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Quick answer: The Greek word for shepherd in the New Testament is poimen (ποιμήν, pronounced poy-MANE), Strong’s G4166. It means a herdsman who tends, guards and feeds a flock, and it appears 18 times in the Greek New Testament. Jesus uses it of Himself in John 10:11, “I am the good shepherd.” It is also the word behind the one place the King James Bible says “pastors” (Ephesians 4:11). Every pastor’s job title is, quite literally, “shepherd.”
Word Study: Where It Comes From
Most linguists trace poimen to a very old root meaning “to protect” or “to guard.” You can still hear it in Lithuanian, where piemuo means a shepherd boy, and it is a distant cousin of the Latin verb pascere, “to pasture, to feed.” So the Greek word leans a little differently from the Hebrew. The Hebrew word for shepherd, ro’eh, means “the one who feeds.” The Greek poimen carries the idea of the one who guards. Put them together and you have the whole job: keep the flock fed, and keep it alive.
The word sits at the centre of a small family, and the family is where it gets interesting:
- Poimaino (G4165) is the verb, “to shepherd.” The KJV translates it in surprisingly different ways. In Matthew 2:6 the coming ruler from Bethlehem “shall rule my people Israel.” In Revelation 7:17, “the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall feed them.” Rule and feed are the same Greek verb. In the Bible’s picture, ruling well and feeding well are one act.
- Poimne (G4167) means a flock, and poimnion (G4168) means a little flock: “Fear not, little flock; for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom” (Luke 12:32).
- Archipoimen (G750) means the chief shepherd. It is used only once, in 1 Peter 5:4, and it is used of Jesus.
Here is the part most readers never notice. Of those 18 uses of poimen, 15 are in the Gospels. They describe real shepherds in the fields near Bethlehem (Luke 2:8), crowds who are “as sheep having no shepherd” (Matthew 9:36), and Jesus Himself. Only one use applies the noun to a church leader: Ephesians 4:11, “and some, pastors and teachers.” When Jerome made his Latin Bible, he translated that word pastores, the Latin for shepherds, and that is where the English word “pastor” comes from. So “pastor” is not a separate religious office with its own vocabulary. It is the shepherd word, borrowed from the One the New Testament calls “the good shepherd.”
Where This Word Appears in the Bible
| Reference | KJV Text | What the word is doing |
|---|---|---|
| Matthew 9:36 | “But when he saw the multitudes, he was moved with compassion on them, because they fainted, and were scattered abroad, as sheep having no shepherd.” | The absence of a poimen is what moves Jesus to compassion |
| John 10:11 | “I am the good shepherd: the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep.” | Jesus takes the title for Himself, and defines it by dying |
| Ephesians 4:11 | “And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers;” | The only time the noun is used of church leaders, translated “pastors” |
| Hebrews 13:20 | “Now the God of peace, that brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant,” | The risen Jesus as the “great shepherd” |
| 1 Peter 2:25 | “For ye were as sheep going astray; but are now returned unto the Shepherd and Bishop of your souls.” | The shepherd as the one wandering people come home to |
Verse Deep Dive: John 10:11-16
“I am the good shepherd: the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep” (John 10:11). Six of the 18 uses of poimen are packed into this one chapter, and three details in the Greek change how the passage reads.
First, the word “good.” Greek has two common words for good. Agathos means good in character, good on the inside (it is the root of agathosyne, the “goodness” of Galatians 5:22). But Jesus does not say agathos here. He says ho poimen ho kalos, using kalos, a word for goodness you can see: fine, noble, beautiful, the real thing. He is not only saying, “I am a kind shepherd.” He is saying, “I am the shepherd the way a shepherd is meant to be. Look at me, and you will see what the word was always supposed to mean.”
Second, the hireling. Jesus sets the poimen next to the misthotos, the hired hand, someone paid by the day. “But he that is an hireling, and not the shepherd, whose own the sheep are not, seeth the wolf coming, and leaveth the sheep, and fleeth” (John 10:12). The difference between the two is not skill. A hired man might know sheep very well. The difference is ownership. The hireling runs “because he is an hireling, and careth not for the sheep” (10:13). The shepherd stays because the sheep are his own. And then Jesus goes past what any village shepherd would do: “I lay down my life for the sheep” (10:15). A real shepherd risks his life for the flock. This shepherd gives it.
Third, the fold and the flock. The KJV reads: “And 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” (10:16). In English, “fold” appears twice. In Greek, there are two different words. The first “fold” is aule, a walled pen, an enclosure. The second is poimne, a flock. Jesus actually says the other sheep are not from “this pen,” and that in the end there will be mia poimne, heis poimen: “one flock, one shepherd.” The two words even sound alike, poimne and poimen, because the flock is named after the shepherd. (The KJV’s “one fold” follows the Latin Vulgate, which used one word for both. Tyndale’s earlier English Bible had “one flocke.”)
That small difference matters. Jesus is not promising that one day all His sheep will be gathered into the same pen, behind the same walls. He is promising that they will be one flock because they follow the same voice. The unity is not the enclosure. The unity is the shepherd.
Not All Shepherds Are the Same
The New Testament uses a few nearby words that are worth keeping apart:
- Poimen (ποιμήν, G4166): the shepherd. The one who guards and tends the flock, and in John 10 the one who owns it.
- Misthotos (μισθωτός, G3411): the hireling. A hired worker. In John 10:12-13 he is the shepherd’s opposite: present while things are calm, gone when the wolf comes.
- Archipoimen (ἀρχιποίμην, G750): the chief shepherd. Used once, by Peter, for Jesus: “And when the chief Shepherd shall appear, ye shall receive a crown of glory that fadeth not away” (1 Peter 5:4). The title makes every other shepherd an under-shepherd.
- Aule (αὐλή, G833) and poimne (ποίμνη, G4167): the pen and the flock. The first is a place, and the second is a people. John 10:16 uses both, and English often blurs them into “fold.”
Why the Original Word Changes the Meaning
Follow the word through Peter’s life and you can watch it change a man. After the resurrection, beside the Sea of Galilee, Jesus asks Peter three times, “lovest thou me?” Each time He gives a command, and in English all three sound almost the same: “Feed my lambs,” “Feed my sheep,” “Feed my sheep” (John 21:15-17). In Greek, the first and third commands use bosko, “to feed, to graze.” The middle one, John 21:16, uses poimaino, “shepherd my sheep.” Peter, who had denied knowing Jesus three times on the night of His arrest, is given the shepherd’s own verb.
Years later, Peter writes to church leaders, and he passes that verb on: “Feed the flock of God which is among you” (1 Peter 5:2). Again the Greek is “shepherd.” But notice whose flock it is: the flock of God, not the leader’s. That is John 10’s hireling warning turned around. A pastor is a poimen who must remember that the sheep are not their own, under the archipoimen to whom they really belong. Peter even calls Jesus “the Shepherd and Bishop of your souls” (1 Peter 2:25), the one he himself had wandered from and returned to.
So when you read “shepherd” in the New Testament, read it in three layers. It is a guard who stays when the wolf comes. It is the real, kalos version of what leadership was always meant to be. And it is a title that every human leader only ever holds on loan.
Living It Out
Jesus says His sheep “hear his voice: and he calleth his own sheep by name, and leadeth them out” (John 10:3). Pick one quiet moment each day this week and read John 10:1-16 slowly. Each time, ask a single question: where am I trusting a pen, a place, a routine, a group, for safety that only the Shepherd’s voice can give?
And if anyone has been placed in your care, as a parent, a leader, a friend, or a small-group host, take the hireling test honestly. When the wolf shows up, as a hard conversation, a cost, an inconvenience, do you stay or do you quietly step back? Choose one person this week and stay a little longer than is comfortable.
Journal Prompts
- In John 10:12-13 the hireling and the shepherd may have the same skills; the difference is that the sheep are “his own.” Where in your life are you caring for people like a hired hand, and what would it look like to care for them as your own?
- John 10:16 promises “one flock, one shepherd,” not one pen. What “pens” (traditions, groups, preferences) have you treated as the thing that makes Christians one? What changes if the Shepherd’s voice is the real centre?
- Jesus gave Peter, who had failed Him, the shepherd’s verb in John 21:16. Is there a failure you believe has disqualified you from caring for others? Write down what John 21 says back to that belief.
Prayer
Lord Jesus, You are the poimen, the good shepherd, and You did what no hired hand would do: You laid down Your life for the sheep. Thank You for calling me by name and for staying when the wolf came. When I wander, bring me back to the Shepherd and Bishop of my soul. Teach me to hear Your voice above every other one, and to trust You more than any pen I have built for myself. Make me a faithful under-shepherd to the people You have given me, never a hireling, always remembering they are Yours. Amen.
Share This
- “Pastor” is just the Latin for “shepherd.” The Greek word poimen is used of church leaders only once in the whole New Testament. Almost every other time, it is about Jesus or real shepherds. [Post URL]
- In John 10:16 the KJV says “one fold, and one shepherd,” but the Greek says “one flock, one shepherd.” What unites the sheep is not the pen. It is the voice they follow. [Post URL]
FAQ
What is the Greek word for shepherd in John 10?
It is poimen (ποιμήν, Strong’s G4166). In John 10:11 Jesus says ho poimen ho kalos, “the good shepherd,” using kalos, a word for good that means noble, genuine and plain to see.
Does the word pastor come from the Greek word for shepherd?
Indirectly. “Pastor” comes from the Latin pastor, “shepherd,” which the Latin Bible used to translate poimen in Ephesians 4:11. The two words are distant cousins that share an ancient root, so “pastor” is a translation of the Greek word, not a borrowing of it.
Why does the KJV say “one fold” in John 10:16?
The KJV follows the Latin Vulgate here. The Greek uses two different words: aule (a pen or enclosure) for “not of this fold,” and poimne (a flock) at the end of the verse. A more literal reading is “one flock, one shepherd.”
Who is the chief Shepherd in 1 Peter 5:4?
Jesus. Peter uses the rare word archipoimen, “chief shepherd,” found nowhere else in the New Testament, to remind church leaders that they are under-shepherds caring for “the flock of God” (1 Peter 5:2), not their own.
