Ibid.
95. Ibid.
96. Bullock, Encountering, 219.
97. Calvin, Psalms, Preface.
98. McCann, Theological, 40.
99. Luther, Psalms, 22; Reardon, Christ, 2. Church Fathers like Eusebius (Commentary on the Psalms 1) and Augustine (Expositions 1) read Ps 1 christologically so that Jesus was “the blessed man” of 1:1 (Blaising and Hardin, Psalms, 3).
100. Longman, Psalms, 59.
101. On “righteousness of God” in 2 Cor 5:21, see Wright, “Righteousness,” 200–08.
Psalm 23
“As this is a lowly and homely manner of speaking, He who does not disdain to stoop so low for our sake, must bear a singularly strong affection towards us.”—John Calvin
History
Psalm 23 is perhaps the most beloved, well-known psalm. It is the classic description of God’s protection and provision. Psalm 23 reminds the believer of God’s daily care in personal, covenantal terms. The caring nature of God is an ever-present reality, especially in times of travail. I will begin by making some general observations about the psalm, and then proceed to work though the thesis that exodus imagery saturates the psalm, taking it well beyond simple metaphorical relationships between shepherd and sheep (vv. 1–4) and host and traveler (vv. 5–6), to a declaration of God’s covenant loyalty to Israel.
It is ironic that the shepherd metaphor is timeless, resonating with folks throughout the world, transcending cultures, eras (from the agricultural ANE to the technological twenty-first-century West), and providing comfort to myriad of worshipers. On one hand, the metaphor is powerful because it stirs our emotions in a way that literal words cannot.102 It is one thing to talk about God’s protection and provision; it is another to attach imagery to it so we can more easily visualize it. According to Tremper Longman: “We know how a shepherd lives with his sheep, tends to their every need, keeps them from getting lost and protects them from wild beasts. All of these characteristics and more come to mind when God is called a shepherd. It would take a page of prose to communicate what the psalmist has stated in a clause, and it would do so with less impact.”103 On the other hand, much of the ancient imagery throughout Psalms is quite foreign to most modern Westerners’ experiences. Using myself as an example, I am severely limited in my experience with sheep, which consists almost entirely of minimal interaction at the local petting zoo. I have observed them in pasture with a shepherd only once in my life. I was riding on a tour bus in Israel on what seemed to be the most treacherous road imaginable, winding its way alongside a mountain with only a few inches separating the road from the cliff. Out the left side of the bus I saw far down into the ravine where a shepherd walked ahead of his sheep as they followed his every step. The sight, while etched in my memory, lasted only seconds until we rounded another curve, making our way through the mountains on our way to the next holy site on the tour.
To be sure, I have read many pages in books that describe the relationship between shepherd and sheep—many of them commentaries on Ps 23—but had never experienced it myself until this moment. Descriptive words on a page do not suffice for a tangible, hands-on experience. The intimate relationship between shepherd and sheep is the dominant imagery of Ps 23 (vv. 1–4), and yet most of us (esp. those of us who live in urban settings) have never actually seen the interaction, much less experienced it firsthand. Even so, the imagery sticks in our minds because it is just that—imagery, not explanatory phrases. Imagery is easier to grasp because it elicits emotion more so than cognition. In other words, we do not have to have firsthand knowledge of shepherds and sheep in order to visualize God providing necessities like food, water, rest, and safety. These are the main themes of the psalm, but putting them to paper in the form of metaphor enables them to speak louder than mere words on a page.
Psalm 23 is often characterized as a psalm of trust.104 While the shepherding metaphor is predominant in the psalm, it is not the only one used to convey God’s care and comfort of the poet. In reality, it is a dual metaphor of shepherd and king, which also adds it to the category of a royal psalm, especially as it relates to David the psalmist.105 The portrayal of kings as shepherds was not unique to ancient Israel. The ANE frequently used this combined metaphor to express various forms of leadership, creating a sense of ambiguity where the leader ruled as sovereign over a people, but also implied pastoring them in terms of their protection and provision.106 For example, the Babylonian Code of Hammurabi states, “I have sought for them peaceful places . . . I made the people of all the settlements lie in safe pastures.”107 Similarly, the Babylonian god Marduk is described as one “who provides grazing and drinking places.”108
This ambiguity of the dual metaphor extends even to the tools of the trades: a “rod” and a “staff” call to mind the tools of a shepherd,109 while at the same time are the symbolic equipment of a king, especially since the word for “rod” (shevet) is most often translated “scepter” (cf. Gen 49:10; Judg 5:14; Ps 45:7; Isa 14:5).110 Commentators have not always appreciated this ambiguity opting for one over the other; but the two are not mutually exclusive. As James Mays notes, “To the author of Ps 23, ‘shepherd’ was royal as well as pastoral. The author was writing of the providing and guiding and protecting by a ruler as well as by a shepherd.”111 As previously noted, this combined image of shepherd-king occurs in ANE literature, but is also by no means limited to Ps 23 in Hebrew Scripture. In Ezek 34, the shepherds of Israel are the kings who are to pastor the people, providing care, comfort, and protection.112 Yet in Ps 23, God assumes the role of Israel’s sovereign pastor for the psalmist expresses his trust in Yahweh (v. 1): the Shepherd-King of Israel protects and provides for Israel’s earthly king (i.e., David), as a shepherd for his sheep, sheltering David in God’s “house,” the Jerusalem temple—the earthly palace of Yahweh.113 Thus, the psalmist eats at the table not in the house of a common host, but of the LORD, the Shepherd-King.
Commentators offer many different theories regarding the structure of this psalm. One would expect no shortage of ink when it comes to analyzing arguably the most famous chapter in the Bible. Nevertheless, most of the proposals derive from a very basic structure where verses 1–4 describe the shepherd metaphor and verses 5–6 the host of a banquet:
Stanza 1 The Lord as Shepherd (vv. 1–4)
Stanza 2 The Lord as Host (vv. 5–6)114
The shift from shepherd to host need
