Psalm 23

A Psalm of David

1The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not want. 

2 He makes me lie down in green pastures; He leads me beside quiet waters. 

3 He restores my soul; He guides me in the paths of righteousness For His name’s sake. 

4 Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil, for You are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me. 

5 You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; You have anointed my head with oil; My cup overflows. 

6 Surely goodness and lovingkindness will follow me all the days of my life, And I will dwell in the house of the LORD forever. 

One of the places listed as sites we will ride this time when I visit Israel we did not ride last time are the grazing fields of the upper Judean desert where David walked with his father’s sheep. Here, possibly, a young boy played his instruments and, having fought lions and bears to keep safe those sheep, penned the words “Yehweh is my Shepherd.” 

 I don’t know a ton about sheep, but I do know a bit. 

 I have border collies. 

My Border Collie, Mac

 I’ve had sheep step on me, knock me in the head with their own hard heads as they leapt to get away from dogs, run over me, around me, seemingly through me, look to me for comfort, try to get away from me when a dog got too close, look at me with a “really?” look in their eyes as, yet again, I sent a dog out behind them. Though we have not worked sheep nearly as often or as long as we would have liked, I love to see the sheep, especially the babies, who, when they latch onto a bottle or Mom for a meal, wag their tails to beat the band and express, “happy, happy, HAPPY!” as well as ever it has been said. 

Phillip Keller ran a sheep farm in South Africa and wrote a book called A SHEPHERD LOOKS AT PSALM 23. Though it’s been years since I read it, I can never see the psalm the same again. 

“The Lord is my Shepherd.” Having shepherded sheep for so much of his young life, David knew and understood that relationship in ways city dwellers could not. Whereas he knew how a bad shepherd could hurt the sheep, could lose the sheep, harm them, let them be killed, he also knew a good shepherd protected, loved, fed, cared for them. They trusted him. To David, the Lord was a good shepherd. 

“He makes me lie down in green pastures;” Sheep will not lie down if they are afraid; after eating their fill, they would lie down, feeling safe in their shepherd’s care. 

“He leads me beside quiet waters.” Sheep cannot drink from running, turbulent waters. If their wool gets wet, they can be pulled down and drown easily. Quiet, still water lets them drink without worry.

“He restores my soul;” As David followed the Lord in the way the sheep follow a good shepherd, his worries left him. His soul rested from worry—his soul restored. 

“He guides me in the paths of righteousness For His name’s sake.” As the shepherd leads sheep in paths good for grazing and safety, the reputation of the shepherd is enhanced. He is known as a good shepherd because the sheep show their good care. 

Fields Today Where David Kept Sheep

 “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil, for You are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me.” Though of course, we know that God is with us at the hour of our physical death, there are also places in Israel considered as possible sites for a physical “Valley of the Shadow of Death,” like the Wadi Qelt, a deep gorge in the Judean wilderness. Whether this is the site mentioned or not, it references traveling through dangerous, worrisome paths where hazards and peril await the next steps. 

“I fear no evil, for You are with me; Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me.” The sheep, even in the dangerous trails, do not worry, for they know the shepherd they trust. His rod was a big, sturdy stick used as a weapon to fight off attacking animals. David told King Saul that he had saved sheep from a lion and bear; his rod would have been the fighting tool for that. The staff is the stick curved at the end we are used to seeing with shepherds. If a sheep fell down into a ditch or cervices, he would reach down, grab the sheep around the neck with his crook, and pull the sheep out. The rod and the staff were tools for comfort—the shepherd would fight for and rescue a sheep. 

“You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies;” Picture a wonderful picnic laid out for us and surrounding the meal, watching, are the enemies of the sheep—lions, bears, wolves, all watching, all powerless to do any harm because the Good Shepherd watches. They are helpless in the presence of the good, strong shepherd. 

“You have anointed my head with oil;” As bugs bite or the sheep scratch their heads, they itch; rubbing their heads on trees or rocks for relief, again the raw skin gets worse irritation. The shepherd anoints the sheep’s heads with oil to sooth their irritations. In life, the good shepherd sooths our lives as well. 

“My cup runneth over.” As he gives us gifts, as he pours out blessings, David says, my blessing cup is not only full, but my blessing cup overflows with all the blessings the good shepherd gives me. 

“Surely goodness and lovingkindness will follow me all the days of my life,” It doesn’t say David will follow after goodness and lovingkindness. It says that because of the goodness of the Good Shepherd, goodness and lovingkindness will follow David, wherever he goes—not dependent on his actions, but on the love of the shepherd. He is not chasing goodness and mercy (another translation of the word); mercy and goodness chase him all the days of his life. 

“And I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.” And when life ends, the house the Lord has prepared will be David’s home—because his Shepherd is the Lord. 

Riding in Israel

And then the Good Shepherd came and said, “My sheep hear My voice and know Me.” At times shepherds with different flocks let them all merge together and graze or rest as a way to have more sheep watched by fewer watchers for awhile. Then, the shepherds came out to the big group of sheep composed of the different flocks, called to their own sheep, and the sheep separated themselves to go with their own shepherd. 

 Their Good Shepherd. 

 David illustrated that truth hundreds of years before Jesus spoke it. When I walk or ride that Holy Land, it brings alive these stories, makes more real these lessons and lives from Scripture. And when I ride those fields where David wrote about the Lord being his Shepherd, I will remember his song, his psalm, and give a not to the shepherd boy who killed the giant, became king, and who Scripture calls, “A man after God’s own heart.”

Heron

I yearn for the days of Eden.

As I walked my dogs down the path in the woods leading to the first of the ponds that lie in the fields behind our house, I took in the sight of the large tree fallen across the front of the pond, turtles lying in the sun covering most of the tree. The dogs each carried their yellow tennis ball, looking back at me, watching creatures at the tops of trees (how do squirrels get up there?). The turtles s-t-r-e-t-c-h-e-d out their necks, alarmed at our presence, then one of them, too fearful to relax with the giants coming by, plopped! off the log into the water, followed by most of the others—some baby size, some bigger from years of growth. “Plop! Plop! Plopplopplop!” At the end one or two brave little beasts stretched their necks even further, watching us, perhaps on patrol, then as we passed, they lowered their little heads, clinging even tighter to the log.

Turtles Warming on Tree

Passing that smaller natural pond, I thought of the ducks who had arrived just the previous year and, I suppose, spent the winter in warmer climate. Now I wondered if they have already built their nest, preparing to start the family that must come from their relationship. Smiling at the thought of little ones hopping into the pond after Mamma and Daddy, I hoped they have several babies who all do well in the ponds, this smaller, natural one, and the one built since we moved here, bigger, below the hill that housed the woods.

 Then, I stopped, the dogs ahead looking around, then turning back, fluorescent balls in their mouths, gazing up at me. “What’s up?”

 I wondered, do turtles eat duck eggs? Of course, they do, and my heart hurt a bit for the duck couple. Oh, maybe they will build a nest beyond reach of the turtles. But we know the water houses lots of turtles; probably finding the eggs would be a treat. If one found the next, a rush (well, a rush of turtles?) would likely find their way to finish off the unexpected meal. You can’t blame a turtle for being a turtle—but, still. . . . . birds bond with their eggs. I’ve seen them grieve at the loss of a nest. How sad for the birds if, indeed, their unhatched eggs become food for the turtles who I so enjoy watching sun themselves on so many of the days we walk by their big, fallen tree.

I picked up my walk again as the dogs trotted on ahead, and realized that, truly, I yearn for the days of Eden, for the days before evil duped humankind into believing the knowledge of evil worth more than obedience to the Creator.

  To Adam, God said, “You can eat from any tree in the garden except the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.” No where in Eden, in the creation God spoke and formed, was any animal named for food.

 Until. . .

 After Adam and Eve disobeyed God and introduced death into the world of life, they suddenly realized that, though they had worn no clothes in their entire lives, they were naked. When God found them in the cool of the evening, saw their pitiful attempt with fig leaves to cover their nakedness, He gave them clothes of skin, and so killed the animal in the history of the world, the sacrifice of a nonhuman creature for human sin. Many other repercussions came from that first rebellion; but as I watched the turtles watching me, I thought of that first animal death.

 Gone the days when harmony ruled creation, when ancestors of today’s lion grazed beside the sheep’s forefathers. Death not only took humans and animals from the earth, but they then became common for getting food—for humans and many animals as well.

 I would lie to say I don’t like a good steak; on my own, I eat enough chicken for a small city. But, oh, when eating that tasty food, I don’t think of the source. No, animals are not on a level with people; God did not breathe into them the breath of life nor does the His Spirit live in them. Still, before the fall, before that first sin, God looked multiple times at His creation—expanses, environment, plants, animals—and pronounced it all good and, finally, very good. In Eden, Adam and Eve ate plants. No creatures had to fear them, unlike now. Still, I have seen cattle come to the fence for a head scratch, enjoying interaction with people with no idea their fate; for many people, chickens are pets on the level of my beloved dogs.

 Even thousands of years later, when Jesus assured His followers of their importance to the Father, He did so by telling them “Not one sparrow falls to the ground apart from the Father.” (Matthew 10:29) Jesus makes sure they know how much more important they are than many sparrows—but, still, God knows the knowledge of the fate of each sparrow.                   

Duck Couple

And, I believe, ducks.

 And now I watched the duck pair swim away; like the turtles, I cannot convince them the dogs and I mean no harm. Some days I don’t see them at all and worry for them. A blue heron has lived his (her?) lonely existence in the ponds and woods for a few years now. All of them watch closely as the dogs and I walk our route, but so far, at least, they return to their posts—the fallen tree, the woods, the high grass—and greet us another day. 

 As I realize the difficulty of life in nature—these are not the first wild animals we’ve seen—I yearn for the days of Eden, when creation existed in perfect harmony with its Creator, all of creation, including God’s highest art form, humankind. And as we continue our walk, I whisper a prayer for them all, our little turtles whose necks stretch so far it seems they will pop out of their shells, the ducks, whose little hearts would break at the loss of their young, the heron, who has an attitude when we disrupt him, but who glides above the ponds so smoothly, I usually stop and try to get a picture of that beauty and fail to show how amazing she (he?) is.

 And I whisper a prayer of gratitude. I remember that we are promised new days of Eden. If the first book in the Bible describes the tragedy of first sin and the loss of relationship with our Creator, the last book describes the time coming when a crystal river flows with life and the tree of life again produces fruit. Then the promise:  “There will be no longer any curse.”

The curse of Genesis will be gone.

 And then, from the Old Testament book Isaiah, “And the wolf will dwell with the lamb, And the leopard will lie down with the young goat, And the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; And a little boy will lead them.  (Isaiah 11:6) Again, the animals will live together, not enemies of each other.

 So I yearn for those days, and I believe those days will come. Oh, there’s a lot to happen between now and then—but hope doesn’t always have a timeline.

Someday we’ll know. Till then, the prophet Isaiah looked forward and promised, “’Comfort, O comfort My people,’ says your God.’” (Isaiah 40:1)  Though talking to Jerusalem, the restoration of paradise is for us all; the promise is a new heaven and new earth; the promise is that our Creator has a new creation for us; the promise is that this WILL come, not just that it might.

Till then, I will look forward to days of Eden, and be grateful to a Creator and Designer who cares so much for us that our new home will be free of pain and tears, provided again by the one who made the first Eden.

And I will enjoy the turtles and ducks, my dogs and horses, the heron and squirrels, and be grateful.