They were scattered, because there was no shepherd; and they became food to all the animals of the field, and were scattered. My sheep wandered through all the mountains, and on every high hill: yes, my sheep were scattered on all the surface of the earth; and there was no one who searched or sought.
⛓ Read Ezekiel 34 forward — the whole chapter and its afterlife →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.
Ezekiel's flock 'scattered because there was no shepherd' and the sheep that 'wandered through all the mountains' is the controlling background for Israel-as-lost-sheep. Ezek 34:16, 'I will seek that which was lost,' frames the apostolic mission as God's promised search for the strays.
High confidence'My sheep were scattered... they wandered, lost.' Jesus' mission 'to the lost sheep of the house of Israel' (Mt 15:24) draws directly on Ezekiel's scattered/lost flock that God himself will seek and shepherd.
High confidenceWithout a shepherd the flock 'became food for all the beasts of the field, and were scattered.' The wolf that snatches and scatters the sheep (v.12) replays Ezekiel's scattering and devouring of the unshepherded flock.
Medium confidenceEcho1
A fainter, low-volume reuse, carried by recurrence or thematic coherence.
Ezekiel's image of the flock 'scattered because there is no shepherd,' wandering over the mountains, reinforces the shepherd-and-sheep motif of the citation. Mark elsewhere casts the crowds as sheep without a shepherd (6:34), so this prophetic scattered-flock tradition coheres strongly and supplies depth to the Zechariah quotation.
Medium confidence