<p>10:11- see on Jn. 13:36-38.</p><p><i>I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep</i>- It was through His death that the abundant life was created for the sheep; see on :10. Moses was a shepherd for 40 years, and then for 40 years he put this into practice by leading Israel as God's shepherd for 40 years in the same wilderness (Num. 27:17; Ps. 80:1; Is. 63:11). As Moses was willing to sacrifice his eternal life for the salvation of the sheep of Israel (Ex. 32:30-32), so the Lord gave His life for us. John's Gospel normally shows the supremacy of Christ over Moses. In this connection of them both being shepherds willing to die for the flock, Moses is not framed as being inferior to Christ- in that in his desire to die for Israel, he truly reached the fullness of the spirit of Christ. &quot;The good shepherd&quot; may well have been a Rabbinical title for Moses; the Lord therefore was saying &ldquo;I am Moses, in his love for your salvation; not better than him, but exactly like him in this&quot;. In a sense, Moses' prayer was heard, in that he was excluded from the land <i>for their sakes</i> (Dt. 1:37; 3:26; 4:21; Ps. 106:33); they entered after his death. This was to symbolise how the spirit of his love for Israel was typical of the Lord's for us. The Lord Jesus likewise died the death of a sinner; He was &quot;forsaken&quot; in the sense that God forsakes sinners, whilst as God's Son He was never forsaken by the Father.</p><p>The Lord's life was laid down on the cross, and yet in another sense He was laying it down in the process of His mortal life, in which He gave His life to us. Yet in the shepherd metaphor, He laid His life down for the salvation of the sheep from danger. He was temporarily slain by the wolf seeking to attack them; and He was slain by the Jews. They were the wolves attacking the flock just as Paul foresaw the Judaist attacks on the fledgling ecclesia as being the attacks of wolves upon sheep.</p>