Psalm 23
A psalm of David.
1 The Lord is my shepherd, I lack nothing.
2 He makes me lie down in green
pastures,
he leads me beside quiet waters,
3 he refreshes my soul.
He guides me along the right paths
for his name’s sake.
4 Even though I walk
through the darkest valley,[a]
I will fear no evil,
for you are with me;
your rod and your staff,
they comfort me.
5 You prepare a table before me
in the presence of my
enemies.
You anoint my head with oil;
my cup overflows.
6 Surely your goodness and love will follow me
all the days of my life,
and I will dwell in the house of the Lord
for ever.
The Bible Panorama
Psalm 23
V 1–2: SHEPHERD David knows, as we can, that the Lord is his Shepherd.
The meeting of his wants, rest and refreshment come through that wonderful
relationship.
V 3: SOUL With his soul restored, he is guided by his Shepherd in the paths
of righteousness ‘for His name’s sake’.
V 4: SHADOW Even when death casts its shadow in the valley, there is no fear
of evil, because of the presence, protection and guidance of the Lord
. V 5–6: SURELY The
present experience of being fed and anointed by God encourages David to know
‘surely’ that goodness and mercy will be his during the rest of his life and
throughout eternity.
Abundant Life (23:2–3) Niv Application Commentary
The shepherd
leads his sheep
in pleasant places full of all the necessities of life: green pastures of grass
and quiet streams providing water for drinking. Those who have visited the
undeveloped lands of the Bible will know just how unusual this picture is. At
best the land is a dry, rocky set of rolling hills covered with a sparse and
tough grass. Water sources are few and often seasonal. Shepherds had to be
ready to take their flocks on long migrations from one source of grazing and
water to another.
The psalmist paints a scene of abundant
life in three descriptive statements—each speaking of the shepherd in the third
person and employing an imperfect verb form. The shepherd causes the sheep to
lie down, makes them approach quiet waters carefully, and leads them faithfully
on the correct paths. All three images emphasize the shepherd’s role as
provider.
Obviously grass and water are the
sheep’s staff of life, and the shepherd knows how to find them both and leads
the hungering, thirsty sheep to them. Although “paths of righteousness” may
have an unusual ring to our ears, it can mean no more than the “right path,”
that is, the one that gets you where you need to go. The ambiguity of language
and context, however, allows a moral quality to creep in. If the shepherd and
sheep are images of a life fully dependent and trusting on Yahweh, then “paths
of righteousness” take on the meaning of a way of life that fulfills God’s
expectation for his follower. The sheep are not left to their own devices but
are led by God himself to take the correct path—the one that gets the sheep
where they need to go.
For
his name’s sake. The
shepherd (God) acts in ways that reveal and confirm his character and nature.
In the Hebrew culture, a personal name was often thought to reveal the
character of the individual named. God’s revelation to Israel of his personal
name Yahweh at the time of the Exodus gave her unprecedented knowledge of his
nature and access to him. This knowledge and access had to be protected by the
prohibition against abusive use of the divine name. Closely related to this
idea is the concept of reputation. To have a “name” is to bear agood reputation,
while to be disreputable is to have no name at all (Job 30:8). Here, however, the shepherd/Yahweh
acts to benefit the sheep, not just in order to preserve his character or
reputation but in a way that is consistent with the nature the name reveals.
