Shepherds represent people who lead and teach others, using knowledge and true ideas to help people reach the goodness of life. This makes sense if you think about what a shepherd does. He makes sure the flock has good grass to eat; plants in the Bible represent facts and knowledge. The shepherd makes sure the flock has good water to drink; water represents true thinking about the spiritual aspect of day-to-day life. He carries weapons (a true understanding of spiritual things) to ward off predators (desires for evil) and keeps the flock safe. And the ultimate goal of the shepherd is for the flock to be useful, to do good, to provide good things, representing the good of life. There are, of course, a few cases in which shepherds are the bad guys (for instance, a group of them in Midian would chase Jethro's daughters away so they could water their sheep first; Moses found favor by helping the daughters and ended up marrying one of them). In these cases shepherds represent people who lead and teach without the good of life as the goal. When goodness is not the goal, ideas and knowledge are twisted into falsity and the teaching and leading trend toward evil. See also Sheep.

6223. 'And [someone] told Jacob' means a discernment by the truth of the natural. This is clear from the meaning of 'telling' as discernment, dealt with in 3608, 5601; and from the representation of 'Jacob' as the truth of the natural, dealt with in 3305, 3509, 3525, 3546, 3599, 3775, 4009, 4234, 4520, 4538, 6001.