Psalms 23

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 guideth me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.

4. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,

I will fear no evil; for thou art with me:

THERE could not be a finer arrangement than that the Psalm which speaks of a great feast of grace prepared for humanity should now be followed by a Psalm which praises Jehovah as the shepherd and host of His own. D.— This Psalm breathes throughout a spirit of the calmest and most assured trust in God; it speaks of a peace so deep, a serenity so pro- found, that even the thought of the shadow of death cannot trouble it. Perhaps there is no Psalm in which the absence of all doubt, mis- giving, fear, anxiety, is so remarkable; and certainly no image could have been devised more beautifully descriptive of rest and safety and trustful happiness than that of the sheep lying down in the deep, rich meadow-grass, beside the living stream, under the care of a tender and watchful shepherd. This feeling of confidence is expressed in three different ways: first, “I cannot want;” next, “I will fear no evil;” lastly, “I will dwell in the house of Jehovah forever.” On the other hand, God’s care for the soul is represented under a twofold image. First, Jehovah is the true shepherd. Next, He is the bountiful host, who exercises princely hospitality toward His guests. It is unnecessary to refer this Psalm to any particu- lar period of David’s history. As the outpour- ing of a heart which has found perfect rest in God, it was most probably written in advanced years, after a long experience of God’s good- ness. P.

This inimitable ode is the Christian Psalm of life. In it is delineated with exceeding tender- ness, pathos, and beauty the spiritual experi- ence of the soul associated with Jehovah by ties of acknowledged dependence and affectionate confidence. Here is a child of God living under the earlier dispensation, at a far advanced stage of an eventful life, succinctly recalling in thank-

Thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me.

5. Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies:

Thou hast anointed 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.

ful song the particulars of Jehovah’s loving- kindness, through expressions which perfectly apply to believers in all dispensations. B.

This beautiful ode has touched the heart of all ages. Its calm and peaceful strain speaks of a time when David was dwelling in safety after the trials, dangers, and struggles of his early life. It tells of want, but it no longer exists; of danger, but its terrors are gone; of enemies, but their day of power is at an end. M.

This is an ode which for beauty of sentiment is not to be matched in the circuit of all litera- ture. In its way down through three thousand years or more, this Psalm has penetrated to the depths of millions of hearts; it has gladdened homes of destitution and discomfort; it has whispered hope and joy amid tears to the utterly solitary and forsaken, whose only refuge was in heaven. Beyond all range of probable calcu- lation have these dozen lines imparted a power of endurance under suffering and strength in feebleness, and have kept alive the flickering flame of religious feeling in hearts that were nigh to despair. The Divine element herein embodied has given proof, millions of times re- peated, of its reality and of its efficacy, as a formula of tranquil trust in God, and of a grateful sense of His goodness, which all who do trust in Him may use for themselves, and use it until it has become assimilated to their own habitual fulness. Isaac Taylor.

This Psalm, justly admired for its exquisite beauty, its sweet simplicity, and its precious spiritual experiences, bears in every feature the impress of David’s hand and no less of David’s heart. Through all his early years at home amid flocks and folds, green pastures and quiet waters—familiar with everything pertaining to the care and comfort of his charge, he knew how to use this comparison to represent the like care and sympathy of his own Jehovah over himself and his fellow-Israelites. As to date, we must place this Psalm in the later years of his life. The goodness and mercy with which God had shielded him from earlier dangers confirmed his faith in God for similar protection through all his future days. C.

The king who had been the shepherd-boy, and had been taken from the quiet sheepcotes to rule over Israel, sings this little Psalm of Him who is the true Shepherd and King of men. We do not know at what period of David’s life it was written, but there is a fulness of experience about it, and a tone of subdued, quiet confidence which speaks of a heart mellowed by years, and of a faith made sober by many a trial. A. M.—In the Psalms, more perhaps than in any other part of the Bible, the thoughts of God in nature, and of nature pointing up to God, are emphasized; and David’s utterances of this kind are largely the fruit of those early wanderings with his sheep, in green pastures, and by still waters, and through gloomy ravines, in the quick flashing bursts of the Eastern dawn, and under the gleam of the midnight stars. And if that shepherd life had furnished nothing else than the materials for this wonderful pastoral ode, we should all be inclined to say that no period of David’s history would have compensated the Church for the loss of his shepherd life. Yet the Psalm is not the utterance of the shepherd days, though it perpetuates their memory. Had it been thus, men might have said that it was but the natural outflowing of a confiding boy’s heart, unversed in care or struggle. But this peaceful idyl is a voice out of the maturer life of the Psalmist; out of memories of care and battle and treachery; a voice that tells that peace and rest of heart depend not upon the absence of life’s burdens, nor on the presence of nature’s tranquilizing scenes, but solely upon the shepherding of God. V.

Its central thought is the close relation between the believer and his God, and this is made vivid by the choice of the one earthly relation which expresses it better than any or all others combined. What the best of human shepherds is to a poor, wayward sheep, that and more is Jehovah to the soul that trusts in Him. And this is the heart of all true experience. It has been greatly illuminated and intensified by the coming of Him who is the Good Shepherd, the great shepherd of the sheep, who knows His own even as the Father knows Him, and who actually laid down His life on their behalf. But in the earlier dispensation, as well as the later, the consummate flower of religious character was walking with God as one’s guide, deliverer, friend and portion. T. W. C.

He is conscious of dependence, but he is above want and fear. He does not ask, he has—he possesses God, and is at rest in Him. He is satisfied with that fruition which blesseth all who hunger for God, and is the highest form of communion with Him. As the present has no longings, the future has no terrors. All the horizon is clear, all the winds are still, the ocean at rest, “and birds of peace sit brooding on the charmed wave.” If there be foes, God holds them back. If there lie far off among the hills any valley of darkness, its black portals cast no gloom over him, and will not when he enters. God is his shepherd, and, by another image, God is his host. The life which in one aspect, by reason of its continual change, and occupation with outward things, may be compared to the journeyings of a flock, is in another aspect, by reason of its inward union with the stability of God, like sitting ever at the table which His hand has spread as for a royal banquet, where the oil of gladness glistens on every head, and the full cup of Divine pleasure is in every hand. For all the outward and pilgrimage aspect, the Psalmist knows that only Goodness and Mercy—these two white-robed messengers of God—will follow his steps, however long may be the term of the days remaining of his life; for all the inward, he is sure that, in calm, unbroken fellowship, he will dwell in the house of God, and that when the twin angels who fed and guided him all his changeful life have finished their charge, and the days of his journeyings are ended, there stretches beyond a still closer union with his heavenly Friend, which will be perfected in His true house “forever.” We look in vain for another example, even in David’s Psalms, of such perfect, restful trust in God. These clear notes are perhaps the purest utterance ever given of “the peace of God which passeth all understanding.” A. M.

The Lord is a strong refuge and a high tower, into which we run when our spears are broken and our shields trampled into dust. We think only of ourselves, and our speech is burdened with the enumeration of our wants. But it is far more important that God should have His way with us than that we should have our way with Him. For God knows us infinitely better than we know ourselves, and we shall ask most wisely when we let Him show us His mind. The twenty-third Psalm is the sweetest of all religious lyrics, because of its discovery that God is the Shepherd of the soul. That not only secures against want; it drives out the very thought of want, so that David has no request to make. The path is always luminous, the table is always a royal banquet, the way is always secure, and even the grave is within the enclosure of the Divine pasturage. Rehrends.

1. Jehovah (is) my shepherd, I shall not want.** This is the general theme or idea of the whole Psalm, that the believer’s relation to Jehovah carries with it necessarily the full supply of all his wants. Spiritual gifts are neither excluded nor exclusively intended. The future form, I shall not want, includes the present, I do not want, with an additional assurance that the provision will be still continued. A. — “The Lord is my shepherd; I want nothing!” thus it may be equally well rendered, though in our version it is in the future tense. Macduff.

Long before, Jacob had spoken of Him as the “Shepherd of Israel;” but it was reserved for David to bring that sweet and wonderful name into closer relations with the single soul; and, with that peculiar enthusiasm of personal reliance and recognition of God’s love to the individual which stamps all his Psalms, to say, “The Lord is my shepherd.” These dumb companions of his, in their docility to his guidance and absolute trust in his care, had taught him the secret of peace in helplessness, of patience in ignorance. The green strips of meadow land where the clear waters brought life, the wearied flocks sheltered from the mid-day heat, the quiet course of the little stream, the refreshment of the sheep by rest and pasture, the smooth paths which he tried to choose for them, the rocky defiles through which they had to pass, the rod in his hand that guided, and chastised, and defended, and was never lifted in anger—all these, the familiar sights of his youth, pass before us as we read; and to us, too, in our widely different social state, have become the undying emblems of the highest care and the wisest love. A. M.

This poem is impregnated with one feeling—the feeling of trust in God. The illustration of this trust is taken from pastoral life. The case of the Oriental shepherd and the trustfulness of the sheep furnish a symbol to David of the mutual relations between himself and God. In the first verse we find two of the activities of faith: it appropriates God, “The Lord is my shepherd.” It sees the invisible in the visible. The scenery and life which moved round

David was merely scenery and life, and no more; to him the whole was a parable of which God was the interpretation. The veil of the phenomenal was lifted up, and he beheld the spiritual. Brooke.

The Psalm centres in this thought of God as a shepherd. All its ideas and images spring from this, and group themselves round it. Hence the key-note of the whole song is, God’s servant finds his all in God. He wants nothing. Here is the eternal, vital truth that man lives by God and not by His gifts. This being true, it follows that the true end of every man’s life is to become one of God’s flock. V.

I shall not want. Or, “I cannot want,” as describing not only the present experience, but as expressing confidence for all time to come. These words are the key-note of the Psalm. David speaks them out of the fulness of his own experience. As he had watched over, provided for, and tended his flock, leading them to the greenest pastures, and finding for them the water which in that country was so scarce, and guarding them by night from beasts of prey, so he felt his God would provide for and watch over him. P.—He who has Jehovah, the possessor of all things, has everything; he does not lack whatever is good in itself and would be good for him.

“I shall not want”—for food, for drink, for grace and beauty, for quietness, for companionship, for guidance, for a welcome back again when I have wandered. Want is the excess of the desire beyond the possession. But he whose heart is right with God, as David’s was, will not desire what it is not in God’s providence that he shall possess. J. V.—In David’s way of putting it, the Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. In Paul’s way of putting it, it is, My God shall supply all your need, according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus. Bishop Thorold.

2. He . . . me.** What, without exaggeration, may be called a personal friendship is established between the Lord and each of His disciples. He comes in among them, sees them one by one, and has personal communication with each suitable to Himself and unknown to all the rest, calling Him by His own name, and expressing a personal love in the calling. A. R.—He has a clear individualizing knowledge of each; each separately has a place in His mind or heart. To each He says, “I know thee by name.” He loves the world, because He loves every single soul with a distinct love. And His messages of blessing are as specific and individualizing as the love from which they come. He speaks to each of us as truly as when His voice from heaven said, “Saul, Saul.” English names are on His lips as really as Jewish ones. He calls to thee by thy name—thou hast a share in His love. A. M.

He calls that He may lead. He utters the name that he, that she who answers to it may, at the thrilling word, arise and follow Him whithersoever He goeth. “He calleth His own sheep by name, and leadeth them out”—“out,” of course, from the whole natural sinful life, from all its darkness and misery, into the light and joy of acceptance; “out” of infantine feebleness into manly strength; “out” of narrow views into wider; “out” of first experiences into more matured; “out” of mistakes and disappointments into wiser ways and better fortunes; “out” of dreamy indolence into those activities by which alone it can be escaped; “out” of overstrained activity into some quiet hour or time of “refreshing from the presence of the Lord;” “out” of besetting sin into waiting duty; sometimes “out” of safety into perils which lie on the way to a higher safety; and so on and on in a movement which cannot cease until at length, in His own time and way, it will be “out” of earth into heaven. A. R.

To lie down in green pastures. What are these “green pastures” but the Scriptures of truth—always fresh, always rich, and never exhausted? Sweet and full are the doctrines of the Gospel; fit food for souls, as tender grass is natural nutriment for sheep. When by faith we are enabled to find rest in the promises, we are like the sheep that lie down in the midst of the pasture; we find at the same moment both provender and peace, rest and refreshment, serenity and satisfaction. S.—Here are many pastures, and every pasture rich, so that it can never be eaten bare; here are many streams, and every stream so deep and wide that it can never be drawn dry. The sheep have been eating in these pastures ever since Christ had a church on earth, and yet they are as full of grass as ever. The sheep have been drinking at these streams ever since Adam, and yet they are brim full to this very day, and they will so continue till the sheep are above the use of them in heaven! Ralph Robinson.

With guidance to “green pastures,” the Psalmist has, with good reason, associated guardianship beside “still waters:” for as we can only appropriate the Word through the Spirit, so we shall ordinarily receive the Spirit through the Word; not indeed only by hearing it, not only by reading it, not only by reflecting upon it. But the effect of His coming will ever be the realization of some promise, the recognition of some principle, the attainment of some grace, the understanding of some mystery, which is already in the Word, and which we shall thus find, with a deeper impression and with a fuller development, brought home with power to the heart. T. Dale.

Lie down. A godly life, if it be healthful, must be both an active and a contemplative life. In this age we are so constantly urged to active life that we are in some danger of losing sight of the claims of the contemplative life. While it is true that no life is more unhealthful and more fruitful in evil of some kinds than the life of the cloister—the life of pure contemplation as it is styled—it is equally true that the life of pure activity without contemplation is also unhealthful. If the one tends to paralysis, the other tends to fever. There are times when a man needs to lie still, like the earth under the spring rain, letting the lessons of experience and the memories of the Word of God sink down to the very roots of his life, and fill the deep reservoirs of his soul. Those are not always lost days when his hands are not busy, any more than rainy days in summer are lost, because they keep the farmer indoors. They are growing days; and for this side of the godly man’s life the great Shepherd provides in His green pastures, He makes His servant to lie down there. There are times when men say they are too busy to stop; when they think they are doing God’s service by going on. Now and then God makes such an one lie down; and then the active, bustling man learns the much-needed lesson of rest in the Lord, and of waiting patiently for Him, because he can do nothing else but rest. Many a man has had to thank God for some enforced season of rest, in which he first learned the sweetness of meditation on the Word, and of lying still in God’s hands and waiting God’s pleasure. V.

Still waters. By waters of rest we are not to understand still or quiet waters, a sense which the Hebrew word has nowhere else, and which would here suggest the idea of stagnation, or at least that of silence, which is far less agreeable than that of an audible flow. The idea really conveyed is that of waters by or at which rest may be enjoyed. The repose is not that of the waters themselves, but of the flocks reclining near them. A.

The Psalm puts the rest and refreshment first, as being the most marked characteristic of God’s dealings. After all, it is so. The years are years of unbroken continuity of outward blessings. The reign of afflictions is ordinarily measured by days. Weeping endures for a night. But outward blessings are precious chiefly as emblems of the better spiritual gifts; and it is not an accommodation of his words, but is the appreciation of their truest spirit, when we look upon them, as the instinct of devout hearts has ever done, as expressing both God’s gift of temporal mercies and His gift of spiritual good, of which higher gift all the lower are meant to be significant and symbolic. Thus regarded, the image describes the sweet rest of the soul in communion with God, in whom alone the hungry heart finds food that satisfies, and from whom alone the thirsty soul drinks draughts deep and limpid enough. A. M.

3. My soul He will restore; He will lead me in paths of right (or rectitude) for His name’s sake.** To restore the soul, here as in Psalm 19: 7, is to vivify or quicken the exhausted spirit. Paths of right may either mean right paths, as opposed to those which are devious and dangerous, or paths of righteousness, not man’s but God’s, not ways of upright conduct on the Psalmist’s part, but ways of faithfulness on God’s part. The righteousness of God, so often appealed to by the ancient saints, includes His covenanted mercy, the exercise of which, according to His promise, was ensured by His essential rectitude. A.—First is intimated the believer’s liability to fall, or deviate even within the fall of the Church, else wherefore should he need to be “restored”? Next is declared the promptitude of the Good Shepherd to interpose for his rescue. “He restoreth my soul.” Then Christ’s subsequent care to “lead him in the paths of righteousness;” and lastly, the reason assigned wherefore He will do this—resolving all into the spontaneousness, the supremacy, the omnipotence of grace. He will do all “for His own name’s sake.” T. Dale.

Consider what is true of any real disciple, who is straying from Christ—viz., that his Holy Shepherd, folding the flock and caring for it as a shepherd should, does not let him go, or take it only as a fact that the flock is diminished by one, not caring by what one. He knows what one it is, and, if the wanderer will listen, he may hear the shepherd calling his name. The love of Christ, as we have seen, is personal and particular, and He watches for His flock with a directly personal care. Do not imagine, then, if you consciously begin to fall off, or stray, that you are no longer cared for by the Shepherd. Christ follows you with His personal and particular love, and will not let you go. That same tenderness which melted the heart of an apostle, when he said, “who loved me and gave Himself for me,” pursues you still. It is faithful, patient, forgiving, and true; it waits and lingers, it whispers and calls, saying, “Will ye also go away?” holding on upon you by a personal and persistent love, that will not be content till you are gathered back into the fold, to be, as before, a follower. Bushnell.

God’s children could tell of very various methods by which He restores souls. Very often it is by thorns planted just outside the hurdles, for this very end, that the sheep may feel their hard points and be glad to run back. All afflictions are restorative processes, and very few indeed retrace their steps without afflictions. Some are brought back by the Word. Or an inward voice will do it, as Elijah found it in the desert. When the whole map is laid out, you will be astonished to see how providence worked with grace, and grace worked with providence, all ranging to one end—to correct your strayings, and bring you at last safe home. J. V.

Of all the phases of restoration it is to be observed that they are radical: they act upon the springs of the life. “He restoreth my soul—my life.” Is it forgiveness? He puts “a new heart” into man. Is it refreshment? Its fountain-head is rest of heart. Is it consolation? His words go deeper than the cold conventionalities of men; they bring the abiding peace of settled trust in fatherly love, and of the vision of eternal joy. And in the man once restored, God shows forth His own righteousness. He makes him a partaker of the Divine nature. He does more than bring him back to the fold; his restoration is only the beginning of the Divine manhood in him. Nor does God set Himself to develop some single virtue merely. He leads him not in one path, but in paths of righteousness. The new character permeates the man’s whole being, and all this is for His name’s sake; “that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us through Christ Jesus.” V.

He keeps and leads us on in that way into which He hath brought us; He leaves us not again to try our own skill, if we can walk to heaven alone, being set into the path of it; but He still conducts us in it by His own hand, and that is the cause of our persisting in it and attaining the blessed end of it. L.—The soul thus restored is then led on another stage; “He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for His name’s sake”—that is to say, God guides us into work. Life is not a fold for the sheep to lie down in, but a road for them to walk on. All our blessings of every sort are indeed given us for our delight. But, then, when joy fills the heart and life is bounding in the veins, we have to learn that these are granted not for pleasure only, but for pleasure in order to power. Rest is to fit for work, work is to sweeten rest. All this is emphatically true of the spiritual life. Its seasons of communion, its hours on the mount are to prepare for the sore sad work in the plain; and he is not the wisest disciple who tries to make the Mount of Transfiguration the abiding place for himself and his Lord. It is not well that our chief object should be to enjoy the consolations of religion; it is better to seek first to do the duties enjoined by religion. The basis of obedience is the sense of salvation. We work not for the assurance of acceptance and forgiveness, but from it. First the restored soul, then the paths of righteousness for His name’s sake who has restored me, and restored me that I may be like Him. A. M.

4. Shadow of death conveys more than the original, and fails to reproduce its compound form. The effect is heightened by the mention of a valley, as a deep place, often overhung with woods, and naturally darker than a plain or mountain. There may be some allusion to the dread of darkness on the part of sheep and other timid animals. The rod and the staff are mentioned as badges of the shepherd and as tokens of His presence. A. —The shepherd invariably carries a staff or rod with him when he goes forth to feed his flock. It is often bent or hooked at one end, which gave rise to the shepherd’s crook in the hand of the Christian bishop. With this staff he rules and guides the flock to their green pastures, and defends them from their enemies. This staff is associated as inseparably with the shepherd as the goad is with the ploughman. W. M. Thompson. —The Palestine shepherd bears about with him a “club” and a “staff,” two entirely different instruments, with distinct and special uses, but both employed in caring for the sheep. The club, in Arabic naboot, is used to protect himself and his charge from assailants. It is about two feet long, and often has a large number of heavy iron nails driven into its rounded head. It may often be seen hanging from the shepherd’s girdle during the daytime, but at night he carries it in his hand. He also carries a long shepherd’s staff, called assayah. In general it is simply a straight, strong rod. Its use answers to our shepherd’s crook, to guide the sheep, to rescue them from danger, to rule the stragglers into order, and at times to chastise the wilful. Neil.

With the fourth verse we pass into another scene. The recollections of the natural scenery amid which David fed his sheep give coloring to the Psalm and shape its imagery. Often his wanderings had brought him to one of those gloomy ravines which penetrate the cliffs overhanging the Dead Sea: places beset with dangers; for here the robber made his haunt, and the beast of prey lurked. In the figurative meaning of these words, the Psalmist’s reference was not primarily to death. A “valley of death” or of “death-darkness” was simply a very dark and gloomy valley; but the Church in all ages has delighted to find, as it rightfully may, an allusion to the last and sorest strait of the believer—the agony of death; and these words have been quoted by more dying lips than any ten texts of Scripture together. We need not therefore try to divert the thought from this familiar channel. Here where he most needs Him, God’s child finds the shepherd with His rod and staff. V.

Valley of death-shade. The Hebrew term applies to any scenes of great darkness, distress, trial, peril. We need not exclude these scenes which are wont to precede death, nor need we exclude many other scenes in which death is not near nor even to be seriously apprehended. Probably David had in his mind those years of peril in which, hunted by Saul and fleeing before him, his life-path lay through a valley of darkness almost like that of the grave itself. Yet even so, he says, “I am ever within the touch of my Shepherd’s crook, and I can feel it guiding my steps through this darkness dense as the shadow of death.” This seems to be the precise conception here—strictly pastoral, in harmony with the scope of the entire Psalm. The precious sentiment here is that in the midst of whatever danger, darkness, perplexity; though all other hopes and helpers should fail, yet God is the strength of his heart—his comfort, his joy, his sure salvation. C.

The “valley of the shadow of death” means any and every gloomy valley of weeping through which we have to pass. Such sunless gorges we have all to traverse at some time or other. It is striking that the Psalmist puts the sorrow, which is as certainly characteristic of our lot as the rest or the work, into the future. Looking back he sees none. Memory has softened down all the past into one uniform tone, as the mellowing distance wraps in one solemn purple the mountains which, when close to them, have many a barren rock and gloomy rift. All behind is good. And, building on this hope, he looks forward with calmness, and feels that no evil shall befall. So to the Christian heart there may be the conviction that sorrow when it comes will not be evil, because God will be with us; and the conviction that the hand which guides us into the dark valley will guide us through it and up out of it. Yes, strange as it may sound, the presence of Him who sends the sorrow is the best help to bear it. The assurance that the hand which strikes is the hand which binds up makes the stroke a blessing, and turns the rod which smites into the staff to lean on. A. M.

Comfort me. The Hebrew word means far more than simply to console. It signifies to tone up the whole nature, to strengthen a man so that all his energy can be brought to bear. If anywhere he needs comfort in this sense, it is in the valley of the shadow; and so God comforts him first with His rod, the instrument of correction. Aye, comforts him with the rod: for the very afflictions and pains which wait about the entrance to the valley are God’s messengers and instruments of perfection to make him meet for a better inheritance. And, then, when the rod has done its work, the staff is given. When the pilgrim’s knees begin to totter, then come “the everlasting arms,” and the strong staff makes firm his step, and naught can shake his foothold until he passes out of the shadow into the light of heaven. V.

It is not “the valley of death,” but “the valley of the shadow of death,” for death in its substance has been removed, and only the shadow of it remains. Some one has said that when there is a shadow there must be light somewhere, and so there is. Death stands by the side of the highway in which we have to travel, and the light of heaven shining upon him throws a shadow across our path; let us then rejoice that there is a light beyond. S.—Death itself to God’s people is but a walk in this valley, a gentle, pleasant walk; the wicked are chased out of the world, and their souls are required; but the saints take a walk to another world as cheerfully as they take their leave of this. It is a walk through it; they shall not be lost in this valley, but get safe to the mountain of spices on the other side of it. H.—Christ’s victory over death is His people’s. “At that moment I am with you,” whispers Christ; “the same arm you have proved strong and faithful all the way up through the wilderness, which has never failed, though you have been often forced to lean on it all your weakness.” “On this arm,” answers swers the believer, “I feel at home; with soul-confidence I repose on my Beloved, for He has supported through so many difficulties from the contemplation of which I shuddered. He has carried over so many depths, that I know His arm to be the arm of love.” Powerscourt.

The Syrian sheep does not follow its shepherd by fits and starts; seeking to be near him only when the wolf is prowling, or when the dog is on its track; when the night shadows are falling, or the pasture is diminishing. It is generally found close to its protector and guide. It is an undeviating, trustful companionship, in sunshine and storm, in fulness and in drought, in summer and winter. So it is, or ought to be, with the believer—a constant, consistent, habitual following of his Lord, seeking ever to have a realizing sense of His nearness. Not merely when trouble is nigh; in the hour of affliction and sad calamity, or of impending death; but in the midst of life’s joyous sunshine, when verdure is on the mountain side, when the rills are singing their way down to the lower valley, and the tinkling bells, answering from fold to fold, tell of nothing but peace, and safety, and repose. Macduff.

No pain that aches for immortal purity can be dreadful. No grief that strengthens your aspiration for triumph over sin, and the holiness of Christ’s heart, can be a calamity. Over no falling tears and heaving sighs that wash your affections white, and put temptation under your feet, and throw open a clear and fearless communion with God, can you ever exclaim, “Lord, if Thou hadst been here, these would not have befallen me;” but rather, “Be these my perpetual, solemn guests, if thereby, in this Thy inward presence, and with these immortal gifts, Thou, my Lord, mayest be led to draw nigh, and come to me!” Immortal gifts! “This is the victory that overcometh the world, even your faith.” There is no one of us, not the weakest, not the timidest, that may not pass through the furnace of trial, and under the shadows of death, with the song of that triumph on his lips. Not by scaffolds, not through blood, but by silent martyrdoms, by slow sufferings, as sharp sometimes and needing the heroism of patience more, must faithful spirits still walk toward God, their hands in their Master’s, “Thy rod and Thy staff comforting.” F. D. H.

In this Valley of Humiliation our Lord formerly had His country-house. He loved much to be here. He loved also to walk these meadows, for He found the air was pleasant. This is a valley that nobody walks in but those that love a pilgrim’s life. And though Christian had the hard hap to meet here with Apollyon, and to enter with him a brisk encounter, yet I must tell you that in former times men have met with angels here, have found pearls here, and have in this place found the words of life. “Then said Mercy, I think I am as well in this valley as I have been anywhere else in all our journey. The place, methinks, suits with my spirit.” Bunyan.

5. The figure of the shepherd has faded away, and that of the host makes its appearance. His enemies must look on without being able to offer any opposition, and see how sumptuously Jehovah provides for His guest, how He anoints him with sweet perfumes as at a joyous, magnificent feast, and fills his cup even to overflowing. D.—David changes the image of himself as a sheep into that of a guest. The Psalm rises in thought and feeling from preservation in the midst of trouble to the possession of abounding joy. The idea of the valley of the shadow of death melts into a picture of Oriental plenty. Stoughton.

My cup runneth over. He had not only a fulness of abundance, but of redundance. Those that have this happiness must carry their cup upright, and see that it overflow into their poor brethren’s emptier vessels. Trapp.—Wherefore doth the Lord make your cup run over, but that other men’s lips might taste the liquor? The showers that fall upon the highest mountains should glide into the lowest valleys. “Give, and it shall be given you,” is a maxim little believed. W. Secker.

The mercy is more strikingly portrayed as being granted in warfare. Life is a sore fight, but to the Christian man, in spite of all the tumult, life is a festal table. This is our condition—always the foe, always the table. A. M.—The whole of the twenty-third Psalm is essentially spiritual, and David’s prepared table was certainly a holy one. And to this every child of God will set his seal and add his witness, that God does most surely and most strangely provide spiritual food for us, just what and when and where we need. There is another table yet to be, when a prepared people shall meet at a prepared banquet, and the appointed ones gather round their appointed King. J. V.

6. The Psalm is a series of pictures of a believer’s life and confidences, and after “the valley of the shadow of death” come the prepared table, and the anointed head, and the mantling cup, and goodness and mercy following to the end, and then the death, or rather no death at all, for it is leapt over, or left out as almost a thing which is not. “Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life;” and then, without one break, “I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.”

The Hebrew word translated “surely” more often means only, i.e., goodness and mercy only—nothing else—will follow me. The translation would be more accurate grammatically if read: “Goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever.” He does not think of coercing, forcing, the manifestations of goodness and mercy, nor should the word “will” be made emphatic. A simple future is all he aims to express. C.—There is no ground in this last verse of the Psalm for distinguishing between shall and will and using them according to modern fashion, as though the goodness and mercy were to follow as matter of necessity, or as though David here professed an act of choice. He appears to be dwelling upon his future privileges and blessed hopes rather than his own resolutions; upon the objects of his desire rather than the determination of his will. Stoughton.

Dwelling in the house of Jehovah does not mean frequenting His sanctuary, but being a member of His household and an inmate of His family, enjoying His protection, holding communion with Him, and subsisting on His bounty. A.

The last verse combines the retrospect and the prospect of faith. David glances over his whole life, and declares that it has been very good: “Surely goodness and mercy have followed me all the days of my life.” That is the expression, not of a youthful shepherd’s, but of a man’s experience, and it is an expression of triumphant faith. Brooke.—The sense of trustfulness becomes more positive as the Psalm proceeds, until, in the last verse, it culminates in an exultant outburst of assurance as respects the writer’s future lot. The future is no less secure than the present. “Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life.” And note that the basis of this assurance is not the fact that God has allotted him his place in green pastures, but in the fact that the Lord is his Shepherd. He clearly perceives that it may be God’s pleasure to change this happy lot and to direct his course into the gloomy valley of the shadow; but the goodness and the lovingkindness shall none the less be his. Goodness and mercy do not mean to God’s child flowering meads and wells of refreshment only; they may equally mean rocky defiles, and rough paths, and darkness, and enemies. When Paul promises the Corinthians all things in Christ, he couples, in the most natural and matter-of-course way, death and things to come, with life and things present, treating them all alike as God’s good gifts. It is all one so long as they are Christ’s. Goodness and lovingkindness, now and evermore, are represented to David simply by those five words—The Lord is my Shepherd. Darkness, roughness, hostility, will be goodness and mercy still, so long as they shall not separate him from his Shepherd’s society, guidance, and comfort. A. M.

Goodness and mercy follow him always, all the days of his life, the black days as well as the bright days, the days of fasting as well as the days of feasting, the dreary days of winter as well as the bright days of summer. Goodness supplies our needs, and mercy blots out our sins. S.—“All the days of my life.” Life is made up not so much of years as of days. Goodness and mercy have been our companions through past days. Their hands held us up in childhood; they have been the guardians of our youth; they have been ministering angels in our manhood; they have been a refuge and strength in old age. Goodness and mercy are our companions to-day. To-day we walk with them and talk with them; to-day we receive their benediction. And to-morrow goodness and mercy will accompany us. There is nothing in any day or days of life to separate us from goodness and mercy. The day is not too long, not too dark, not too stormy, the days are not too many, for these Divine companions. S. Martin.

These two angels of God—Goodness and Mercy—shall follow and encamp around the pilgrim. The enemies whom God held back while he feasted may pursue, but will not overtake him. They will be distanced sooner or later; but the white wings of these messengers of the covenant shall never be far away from the journeying child, and the air shall often be filled with the music of their comings, and their celestial weapons shall glance around him in all the fight, and their salt arms shall bear him up over all the rough ways, and up higher at last to the throne. So much for the earthly future. But higher than all that rises the confidence of the closing words, “I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever.” This should be at once the crown of all our hopes for the future, and the one great lesson taught us by all the vicissitudes of life. The sorrows and the joys, the journeying and the rest, the temporary repose and the frequent struggles—all these should make us sure that there is an end which will interpret them all, to which they all point, for which they may all prepare. God provides for us here in the presence of our enemies; it is wilderness food we get, manna from heaven, and water from the rock. We eat in haste, staff in hand, and standing round the meal. But yonder we sit down with the Shepherd, the Master of the house, at His table in His kingdom. We put off the pilgrim dress, and put on the royal robe; we lay aside the sword, and clasp the palm. Far off, and lost to sight, are all the enemies. We fear no change. We go no more out. A. M.

All His sweeter mercies and sharper corrections are to make me partaker of His holiness, and lead me to glory in the way in which my Saviour and all His saints have gone before me. All things work together for the best to me, by preparing me for that which is best indeed. Both calms and storms are to bring me to this harbor; if I take them but for themselves and for this present life, I mistake them, unthankfully vilify them, and lose their end, life, and sweetness. Every word and work of God, every day’s mercies and changes, look at heaven, and intend eternity. God leads me no other way; if I follow Him not, I forsake my hope in forsaking Him; if I follow Him, shall I be unwilling to be at home, and arrive at the end of all this way? Baxter.

In conclusion, think of the grand home-gathering in the house of the Lord! “I beheld, and, lo! a great multitude which no man could number, of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues, stood before the throne, and before the Lamb.” There is the destination of the pilgrim Church. There is the home and resting-place of all pious souls since the world began—of the vast procession of the saints of God, increasing in number from age to age. “Before the Throne”—in the immediate presence of God; “before the Lamb”—in the immediate presence of Christ. Stoughton.—The resting place of the pilgrim is the eternal temple. To dwell in the temple of God, to go no more out—that is the highest strain of the Christian hope. W. B. Pope.

This Psalm and the tenth chapter of John form two links in a chain which finds its completing link in the seventh chapter of Revelation—“Therefore are they before the throne of God, and serve Him day and night in His temple, and He that sitteth on the throne shall spread His habitation over them. They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more, neither

shall the sun ever light upon them, no, nor any heat; because the Lamb, which is in the midst of the throne, shall shepherd them, and shall

guide them to the fountains of the waters of life; and God shall wipe away every tear out of their eyes." V.