God: "I looked for someone to take a stand for me, and stand in the gap" (Ezekiel 22:30)
“Flock” brings to mind all the shepherd imagery found in the Scriptures: the sheep gentle, defenseless, liable to stray, needing a shepherd, happy, peaceful under his care, pitiful when lost, scattered, etc. This is “God's flock” that was bought with a great price (Ac 20:28), that is exceedingly precious in His sight, a great trust placed into the hands of human shepherds who are to pattern after Yahweh, the Shepherd (Psm. 23), and Christ, the Archshepherd (1 Pet. 5:4). What shepherd could have the care of any part of God's flock and treat it carelessly!
God has hidden every precious thing in such a way that it is a reward to the diligent, a prize to the earnest, but a disappointment to the slothful soul. All nature is arrayed against the lounger and the idler. The nut is hidden in its thorny case; the pearl is buried beneath the ocean waves; the gold is imprisoned in the rocky bosom of the mountains; the gem is found only after you crush the rock which encloses it; the very soil gives its harvest as a reward to the laboring farmer. So truth and God must be earnestly sought.
