1 The LORD is my shepherd;
I shall not want.
2 He maketh me to lie down in green pastures;
he leadeth me beside the still waters.
3 He restoreth my soul;
he leadeth me in the path of righteousness
for his name's sake.
4 Yea, thou 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.
5 Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies;
thou anointest my head with oil;
my cup runneth over.
6 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.
JW: David extolls the goodness of God as his shepherd and expresses his confidence in him, ver. 1-6.
3: 'Restoreth' - Heb. He bringeth it back from its errors and wandering. 'For' - Not for any worth in me, but for the glory of his justice, and faithfulness, and goodness.
5: 'A table' - Thou furnishest me with plenty of provisions and comforts. 'Oil' - with aromatic ointments, which were then used at great feasts; thy comforts delight my soul. 'Runneth over' - Thou hast given me a plentiful portions, signified by the cup, given to the guests by the master of the feast.
I saw this comic years ago and chuckled a bit at it. For some reason it stood out to me. This is what we sign up for: God encompassing us in every direction - before us, with us, following us. That's the pattern of this Psalm. God is our Shepherd, which indicates going before us. David expresses confidence in the midst of the valley of death's shadow that he will not be afraid because God is with him. Goodness and mercy are certainly attributes of the Godhead. Everywhere we go, everyone whose paths we cross will encounter God and his goodness and mercy again. So in that sense God follows, or carries through on those encounters where we could not.
Now a shepherd isn't the world's most ritzy vocation. And among the cultures of the people of God in Scripture, shepherds weren't held in high esteem. Why is it that David would choose the analogy of a shepherd to describe God? Because there are things that shepherds do that others are too afraid to do, especially fending off predators. David knew this very well, seeing that he was a shepherd in his days prior to ascending to the throne. But David said to Saul, "Your servant used to keep sheep for his father. And when there came a lion, or a bear, and took a lamb from the flock, I went after him and struck him and delivered it out of his mouth. And if he arose against me, I caught him by his beard and struck him and killed him."
My dad raises sheep in western Kentucky. Sam and I went to visit my family on weekend a couple of years ago and a shepherd moment occurred. On Sunday morning after Sam and I helped Dad fed the sheep, we went inside while Dad went to the road to retrieve the newspaper for my mom. As everyone else is sitting in the kitchen getting ready for breakfast, I see Dad quickly running through the utility room (at the back entrance of the house, adjacent to the kitchen) into his bedroom. Yeah, that grabbed my curiosity, but before I could make it to the utility room to see what he was doing, he was already on his way back outside with his 12-gauge shotgun. He said there was a fox out in the field with the sheep. Dad quietly scurried to the fence, raised the gun, and with the fox, who had a dead lamb that had recently been born hanging from his mouth, in his sights, he shot it down. That was the last time that fox disrupted my dad's flock (or any other flock, for that matter). Probably not as difficult of a battle that David faced, but nonetheless a shepherd fends off predators.
The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly. I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. He who is a hired hand and not a shepherd, who does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and flees, and the wolf snatches them and scatters them...I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father; and I lay down my life for the sheep.
With that coming from the mouth of Jesus, I can say with confidence that the Lord is my shepherd, and there's nothing else needed. He has gone before us and faced the valley of the shadow of death. When we face it, we don't have to fear because he is with us. He is the shepherd we can trust. And yes, we can count on those followers, goodness and mercy, stalking us for the rest of our lives as long as we proclaim that the Lord is our shepherd.
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