The Lord Is My Shepherd

Night on the hills. A sheep bleats somewhere in the dark. A fire crackles low. And a young shepherd, wide awake, keeps watch over his flock, humming a tune only he knows.

Psalm 23 is one of the best-loved songs ever written. The heading at the top calls it a psalm of David, and David knew sheep. Before he was a king, he was the youngest son of Jesse, sent out to the fields around Bethlehem to mind the family flock. He once told King Saul that he had chased down a lion and a bear to rescue a lamb. So when this song pictures God as a shepherd, it is not a soft, faraway image. It is a working man's picture of someone who leads, feeds, protects and never leaves.

“The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want.” In other words, I have everything I truly need. Picture a flock in dry country. Grass is patchy. Water is scarce. Sheep cannot find their own way to either. But this shepherd knows the land. “He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters.” Not a rushing stream that could sweep a lamb away, but quiet water where it is safe to drink. “He restores my soul.” When I am worn out, he brings me back to life. “He leads me in paths of righteousness for his name's sake.” The right paths. Because a good shepherd's reputation rests on how his sheep are cared for.

Then the song walks somewhere darker. “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death.” Shepherds moving flocks between pastures sometimes had to go down through narrow ravines, where the cliffs block the sun and wild animals wait in the shadows. The psalm does not pretend the valley is not there. It does not promise a way around it. It says something better. “I will fear no evil, for you are with me.” And listen to the change. Up to now, the singer has talked about the shepherd. Now, in the darkest place, he talks to him. You are with me. “Your rod and your staff, they comfort me.” The rod to drive off attackers. The staff to guide and to pull a stuck sheep free. Both mean the shepherd is close.

Now the picture changes again. The shepherd becomes a host. “You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies.” The singer still has enemies. They have not vanished. But they can only stand and watch as he is welcomed, seated, and served. “You anoint my head with oil.” In that world, a host might refresh an honoured guest with fragrant oil. “My cup runs over.” More than enough. And then the last lines, full of confidence. “Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life.” That word follow can carry the sense of chase. God's goodness is not trailing behind. It is pursuing. “And I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.”

Calling a ruler a shepherd was common in the ancient world. Long before David, Hammurabi, the famous king of Babylon, described himself as a shepherd in the opening lines of his law code. Kings used the title to say they cared for their people. Israel's prophets borrowed the same picture to criticise leaders who fed themselves instead of the flock. So when David the king sings, the Lord is my shepherd, he is saying something striking. Even the king is a sheep. He needs a shepherd too.

Psalm 23. Six verses, sung and prayed for three thousand years, at weddings and hospital beds and gravesides, and on ordinary Tuesday mornings. It does not promise that we will never walk through a dark valley. It promises company. So here is something to carry with you. Which line of this psalm do you most need to hear this week, and why?