The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want (Psalm 23:1)

We are all familiar with this psalm because we have sung it on numerous occasions and in a wide diversity of circumstances such as at baptisms, birthdays, weddings and funerals, even at the deathbeds of believers. Yet we know that David probably would not have had any of those circumstances in mind when he wrote it. He would not have known that we would be singing it, and that we would be singing it with a greater understanding than he had as an Old Testament believer.

So when was it written? David, the sweet psalmist of Israel, could have composed the psalm specifically for use in divine worship in Israel or he may have written it originally for his own benefit or for the benefit of acquaintances. We have no real idea of when in his life he wrote it or if an event or sequence of events led to him composing it. Maybe he wrote it when he was a shepherd boy or did he write it as an older man looking back on life and all its experiences? None can say.

One thing that we do know is that David was a man after God’s own heart.

What is obvious is the suitability of the psalm for all age groups and for numerous circumstances. As Matthew Henry put it, ‘It is a psalm which has been sung by good Christians, and will be while the world stands, with a great deal of pleasure and satisfaction.’ Maybe we wonder what personal benefit David received from writing the psalm. John Calvin makes a beautiful suggestion: David ‘calling to remembrance the benefits which God had conferred upon him, makes them ladders by which he may ascend nearer to Him.’ And we can borrow his ladders because through their inclusion in God’s Word they have been given to us as well.

What does David say in the first line? It is important to observe the opening comment of a psalm because often it is a key for understanding the whole psalm. David makes a proposition and a deduction. The proposition is that the Lord is his shepherd and the deduction is that he shall not be in want (or lack whatever he needs).

We can see in his method the way to make spiritual deductions, which is that they must be based on truthful propositions found in the Bible. Sometimes we get into trouble spiritually because our deductions are not based on what is true and found in God’s Word. I may deduce for some reason that God will give me a million pounds if I ask him for it, but that deduction is not based on a true proposition found in the Bible. So in that case I will not get what I have asked from God.

The proposition

In the proposition, David says four things. First, he uses a particular name for God, here translated as Lord. In the Old Testament, there are several names used of God even as there are several titles given to Jesus in the New Testament. For example, Jesus is called Lord and he is called Christ, but they do not mean the same thing. The name of Lord points to his position as the Divine Sovereign and the title ‘Christ’ describes him as the promised Messiah who has appeared, the one who is now and always the prophet, priest and king of his people.

In our English Old Testament, there are two names used of God that are translated as Lord. The text distinguishes them by using capitals throughout for one (Lord) and using only an initial capital for the other (Lord). The one with capitals is Yahweh or Jehovah and the one without them is usually Adonai. In Psalm 110:1, both are mentioned in the clause, ‘The Lord said to my Lord,’ and it is important to note that distinction for understanding what is said in that verse. Adonai means sovereign Master, which is a wonderful name, but it is not so full of meaning as Yahweh.

What does the name of Yahweh point to? It is the name by which God introduced himself to Moses after sending him to Egypt as the deliverer of the Israelites who were there in bondage. As would be expected, Moses would need information that would give him confidence for the task, especially as things did not seem to go well to begin with. The information that God gave was this name, which was new to Moses (the name is found in Genesis, but by the time Moses wrote Genesis he knew that the God he was describing in it was Yahweh). This name indicates that he is the eternal, unchangeable God who is in covenant with his people, the God who remembers the prayers from the past and from the present, and who cares strongly for his people when they are in need, and who has planned a wonderful future for them. God himself explained the meaning of this name to Moses (Exod. 6:1-8) and when we read his explanation it is not difficult to regard Psalm 23 as an exposition by David of the name, Yahweh.

Second, David says that the Lord is a shepherd. What did David mean by that description? It is possible that he is using his own life experiences here. As we know, David was a shepherd who looked after sheep by caring for them and defending them from predators. It is not surprising that he would use that occupation as a picture of God’s care of him. Yet David was also a king, and it is important to note that kings in Old Testament times were regarded as shepherds of their people. And we can see in the psalm possible allusions to royalty such the reference to a palace in the last verse. So it is likely that David is thinking of the Lord as his King as well as his Shepherd, his Sovereign as well as his Provider.

Third, David mentions a personal relationship between God and him when he says that the Lord is his personal shepherd. The way he puts it is that he had all the care of God for himself. David would have realised his limitations when he was looking after his father’s flocks. Two of his sheep might choose to run away in different directions and he could not go after both of them at the same time. Yet the heavenly Shepherd is very different because he is able to be with all of his sheep simultaneously, no matter where they are or what they are doing.

David speaks for himself when he says that the Lord is his shepherd. But he also speaks for every believer. It is lovely to see how often the personal pronoun is used in the Bible when believers are conversing with God. Yet the strength of David’s assertion raises the matter of assurance. We know that there are degrees of assurance, and we may be in danger of assuming that to say ‘the Lord is my shepherd’ as rather simplistic whereas it is an expression of great assurance of personal safety because of the presence of the Lord.

Fourth, David mentions how often this relationship takes place and he does so by using the present tense (he uses the present tense several times in the psalm). At the moment when David wrote the psalm the Lord was his shepherd. But the present tense that he uses is a way of saying that the Lord is always his shepherd, whatever day of the week it is and whatever time of day it happens to be. In other words, the shepherding care of God is constant as well as personal. While it cannot be taken for granted, and the sense of his comforting presence will not be known if we engage in sinful activities, yet it is a comfort for us to know about his constancy.

Since that is the preposition, we can see why David can make such a comprehensive deduction. The competence of the Shepherd King assured David that all his needs would be met. In the rest of the psalm he provides examples of situations where the Lord provided for him and what it was that he received from the Lord at those times. We will look at them in later chapters. Meanwhile we can ask how all this is connected to us.

Progression in revelation

It is true that God is everywhere in the Old Testament. Yet it is also true that much about God is hidden in the Old Testament. We may have heard of Augustine’s comment: ‘The New Testament is in the Old concealed; the Old is by the New revealed.’

In Genesis 1, God spoke on each day of the creation. But to whom did he speak? On the sixth day, we get a clue when he said, ‘Let us make man.’ The clue points to the fact that the one God is more than one person. In the New Testament, we are told that in God there are three persons – the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. So we can look at Old Testament references to God and say that the Trinity is there.

But that leads to another question: which of the three persons is often identified as the Shepherd? It would be true to say that each of the persons has shepherding qualities. But is one of them called the Shepherd in a special sense? The answer is that Jesus is called the Shepherd in the New Testament and is so in at least five different passages.

In John 10:11 and 14, Jesus says that he is the good shepherd; in Hebrews 10:20, we are told about him that the God of peace, who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, the great shepherd of the sheep…; in 1 Peter 2:24 and 25 the author reminded his reader that they have returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of their souls who died for them on the cross; later in that letter, Jesus is called the chief Shepherd who will give crowns of glory to his lower shepherds (1 Pet. 5:4); and in Revelation 7:17 Jesus is the One who will shepherd his people in the eternal world as he leads them to the fountains of the waters of life.

So we can see that Jesus, the Son of God, is often the member of the Trinity with this special name of Shepherd. And he is also the exalted ruler, the head of the church, the one on whose shoulders the government has been placed by his Father, and who is the head over all things for the benefit of his body, the church.

Jesus as the Shepherd

So what can be said about the shepherding role of Jesus? In John 10, Jesus speaks on more than one occasion about himself as a shepherd. In verse 29, he informs his listeners that he was given the sheep by his Father: ‘My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand.’ This statement obviously raises the question as to when he was given them. The answer is that he was given them long before they existed, indeed before anything but God existed. In eternity, the Father, the Son and the Spirit had a longstanding (eternal) agreement, and part of it was that the Father gave those described as sheep in that verse to his Son.

Although they did not then exist, what was their condition in the mind of God when they were given by the Father and received by the Son? The answer is that they were lost sheep and condemned sheep. They were lost sheep because they would turn away from God and they were seen as condemned sheep because when they would come into existence they would be breakers of God’s law. Would we have given such a gift or would we have received such a gift? Normally, a giver will give a gift that reveals his desire to please the recipient. Usually, a recipient will acknowledge with delight the suitability of the gift and will use it in ways that will please the giver. God the Father gave this gift as an expression of divine love and wisdom and God the Son received the gift with love and satisfaction. It is good for us that this agreement was made because otherwise we would have remained lost and condemned.

Clearly, part of the responsibility of Jesus as the Shepherd was to deal with the condemnation and lostness of the sheep. Our perspective on his response is different from that of David. In David’s case he was found by the Shepherd before his condemnation was dealt with by Jesus on the cross whereas in our case we are found long after our condemnation was dealt with by him.

Jesus the good Shepherd dealt with our condemnation by going to the cross. Both his going there and his experience there are crucial. He went there on a journey of thirty-three years, a journey in which he lived a perfect life that he could offer up to God as a sacrifice for sin. Even as the lambs offered in the sacrifices of Israel had to be perfect after a thorough examination, so Jesus was given thorough examinations whether as a child or as an adult. As a twelve year old he passed an examination in which he revealed he was devoted to his Father’s business. And in his three years of public ministry he was examined many times and on each occasion he was found perfect. He remained perfect throughout his life as the representative of his sheep. Because he was perfect he was a suitable substitute to take their place and pay the penalty for their sins, and because he lived a perfect life as their representative it can be reckoned to them as their standing before God.

Jesus also engages in searching for his sheep. One of his parables that he told more than once is that of the shepherd who searched for the lost sheep. The fact is, Jesus searches for each of his sheep, and he always finds each one in its own lost state. How many lost sheep has he searched for today and brought into his flock. Their state may be similar to that of others in that they are lost and condemned, but they are not identical. Each sheep is guilty of his or her own sins, and sometimes the search takes longer for some than for others. Yet eventually Jesus finds them whether they are deeply involved in sin or sitting self-righteously in a church; he finds them whether they are young or old or in between when the moment of their ingathering to his flock arrives.

Connected to him finding each of his sheep is the fact that he is satisfied with them. In the parable of the lost sheep, we are told that the shepherd carries the lost sheep on his shoulders as he travels back to the fold and that he is rejoicing as he does so. The heavenly shepherd does not regret the pains he had to engage in to take each of his sheep to glory. And in this psalm we are told about some of the ways in which he is involved in their lives, and those examples are illustrations of why each of his sheep can say, ‘I shall not want.’