Fold

A fold, or sheepfold, is an enclosure where a flock is kept. Two Hebrew words for it stress the wall: gederah, from gader, "wall," and mikla'ah, from a verb meaning "to shut in." The Greek aulē in John's Gospel names an open courtyard, a yard under the sky. Read quickly, a fold marks who is inside and who is out, and the faithful sheep's part is to stay behind the wall. However, Jesus defined his fold by the shepherd's voice: "other sheep I have, which are not of this fold: them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice; and there shall be one fold, and one shepherd" (John 10:16). In the Greek, the last clause reads "one flock," mia poimnē. The earliest printed English New Testament had "one flock," and the King James translators followed the Latin Vulgate's "one fold." The unity Jesus promised belongs to the flock and its shepherd, and the wall of any one fold is provisional.

Other Sheep

Latter-day Saints have long read John 10:16 through the risen Christ's words to the Nephites: "ye are they of whom I said: Other sheep I have which are not of this fold" (3 Nephi 15:21). Less often noticed is that he does not stop with them. He goes on to speak of "other sheep, which are not of this land, neither of the land of Jerusalem," who have not yet heard his voice, and says that he goes to show himself to them, "that there may be one fold and one shepherd" (3 Nephi 16:1-3). Each time the fold seems complete, the shepherd names another flock outside it. Restoration scripture thus makes the one fold a gathering still under way, with the lost tribes of Israel among the flocks yet to come.

The Door and the Pasture

The good shepherd "calleth his own sheep by name, and leadeth them out," and Jesus says of himself, "I am the door: by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture" (John 10:3, 9). The verb for leading out, exagō, is the one the Greek Old Testament uses for God bringing Israel out of Egypt, and a psalm remembers God leading his people out of Egypt like sheep through the wilderness. It is likely that John's first readers heard the exodus in the parable, with the shepherd leading his people out of an enclosure into open country. The Book of Mormon describes the terms of entry. At the waters of Mormon, Alma invited those "desirous to come into the fold of God" who were "willing to bear one another's burdens, that they may be light" (Mosiah 18:8). Entry is by covenant, and life inside is mutual care. The fold also guards, and Alma later charged his people to "suffer no ravenous wolf to enter among you" (Alma 5:60). Scripture asks the fold to protect its members and to let them come and go.

Shepherds Who Feed Themselves

Ezekiel's charge against Israel's shepherds names the danger in any power that gathers people for its own benefit.

The prophet was told to say, "Woe be to the shepherds of Israel that do feed themselves! should not the shepherds feed the flocks? Ye eat the fat, and ye clothe you with the wool… but ye feed not the flock" (Ezekiel 34:2-3). Digital platforms now gather billions of people into enclosures of their own design, which the industry calls walled gardens. They do real shepherding work: they keep accounts secure, filter fraud, and remove predators. They also earn their revenue from the attention and data of those inside, and their walls are often built to make leaving costly, since contacts, records, and reputations do not travel with a departing user. Ezekiel’s indictment fits the platform that profits most when its members cannot leave. The Book of Mormon adds that entry into God’s fold is by covenant, and that life inside means bearing one another’s burdens.

See also: Cryonics, Eden, Fall, Immortality, Resurrection, Voices & Ideas