John Lightfoot on John 10:1

[By the door into the sheepfold, &c.] The sheepfold amongst the Talmudists is some enclosure or pen: wherein,

I. The sheep were all gathered together in the night, lest they should stray; and where they might be safe from thieves or wild beasts.

II. In the day time they were milked: as,

The Trojans, as the rich man's numerous flocks,

Stand milked in the field.

III. There the lambs were tithed.

"How is it that they tithe the lambs? They gather the flock into the sheepfold; and making a little door at which two cannot go out together, they number 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, and the tenth that goes out they mark with red, saying, 'This is the tithe.' The ewes are without and the lambs within; and at the bleating of the ewes the lambs get out."

So that there was in the sheepfold one larger door, which gave ingress and egress to the flock and shepherds; and a lesser, by which the lambs passed out for tithing.

[Is a thief and a robber.] In Talmudic language: "Who is a thief? He that takes away another man's goods when the owner is not privy to it: as when a man puts his hand into another man's pocket, and takes away his money, the man not seeing him; but if he takes it away openly, publicly, and by force. This is not a thief, but a robber."