In like manner, our Lord continues to describe what every true shepherd of men has done and ever will do: When he hath put forth all £ his own, and not another's, drawn them by the music of his voice, or constrained them by the sweet violence of his love, or even compelled them to go forth from a fold in which they may find security, but not pasture; and when he has marshaled them into obedience and into thankful trust by the strength of his sympathy and knowledge of their need, he goeth before them.
He is their leader and example; he shows them in his own life the kind of provision made for them; he shares with them the perils of the wilderness, and first of all is prepared to grapple with their fierce foes, "He drinks of the brook in the way."
The highest meaning, the only complete interpretation, of this passage is found when Christ himself is the Shepherd, who does summon from the old enclosure "all his own," all who have entered into living harmony with himself.
And the sheep follow him: for they know his voice. Nothing is here said of "lost sheep" or of "goats;" these are all the "ideal sheep" of the flock, individuals who recognize the voice of the true Leader, and discriminate their own shepherd from all others, whether pretenders to their affections or destroyers of their lives—wolves or butchers, thieves or robbers.
Should we persist in interpreting the apologue as it stands, a question arises about the πρόβατα that are not the shepherd's" own." Some have answered it by supposing that the latter are the chief of his own flock, who will bring the rest after them.
The truth is not obscurely hinted of that election to highest privileges and duties, which does not declare that the rest are not sheep at all.