The Lord Is My Shepherd

King David expresses his trust in God in terms remembered from his years as a shepherd boy.

1020 BC-970 BC

Sheep resting in the pleasant green fields beneath the Carneddau mountains in Snowdonia, Wales. Young David’s job as a shepherd had been to lead the sheep to nourishing pasture and clean water, and to protect the sheep from thieves and predators, especially the proverbial wolf in the fold; when shepherds do not do their job properly some very bad things happen. See The Boy Who Cried Wolf and A Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing. It is often noted that in Biblical times, shepherds would lead their flock by example from the front, calling to them in a voice both familiar and beloved; they did not drive them with stern cries from behind.

Introduction

The Twenty-Third Psalm is one of the best-known of all Psalms, and one of the best-loved passages of Scripture. The tradition is that David, a shepherd boy who was chosen as King of all Israel late in the eleventh century BC, composed many of the Psalms, and nowhere is this tradition more plausible than in these few verses.

from The Authorized Version 1611

A Psalm of David

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 leadeth me in the paths of righteousness* 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 anointest my head with oil;* my cup runneth over.

Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.*

from The Authorized Version 1611

From Psalm 23 in the Authorised Version (1611).

* ‘Want’ here means ‘need anything, lack anything’, as in the phrase ‘to be in want’. Myles Coversale’s translation (1535) has “therefore can I lack nothing”. See Coverdale Psalms 23.

* Keeping to the paths of righteousness means obedience to Israel’s law, given to her by Moses on Mount Sinai many generations earlier. See Stone Tablets and a Golden Calf. Cutting this path through the overgrown tangle of the world is referred to in the ancient Greek translation of the Proverbs as tracing out (literally, ‘rightly dividing’) a path: see Proverbs 3:6 and Proverbs 11:5. This ‘tracing of paths’ is a key duty of Christian clergy as shepherds of God’s flock, according to 2 Timothy 2:15, and at every communion service we are reminded of it: “Furthermore we beseech thee, O Lord, that thou wilt call to remembrance all bishoprics of Orthodox Christians, which rightly divide the word of thy truth.”

* The Prophecy of Ezekiel makes a great deal of this idea, that his chosen people’s misdeeds and humiliation at the hands of her enemies have brought God’s name into dishonour among the other nations of the world, and come what may he will mend Israel’s ways and restore her to glory ‘for his name’s sake’. See Ezekiel 36:21-27.

* Some have identified the valley of the shadow of death with a deep gorge on the road from Jericho to Jerusalem, where the Good Samaritan found an injured Jewish man in Jesus’s parable. See The Parable of the Good Samaritan, and especially the picture accompanying Part Two of that story.

* According to Irish missionary St Fursey (?597-650), God makes sure that after death the soul is closely accompanied by angels to see it safe from harm. See The Vision of St Fursey.

* Anointing with oil was a coronation ceremony of the Kings of Israel, as indeed it is of the monarchs of the United Kingdom to this day. It is also a key element in the sacrament of Baptism. The reference to a table and a cup has prompted the Church to suggest this Psalm for those receiving Holy Communion.

* The house of the Lord is the Temple at Jerusalem: the quest to find a place for the Temple was David’s greatest, though he himself never lived to see it, and it fell to his son Solomon to oversee its construction. See Psalm 132:1-5, and also our story The Jerusalem Temple. It was believed to be a divinely-revealed copy of the heavenly sanctuary itself, glimpsed by Moses on Mount Sinai. See Stone Tablets and a Golden Calf, especially Note 1.

Précis

The Twenty-Third Psalm, attributed to David, King of Israel, speaks of his trust in God as his shepherd, who keeps him upright and refreshed, and protects him in danger. God has showered blessings on him in open defiance of his foes, and David has quiet certainty that blessings will always attend him until he finds lasting peace in God’s Temple.

Questions for Critics

1. What is the author aiming to achieve in writing this?

2. Note any words, devices or turns of phrase that strike you. How do they help the author communicate his ideas more effectively?

3. What impression does this passage make on you? How might you put that impression into words?

Based on The English Critic (1939) by NL Clay, drawing on The New Criticism: A Lecture Delivered at Columbia University, March 9, 1910, by J. E. Spingarn, Professor of Comparative Literature in Columbia University, USA.

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