Psalms 23

Psalms 23:1-6

Salvation in progress. A psalm of David. The apostle prays for the Hebrew Christians to whom he writes, that “the God of peace, who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great Shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant, may make” them “perfect in every good work to do His will.” (Hebrews 13:20-21.) Coming after the story of atonement, -the blood of the everlasting covenant, -we have no difficulty in recognizing Christ, brought again from the dead, as the Divine Shepherd of His people now. Like the latter part of the previous psalm, the present speaks of salvation as the fruit of the Cross. There it was its extensive value, reaching out to the ends of the earth, and from generation to generation upon the earth. Here its value is intensive, affecting the individual life, -comforting, renewing, fortifying the believing soul, -leading it on from present communion with its Saviour-Lord, even amid opposition and hostility, to dwell in Jehovah’s house where no power of the enemy can penetrate, no distracting voice can mar the sabbatic rest. Yet even in this spiritual idyll, of which Christian sentiment has so completely possessed itself, there is sufficient witness that its primary application is not Christian; and this is seen, of course, most plainly just where the end is contemplated, even though that end be Jehovah’s house. For this -interpreted for us as it is in the psalm following, is not a heavenly but an earthly portion, and quite distinct from that “Father’s house” which the Lord has left to be the hope of His people now, even though, and most clearly because, the one is the type of the other. It is plain that even in the gospel of John itself (John 2:16) the temple is spoken of by the Lord as His “Father’s house.” That house, though for the time destroyed, is to exist again and to continue on through those millennial times, beyond which the book of the Psalms never carries us. The same prophetic scriptures which anticipated that desolation, now so long realized, look on to the glorious restoration of what is always regarded as the same house. (Micah 3:12; Micah 4:2.) But these were but “patterns of things in the heavens,” and “figures of the true” (Hebrews 9:23-24), and it is in this way the Lord uses them in those memorable words which have shone ever since for the hearts of pilgrims, bright with the glory of that other sphere. “In my Father’s house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you; I go to prepare a place for you.” (John 14:2.) In the earthly house there were chambers of small size for the priests and Levites (1 Chronicles 28:11-13) as they came up to serve in their courses; and to these, but by way of contrast, the word translated “mansions” refers. It is a noun derived from the verb “to abide,”* much used in the gospel, which emphasizes the eternal and divine; itself only once used besides, where it is said, “We will come unto him, and make Our abode with him” (John 14:23). The chambers of the temple were only for temporary use; the mansions are abodes for eternity. The first are earthly; the latter heavenly. These are “where,” He says, “I AM”: His eternal dwelling-place; and therefore He comes to receive us there.
The prior application of this psalm to an Israelitish remnant does not, of course, in the least deprive us of our own right in it, to whom belong the antitypes of Israel’s earthly inheritance, and who rightly read in it for ourselves the fuller and higher blessings. This method of interpretation of the psalms, as of the Old Testament at large, only enhances their preciousness; while it neither takes from God’s ancient people what is theirs, nor confounds the dispensations by attributing to one the characteristics of the other.

1. As with the first psalm, the six verses divide into two sections of three verses each; the first of which dwells upon the unchanging care of the Unchanging God, Jehovah, the Shepherd, of His people, to us made known in the tender intimacy of manhood. To know Him aright in this relationship He has taken toward us is to be at rest: “Jehovah is my Shepherd: I shall not want.” To prophesy here is easy and safe. Here can be no lack of power, of wisdom, or of love. Anxiety is only unbelief: faith is happiness, in exact proportion to its simplicity. It is no question of what we are, of our ability to meet anything that may arise: confidence in ourselves is only that which robs Him of His glory, who is Saviour to the uttermost, and has pledged to us that word by which heaven and earth are sustained in being. The terms of the new covenant admit no intrusion of creature assurance among the glorious “I wills” of a covenant God. But there is the experience which surely follows to him who walks with God. “I am the Door: by Me if any man enter in he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture.” Here is the soul’s answer to that: “He maketh me lie down in green pastures; He leadeth me beside quiet waters.” The words picture peaceful enjoyment of that which the Spirit of God ministers in unfailing freshness to the soul. The sheep, like other ruminants, -the clean animals of the law, -does not simply swallow its food and make an end of it. Lying down at rest, the gathered food is brought up again and deliberately and perfectly triturated and reduced. How much this process counts for with God, the Mosaic law bears emphatic testimony. The spiritual reality it is, of course, that counts. The lying down is not mere rest, but has to do with the assimilation of that which these “green pastures’’ indicate, and to which the “quiet waters” add how greatly!

Restful employment with the soul-satisfying treasures of God’s word, divinely provided, divinely ministered, -how little does it characterize even the people of God in the present day! And how little “clean” are their ways and thoughts, by reason of this! But then, too, “He restoreth my soul,” -not simply He refreshes or renews it, but brings it back from wandering, as the parallelism seems to assure us: for “He leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for His Name’s sake.” These last words give us the principle of these tender and holy ways, -a principle which guarantees their consistency absolutely. He does this “for His Name’s sake.” His Name is that by which we know Him; it is the manifestation of what He is. God desires to be known by us: known, that we may trust Him; known, that we may delight ourselves in Him. This knowledge of God is that which is all power and blessing for our lives here, -that which awakes and sustains the worship of eternity. If He who is light and love is acting thus in us to make us the vessels of this display of Himself, how gladly should we yield ourselves up to Him for it! How perfectly confident may we be as to the result! The “restoration” of the soul, as connected with His leading us in righteous paths, would naturally be, therefore, correction by His grace of that continual tendency to wander, which the more we “hunger and thirst after righteousness” the more we shall discover and confess to be in us. How greatly we are His debtors for this “keeping” grace of His, eternity alone will tell. Our resource is that tender ministry of His which He invites us to receive, not simply when we are conscious of straying, but when we may be still unconscious. The dust of evil settles easily, and without giving alarm, in a world in which Satan is “the prince of the power of the air”; and the mirror of conscience becomes quickly dimmed. Thus our constant need of recourse to Him who, girded and ready, desires to use the water and the towel on our behalf, and whose word is, “Except I wash thee, thou hast no part with Me.” Was it because they knew the need? or because He knew it? And the words with which we come to Him are not, “Lord, I have searched and tried myself, and I have seen,” but rather, “Search me, O Lord, and try me; and see if there be any wicked way in me; and lead me in the way everlasting.” (Psalms 139:23-24.) Does any one imagine this is legality, to affirm the constant need we have of Him? No; this continual recourse to Him is perfect happiness. To be kept in His presence, to be made to realize this perfect and holy love, is a precious necessity. If we feel it humbling, all the more do we need it. The life which we have in Him is in all its practical manifestations a life of dependence; and in dependence is it nurtured and sustained. “And when He has found it, He layeth it upon His shoulders, rejoicing.” This is a text upon the care of the good Shepherd indited from the lips of the Shepherd Himself. Shall we do less than rejoice, that we are to be kept thus by His grace and power, -always the burden upon His heart and arm? 2. We have in the second part of the psalm the difficulties of the way before us, though fully met, and in the end leaving not a mote in the summer sunshine of the soul. Yea, though I walk through the valley of death-shade, I will fear no evil.” The valley of death-shade is the world as darkened with that which is the sentence upon man universally, and of which the law of necessity rather deepened the shadow than removed it. We have heard already (Psalms 6:5) the apprehension of saints in Israel in view of death; very different indeed from the assurance expressed here: and by this we may better appreciate the change which the knowledge of atonement has brought in. There is absolute contrast between the former “in death there is no remembrance of thee,” and the thankful acknowledgment now, “Thou art ever with me.” Yes, there is remembrance, and more than remembrance: there is the presence, and not the mere memory, of the Beloved of the heart. This shall never be lacking.

The sun that permits not darkness shall never go down. The Good Shepherd will not leave to itself the sheep that He has recovered, and whose recovery has caused Him such delight of love. It is not, however, to be understood as if death alone were in question here. This may well stand rather as the concrete expression for all that which stamps the world as fallen away from God. Death is that which speaks God’s necessary dissatisfaction with it, while yet He lingers over it in patient love. And the Cross is the fullest confirmation of both these things: at once His judgment of it and His salvation for it. The sin and its attendant misery have indeed brought out this love in completest utterance, so as to make the song of the redeemed in response the highest and the fullest praise of all. The humanity of Christ is the assurance of the truth from man’s lips here, “Thou art ever with me”; and in what follows -“Thy rod and Thy staff, they comfort me” -while the original figure of the shepherd suggests the language, it would seem as if the full truth had burst through this envelope, and we were made to feel the human tenderness which sought its objects among the sons of men. The rod, it is true, is still the symbol of authority; but the “staff” is, according to the derivation, “what one leans upon,” and can hardly apply to the Shepherd in this way, though it be still His staff. It is His word which is thus the stay of the soul; that which, going with us into the furnace of trial, is proved by the same furnace as we ourselves are. Every believer’s experience is full of assurance as to this. But the “rod” is no less a comfort: to be “under authority,” and taking the road marked out by Him: knowing that the “sea” will part its waters at His bidding, and Amalek will be defeated as He stretches it forth; knowing also that the discipline of it is the tenderness of His love, and that the lion and the bear have fallen under it already. Who would be without that rod which is the necessary accompaniment of His presence, who is Master in every place in which He is found, and over every circumstance of the varying path? The figure changes once again, and the Shepherd-Lord becomes the Host. How many figures must be used to “set the Saviour forth”! “Thou spreadest a table for me in the presence of mine enemies.” There is quiet satisfaction and communion which the foes may look upon, dumb and without ability to disturb it. “Thou anointest my head with oil” -as was done for the banquet; “my cup runneth over:” no element is lacking to make the joy complete: it is the anticipation of the eternal blessedness when there shall be enemies no longer. Already they are as if they were not. In the East, when any one has assumed in this way the place of the host, he has by this fact assumed at the same time the protection of his guest; and this is what is implied in the words here. How precious and ample the assurance thus given by communion with the King of kings! Anointed with the Spirit of God, sharing the fullness of the divine store with Him whose love has opened all its blessing to me, surely my cup will overflow, and lips and life hear testimony to the grace that has done this for me! It is the pledge as well as the anticipation of the joy to come; and so we are taught to argue: — “Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life; and I will dwell in Jehovah’s house to length of days.” This introduces the subject of the following psalm, and closes the present with the foretaste of the fullest bliss conceivable by the soul. For us the blessing is, as already said, to be enjoyed in a higher sphere than could be known by the Israelite. “The Father’s house”! what does it mean for us? All that we know of joy already must go into the conception; then to be expanded on every side, -all limits and all that would seem contradictory taken away; leaving then the consciousness that but a shadow of the substance has been reached, a knowledge which, face to face with the reality, will be accounted none. Yea, “he that thinketh that he knoweth anything, knoweth nothing yet as he ought to know.”