(I take it as a kingly-host, given the shepherd-king metaphor) in verses 5–6 accomplishes the same purposes as the shepherd in verses 1–4: the gracious host does for the guest exactly what the shepherd does for the sheep—provides food, drink, and shelter/protection.115 The psalmist introduces the primary themes of provision and protection in the first two verses, and these provide the lens for reading the remainder of the psalm. The first verse equates God with a shepherd, only taking two words in Hebrew (YHWH roi, “Yahweh my-shepherd”) to express what English does in five (“The LORD is my shepherd”).116 This is equivalent to stating in mathematical terms, “YHWH = my shepherd.” Not only is the equation stark, it says something about the whole psalm, where the rest of it unpacks the initial metaphor in terms of shepherding (vv. 1–4), finally changing to the royal metaphor in verses 5–6, which continues to expound on the provision and protection themes initially associated with the shepherd metaphor.
Verse 2 begins the unpacking of the metaphor in terms of not lacking anything. Because the Lord is my shepherd, he is all I need. The verb “lack” is supposed to take a direct object, yielding the sense of “I shall not lack _____,” be it food, water, shelter, etc. However, the poet does not give the object of the verb; the rest of the psalm fills in the missing object of verse 2.117 Mays summarizes the main thought of the psalm: “When the Lord is your shepherd, you do not lack the nurturing and guiding and protecting of your soul. ‘The Lord is with you; he restores your soul.’ The psalm is about the soul-restoring presence of the Lord.”118 What we have in Ps 23 is a poetic description of the Creator who provides all the necessities of life for his creation. Far from a “health and wealth” gospel that teaches that God provides for our greeds rather than our needs, this psalm critiques our modern materialistic notions of abundant living and declares that God provides our daily bread. From day to day, he meets our needs—the most important being himself! J. Clinton McCann notes, “For the psalmist, God is the only necessity of life, because God provides the other necessities—food, drink, shelter/protection.”119 And while the psalm’s imagery, at times, conveys tranquil scenes of shepherding and table fellowship, tranquility gives way to sheer survival as the psalm unfolds, revealing a shepherd who protects his flock in the midst of the darkest valley, and a host who hosts the traveler before the face of his enemies. Again, the imagery is usually understood in terms of tranquility, but it is intended rather to say that God keeps the psalmist alive. In fact, “restores my soul” (v. 3a) likely conveys the rescue of the sheep120 and can be paraphrased “keeps me alive.”121
It is at the point where the reader might expect me to give insights on the shepherding profession in antiquity, waxing eloquently on the pastoral background of the first four verses of the psalm. But given my lack of personal experience with sheep, observations along those lines would be woefully inadequate. I will spare the reader from the agony of reading an unenlightened description of shepherding from an urbanized Westerner. I will leave it to the reader to consult the commentaries for the pastoral background. I feel no burden to add to what others have already shared on the ins and outs of shepherding sheep from Ps 23. Instead, I want to discuss the underlying exodus motif that serves as the primary redemptive-historical reference for Ps 23. A closer look at the psalm reveals a strategic emphasis on God’s redemptive acts on behalf of Israel throughout her history. The shepherd-sheep metaphor is just that: a metaphor for a larger, more complex Israelite tradition dealing with God as the redeemer of his people. Psalm 23 praises God for delivering the nation of Israel from Egyptian bondage as a shepherd delivers his sheep from danger. I am proposing here that the writer composed the psalm out of this tradition and has woven into the psalm allusions to the memories of the exodus recorded in other places in the OT.122
The Lord is the shepherd of his people is a common OT metaphor (e.g., Gen 49:24; Pss 77:20; 78:52; 79:13; 80:1; 95:7; 100:3; Isa 40:11; Ezek 34), but this image does not arise in a vacuum; it has its roots in the exodus event. For example, Pss 77 and 78 are retellings of the exodus story where psalmists reflect on the redemptive history of Israel at a later time. They are recollections of history in that they retell—and in so doing, reinterpret—this pinnacle redemptive event of the OT. As both psalms recall the exodus event, they echo the shepherd metaphor of 23:1–4. After a poetically stylized recollection of the mighty act of God at the crossing of the Red Sea, Ps 77:20 concludes, “You led your people like a flock by the hand of Moses and Aaron.” Similarly, Ps 78 recalls the exodus-wilderness event as the grand testimony to God’s covenant faithfulness to Israel—despite its repeated rebellion—and uses the shepherd metaphor to describe God’s power and persistence to deliver his people from Egyptian bondage: “Then he led out his people like sheep and guided them in the wilderness like a flock” (v. 52). These two passages are important not simply because they affirm the shepherd metaphor, but because they do so in the context of the exodus.
Psalm 23 affirms the daily provisions of the Shepherd-God so that the sheep has no want of anything in addition to God himself (“I shall not want,” v. 1). Here is also an echo of the exodus as Moses reminds the people of God’s faithfulness to them, recalling his provisions in the midst of the treacherous wilderness journey. Moses calls to their remembrance that God knows the plight of his people and provides for the necessities of life: “He knows your going through this great wilderness. These forty years the LORD your God has been with you. You have lacked nothing” (Deut 2:7). Again, this passage is in the context of reflecting on the exodus-wilderness event; it is not a proverbial statement about God’s provisions, but is contextualized in this pinnacle redemptive event in the OT. As the psalmist has no wants beyond the day-to-day sustenance of God, so also Israel “lacked nothing” in the wilderness.
As the shepherd “leads” (nakhal) the sheep (Ps 23:2), so also God “led” (nakhah) the Israelites out of Egypt and “guided” (nakhal) them into the Promised Land (Exod 15:13). While the Hebrew verb for “to lead” occurs three times in these two verses, the exodus context of the latter passage is even more important as the Song of Moses, which he sang immediately after crossing the Red Sea. Again, the exodus event serves as the backdrop for both passages, placing them in identical redemptive-historical contexts.
The traditional translation, “He leads me beside still waters,” evokes images of a peaceful water source from which sheep, weighed down with thick wool, can drink without fear of being swept into the currents and drowned. An alternate, and equally accurate, translation is, “He leads me to water in places of repose” (JPS). It is grammatically unclear if menukhot (“resting places,” “rest”) modifies mayim (“waters”), thus yielding something like “still waters,” or refers to places of rest, which are conveniently near a water source, be it a stream, pond, well, river, etc. Thus, the emphasis is not so much on the stillness of the water source as the rest that comes with being led to water. The idea of being guided to a water source where God provides for the thirst of his people evokes the water from the rock narratives of the wilderness journey (Exod 17 and Num 20). Granted, the point is not the water itself (i.e., the kind of water whether flowing or not), but that God quenches the thirst of his people by providing water in abundance. As Num 20:11 states, “And water came out abundantly, and the congregation drank, and their livestock.” Again, Ps 78 recalls this miraculous provision of water in the wilderness with its retelling of the exodus story: “He split rocks in the wilderness and gave them drink abundantly as from the deep. He made streams come out of the rock and caused waters to flow down like rivers” (vv. 15–16). Not that every mention of “water” in the OT evokes images of the exodus-wilderness, but when one reads 23:2 in light of the redemptive-historical backdrop proposed here, it is not difficult to hear echoes of this wilderness tradition.123
