But he that enters in by the door is a shepherd of the sheep. Let him be who he may, Pharisee or priest, prophet or king, pastor or evangelist, unless he approach the sheep by the right "way" he demeans and condemns himself.
If he come by the door into the fold, he may be so far presumably a shepherd. One fold might contain several flocks, and a shepherd might lead these flocks into different enclosures according to his wisdom and care for his sheep.
Neander, Godet, and Watkins think it possible that the whole imagery may have been borrowed from the eye. The shepherds towards evening were probably gathering their scattered flocks, according to Oriental custom, into their well-known enclosures, and Jesus with his audience might have seen them doing it if they gazed out from the courts of the temple over the neighboring hills (see also Thomson, 'The Land and the Book,' 1:301, a passage which provides an admirable commentary on this parable).
There is no absolute need that the customary and well-known habit of the country-side should have been visible at the moment. The abundantly attested practice furnished to his hearers all needful corroboration.
The deeper significance of the passage lies in the prophetic symbolism of Jeremiah 23:1-4; Isaiah 40:11; Psalms 23:1-3; Psalms 78:52; Numbers 27:17; Ezekiel 34:23, Ezekiel 34:31; Ezekiel 37:24. Jehovah was the Shepherd of Israel (Psalms 80:1), and he would appoint once more in their Messiah-King a David, who should be his gracious Representative and Agent.
All these representations were gathered up in Christ's wonderful parable of the lost sheep (Luke 15:3-7). Thoma endeavors to credit the author of the Gospel with this ideal picture of the contrast between the true and false shepherd.