You eat the fat, you clothe yourselves with the wool, you slaughter the fat ones, but you do not feed the sheep.
God charges the shepherds of Israel not as equals but as under-shepherds accountable to Him, the great Shepherd. Their station and power cannot excuse them from reproof or shield them from judgment if they break faith; indeed, their dignity makes their betrayal of trust the graver sin.
AI summary
Commenting on Ezekiel 34:1-6
Ye eat the fat,.... The Septuagint, Vulgate Latin, and Arabic versions, render it, "the milk"; the words for fat and milk differ only in the points; and this was not unlawful, for who feedeth a flock, and eateth not of the milk of the flock?
fat--or, by differently pointing the Hebrew, "milk" [Septuagint]. Thus the repetition "fat" and "fed" is avoided: also the eating of "fat" would not probably be put before the "killing" of the sheep. The eating of sheep's or goats' milk as food (Deu 32:14; Pro 27:27) was unobjectionable, had not these shepherds milked them too often, and that without duly "feeding" them [BOCHART], (Isa 56:11). The rulers levied exorbitant tributes.