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Ezekiel 34:16

The New Testament’s use of Ezekiel

5 places · 2 kinds of echo

The source

I will seek that which was lost, and will bring back that which was driven away, and will bind up that which was broken, and will strengthen that which was sick: but the fat and the strong I will destroy; I will feed them in justice.

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Where this passage surfaces again, sorted by the strength of the link. Each kind of reuse — formal quotation, deliberate allusion, faint echo, figural pattern — carries its own mark. Follow any reference to read it in place.

Allusion3

A deliberate verbal borrowing without a citation formula.

Luke 19:1-10

The Son of Man's mission to 'seek and to save that which was lost' echoes Ezekiel's promise that God himself will seek the lost sheep and bind up the strayed, in contrast to the false shepherds. Luke applies the divine shepherd-search directly to Jesus, with the rare verb pairing seek/lost matching the prophetic oracle. High volume and thematic coherence with Luke's lost-and-found motif.

High confidence
Matt 18:10-11

V.11 ('the Son of Man came to save that which was lost') directly evokes the shepherd-God's oracle 'I will seek the lost, and bring back the strayed' — and prepares the lost-sheep parable that follows.

High confidence
Mark 2:13-17 ?

"I will seek the lost, and I will bring back the strayed... but the fat and the strong I will destroy" matches Jesus' physician saying: he comes for the sick, not the healthy, for sinners, not the self-righteous. The shepherd-God who seeks the weak is reworked into Jesus' calling of Levi and the sinners. Coherence and the recurrence of the shepherd motif in Mark (6:34) support an allusion.

Medium confidence

Echo2

A fainter, low-volume reuse, carried by recurrence or thematic coherence.

Luke 5:27-32 ?

The LORD as shepherd who seeks the lost, binds the broken, and strengthens the sick coheres with Jesus' coming to call sinners rather than the righteous. The seek-the-sick/lost motif gives some coherence to the mission statement; low volume.

Low confidence
Matt 9:9-13 ?

'I will seek the lost... and bind up the injured.' The shepherd-God who goes after the sick and strayed anticipates Jesus' coming 'not to call the righteous but sinners,' the same pastoral logic, faintly heard here and developed at 9:36.

Low confidence
Elsewhere in Ezekiel 34
Ezekiel 34:1-16 3Ezekiel 34:4 2Ezekiel 34:5 4Ezekiel 34:5-6 4Ezekiel 34:11-16 5Ezekiel 34:14-16 2Ezekiel 34:23 4Ezekiel 34:23-24 2