The Passover lamb can be either a sheep or a goat as long as it is a one year old unblemished male. That is from Exodus chapter 12. I didn’t remember that. The Matthew 25 “separate the sheep from the goats” parable is way more familiar as a Christian and, knowing nothing about sheep or goats, it’s easy to assume the sheep are good and goats are just bad.
It turns out though that sheep and goats were often pastured together in that region. This allowed for more efficient land use because the sheep prefer grass and goats prefer woody shrubs. So sorting sheep from the goats would have been a common sorting activity – sort the sheep out for shearing, sort the goats out for milking or slaughter, etc. Both were useful valuable animals approved as sacrificial offerings.
I’m pretty skeptical of preaching on sheep, shepherding, and the good shepherd. My intuition begins and ends with how they stink, and I don’t think many pastors don’t have much more information than that. At least half of it feels like post-hoc construction to illustrate an interpretation instead of information used to actually interpret. I’ve heard contradictory interpretations of the “the good shepherd will leave the 99 to find the lost 1” parable saying both obviously any shepherd will go look for the lost one and that obviously no shepherd would leave 99 sheep alone.
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