Episcopal Diocese of Minnesota

Psalm 23

The LORD is my shepherd; *
     I shall not be in want.
He makes me lie down in green pastures *
     and leads me beside still waters.
He revives my soul *
     and guides me along right pathways for his Name's sake.
Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
     I shall fear no evil; *
     for you are with me;
     your rod and your staff, they comfort me.
You spread a table before me in the presence of those
     who trouble me; *
     you have anointed my head with oil,
     and my cup is running over.
Surely your goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days
     of my life, *
     and I will dwell in the house of the LORD for ever.

Reflection on Psalm 23
by John Gibbs, Ph D

This is one of the psalms of trust. Psalm 11, for instance, expresses trust in God as the maintainer of Justice, for: "If the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do?" But wait, for God's eyes "examine humankind," God "hates the lover of violence," but "loves righteous deeds."

Similarly, Psalm 23 expresses trust in God the protector, whose rod and staff "comfort me" in the presence of "evil." It is also trust in God the gracious host who "prepares a table before me" and invites me to "dwell in the house of the Lord my whole life long."

The first 3 verses set a bucolic scene that is pastoral in every way. The Shepherd, verdant pastures, "waters of rest" [Hebrew]-all these are evoked to communicate both who God is, and what God's merciful (v. 6) purpose toward the psalmist is. Not even in "the darkest valley" is any individual alone, for "the Lord is my shepherd" who even there finds a way to lead us back to green pastures and waters of rest.

This trust in God brings certainty of sufficiency: "I shall not want." As a later hymn-writer put it: "I nothing lack if I am His, And He is mine forever."

A second certainty is security. "I fear no evil; for you are with me." Realism about evil, and about the darkest valleys in our lives, is acknowledged and overcome by this kind of God and this kind of trust in God. Elie Wiesel, who barely survived Nazi concentration camps, has rightly remarked that we should say about God only what we can affirm when we stand at the upper edge of a pit that is filled with burning babies. There is no security for those who run away from death, violence, and horror. Only those are secure who feel steadied by this Shepherd, no matter how dark may be their valley.

Trust in God, thirdly, makes us steadfast. Desert hospitality afforded refuge within a tent to a fugitive, but only for a short time (two days and their intervening night). God's hospitality, however, has no limit. It lasts "my whole life long." That is what we can count on, that is what makes us steadfast. [See John Paterson, The Praises of Israel (Scribner's, 1950), pp. 113-14; Charles H. Spurgeon, The Treasury of David, I, pp. 356-57.]

People of this Shepherd Psalm have within them the kind of Shalom (Peace) that, if it is lived out in deeds, prepares them to be safe for "all creatures great and small." Such People live in harmony with all God's creation.

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