Highlighted Text: Psalm 23

Occasionally familiarity, paradoxically, turns into an enemy of understanding, or at least becomes an obstruction. Psalm 23, perhaps the most loved psalm of the entire Psalter, is sometimes one of those victims—we settle for a surface understanding of this psalm. But the psalms, many of them, should be viewed as having layers of meaning that have an interlocking relationship. This will become clear in our discussion.

Before the days of modern Bible translations—thank God for them, or most of them—we could depend on virtually every church-goer to know this psalm by memory from the King James Version. I have knelt by the bedside of believers who had just passed into eternity and offered a prayer of hope and faith, and, without prior announcement, moved into this psalm expecting the family and friends to join me, and was not disappointed. What a moment of spiritual elation!

The psalm really falls into two parts, both dominated by the metaphor of shepherd. Part 1 is the picture of the divine Shepherd (the Lord) and the lamb (David) [23:1-4]. The literary assistants that support this metaphor are the expressions of shepherd life: green pastures, quiet waters, right paths, darkest valley, rod and staff.

Part 2 provides a change in metaphor, with the divine Shepherd still the dominative figure, although the word does not appear at all,  and the king (David) [23:5-6)].

With this change of metaphor the literary assistants are the king’s coronation (“you anoint my head with oil”), a feast that follows the king’s victories in battle (“you prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies”), the king’s successful reign (“my cup overflows”), and David’s passion for the temple (“I will dwell in the house of the LORD forever”). The figure of the divine Shepherd and David are constant in both parts, but David’s role changes from lamb in Part 1 to king in Part 2, still guided and directed by the ever constant divine Shepherd.

The divine name here, LORD (YaHWeH), is very personal, supporting the psalm’s type as an individual psalm of trust. The rabbinic view is that when the generic name for the deity, Elohim (translated “God”), is used, the general sense is the God of power; and when the personal name of the deity, YaHWeH (translated “LORD,” in all caps), is used, it connotes love and compassion. While an over-simplification, it is of special note that the psalms of trust overwhelmingly use the personal name LORD for the deity, Psalm 23 being an excellent example. The LORD (YaHWeH), is used exclusively (23:1 and 6), except for the metaphorical name “shepherd” in verse 1.

The psalms of trust are prayers and reflections, generally focused on God and the psalmist’s relationship to God. They have a tenderness that only a relationship of trust can claim, and a confidence that only the challenging experiences of life can build. Trust is the result of experience, sometimes long and testing, and the use of the deity’s personal name, LORD, contributes to a sense of intimacy between the Shepherd and lamb.

Thus we would expect that behind the psalms of trust is an event or circumstance that taught the psalmist to trust in the Lord. That experience can be seen in both parts of the psalm, and we may call that a second layer of meaning. That is, Part 1, as we have already observed, presents us with a picture of the Shepherd’s care for the lamb (David’s earlier life), and Part 2, the Shepherd’s care for the king (his later life).

As is often the case, God’s care for us in the tender years of life, including the trying experiences, is the basis for our trust in the Lord in the mature years of our life. In David’s case, his years as shepherd instructed him in the Lord’s care and protecting hand (vv. 1-4). The long years of his reign, with both successes and failures, could be assessed, particularly his successes, through the lens of trust, expressed in the clause “my cup overflows” (v. 5). Thus Psalm 23 is the story of David’s life, put into everyday terms, as the divine Shepherd has cared for him in his world as shepherd and king.

There is still another interlocking layer of interpretation, not as obvious as the former one, but nevertheless just as important. David speaks of his life in terms of the faith he professed, represented by the historical road markers of Israel’s journey of faith.  These are often engraved on the psalms in the language of other biblical stories, and the psalmists generally make the connection to those events by word associations. David’s experience as shepherd (1 Sam. 16:11; 17:20) and king (1 Sam. 16) is engraved in cryptic language—here we have to be very perceptive–on Psalm 23.

In fact, the language of the Torah (Pentateuch) became for David a dialect of faith from which he drew to mark out his own journey of faith.[1]  This is especially true of certain songs like Exodus 15 and creedal statements like Exodus 34:6-7. His faith journey was posted with road markers along the way, in this psalm the historic events and eras of Israel’s own faith journey. Those experiences should become personal to us. There is a Jewish saying that every Jew should celebrate the Passover as if the Lord took him or her by the hand and led them personally out of Egypt. As Christians approach the Easter season, they think of themselves as personally present at Calvary: “Were you there when they crucified my Lord?”

         First, the language of Psalm 23, under metaphors and symbols, reflects how the Lord led Israel through the wilderness under Moses, using two verbs for guidance and one noun for Pastures from Moses’ Song of the Sea in Exodus 15:

         In your unfailing love you will lead [Hebrew root, nhh]

                     the people you have redeemed.

         In your strength you will guide [Hebrew root nhl] them

                     to your holy dwelling [lit., “your holy pasture”]. (Exod. 15:13)

Second, the verb “I lack nothing” (23:1) is the same verb [Hebrew root, hsr] used in Deuteronomy 2:7) to acknowledge that the Israelites lacked nothing during their forty years in the wilderness. Third, the “quiet waters” of 23:2 (lit., ”waters of rest”) seem to recall the “place of rest” where the ark of the covenant guided Israel in their wilderness journey to places of rest and safety (Numb. 10:33).[2] Thus we can see how the language of the Torah (Pentateuch) was David’s language of faith, and he relived his ancestor’s religious experience with them.

Psalm 23 is a very tender psalm, its tenderness flowing in part from the imagery of shepherd and lamb, and also from the use of the deity’s personal name, LORD.  There is little wonder, therefore, that this psalm has endeared itself to countless millions of believers through the centuries, in life and in death, earning unmatched popularity in the Psalter (see Henry Ward Beecher’s “The Nightingale of the Psalms”).

Further, the idea that “goodness and love,” sometimes called “the hounds of heaven,” pursue us to the house of the Lord is a recognition that sometimes we don’t follow the Shepherd as good sheep should, and the Lord, thankfully, pursues us (the Hebrew verb is “pursue,” rdp, which has the intended sense of “follow” [in pursuit]), a truth that Francis Thompson celebrates in his beautiful poem, “The Hound of Heaven.”

C. Hassell Bullock is the Franklin S. Dyrness Professor Emeritus of Biblical Studies at Wheaton College (IL) where he taught for 36 years. He is a graduate of Samford University (Birmingham, AL), Columbia Theological Seminary (Decatur, GA), and Hebrew Union College-Jewish Instiutute of Religion (Cincinnati, O).

Among his published works are An Introduction to
the OT Poetic Books (Moody), Encountering the Book of Psalms, and a two-volume commentary on the Psalms, Psalms 1-72, and Psalms 73-150 (Baker Academic).

In addition to forty years of teaching in the college classroom, he has served Presbyterian congregations as pastor in Alabama and Illinois. He is married to his college sweetheart, Rhonda, and they have a son and a daughter and five grandchildren.

 Call to Worship

Adapted from Ezekiel 34:11-16

Leader:           This is what the Sovereign Lord says:

                        “I myself will search for my sheep and look after them.”

People:         As shepherds look after their scattered flocks when they are with them,

                       So will the Lord look after God’s sheep.

Leader:            “I will tend them in good pasture, and the mountain heights of Israel will be their grazing land.”

People:          God will be the one to tend God’s sheep and to search for the lost.

                        God will bring back the strays and strengthen the weak.

All:                  Let us worship God!

Submitted by Chip Hardwick

Prayer of Confession

Lord and God, you know what we are about to say in prayer, you know what we ought to say, and even what we need to say but cannot. Our sins trouble us, though they don’t trouble us as much as they should, for, in the final scrutiny of our thoughts and deeds, it is against you and you only that we have sinned. Forgive us for the wrongs we have done and the right things we have left undone; forgive us because we are often so nonchalant when we enter your presence in prayer and worship, thinking that we deserve to be here and have earned your grace.

Remind us in our thoughtlessness that the forgiving grace you offer cost our Savior Christ the suffering of hatred and death. But you, God, had a plan we never would have thought of: you raised Jesus from the dead, and now the Lord Jesus Christ sits at your right hand interceding for us. It is that intercession that we need to infiltrate the words and thoughts of our prayer and bring unmerited grace and joyful peace. Through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. 

Hassell Bullock

Assurance of Pardon

Let us receive Christ’s pardon for all of our sins, and receive God’s peace that we can never generate on our own. In Jesus Christ we are forgiven. Amen.  

Hassell Bullock

Benediction 

Hebrews 13:20-21

Now may the God of peace, who through the blood of the eternal covenant brought back from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great Shepherd of the sheep, equip you with everything good for doing his will, and may he work in us what is pleasing to him, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.