The author of the Twenty-third Psalm is quite possibly an old man who has lived the better part of a lifetime. In his day he may have been a shepherd. But now the years have siphoned his stamina. So he sits and reminisces on what used to be. And as he does so he observes another shepherd silhouetted against the sky leading a flock to a greener pasture. Instinctively, the sight turns the poet’s mind to the numberless days and nights he tended his own flocks under God’s watchful eye; and once again, as has happened so often before, he finds his heart flooding with gratitude: "The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want" (Psalm 23:1).
The psalmist knows a personal shepherd. He claims the Almighty’s hovering care for his own. Thus, he can face the twilight years with thanksgiving and in peace since, out of his long experience, he is confident of five truths concerning the character of the divine Redeemer.
A God Who Guides
In the first place, the author of the Twenty-third Psalm is on familiar terms with a God who guides.
he makes me to lie down in green
pastures,
He leads me beside still waters;
he restores my soul.
He leads me in paths of righteousness
for his name’s sake.
(Psalm 23:2, 3)
The Palestinian shepherd never left his sheep. No storm could deter, no danger suppress, his constancy. Here was no hireling lacking a sense of responsibility. Here was a man of character and integrity ready to lay down his life for his flock. Whatever the cost, he would be true to himself. It was no coincidence that "there were shepherds out in the field watching over their flock by night" when the angel of the Lord announced Christ’s birth (Luke 2:8-12). The darkness and the light were alike when it came to the matter of the shepherd’s concern for his sheep.
Nor would the shepherd allow his flock to tarry in one place lest it exhaust its forage. To be sure, the springtime grasses of the plateaus provided them ample grazing. But when the signs warned that the dry season was at hand the shepherd moved his sheep out to search for greener pastures.
To the unpracticed eye Palestine’s barren wasteland offered little hope for grazing. But the shepherd knew where to find herbage on which the flock might feed. So, too, he knew where oases lay in the desert, cradling the cool waters of mountain streams collected in quiet pools at the base of the hills. Here, drinking their fill, the sheep could lie down in peace. Above all, in the maze of dead-end trails decoying unwitting victims to precipices and pitfalls, he knew which paths were reliable and led somewhere. Hence, he could be trusted to guide the flock aright.
So it is with God, the psalmist reminds himself as he muses in the sunset. All the Lord’s paths are true and certain, and under his guidance none goes astray. Nor does he leave any to fend for oneself. Instead, he is always where his own need him to calm their fears, undergird their strength, and point them in the right direction (cf. Ezekiel 34:11-16). For the Almighty, too, whatever the cost, will be true to himself.
A God Who Guards
In the second place, the author of the Twenty-third Psalm is on familiar terms with a God who guards.
Even though I walk through the
valley of the shadow of death,
I fear no evil;
for thou art with me;
thy rod and thy staff
they comfort me.
(Psalm 23:4)
The Palestinian shepherd literally risked his life for his sheep. For him the "valley of the shadow of death" was no figment of the imagination. Rather, for him it was virtually a daily reality. The grim experience it involved becomes patently apparent when we use the more literal translation, "the valley of dark shadows."
Palestine’s unimpeded desert sun blazes with a brilliance unseen elsewhere. Because of it the country’s overhanging cliffs cast deep shadows into the narrow ravines below them. As a consequence, the tortuous paths twisting through the gorges virtually plunge from day into sudden night. The unwary traveler, passing from dazzling light into thick darkness, thus becomes easy prey to wild beasts or marauding brigands lying in ambush beneath the crags.
But the psalmist’s shepherd was no unwary traveler. He knew only too well what dangers might lurk in the inky passages, as David attests when he tells Saul of slaying lions and bears slinking through the murk to raid flocks he was tending (1 Samuel 17:34-36). So, to protect his sheep, the herdsman preceded them into the shadows armed with a nail-studded club. Alert to the slightest movement or sound, he fought to the finish any hostile person or beast accosting him.
Brigands or beasts of prey, however, were not the only threats to the sheep. At times they had to be protected from themselves. For on occasion one of the flock, becoming confused in the darkness, wandered away. As soon as the shepherd discovered its absence he secured the remainder of his charges out of harm’s way and, disregarding his own safety, searched until he found the straggler, often plucking it from some perilous plight with his crook (cf. Matthew 18:12).
How like God the shepherd is, reflects the old poet, seeking and saving his own. It is a thought to warm the cockles of the heart, and the psalmist cannot think it without breathing a quiet prayer of thanksgiving that to comfort is to "surround with strength."
A God Who Gives
In the third place, the author of the Twenty-third Psalm is on familiar terms with a God who gives.
Thou preparest a table before me
in the presence of my enemies.
(Psalm 23:5a)
The Palestinian shepherd always made ready the grazing land to which he led his flock. Disciplined and orderly in his surveillance, he did not recklessly turn his sheep loose into the oasis. Instead, aware of the concealed hazards that could so easily claim their lives, he went ahead to assure them safe pasture. With his familiar crook - his staff - he uprooted poisonous plants and burned them to prevent the flock from nibbling on them. In like manner, he probed the grass roots with it to rout out vipers coiled in the clusters; and with his spiked club he killed them. In a very literal sense he thus prepared a table before his sheep in the presence of their enemies.
When late autumn and winter successively dried up the pastures or coated them with snow, the shepherd took his flock to the eastern side of Lebanon where oaks and cedars offered bushy branches for fodder. On such occasions his sheep inevitably mingled with those of other shepherds gathered there for the same reason. But the mixing gave him no cause for concern. For his charges readily separated themselves from it in response to his voice to follow him when the time for departure came (John 10:27).
How often, the psalmist sighs, he has benefitted from the same oversight and largess at the hands of the Almighty! How often, too, he has separated himself from life’s entanglements when the Lord called!
A God Who Girds
In the fourth place, the author of the Twenty-third Psalm is on familiar terms with a God who girds.
Thou anointest my head with oil,
my cup overflows.
(Psalm 23:5b)
The Palestinian shepherd gave individual attention to his sheep. John tells us he called them all by name (John 10:3). Accordingly - as W. A. Knight reminds us in The Song of Our Syrian Guest - when the moment for the night’s encampment arrived the shepherd stood at the gate of the sheepfold "rodding the flock." Making himself the door of the shelter, he positioned himself in such a manner that the sheep could enter only as he turned to let them in. Then, using his rod as a bar, he inspected them one by one as they passed by. Jesus spiritually identified himself with this practice in a discussion he once had with certain Pharisees (John 10:7, 9).
As each animal moved slowly past him, the shepherd carefully scrutinized it. From the horn of olive oil and the pouch of cedar tar he carried as standard equipment, he anointed the bruised heads and scratched knees of those that had stumbled against sharp rocks or brushed lacerating thorns. And when he found one that was overly weary from the long, hot trek, he groomed it with the oil and offered it water from a large, two-handled cup to keep it from glutting itself at the pool.
There is probably no more tender picture to be found anywhere of the shepherd’s sustaining care of his own. Nor can the psalmist envision the ministrations thus awaiting the flock at day’s end without dwelling on countless occasions when, in like manner, he has received the Lord’s renewing touch.
A God Who Gladdens
In the fifth place, the author of the Twenty-third Psalm is on familiar terms with a God who gladdens.
Surely, goodness and mercy shall
follow me
all the days of my life;
and I shall dwell in the house of
the Lord
forever.
(Psalm 23:6)
The Palestinian shepherd infused his flock with a sense of well-being. When the long day’s journey into night was over, there was only contentment at the end of the trail. The hard, hot, dusty, dangerous route had only led to safe sanctuary. Whatever the terrors the darkness might hold beyond the encampment, within there was only an awareness of the shepherd’s hovering care.
To the author of the Twenty-third Psalm the divine assurance is neither passing nor passive. He accepts as his own the aggressive promises of God; and in the acceptance he faces life unafraid. He may not know what the future holds, but he knows who holds it. He is actually crying:
Surely, goodness and mercy shall
pursue me
all the days of my life;
and I shall dwell in the house of
the Lord
forever.
(Psalm 23:6)
The benevolence of grace, the poet has discovered, is woven into the fabric of life; and we can escape it no more than we can elude our shadow. The God who bears with his own "the burning of the noontide heat and the burden of the day" provides them a sense of security and peace, not simply because they are coming home, but because, in the course of their checkered journey, he makes them increasingly aware of an encompassing love matched to the demands of all their days.