📖 The Book of Psalms — Unit 2: Psalm 23, The Shepherd

1. The Shepherd and His Sheep

The Psalms are the folk songs of the Bible, and none of them is loved more than the twenty-third. I have read it at countless gravesides over the years, and I have watched it bring comfort to grieving families when no other words would reach them. Its picture is simple: God is the Shepherd, and we are His sheep. But to feel the weight of that comfort, we must first be honest about what kind of animal a sheep really is.

Sheep do not simply take care of themselves, as we might suppose. They require more care than any other kind of livestock. They are stubborn and fearful, and quick to wander. A sheep has no sense of direction; a dog, a cat, or a horse, if lost, can usually find its way home, but a sheep cannot. That is exactly the prophet's verdict on us: "All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way."

The shepherd Phillip Keller once owned a fine ewe that bore strong, healthy lambs. Her only fault was that she was a "fence-crawler" — restless and discontent, always ending up outside the fence in some burned-out pasture. That was bad enough; but worse, she taught the other sheep to follow her. We are much like that. And yet the Lord chooses us, buys us, calls us by name, and makes us His own.

2. The Shepherd's Provision: Our Needs and Our Rest

First, the Shepherd provides for our desires. As a young shepherd boy David had learned to care for sheep; later in life he learned to depend on the Good Shepherd to care for him. Just as a shepherd looks ahead to anticipate every problem, God looks ahead to prepare everything we need. One of the hardest struggles of my Christian life has been to truly believe that God will provide all that I need. I can look back over countless times when He met me — His resources when my finances were inadequate, His enabling power when my ability was inadequate, His strength when my faith was inadequate — and still I find myself disbelieving again. Yet the Shepherd provides not only our needs but, in His kindness, our wants.

He also provides our rest: "He makes me to lie down in green pastures." By mid-morning the sun beats down and the sheep are hot, tired, and thirsty. A wise shepherd knows the sheep must not drink while overheated or while its stomach is full of undigested grass, so he makes it lie down in a cool, soft place.

Charles L. Allen tells of dressing hurriedly one morning for a full and thrilling day when a pain struck his back. He thought it would pass, but his wife insisted he see a doctor, who put him in the hospital. He was miserable there, certain he had no time to waste in bed. Finally a minister friend visited and said, "Charles, I have only one thing to say to you — 'He makes me to lie down.'" Sometimes God must make us lie down in order that we will finally look up.

3. The Shepherd's Provision: Refreshment and Restoration

He provides our refreshment: "He leads me beside the still waters." A sheep is a fearful creature, and because of its heavy wool coat it is a poor swimmer; it will not drink from a fast-moving stream, only from still water. So the shepherd keeps it from polluted and rushing water and finds it a quiet place to drink. We have a thirst as well. Many drink from the world's wells — the polluted waters of drink, drugs, and indulgence — and are left unsatisfied, their faces lined with desperation. The trouble is that thirsty people do not know where to find living water. But Jesus said, "If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink." Only Christ satisfies with the cool, still waters.

And He provides our restoration: "He restores my soul." We might ask why a sheep would need its soul restored — surely sheep do not get depressed. Yet occasionally a sheep becomes "cast down": it settles into a little hollow, its center of gravity shifts, and it ends up on its back with its feet in the air, unable with its heavy coat to right itself. Our word "downcast" comes from this picture, and if the shepherd does not find it soon, the cast sheep will die. David knew dejection. He wrote, "Why are you cast down, O my soul? Hope in God." I have been depressed when nothing worked out, discouraged when I seemed only to fail; but each time God sought me out, and as I learned to look up instead of inward, He restored my soul.

4. The Shepherd's Protection: His Plan and His Presence

The Shepherd protects us first with His plan: "He leads me in the paths of righteousness." Sheep are creatures of habit; left to themselves they walk the same trails and graze the same hills until the ground is fouled with disease and parasites, so a wise shepherd keeps moving them to fresh ground. It is humbling how like sheep we are, stupidly following paths that lead to broken homes, broken relationships, and broken lives.

Phillip Keller tells of a neighbor who was a bad shepherd; his animals were starved and diseased. When three of them collapsed in Keller's field, he wheeled them back to their owner, who simply cut their throats — he could not have cared less. So it is for every sheep that belongs to the bad shepherd, Satan. But because we belong to the Good Shepherd, He leads us back, again and again, into the paths of righteousness.

He protects us with His presence: "Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death … You are with me." To reach the high summer pastures the sheep must pass through the valleys, where coyotes, wolves, and cougars take cover in the cliffs. There is an actual valley of this kind running from Jerusalem down toward the Dead Sea, narrow and dangerous, where a sheep can fall to its death at any step. We are never promised that we will avoid the valleys — there are valleys of grief, of death, of disappointment and loneliness. What we are promised is the one thing that matters: "You are with me." The shepherd boy who walked out to face Goliath had only a sling and the Lord, and that was enough.

5. The Shepherd's Protection: His Power

"Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me." The sheep is a helpless animal with no weapon of its own and is easy prey for any wild beast; it is, by nature, afraid. The shepherd carries two instruments. With the rod — a club — he drives off the wild animals that would devour the flock. With the staff, the long crook, he guides and rescues, and sometimes he simply lays it gently against a favorite sheep to keep in touch, and the sheep takes comfort in that quiet attention. So the Lord defends us against enemies too strong for us, and He guides us when we cannot see the way. His power is not distant; it comforts me precisely in my weakness, when I have no strength of my own to bring.

6. The Shepherd's Preparation: A Table and Healing

The high summer plateaus where sheep graze are called "tables." Long before the flock arrives, the shepherd goes up to prepare the table: he sets out salt and minerals, roots up the poisonous weeds, and traps or drives off the predators. So the Lord prepares a table for us in the presence of our enemies, feeding us with His grace while holding the enemies of life at bay. Then comes the anointing: "You anoint my head with oil." Summer is the season of flies that torment the sheep about the head and nose, and the shepherd smears a soothing oil over the sheep to protect and heal it.

There is a Shepherd to whom we can turn in our times of hurt; He heals body and soul. The Scottish singer Harry Lauder, broken by the death of his son, found that Shepherd. Later, giving a concert before an overflowing crowd in Chicago, he responded to the encores and finally said, "Do not thank me. Thank the good Lord, the Shepherd of my life, for He put the song in my heart."

7. The Shepherd's Preparation: Goodness and a Home

"Surely" is a word of confidence: of all the things we will face, goodness and steadfast love will be the outcome. This is not the false promise that God will make us rich; it is the certainty that He will give us peace. The mark of God on our life tells us we belong to Him forever.

When Phillip Keller bought his first ewes, his neighbor handed him a sharp knife and said, "Now you'll have to put your mark on them." Each sheepman cut his own distinctive notch in the ear so that, even at a distance, everyone could see whose sheep they were. The Lord has marked us as His own.

And the psalm ends at home: "I will dwell in the house of the LORD forever." To a shepherd the word "house" meant more than a building; it meant his whole household and all that belonged to him. Jesus said He is now preparing a place for us in God's eternal home.

8. The Good Shepherd Who Lays Down His Life

Jesus said in John 10, "I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep." Think of it: the Son of God laying down His life for sheep that have wandered as we have.

That is a faint picture of what our Shepherd did, knowing the full cost. The Lord is my Shepherd; I shall not want. Will you let Him be yours?

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