By James Riley Strange, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of New Testament, Samford University
Our Shepherd
Psalm 23:1–6
Many passages in the Bible talk about God as Shepherd (see Ps. 80:1; 95:7; 100:3; Isa. 40:11, Ezek. 34:11–16), but none has captured our hearts so securely as this psalm. Surely it inspired Jesus to talk about Himself as the Good Shepherd (John 10:1–18). It must have become part of Jewish and Christian worship very early, and early Christians depicted Jesus as the Good Shepherd before the cross became a common symbol.
Composers know it well. Three of my favorite settings are John Rutter’s “The Lord Is My Shepherd,” Albert Hay Malotte’s “The 23rd Psalm” and the hymn “O Thou, in Whose Presence.” The psalm states in individual terms Israel’s experience of God in the wilderness (see Ps. 78:43–55 for another example). Notice the two distinctive ways of talking about God: as Shepherd (1–4) and as Host (5–6).
Our Shepherd gives us the guidance we need. (1–3)
The psalmist begins by telling his readers about God’s goodness. Sheep can be driven or led, and they can be trained to come when a shepherd they trust calls them. This is the image our psalmist uses: a shepherd who herds by leading. Of course, he is not giving us a lesson in animal husbandry but supplying a parable of God’s guidance. The Bible’s authors often use the image of walking to talk about living righteously. Although this passage refers to material rewards for following God, surely we can understand “green pastures” and “waters” as further images of God’s presence. If God is our Shepherd, what else do we need? We might reverse the first verse and say, “If anyone besides the Lord is my shepherd, I will have nothing that I truly need.”
Our Shepherd walks with us in our difficulties. (4–5)
The psalmist now addresses God directly. Unlike what we find in many other psalms, he does not ask God to punish adversaries. The valley remains dark. The enemies still lurk.
This psalm expresses what many of us experience: as threats remain, God walks beside us, comforting us, soothing our fears. “Thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me” also may help us with the famously misquoted Proverb 13:24. If the sage and the shepherd agree on the use of “rod,” then the parent who “spares the rod” withholds comfort and therefore “hates his child.” The rod is not a tool to punish but to protect. All of the images are of abundant blessings — a table laden with food, a head glistening with oil (see also Ps. 133), an overflowing cup of wine.
Our Shepherd gives us security. (6)
The psalmist addresses readers again. The “house of the Lord” refers neither to the Jerusalem temple nor to church but is another image for God’s enduring presence. The word often translated “forever” is elsewhere translated “for a long time.” Our psalmist is talking about dwelling with God his whole life long, as he does in the first half of the verse.
I sometimes lead Sunday School classes to make lists of things they want and things they need. It takes little prompting to produce a long want list and a short need list. Sometimes the need list looks like the lowest of Maslow’s hierarchy; only such things as air, food, drink and shelter appear. But after thinking about it, people begin to cross these off too, replacing them with one word: God.
If we have God, we need not in this life. Often we do not truly learn this lesson until life is at its end. May none of us wait that long.
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