The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.
He maketh me to lie down in green pastures;
He leadeth me beside the still waters.
He restoreth my soul;
He guideth me in straight paths for His name’s sake.
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil, For Thou art with me;
Thy rod and Thy staff, They comfort me.
Thou preparest a table before me, in the presence of mine enemies;
Thou hast anointed my head with oil;
My cup runneth over.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life.
And I shall dwell in the house of the Lord,
Forever, forever.
The number of sermons and devotionals using Psalm 23 is something approaching infinity, I would think. My own choir, the Cherry Creek Chorale, is featuring a lovely arrangement for sopranos and altos by the Jewish-Canadian composer Srul Irving Glick in our October 22 concert. (Get your tickets if you live in the area!) I have written extensively about the text in connection with some material about John Rutter’s Requiem, since he uses a version of it in the fourth movement of that work. Here’s a shortened and somewhat revised version of that material:
The traditional author of the psalm, King David of Israel, uses one long extended metaphor based on ideas he would have gained in his years as a shepherd. He starts by saying that since God himself is his shepherd he will lack nothing. (The old King James Version of the Bible says “I shall not want,” a phrase that has undoubtedly puzzled many a child in Sunday School—“I shall not want what?”) And what do sheep need in order to survive? Grass and water, as well as protection from predators. But we often think of the grass, “a green pasture,” in a totally inaccurate way. I ran across this fascinating explanation of what a shepherd really has to do in order to get the sheep fed in the desert region of Israel:
It’s not a lot of grass. Just little sprigs. But it’s enough to take a bite then walk a little farther and take another bite. The shepherd leads the sheep through the sprigs until each sheep has had a chance to eat. It’s not a lot of grass sometimes, but it’s enough for today’s meal. (“What God Meant by Green Pastures and Still Waters”)
As for the water, I’d always heard that (as the KJV says) “still waters” meant “non-moving waters,” because sheep won’t drink from running water but only from quiet pools. That idea may be mistaken, though—I ran across at least one source saying that sheep will drink any type of water, a habit that can lead to their undoing as the water may be foul. So the shepherd has to find “waters of comfort,” or, to put it in practical terms, “water fit to drink.” Totally still water will usually be stagnant, and swiftly-moving water could be dangerous if a sheep leaned too far over and fell in. So, again, just as with the grass, the shepherd isn’t passively sitting there watching the sheep drink; he’s actively leading them. (Not to belabor the point or anything.)
On to the paths in which the sheep are led. So interesting! If you wander around in the Negev Desert in Israel where flocks of sheep and goats are herded, you will see hundreds of little winding paths. One source says that they are just the right distance apart so that an animal can reach tufts of grass midway between two of them; many of the paths are on hillsides and so the paths provide sure footing. The shepherd leads his flock on these “right paths” just as God leads along “paths of righteousness.” (So the word “straight” in the above translation doesn’t really mean “in a straight line,” but something more like “correct.”) And if the sheep wander off the paths? Well, the shepherd will turn them back, or “restore” them. A better word might be “repent.” He gets them back where they need to be so that they can get water and grass. However, they’ll never get that refreshment if they won’t come back to the path. (Oops! More belaborment.)
“For his name’s sake” could be rendered “for the benefit of his name or for the glory of his name.” But . . . I’m going out on a limb here and (without claiming any Hebraic support for this idea) hypothesize that you could also say, “for his namesake.” A namesake is someone who has the same name as someone else. David is saying something along the lines of, “just as the shepherd leads his own sheep along the right paths for their benefit, so God leads his people along in the right ways so that they will live out their lives as people who clearly belong to him and who will glorify his name.” And it is apparently true that one way these shepherds kept their flocks separate from those of others was (and is) that their sheep recognize their voices or even their specific whistles. So when Jesus said in the Christian New Testament Gospel of John, “My sheep hear my voice, and they follow me,” this statement would not have seemed weird to his listeners at all.
On to “the valley of the shadow of death,” or perhaps just “the valley of the shadow.” I’ve gone down a number of rabbit holes about this phrase and still am not sure about the “of death” part. But whatever the literal meaning in the Hebrew, the idea seems to be that predators could lurk in these shadowy places or that sheep could fail to see where they were going in the dark. There are plenty of such steep ravines where David would have tended his flock. The shepherd had two tools with him, though: a rod, or club, which would be used to beat off predators, and a staff, or crook, which could fit around the neck of a sheep or lamb, making it possible for the shepherd to pull an animal out of a hole or back from danger. When David makes his spiritual connection he says that he will fear no “evil,” which gets variously translated “danger” or “adversity” but also “wickedness.”
When we get near the end of the psalm we seem to have moved away from the flock and into a banqueting hall: “Thou preparest a table before me, in the presence of mine enemies; Thou hast anointed my head with oil; my cup runneth over.” Hmm. What gives here? Did David just get tired of his shepherd-and-sheep analogy and decide to switch to a banquet scene? Are we now at a big party with overflowing wine cups and tipsy, perfumed guests?
Well, folks–that image is wrong, wrong, WRONG. Why would David suddenly switch gears like that with no warning? He was a better writer than that, surely! I’ve always been a little puzzled about this imagery, so I went internet diving. After more Google searches than I would have thought possible I found some very helpful explanations which I will now try to parse out.
The ever-informative Wikipedia directed me to the writings of J. Douglas MacMillan, a Scottish preacher who is best known for his book The Lord Our Shepherd, an exposition of Psalm 23. MacMillan grew up on the family “croft,” or farm, and worked as a sheepherder for twelve years before going on to become a preacher. He used his personal experience to argue that the shepherd theme pervades the entire 23rd psalm, and I think he was undoubtedly right. So for the line “thou preparest a table in the presence of mine enemies,” he argues that these “tables” are raised stone feeding troughs that were used in the sheepfolds of ancient Israel. I think you can see the reasoning here: the walls of these stone structures kept out predators and thieves, the sheep’s “enemies.” There they are, peacefully eating their feed, while outside are the ones who would like to prey upon them. Doesn’t that wording make a lot more sense than some kind of banquet scene with foes peering in at the windows?
As for the “oil” and “cup” imagery, well, we can still stay squarely within shepherding here, too:
“Thou anointest my head with oil” alludes to the medicinal remedy which each night the good shepherd, before folding the sheep, applies to any wounds or bruises they may have received during the day; . . . . the words “My cup runneth over” refer to the shepherd giving, at the same time, a good long drink out of a large wooden bowl, which he has by his side ready for the occasion at this evening hour, to those of his charge who are faint and weary. (“The Valley of the Shadow of Death”)
Finally, “loving-kindness and mercy” are literally following the sheep in the person of the shepherd or perhaps sheepdogs and metaphorically following us in the person of God. So the earthly sheep could say, “I will always have a place in the fold, for the rest of my life” and the spiritual application would be to make “the house of the Lord” the Temple in Jerusalem where God was worshiped or perhaps Heaven. Either or both could fit.
There! Doesn’t this version of the psalm’s interpretation leave you much more satisfied than the usual one? It certainly does for me.
Here’s a performance of the Glick composition by a stunning women’s chorus with orchestra:
