Thinking, manly men, gathered into Present Truth from the world, yield their fruitage of spirit fruits of character; and the blessed condition in which they are yields its increase of spiritual blessing and food; they are safe in their place, “seated with Christ in the Heavenlies” (Eph. 1:3, 20), where they assuredly know God with heart knowledge. God has broken the bands of the heavy yoke of ecclesiasticism, and delivered them out of the hand of a clergy that lived upon His flock, calling it “their people.” For Fleshly Israel and those who shall become Israelites there shall be the blessings of an earthly Eden, with an abundance of fruitage from trees and soil (A. 192).
34:28. And they shall no more be a prey to the heathen, neither shall the beast of the land devour them; but they shall dwell safely, and none shall make them afraid.—God's flock of spirit-begotten ones shall be no more preyed upon by paganized “Christians,” nor persecuted, devoured, destroyed, by the great “beast” of Christendom, the Papacy, with its “Holy Inquisition;” but they shall dwell safely in the hollow of His hand, His power, and none can make afraid those sealed in their foreheads with the Truth.
34:29. And I will raise up for them a plant of renown, and they shall be no more consumed with hunger in the land, neither bear the shame of the heathen any more.—God raised up, in 1878, in the First Resurrection of the dead, the Body members of His Son, “the Stem of David,” and previously in 1874, had sent again His Son to feed the flock, to serve them (Luke 12:37), and sup with them (Rev. 3:20) in a feast of fat things spiritual—the Present Truth. Those in the Truth shall never again suffer from famine of the Word of God; nor shall they, when raised up to sit with Christ in power and glory (Matt. 19:28), ever again bear reproach from a paganized “Christian” apostasy.
34:30. Thus shall they know that I the Lord their God am with them, and that they, even the house of Israel, are My people, saith the Lord God.—This is the way that the Lord's Spiritual Flock and both Jews, and nominal Christians, shall come to know of a certainty that Jehovah is with them, that they are His people.