Bible Commentaries
Psalms 23

Verse 1

A Personal Providence

The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.— Psalms 23:1.

Perhaps no single lay in the Psalter has taken such a hold of the imagination and the heart of believers as the 23rd Psalm. None can estimate its influence on the Church of God throughout the past, whether on her spiritual life generally or in the case of particular individuals. The sorrowful have been cheered by it; the troubled have been led into peace; the prisoner has sung it in his dungeon and felt himself a captive no more; the pilgrim has been gladdened by it as he wandered in the wilderness, in a solitary way, and found no city to dwell in; the fainting soul has been refreshed by it, and enabled to mount up as on eagles’ wings; doubts and fears and questionings of Providence, and forebodings of ill, and all the black brood of unbelief, have been chased away by it, like the shades of night by the day-star; it has been God’s balm to the wounded spirit; it has strengthened God’s people to bear the cross, and to suffer their lives to be guided by His will; it has been whispered by dying lips, as the last earthly utterance of faith and gratitude and hope, the prelude of the New Song in which there is no note of sorrow.

Probably few Psalms are oftener read, or with stronger feeling, by careless readers than the twenty-third, singing of God’s grace to the humble, and the twenty-fourth, singing of God’s grace to the noble; and there are probably no other two whose real force is so little thought of. Which of us, even the most attentive, is prepared at once to tell, or has often enough considered, what the “Valley of the Shadow of Death” means, in the one, or the “Hill of the Lord,” in the other? 1 [Note: Ruskin, Rock Honeycomb (Works, xxxi. 203).]

Spurgeon says of this matchless Psalm: “It is David’s Heavenly Pastoral; a surpassing ode, which none of the daughters of music can excel. The clarion of war here gives place to the pipe of peace, and he who so lately bewailed the woes of the Shepherd, tunefully rehearses the joys of the flock. We picture David singing this unrivalled pastoral with a heart as full of gladness as it can hold. This is the pearl of Psalms, whose soft, pure radiance delights every eye; a pearl of which Helicon need not be ashamed, though Jordan claims it.” Some one else has said: “What the nightingale is among the birds, that is this Divine ode among the Psalms, for it has rung sweetly in the ear of many a mourner in his night of weeping, and has bidden him hope for a morning of joy.” I will venture to compare it also to the lark, which sings as it mounts, and mounts as it sings, until it is out of sight, and then not out of hearing. The whole Psalm is more fitted for the eternal mansions than for these dwelling-places below the clouds. The truths which are found in every sentence are almost too wondrous for mere mortal to grasp, and the heights of experience we are invited to ascend are almost too high for human climbing. 1 [Note: G. Clarke, From the Cross to the Crown, 2.]

In January 1681, two “honest, worthy lasses,” as Peden calls them, Isabel Alison and Marion Harvie, were hanged at Edinburgh. On the scaffold they sang together, to the tune of “Martyrs,” Psalms 84. “Marion,” said Bishop Paterson, “you would never hear a curate; now you shall hear one,” and he called upon one of his clergy to pray. “Come, Isabel,” was the girl’s answer—she was but twenty years of age—“let us sing the 23rd Psalm,” and thus they drowned the voice of the curate. No execution of the time was more universally condemned than that of these two women. A roughly-drawn picture of the scene, with the title “Women hanged,” is prefixed to the first edition of The Hind Let Loose (1687). By its side is another engraving, which represents “The Wigtown Martyrs, drowned at stakes at sea.” 2 [Note: R. E. Prothero, The Psalms in Human Life, 286.]

I.

Jehovah

1. “The Lord.” It is the name Jehovah. Now this name does not of itself express God’s moral character, but rather His absolute, necessary, and eternal being, as the sole fount of existence, “who only hath immortality, dwelling in the light which no man can approach unto, whom no man hath seen, nor can see.” While the generations of creaturely life pass on in ceaseless flow, while “our ages waste,” while the heavens themselves grow old, He stands up amidst His works the one, eternal, immutable “I am.”

2. This great Jehovah—what is He in His relation to us? The Psalm says He is a shepherd. The figure occurs very frequently in the Old Testament to indicate His relation to the covenant people and to every faithful member thereof. It is the word of Jacob, “God who shepherded me all my life long”; it is the word of the seed of Jacob, “We are his people, and the sheep of his pasture.” It tells of care, guidance, knowledge, defence, tenderness, love, on the part of God. Even to us, who seldom see a flock of sheep, except it may be passing through our dusty streets or scattered on the hillsides, the figure tells very much; but still more would it tell to the people of Israel.

Our English version misses something of the beauty of Jacob’s words (in blessing the sons of Joseph). The translation, God “who hath fed me,” is too meagre. We need to say, “who hath shepherded me.” The same word is the keynote of the finest of all the Psalms: “The Lord is my shepherd.” It is a beautiful metaphor, which comes with an exquisite pathos and a profound significance from the lips of a dying shepherd. The poets of a later age could only echo his words: “Give ear, O Shepherd of Israel, thou that leadest Joseph like a flock.” All the tender grace of the Old Testament religion is found in this lovely conception. It was not one man or two, but a whole nation, that learned to believe in God as a Shepherd: “We are his people, the sheep of his pasture.” No other ancient nation ever expected from God such loving care and unerring guidance, no other nation ever promised such meek submission and faithful following. And while the Hebrew temple and sacrifice and priesthood have passed away as the shadows of better things, the Hebrew thought of a Shepherd-God will live for ever. 1 [Note: J. Strachan, Hebrew Ideals, ii. 147.]

3. “The Lord is my shepherd.” Mark the fulness, the expansiveness of this idea. On the one side “the Lord,” the infinite, unchangeable, and everlasting God, all that is glorious, and holy, and wise, and self-sufficient, and much to be admired; on the other “the Shepherd,” all that is tender, compassionate, and self-sacrificing, and much to be loved. These two characters—the one, all that is lofty in its magnificence; the other, all that is lowly in its condescension; the one, all glorious; the other, all gracious—are united. They are included and concentrated in the same large and loving heart, whose every pulsation sends the tide of life through the veins of His vast universe, but at the same time does not disdain to throb with strong and unwearied regardfulness for me.

You have seen a map or a plan on which these words are written: “Scale, 1 inch to a mile.” Now, that is the meaning of the text; it is one inch to a mile, one inch to a universe, one inch to infinity. Do you ask me what is the meaning of that peculiar writing upon the plan? I will tell you; give me the compasses. How far is it from A to B? Stretch out compasses—“Ten inches.” What does that mean? It means ten miles. Ten inches on the paper, but the ten inches stand for ten miles. That is just the text. “Shepherd” stands for Ineffable, Eternal, Infinite, Unthinkable; God on a small scale; God minimized that we may touch the shadow of His garment. 1 [Note: Joseph Parker.]

II.

Jehovah Mine

1. “The Lord is my shepherd.” Here is the link that connects our hearts with the living God. It is a grand thing to consider how far out His shepherd-care extends. Man never yet lighted upon an unblest spot where no token of it could be seen. It meets us everywhere, and every hour. “The Lord is good to all; and his tender mercies are over all his works.” The lilies of the field, the birds of the air, the young lions in the tawny wild, all tribes of living and sentient creatures that people this earth, all the isles of light that shine in the blue immensity of heaven—the Lord careth for them all. We are astonished, overwhelmed, lost, when we think of the boundless extent of the fields into which His care reaches forth. But here our minds are called back from wandering out into His wide dominions, and we are directed to repose our own personal confidence in this great and unsearchable God, and to say, He is my Shepherd; mine, because He has given Himself to me; mine, for my heart trusts Him and clings to Him; my Shepherd, caring for me, loving me, keeping me.

We enter the Christian life by an act of simple appropriating faith. In a sense, all faith is “appropriating.” Mere intellectual faith is the act of the mind by which it lays hold on a truth and makes it its own. But the highest reach of this faculty of faith is when we face God’s largest lessons, and lay them to heart as true for us. Then, not only intellect, but will and desire make these truths ours. Perhaps the practical meaning of this appropriating faith has never been more clearly explained than in the early history of the eminent American preacher, W. M. Taylor. When he was a boy he heard a sermon in which the preacher dwelt much on the appropriating act of faith. He asked his father what it meant. Strange to say, that father had asked much the same question when he was a child, and now he repeated his mother’s answer for his own boy’s guidance: “Take your Bible, and underscore all the ‘my’s,’ and ‘mine’s,’ and the ‘me’s’ you come upon, and you will discover what ‘appropriation’ means.” We wish we could induce every reader of these words to spend ten minutes in this simple exercise now. Take the Psalms. “The Lord is my shepherd.” Is that true? True now? “He restoreth my soul.” Do you believe it? Now? Assuredly, if Christians would exercise this direct personal trust in the loving promises of God, it would mean a marvellous access of spiritual confidence, and power, and conquest. 1 [Note: J. A. Clapperton, Culture of the Christian Heart, 37.]

Happy me! O happy sheep!

Whom my God vouchsafes to keep,

Ev’n my God, ev’n He it is

That points me to these paths of bliss;

On whose pastures cheerful Spring,

All the year doth sit and sing,

And rejoicing, smiles to see

Their green backs wear His livery:

Pleasure sings my soul to rest,

Plenty wears me at her breast,

Whose sweet temper teaches me

Not wanton, nor in want to be.

At my feet the blubbering mountain

Weeping, melts into a fountain,

Whose soft silver-sweating streams

Make high-noon forget his beams:

When my wayward breath is flying,

He calls home my soul from dying,

Strokes and tames my rabid grief,

And does woo me into life:

When my simple weakness strays

(Tangled in forbidden ways),

He (my Shepherd) is my guide;

He’s before me, on my side;

And behind me, He beguiles

Craft in all her knotty wiles;

He expounds the weary wonder

Of my giddy steps, and under

Spreads a path as clear as the day

Where no churlish rub says nay

To my joy-conducted feet,

Whilst they gladly go to meet

Grace and Peace, to learn new lays

Tuned to my great Shepherd’s praise. 1 [Note: Richard Craskaw.]

“My Shepherd”—as if this individual Psalmist had appropriated the Deity. Yet it is quite in accord with the deepest experience and the most ideal observation. Of the sun in the heavens every little child might say, as he bathes his little fingers in the great flame, “The sun is my sun”; and yet it is everybody’s sun, and the little child’s sun all the more truly because it is everybody’s light. He does not take God away from others; he makes others feel how tender and how near God may be, though we have been searching for Him with lamps and candles and lanterns, whilst He was blazing upon us from every star that gleamed in the under heavens which we call the sky. 2 [Note: J. Parker, City Temple Pulpit, vii. 271.]

When preaching to children from home, Dr. Wilson often related Lady Boyd’s story of “Jamie, the Shepherd Boy,” because he found that it “told” better than any of his other stories. It runs thus: A minister was visiting an ignorant shepherd boy on his death-bed. He gave the boy the text, “The Lord is my shepherd.” He bade him notice that the text had five words as his left hand had five knuckles. He repeated the text slowly, appropriating a word for each knuckle, and getting the boy to fold in a knuckle as he repeated each word. The minister told him that the fourth knuckle represented the most important word for him, the word “my,” and explained personal faith in a personal Saviour. The boy grew interested, and the light dawned upon him. One day Jamie’s mother met the minister at her door, and said, “Oh, come in, my Jamie is dead, and you will find his fourth knuckle folded in, and his forefinger resting upon it.” 1 [Note: Dr. James Wells, Life of James Hood Wilson, 291.]

2. “The Lord is my Shepherd” is the language, not of nature but of grace; and it is not until by faith we have recognized Him, not in creation, not in providence, but in redemption, and that a redemption which was wrought out for and which has taken decisive effect on us, that we can look up with a glance of childlike confidence to God, and say, “My Maker is my Father, my God is my Shepherd; He who sitteth in the circle of the heavens has made for Himself a habitation in my heart, and the upholder of all the worlds is my best and nearest Friend.”

Ask yourself, if since it was first put upon your lips you have ever used it with anything more than the lips; if you have any right to use it; if you have ever taken any steps towards winning the right to use it. To claim God for our own, to have and enjoy Him as ours, means, as Christ our Master said over and over again, that we give ourselves to Him, and take Him to our hearts. Sheep do not choose their shepherd, but man has to choose—else the peace and the fulness of life which are here figured remain a dream and become no experience for him.

Some years ago I tried to get one of my children to commit the Twenty-third Psalm to memory; and, as she was too young to read for herself, I had to repeat it to her until she got hold of the words. I said, “Now, repeat after me, ‘The Lord is my shepherd.’ ” She said, “The Lord is your shepherd.” “No, I did not say that, and I want you to say to me the words I say to you. Now then, ‘The Lord is my shepherd.’ ” Again she said, “The Lord is your shepherd.” It was only after much effort I could get her to repeat the exact words. The child’s mistake was in some sense natural, but many of riper years have made the same blunder, saying by acts, if not by words, “The Lord is yours, but I have no experience of His shepherdly care and protection.” 2 [Note: The Expository Times, xxii. 304.]

III.

Jehovah my Shepherd

1. “The Lord is my shepherd.” The image, natural amongst a nation of shepherds, is first employed by Jacob ( Genesis 48:15; Genesis 49:24). There, as here, God is the Shepherd of the individual (cf. Psalms 119:176), still more frequently of His people ( Psalms 78:52, Psalms 80:1.; Micah 7:14; Isaiah 63:13, and especially Ezekiel 34): most beautifully and touchingly in Isaiah 40:11. So in the New Testament of Christ ( John 10:1-16; John 21:15-17; Hebrews 13:20; 1 Peter 2:25; 1 Peter 5:4). To understand all the force of this image, we must remember what the Syrian shepherd was, how very unlike our modern shepherd.

2. Shepherd-life, as David knew it, was a life essentially emotional and devotional. Shepherdhood, as David exercised it, was a relation at once so affectionately solicitous and so ingeniously resourceful as to be akin to motherhood. For the sheep of Eastern lands live in their shepherd. He is the centre of their unity, the guarantee of their security, the pledge of their prosperity. For them, pastures and wells and paths and folds are all in him. Apart from him their condition is one of abject and pathetic helplessness. Should any sudden calamity tear him from them they are forthwith undone. Distressed and scattered, they stumble among the rocks, or bleed in the thorn-tangle, or flee, wild with fear, before the terror of the wolf. Hence a good shepherd never forsakes his sheep. He accompanies them by day and abides with them by night. In the morning he goes before them to lead them out, and in the evening, when he has gathered them into the fold, he lies down in their midst. Then as he views their still, white forms clustered about him in the darkness, his heart brims with a brooding tenderness.

Upon the hills the winds are sharp and cold,

The sweet young grasses wither on the wold,

And we, O Lord, have wandered from Thy fold,

But evening brings us home.

Among the mists we stumbled and the rocks,

Where the brown lichen whitens and the fox

Watches the straggler from the scattered flocks,

But evening brings us home.

The sharp thorns prick us, and our tender feet

Are cut and bleeding, and the lambs repeat

Their pitiful complaints—oh, rest is sweet,

When evening brings us home.

We have been wounded by the hunter’s darts,

Our eyes are very heavy, and our hearts

Search for Thy coming, when the light departs.

At evening bring us home.

The darkness gathers, thro’ the gloom no star

Rises to guide. We have wandered far,

Without Thy lamp we know not where we are.

At evening bring us home.

The clouds are round us and the snowdrifts thicken,

O Thou, dear Shepherd, leave us not to sicken,

In the waste night, our tardy footsteps quicken.

At evening bring us home. 1 [Note: John Skelton.]

3. It was in anticipation of the time when His Son was to take our likeness upon Him, and die for us men, and for our salvation, that God revealed Himself to the Old Testament saints as “the Shepherd of Israel, leading Joseph like a flock.” They rejoiced in the light that stretched toward them from the far-off day of Christ’s appearing. Of him they read the sure words of prophecy, “He shall feed his flock like a shepherd: he shall gather the lambs with his arm, and carry them in his bosom, and shall gently lead those that are with young.” We know how He, in one of the most touching of all His parables, applied this emblem to Himself, and thus gave it its true significance and beauty. “I am the good shepherd, and know my sheep, and am known of mine.” “I am the good shepherd: the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep.”

On this, the “Good Shepherd” Sunday, one’s thoughts circulate round the significant symbol. The thought before me at this moment is the completeness of His knowledge of the sheep, their ills, necessities, possibilities, all involving on the part of the Shepherd completeness of sacrifice, “perfect sympathy calling out the perfect remedy,” as Westcott puts it. And one perceives the truth of this the more one’s own sympathies are educated, and one’s own life flows out. 1 [Note: R. W. Corbet, Letters from a Mystic of the Present Day, 158.]

It is cheering to remember that, for the sake of His own Name, and of His own glory, as well as for the sake of His great love, the full supply of all our needs is guaranteed by our relationship to Him as our Shepherd. A lean, scraggy sheep, with torn limbs and tattered fleece, would be small credit to the shepherd’s care; but unless we will wander from Him, and will not remain restfully under His protection, there is no fear of such ever being our lot. We may lie down in peace, and sleep in safety, because the Shepherd of Israel neither slumbers nor sleeps. No lion or bear can ever surprise our ever-watchful Guardian, or overcome our Almighty Deliverer. He has once laid down His life for the sheep; but now He ever liveth to care for them, and to ensure to them all that is needful for this life, and for that which is to come.

“ The Lord is my Shepherd.” He saith not was; He saith not may be, or will be. “The Lord is my Shepherd”—is on Sunday, is on Monday, and is through every day of the week; is in January, and is in December, and in every month of the year; is at home, and is in China; is in peace, and is in war; in abundance, and in penury. Let us live in the joy of the truth here pointed out: “The Lord is my Shepherd; I shall not want”; and let us learn to trust for others as well as for ourselves. Not only are the sheep of the flock safe, but the little lambs—about which the ewes may be more solicitous than about their own safety—are all under the same guardian Eye, and the same Shepherd’s care. 2 [Note: Hudson Taylor, Choice Sayings, 22.]

4. The Lord is my Shepherd—what does that mean for me?

(1) God has the shepherd-heart, pulsing with pure and generous love—love that means grace and sacrifice.

(2) He has the shepherd-eye, that takes in the whole flock, and misses even the one poor sheep that wanders astray.

(3) He has the shepherd-nearness; not living far away, and hearing about us now and then through the report of His angels; He is about us and among us day and night.

(4) He has shepherd-knowledge, being acquainted with everything that concerns us, understanding our desires better than we do ourselves.

(5) He has shepherd-strength; He is “able to keep” us; and we need not fear the teeth of the lion or the paw of the bear, so long as we are under His defence.

(6) He has shepherd-faithfulness; and we may fully trust Him. He hath said, “I will never leave you, I will never forsake you”; so that we may boldly say, “The Lord is my helper; I will not fear what man can do unto me.”

(7) He has shepherd-tenderness, carrying the lambs in His arms and gathering them in His bosom. There is nothing that comes out into more wonderful relief in Scripture than this tenderness. A comforted saint is “like one whom his mother comforteth.” In upholding His people God spreads underneath them “the everlasting arms.” His pity is like unto a father’s pity. In nurturing our life from feebleness to strength, “Thy gentleness hath made me great.” His control is not that of the cold, sharp bit thrust between our teeth, and the compelling lash, but, “I will guide thee with mine eye.” When He defends from the arrow and flying death, it is not by clothing in a shirt of mail, that pains and burdens, while it defends, the wearer; but, “He shall cover thee with his feathers”—could anything be softer and gentler?—“He shall cover thee with his feathers, and under his wings shalt thou trust.” That is the God to whom David bids us look up. 1 [Note: J. Culross, God’s Shepherd Care, 19.]

IV.

His Providence

1. “I shall not want.” Coverdale’s translation, used in the Prayer Book, is better, “Therefore can I lack nothing”; still better, as more literal, is Kay’s, “I shall have no lack.” The word is used in Deuteronomy 2:7 of Israel’s “lacking nothing” during its passage through the wilderness; and in Psalms 8:9, of the provision to be made for them in Canaan.

“Want” was preferred by the translators of the A.V. because the word “lack” had in the meantime suffered depreciation from the use of it as a common interpellation by stall-keepers to passers by: What d’ye lack, what d’ye lack?

We may observe by a comparison of other passages that lack is much rarer in the Bible of 1611 than in that of 1539. Thus in Judges 18:10; Luke 15:14—

1539. 1611.

A place, which doth lacke no thyng that is in the worlde. A place where there is no want of any thing, that is in the earth And when he had spent all, ther arose a greate derth in all that lande, and he began to lacke. And when he had spent all, there arose a mighty famine in that land, and he beganne to be in want. 1 [Note: J. Earle, The Psalter of 1539, 267.] 2. The shepherdly care of Jehovah makes every life a Divine plan. It redeems it from caprice. The tendency of our day is to reduce everything to law. Scientific men tell us that in the world of matter there is no such thing as chance. The unexpected does not happen. The universality of law is an accepted fact. The air we breathe, the water we drink, are composed of gases which, if mixed in slightly different proportions, would work our destruction. If the laboratory of nature were turned into a playground for lawless forces, what a chaos we should see! But there is no such thing as chance; and everything, from a molecule to a sun, is marshalled under law. But shall suns and systems have their appointed orbits, and human life be left to accident and caprice? Shall the soulless worlds of matter that drift through the infinite spaces have the personal leading of Jehovah, and all the hosts of men be allowed to wander uncared for and untended in the barren wilderness of time? No. Even of the stars it is said, “He calleth them all by name”; and we are of more value than many stars. They are but the furniture of His choice and many-chambered palace, but we are the children of His heart and His home. They are but waxing and waning splendours which come and go in the pauses of His breath, but we shall endure through all the years of the Most High.

3. But how shall we reconcile this care of God with what is called “natural law”? It is a conclusion of science that the order of nature is fixed and invariable; how can we reconcile this fixedness with the doctrine of present care? We neither can do this, nor need to do it. On the one side, science rests on its own proper basis, which is that of sense. Science receives nothing that does not rest ultimately on the evidence of sense, and knows only of the “natural.” Take even astronomy, which is in some respects the grandest of the sciences, and you will find that it has no other foundation than this. On the other hand, the assurance of Divine loving-kindness and care rests on a spiritual foundation, of which the senses know nothing. We are brought in among things which “eye hath not seen, nor ear heard.” The assurance of Divine loving-kindness and care rests on Divine revelation; and when men endeavour to destroy our confidence in the reality of the care by an argument drawn from science, that is to say, resting ultimately on sense, we can only reply, in the words of Jesus to the Sadducees, “Ye do err, not knowing the scriptures, nor the power of God.”

Never did I realize the power of Providence over human destiny as when I perceived how little man himself is able to control the act which most affects his own fate. For I cannot conceal from myself the fact that all my meditation can serve but little to guide me, seeing the future, which alone could give me a fixed point for my inquiry, is mercilessly hidden from my view. True indeed it is that we are led. Happily the Christian may add, “We are well led!” This indeed is our only true and logical consolation. 1 [Note: Brother and Sister (Memoir of Ernest and Henriette Renan), 131.]

“And Elijah the Tishbite, who was of the inhabitants of Gilead, said unto Ahab, As the Lord God of Israel liveth, before whom I stand, there shall not be dew nor rain these years, but according to my word.” Your modern philosophers have explained to you the absurdity of all that: you think?… Do these modern scientific gentlemen fancy that nobody, before they were born, knew the laws of cloud and storm, or that the mighty human souls of former ages, who every one of them lived and died by prayer, and in it, did not know that in every petition framed on their lips they were asking for what was not only fore-ordained, but just as probably fore- done or that the mother, pausing to pray before she opens a letter from Alma or Balaclava, does not know that already he is saved for whom she prays, or already lies festering in his shroud? The whole confidence and glory of prayer is in its appeal to a Father who knows our necessities before we ask, who knows our thoughts before they rise in our hearts, and whose decrees, as unalterable in the eternal future as in the eternal past, yet in the close verity of visible fact, bend, like reeds, before the fore-ordained and faithful prayers of His children. 1 [Note: Ruskin, On the Old Road.]

O strong, upwelling prayers of faith,

From inmost founts of life ye start,—

The spirit’s pulse, the vital breath

Of soul and heart!

From pastoral toil, from traffic’s din,

Alone, in crowds, at home, abroad,

Unheard of man, ye enter in

The ear of God.

Ye brook no forced and measured tasks,

Nor weary rote, nor formal chains;

The simple heart, that freely asks

In love, obtains.

For man the living temple is:

The mercy-seat and cherubim,

And all the holy mysteries,

He bears with him.

And most avails the prayer of love,

Which, wordless, shapes itself in deeds,

And wearies Heaven for naught above

Our common needs. 2 [Note: J. G. Whittier, The Hermit of the Thebaid.]

4. There are two ways of not lacking a thing in this world. He lacks nothing who has everything. If one could take the stars from the sky, and the rivers from their beds, he might say, “I lack nothing.” To get everything possible for the soul to want is one way of saying, “I want nothing.” The better way is for a man to look up and bring his desires down to that which God sees fit to give him. This applies emphatically to things of faith. If I knew all the mysteries of God, I might say, “I lack no knowledge of God.” But if, knowing only what God has told me, I let all the gaps in my knowledge go because He has not chosen to fill them, in a richer sense I may say, “I lack no knowledge of God.”

God does not say He will supply every one of our wants, but He does say He will supply every one of our needs. The two words are not coincident in any one of our lives. Half of the difficulty in our lives is caused by letting our wants predominate and not keeping them within our grip. 1 [Note: G. Beesley Austin.]

I once said to a servant girl who had got into a good family, “Are you happy where you are?” She had got what for a servant was a good situation, and I shall not forget the quietly confident way in which with beaming face she said, “Oh yes, sir, I have £22 a year, and all found.” “The Lord is my shepherd,” and all is found. “I shall not want.” “All found.” That was evidently more to her than the small sum total of the actual pounds. She dwelt upon that, and said with emphasis, “and all found.” 2 [Note: John McNeill.]

The Oriental shepherd was always ahead of his sheep. He was down in front. He was eyes and ears, heart and brain for his flock. Any attack upon them had to take him into account. He was the defence force—the advance guard, that had to be measured and reckoned with. Now, what the Eastern shepherd was to his sheep, God is to His people. He is down in front, both as to time and place. He is in the to-morrows of our history. It is to-morrow that tyrannizes over men and fills them with dread. It is the unknown that paralyses the heart and puts such tension on the nerves. But once let the thought of God as Shepherd take its place among the certainties of our life, and straightway we are delivered from this thrall. The future is guaranteed. He is there already. All the to-morrows of our life have to pass Him before they can get to us. We literally take them from His hand. We step down into to-morrows that are filled and flooded with God. The deduction for the Psalmist was inevitable: “I shall not want.” “Want” and “Jehovah” are mutually exclusive ideas. They cannot co-exist in the mind excepting in antithesis. They cancel each other. Jehovah stands for all a man needs for time and for eternity. Give a worried man, or a careworn woman, this assurance, and at once life takes on a different complexion, and moves upward to a higher plane. He who is not delivered from the fear of want can never touch the highest levels of life or achievement. Christ saw this when He said, “Be not anxious for the morrow,” and assured His hearers that it was along the lines of fulfilled relations to God that life would find all its satisfaction and supply. 3 [Note: H. Howard, The Shepherd Psalms , 16.]

When God shall ope the gates of gold,

The portals of the heavenly fold,

And bid His flock find pasture wide

Upon a new earth’s green hillside—

What poor strayed sheep shall thither fare,

Black-smirched beneath the sunny air,

To wash away in living springs

The mud and mire of earthly things!

What lonely ewes with eyes forlorn,

With weary feet and fleeces torn,

To whose shorn back no wind was stayed,

Nor any rough ways smooth were made!

What happy little lambs shall leap

To those sad ewes and spattered sheep,

With gamesome feet and joyful eyes,

From years of play in Paradise!

The wind is chill, the hour is late;

Haste thee, dear Lord, undo the gate;

For grim wolf-sorrows prowling range

These bitter hills of chance and change:

And from the barren wilderness

With homeward face Thy flocks do press:

Their worn bells ring a jangled chime—

Shepherd, come forth, ’tis eventime! 1 [Note: May Byron, The Wind on the Heath, 28.]

Literature

Brooks (P.), The Spiritual Man, 281.

Burns (J. D.), Memoir and Remains, 293.

Clarke (G.), From the Cross to the Crown, 1.

Cooke (G. A.), The Progress of Revelation, 105.

Culross (J.), God’s Shepherd Care, 1.

Fairbairn (A. M.), Christ in the Centuries, 69, 83.

Freeman (J. D.), Life on the Uplands, 1.

Gray (W. H.), Our Divine Shepherd, 1.

Howard (H.), The Shepherd Psalms , 1.

Jones (J. M.), The Cup of Cold Water, 17.

McFadyen (J. E.), The City with Foundations, 201.

Maclaren (A.), Sermons Preached in Manchester, i. 307.

Parker (J.), The City Temple Pulpit, vii. 270.

Smith (G. A.), Four Psalms , 1.

Spurgeon (C. H.), The Treasury of David, 398.

Stalker (J.), The Good Shepherd, 17.

Stoughton (J.), The Song of Christ’s Flock, 1.

Christian World Pulpit, lxv. 232 (Parker).

Expository Times, xxii. 302.

Verses 2-3

Rest, Refreshment, Restoration

He maketh me to lie down in green pastures:

He leadeth me beside the still waters.

He restoreth my soul.— Psalms 23:2-3.

1. We are apt to think about the Old Testament as if it were hard and rigid and rugged and severe and stern. Some people say, “I like the New Testament very much, but I do not care to read the Old Testament”; but right in the middle of the Old Testament shines the Twenty-third Psalm, as if it were put there in order that men might never dare to call that book harsh and hard and severe and stern. This Psalm is an outpouring of the soul to God, never matched in all the riches of the Christian day. It is the utterance of a soul absolutely unshaken and perfectly serene. There are times when everything in God’s dealings with us seems to be stern and hard and bitter; then, just as we are ready to cast ourselves away in despair, and feel toward God as toward a ruler whom we can simply fear but never love, there comes some manifestation of God that sets our soul to singing. The hardest and severest passages in the Old Testament find relief if we let the light shine on them from the Twenty-third Psalms 1 [Note: 1 Phillips Brooks, The Spiritual Man, 283.]

2. In the New Testament many of the expressions of deepest faith have their origin in this Psalm. “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.” See how one of the words which afterwards became the inheritance of the race first came to be used. Many words have passed into common use and are now used without any feeling of their sacred origin in the local circumstances out of which the Bible was first written. This is the case with the word “shepherd.” David, the shepherd boy, had been back and forth over the fields of Judæa, and, in the care of those dependent on him, had learned to feel the care of the heavenly Father. It is a beautiful thing when the soul, from its own relationship towards dependent ones, comes to recognize the care of God. Taking up the lamb in his arms, David thought: So my heavenly Father will carry me through all the days of my life. Our Saviour said, “I am the good shepherd.” He took the figure from the Old Testament, and when His disciples came to do the work He had done, the title “shepherd,” or “pastor,” became universal in Christian history. The pastors of the flock are they who try, in their weakness and inability, to do that which Christ did perfectly. David could find no word to describe more fully to his own mind the richness of the care that God had for his life, the absolute dependence of his life upon God’s love, than that taken from his own daily occupation.

I.

Rest

“He maketh me to lie down in green pastures.”

1. The green pastures, says Delitzsch, are pasture-grounds of fresh tender soft grass, where one lies at ease, and rest and enjoyment are combined. The word rendered “pastures” is the plural of a word which is used for a dwelling or homestead. In six of the twelve places where the word occurs, it is coupled with “wilderness”; and in three more it refers to pasturage. It evidently denotes, therefore, the richer, oasis-like spots, where a homestead would be fixed in a generally barren tract of land. We must banish from our minds the green fields of our country, enclosed with hedges or stone walls. In the East the barren uplands are all open and unfenced; and you never see a flock of sheep without the shepherd in charge of them. Everything depends upon the shepherd; he has to find out where the thin grass lurks beneath the rocks, where the precious fountain bubbles into the cistern, where shelter may be had from the scorching sun at noonday.

Some time since I was driving across the Cornish moors, when my friend who was with me pointed to a greener slope between the rocky hills. “My father owned some land here when I was a boy,” said he, “and many a time I have ridden over these moors looking for the sheep; I generally found them on that slope.” “Why there?” I asked. Then he showed me how two high hills rose up and sheltered it from the north and east, and how the slope faced the south, so that they found it warmer, and the early young green grass grew there. Some time afterwards that pleasant picture of the hills happened to come back to my mind, and I turned wondering as to where His flock finds its resting-place. Very beautiful for situation is this Twenty-third Psalm. The Psalm before it begins with that dreadful cry, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” Here is the hill of Calvary, with its mocking crowd, “They part my garments among them, and cast lots upon my vesture.” His sheep have come over Calvary; they have passed under the Cross. Behind them rises that hill which for ever breaks the fierce storms that beat upon us. “Being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ”: here is the calm, and overhead the blue sky where no storms gather. Then immediately after the Twenty-third Psalm comes that which tells of the hill of Zion with its splendours and shouts of triumph. “Lift up your heads, O ye gates; and be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors; and the King of glory shall come in.” So sheltered lies the flock of the Good Shepherd, betwixt Calvary and Heaven, shut in from the angrier blasts, and dwelling in a land that looks towards the sunny south. 1 [Note: M. G. Pearse, in The Sunday Magazine, 1884, p. 605.]

2. Here is a promise, then, to the weary, of repose. Thank God this is not an age of idleness. Can we equally say, Thank God this is not an age of repose? It is almost the prevailing stamp which defines the character of the present day—its restlessness. Call it, if you will, impatience; call it hurry; certainly whatever is the opposite to repose.

We see all sights from pole to pole,

And glance and rush and bustle by,

And never once possess our soul

Before we die.

There is a deep craving within our spiritual nature for a true spiritual rest; not the rest of inactivity or sloth, but a calm, abiding peace, which shall be within us even in the midst of our labour. The full satisfaction of this craving is reserved for the future: “There remaineth a rest for the people of God.” But there are seasons and opportunities of repose vouchsafed to us even now. Resting-days are given us, on which we may gather in our thoughts from the excitement of the world, and receive into our hearts that “peace which passeth understanding.”

There is probably no necessity more imperatively felt by the artist, no test more unfailing of the greatness of artistical treatment, than that of the appearance of repose; yet there is no quality whose semblance in matter is more difficult to define or illustrate. As opposed to passion, change, fulness, or laborious exertion, Repose is the especial and separating characteristic of the eternal mind and power. It is the “I am” of the Creator opposed to the “I become” of all creatures; it is the sign alike of the supreme knowledge which is incapable of surprise, the supreme power which is incapable of labour, the supreme volition which is incapable of change; it is the stillness of the beams of the eternal chambers laid upon the variable waters of ministering creatures. 1 [Note: Ruskin, Modern Painters (Works, iv. 113).]

I began Miss Martineau’s book ( Feats on the Fiord) at sunrise, and finished it a little after breakfast-time. It gave me a healthy glow of feeling, a more cheerful view of life. I believe the writer of that book would rejoice that she had soothed and invigorated one day of a wayworn, tired being in his path to the Still Country, where the heaviest-laden lays down his burden at last, and has rest. Yes, thank God! there is rest—many an interval of saddest, sweetest rest—even here, when it seems as if evening breezes from that other land, laden with fragrance, played upon the cheeks and lulled the heart. There are times, even on the stormy sea, when a gentle whisper breathes softly as of heaven, and sends into the soul a dream of ecstasy which can never again wholly die, even amidst the jar and whirl of waking life. How such whispers make the blood stop and the very flesh creep with a sense of mysterious communion! How singularly such moments are the epochs of life—the few points that stand out prominently in the recollection after the flood of years has buried all the rest, as all the low shore disappears, leaving only a few rock-points visible at high tide! 2 [Note: Life and Letters of F. W. Robertson, 204.]

The universal instinct of repose,

The longing for confirmed tranquillity,

Inward and outward; humble, yet sublime:

The life where hope and memory are as one;

Where earth is quiet and her face unchanged

Save by the simplest toil of human hands

Or season’s difference; the immortal Soul

Consistent in self-rule; and heaven revealed

To meditation in that quietness! 1 [Note: Wordsworth, The Excursion.]

3. “He maketh me to lie down.” The first thing that the shepherd does with the sheep in the morning is to make them “lie down in green pastures.” How does he do it? Not by walking them and wearing them out, but by feeding them until they are satisfied. For sheep will go on walking long after they are weary, but the moment they are satisfied they will lie down. It may seem unlikely that early in the morning, as the very first thing in the day, the shepherd should be able to feed his flock so well that they will lie down satisfied. But that depends upon the pastures. If he gets them at once to green pastures, they will of their own accord—their appetites being sharpened by the morning air—eat and be satisfied, and lie down in a great content.

Now a day with the shepherd and his sheep in the uplands is; the life of the believer with God. Its first act is the satisfaction of the soul with the things which He has provided. For the believer of to-day the great provision is the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. And no one who has tasted and seen how gracious the Lord is will deny that the very first experience of the goodness and mercy of God is well described in the first act of the Eastern shepherd’s working-day,—“He maketh me to lie down in green pastures.”

Where dost Thou feed Thy favoured sheep?

O my Beloved, tell me where;

My soul within Thy pastures keep,

And guard me with Thy tender care.

Too prone, alas! to turn aside,

Too prone with alien flocks to stray;

Be Thou my shepherd, Thou my guide,

And lead me in Thy heavenly way.

If thou wouldst know, thou favoured one,

Where soul-refreshing pastures be;

Feed on My words of truth alone,

And walk with those who walk with Me.

I with the contrite spirit dwell;

The broken heart is Mine abode;

Such spikenard yields a fragrant smell,

And such are all the saints of God. 1 [Note: R. T. P. Pope.]

“Lie down and look at it,” a friend once said to me when we were out together for a trip on the Grampians. The scenery around us, I need not say, was strikingly beautiful. There were mountain-tops tipped with snow, hillsides covered with purple heath, green valleys through which flowed the Earn with its tributaries, waving cornfields, and rich pasture lands on which the sheep and deer were feeding in the distance, making a picture which, when once seen, was not to be forgotten. Here and there, too, were ruins of ancient castles, dismantled and dilapidated, carrying one’s thoughts back to the realm of history, and reminding one of times when might was right and those quiet glens were the scenes of war and bloodshed.

But my companion kept on calling my attention to shades of green in the fields, shades of purple on the moors, shades of blue in the sky. He was evidently absorbed in the picturesqueness of the scenery. At last I said to him, “You have got the painter’s eye, and I have not; you can see a beauty in this landscape which altogether escapes me.” “Well, perhaps so,” he said, “but at all events I want to give you the painter’s eye; just lie down and look at it.” And never till that moment had I been conscious of the amazing difference which a slight change of attitude can effect in viewing the fields of Nature. Everything changed with the posture and the standpoint. I now understood, for the first time, the mystic charm which mountain scenery has for the poet’s and the painter’s eye; the ever-changing tints and shades of colour, in earth and sea and sky, transferred with such subtle power to the canvas, and fixed there, “a thing of beauty” and “a joy for ever.” All this I had learnt by following my comrade’s injunction—he made me to lie down in green pastures. 2 [Note: R. Balgarnie.]

(1) The first essential of this rest is an assurance of safety.—The stranger startles the flock, the watch-dog frightens it, the howl of the wild beast scatters it in panting terror. The confidence of the first line is the key to all the gladness of the Psalm—“The Lord is my shepherd.” The whole song is born of assurance. Fear strikes all dumb, as when the hawk wheels overhead in the blue heavens and hushes instantly the music of the groves. Doubt spoils it all—“the little rift within the lute.” Confidence, steadfast, unwavering confidence, is the very heart of this rest. There must be a great, deep, abiding conviction wrought into me that He is mine, and I am His.

What if one who calls himself my friend should ask me to his house, and welcome me with many words, and entertain me with sumptuous show of hospitality, and give me a thousand tokens of his regard. He bids me make myself at home, and hopes I shall be comfortable; but as I am going to rest, he takes me aside. “This is a pleasant house, isn’t it?” “Very, indeed,” say I; “most pleasant. The design and arrangements are perfect, the views are charming, the gardens delightful; everything is complete.” “I am glad you like it; I hope you will rest well”; and then his voice sinks to a whisper—“but there is just one thing I ought to mention, we are not quite sure about the foundations.” “Then, sir,” I say indignantly, “you may depend upon it I am not going to stay here.” Sleep! I couldn’t. Why, the man’s welcome to the place is cruel; the entertainment is a hideous mockery; the decorations and furniture are a madman’s folly. No; give me some poor cottage with many discomforts, but where I do know that the foundations are right, and I should be much better off. 1 [Note: M. G. Pearse, in The Sunday Magazine, 1884, p. 606.]

(2) The next thing is satisfaction.—God becomes the answer to all our longings, the fulfilment of all our hopes. He fathoms and fills the uttermost deeps of our being. Our souls lie back on Him and are satisfied—abundantly satisfied, finding in Him their being’s end and aim. God made the soul for Himself; He has begotten within it a thirst that all the waters of time can never quench. This thirst, rightly interpreted, is the grand distinctive mark of our high origin—the prophecy of our return to God.

The Psalm at this point reflects the comfort and peace of those happy souls who, in early life, have tasted and seen that God is good. Satisfied in the morning with His mercy, they rejoice and are glad all their days. To make an ideal beginning of our life we must go with the Good Shepherd early and spend the dewy morn with Him upon the meadows of His grace. For then the spiritual appetite is keen and the heart feeds hungrily on the fat pastures of God’s love until it is nourished into a deep content. There are no lives that dwell in such a profundity of peace or hold within them such reserve and resource of spiritual power as those who can say, “Thou hast been my God from my youth.”

In the dark hours of our life all other sounds die away, and leave silence in our souls—silence that we may hear His voice. And it is a great step forwards in the Christian life, if one learns to say, “The Lord is my portion.” Nothing teaches this as sorrow teaches. From it we learn the transitoriness of earthly things, the permanence of the eternal, the loving call of God; but also we learn the very hard lesson that God is really the only satisfaction for the soul. 1 [Note: Mrs. George J. Romanes, The Hallowing of Sorrow.]

II.

Refreshment

“He leadeth me beside the still waters.”

1. G. A. Smith renders it thus: “By waters of rest He refresheth me.” This last verb, he says, is difficult to render in English; the original meaning was evidently to guide the flock to drink, from which it came to have the more general force of sustaining or nourishing.

It is the noontide hour. “Sunbeams like swords” are smiting the sheep. They pant with heat and burn with thirst. It is time for the shepherd to lead them to the drinking-place and cool them at the waters. He knows the way. All over these Judæan hills, at frequent intervals, there are deep, walled wells, whose waters never fail. A good shepherd carries in his mind a chart of every well in all his grazing area. These wells are his chief dependence. Were it not for them the country would be impossible for grazing purposes. For though there are many streams the sheep cannot safely drink from them.

At the well-mouth, with bared arms, the shepherd stands and plunges the bucket far down into the darkness, sinking it beneath the waters and shattering the stillness which till now has brooded there. He plunges and draws. Swiftly the rope coils at his feet as the laden bucket rises responsive to the rhythmic movements of his sinewy arms. Into the trough he pours the sparkling contents. Again the bucket shoots into the darkness of the well; again, and yet again, and when the trough is filled he calls the thirsty sheep to come in groups and drink. The lambs first, afterwards the older members of the flock, till all are served and satisfied.

2. God leads the sheep by the still waters, where it may drink the cool, clear draught in safety, and not be scared or confused by the roar of the cataract; the devil would lead the sheep beside the turbulent rapids, where it can scarcely drink without danger of being carried down to the cataract which bewilders with its noise and foam. Think of all the pleasure of simple, innocent recreation; think of the joy which comes to us from the wonder and beauty of Nature; remember the pleasures of music, of poetry, of art; think of the calm joys of true friendship, and the delights which cluster around the pure affections of the home. All these are the refreshment and exhilaration of the cool, still waters. But think of the exciting pleasures of the gambler; think of the muddled brain of the drunkard singing his foolish song; think of the riotous, lascivious mirth of the casino; reflect on the half-insane glee of the rake who boasts of his debauchery: here you have the intoxication of the rapids and the cataract. And let us never forget that the rapids and the cataract are sometimes only farther down in the very same stream beside the still waters of which the Lord is leading His people.

We know how often in Scripture the emblem of water, as a purifying and refreshing element, is employed to represent the gracious operations of the Holy Spirit. “If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink … this spake he of the Spirit.” This is the “pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb.” When the Spirit receives of the things of Christ and shows them to the believer, longing to behold His power, His glory, and His beauty, or discovers to him his interest in the hopes and promises of His Word, witnessing with his spirit that he is a child of God, he is strengthened and revived as by a draught from that “well of water which springeth up unto everlasting life.” To be led “beside the still waters” is to be “walking in the comfort of the Holy Ghost,” to be enjoying holy and tranquil communion with Him, to have clear and enlarged and soul-satisfying discoveries of Christ and His work, to have the love of God shed abroad in our hearts, so that even amid outward tribulation we have inward peace. It is He who opens up “the wells of salvation,” out of which the believer draws water with joy. Though often “in a dry and thirsty land where no water is,” let him follow the leadings of his Shepherd, and the promise will be fulfilled, “When the poor and needy seek water, and there is none, and their tongue faileth for thirst, I the Lord will hear them, I the God of Israel will not forsake them. I will open rivers in high places, and fountains in the midst of the valleys: I will make the wilderness a pool of water, and the dry land springs of water.” This is the rest wherewith He has caused the weary to rest, and this is the refreshing which comes down on the fainting soul as the dew of Hermon, and as the dew that descended on the mountains of Zion.

Not always, Lord, in pastures green

The sheep at noon Thou feedest,

Where in the shade they lie

Within Thy watchful eye:

Not always under skies serene

The white-fleeced flock Thou leadest.

On rugged ways, with bleeding feet,

They leave their painful traces;

Through deserts drear they go,

Where wounding briers grow,

And through dark valleys, where they meet

No quiet resting-places.

Not always by the water still,

Or lonely wells palm-hidden,

Do they find happy rest,

And, in Thy presence blest,

Delight themselves, and drink their fill

Of pleasures unforbidden.

Their track is worn on Sorrow’s shore,

Where windy storms beat ever—

Their troubled course they keep,

Where deep calls unto deep;

So going till they hear the roar

Of the dark-flowing river.

But wheresoe’er their steps may be,

So Thou their path be guiding,

O be their portion mine!

Show me the secret sign,

That I may trace their way to Thee,

In Thee find rest abiding.

Slowly they gather to the fold,

Upon Thy holy mountain,—

There, resting round Thy feet,

They dread no storm nor heat,

And slake their thirst where Thou hast rolled

The stone from Life’s full fountain. 1 [Note: J. Drummond Burns.]

III.

Restoration

“He restoreth my soul.”

1. The words translated “he restoreth my soul” mean to bring the soul back again to itself, to bring the soul that has become unlike itself once more into a condition of equilibrium, and therefore to inspire with new life, to recreate. There are thus two possible interpretations.

(1) Restoration may mean bringing back that which has gone astray. We think at once of the parable of the Lost Sheep recorded in the Gospel of Luke. Yonder is a shepherd with a flock of an hundred sheep feeding around him. One of them wanders off unperceived, and is lost. Though ninety and nine remain, the good shepherd misses the lost one; he goes forth to seek it; having found it, perhaps far away in the wilderness or the mountain, and it may be near to nightfall, he brings it back with him to the rest of the flock. He does this most tenderly and lovingly. Though it has cost him toil and pain, he does not use it roughly; he does not scourge it before him, or drag it after him; he does not leave it to hireling care; he lays it on his own shoulders, rejoicing, and so brings it home.

With just such tender, compassionate loving-kindness does the Lord the Shepherd bring back the wandering soul; He bears us no grudge for the toil and pain we have cost Him, but rejoices over us; He forsakes us not, nor leaves us to our own strength, till He has carried us across the threshold of celestial bliss, and set us down among the saints in light, the home-doors folding us in.

In Deuteronomy ( Psalms 22:1-2) we read, “Thou shalt not see thy brother’s ox or his sheep go astray, and hide thyself from them: thou shalt in any case bring them again unto thy brother. And if thy brother be not nigh unto thee, or if thou know him not, then thou shalt bring it unto thine own house, and it shall be with thee until thy brother seek after it, and thou shalt restore it to him again.” This humane and honest custom still prevails among the shepherds of Palestine. Whoever finds a sheep, goat, or any other domestic animal straying on his land, secures it and informs the neighbours and shepherds with whom he is acquainted, or whom he may meet, that he found an animal straying on his property and that any one who has lost such and can prove ownership should come and take it. If one finds an animal straying on the highway the finder will send it to the public square of the nearest village or city, where generally some one will recognize whose property it is. Everybody who hears of the find relates the fact to everybody else with whom he is acquainted, and to every shepherd he meets if the animal is a sheep or a goat. Animals that have been bought and brought to a flock where they are strangers will sometimes stray away in search of their former companions and shepherd. 1 [Note: A. F. Mamreov, A Day with the Good Shepherd, 68.]

An evangelical hymn from this Psalm by Sir Henry W. Baker, the editor of “Hymns Ancient and Modern,” is among the most generally appreciated in that collection. The Rev. J. Julian ( Dictionary of Hymnology, v. “Baker”) says: The last audible words which lingered on his dying lips were the third stanza of his exquisite rendering of the 23rd Psalm, “The King of Love my Shepherd is”:—

Perverse and foolish oft I strayed;

But yet in love He sought me,

And on His shoulder gently laid,

And home rejoicing brought me. 2 [Note: J. Earle, The Psalter of 1539, 267.]

What a beautiful, comforting gospel that is in which the Lord Christ depicts Himself as the Good Shepherd, showing what a heart He has towards us poor sinners, and how we can do nothing towards our salvation! The sheep could not defend nor provide for itself, nor keep itself from going astray, if the shepherd did not continually guide it: and when it has gone astray and is lost, cannot find its way back again, nor come to its shepherd; but the shepherd himself must go after it and seek it until he find it; otherwise it would wander and be lost for ever. And when he has found it, he must lay it on his shoulder and carry it, lest it should again be frightened away from himself, and stray or be devoured by the wolf. So also is it with us. We could neither help nor counsel ourselves, nor come to rest and peace of conscience, nor escape the devil, death, and hell, if Christ Himself, by His Word, did not fetch us, and call us to Himself. And even when we have come to Him, and are in the faith, we cannot keep ourselves in it, except He lift and carry us by His Word and power, since the devil is everywhere, and at all times on the watch to do us harm. But Christ is a thousand times more willing and earnest to do all for His sheep than the best human shepherd. 1 [Note: Martin Luther.]

(2) But it seems more in keeping with the language used to understand restoration to be revival of fainting life. It may then be regarded as an anticipation of that profound saying of Jesus concerning His sheep: “I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly”—a life ever enlarging in strength and depth and fulness and joy. The hot sun has been beating down upon the flock, and they are sorely exhausted; their “soul” is faint and weary, and the shepherd uses suitable means to refresh and restore them; and then he leads them in the right ways, known to himself, whither he would have them go.

Christ shelters us from the heats of life in the shade of His own majestic Personality. The thought of restoration in the protecting shade of the Divine presence occurs repeatedly throughout the Scriptures. It strikes the keynote of the Ninety-first Psalm. “He that dwelleth in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.” It is the central idea in Psalm One Hundred and Twenty-One. “The Lord is thy shade upon thy right hand.” It is in view of this that the promise follows:—“The sun shall not smite thee by day.” Isaiah dwells upon the thought with evident delight. “For thou hast been a refuge from the storm, a shadow from the heat.” Again, with the thought of the Divine presence in his mind he sings, “And there shall be a pavilion for a shadow in the daytime from the heat.” 1 [Note: J. D. Freeman, Life on the Uplands, 51.]

2. Our Psalm is deepening in spirituality and becoming more inward as it proceeds. Hitherto the shepherd-care of Jehovah has been viewed merely in its relation to bodily needs. But man is something more than a body with a set of physical desires and appetites. He is a soul. There is that within him to which the temporal and material order is not correlated. There are sides of his being that Nature cannot touch. There are mountain peaks upon which her sunlight never falls, and slopes which all her verdure cannot clothe. There are spaces that her fulness cannot fill, and depths which her deepest plummet cannot sound. The eye wearies for sights more beautiful, and the ear for harmonies more sweet, and the heart for friendships more abiding and for joys more deep and full, than those of time. Man has a set of faculties which are accommodated with a merely temporal residence in the body, in order that they may find a preparatory school for the earlier stages of their development before being launched on the timeless ranges of the life to come. No view of life can be complete which does not take this side of man into account, and no provision can be regarded as complete which does not meet its needs. Nature is too poor to meet our deepest necessities. We possess a life higher and nobler than that which can be sustained by meat and drink. We hunger for bread that Nature never breaks to us. We thirst for waters that never gush from her springs.

David had lived a full life. He had known the extremes of want and wealth. He had endured the tortures of physical hunger and thirst, and had moved amid all the splendours of an Oriental court. He had mingled freely with the affairs of State, and knew all its ambitions and temptations, its plots and counterplots. He had proved the despiritualizing effects of a voluptuous court life, and the necessity for restoration of soul; for, like the body, the soul runs down. And David had found that there was but one way of recovering spiritual tone, and that was in fulfilling personal relations with a personal God. He—Jehovah—and He alone could reinforce him on the moral side, and so brace him up that he could say “No” to the clamour of unholy desire. 1 [Note: H. Howard, The Shepherd Psalms , 39.]

(1) First among the means of “restoring” is God’s Word, read, heard, meditated upon, hidden in the heart, conversed about, prayed over, loved, opened and applied by the Holy Spirit; with its revealings, instructions, records of experience, saintly examples, consolations, mighty spiritual energies, exceeding great and precious promises.

The Bible is not a book that has guided only the lives of fools and women and babes. It has moulded the lives of the noblest, and made wise men like Carlyle, Bright, Gladstone, Tennyson, Shakespeare, and Milton as vessels of power and grace. It was for many generations the chief if not the only text-book of our Scottish sires; and those whose praises are in all the churches were made brave enough to live and strong enough to die, drawing deep draughts of grace and power from the stream of Holy Scripture. In the enfolding universalness in which its unity is found; in its deep power of truth-revealing, its uplifting and guiding grace, its ocean-song of majestic phrase and captivating words, the irresistibleness of the Divine within and about it, it vindicates its claim to be Literature, and the greatest utterance of Literature in the language of men. 2 [Note: L. MacLean Watt, Literature and Life, 70.]

(2) Then there is the blessed intercourse of prayer, whereby the creature-spirit comes into immediate communion and fellowship with the Infinite Spirit. There is restoring for our souls in the very contact with God, and in the answer that He sends. Let experience declare. We have gone into our closets, and bowed our knees or cast ourselves on the floor, under an overwhelming sense of feebleness and prostration, like Elijah under the juniper tree, or David when he cried out, “My soul cleaveth unto the dust”; and, through the Divine intercourse of prayer, we have come forth strong and gladdened: and, through prayer as a daily habit (growing into a necessity of our being), we have found our life deepening and expanding, and filling with joy from year to year.

Prayer is a spiritual exercise, and its results are spiritual. The men who know its fullest exercise are the men who are in a condition to talk about it. Cuique suâ arte credendum est. Says Bagehot, and with entire truth: “The criterion of true beauty is with those—they are not many—who have a sense of true beauty; the criterion of true morality is with those who have a sense of true morality; and the criterion of true religion is with those who have a sense of true religion.” It is so, emphatically, with prayer. 1 [Note: J. Brierley, Life and the Ideal, 74.]

How constantly through my life have I heard testimony of the power that answers prayer. History everywhere confesses its force. The Huguenots took possession of the Carolinas in the name of God. William Penn settled Pennsylvania in the name of God. The Pilgrim Fathers settled in New England in the name of God. Preceding the first gun of Bunker Hill, at the voice of prayer, all heads uncovered. In the war of 1812 an officer came to General Andrew Jackson and said, “There is an unusual noise in the camp; it ought to be stopped.” The General asked what this noise was. He was told it was the voice of prayer. “God forbid that prayer and praise should be an unusual noise in the camp,” said General Jackson. “You had better go and join them.” 2 [Note: Autobiography of Dr. Talmage, 156.]

(3) Then there is praise—the praise of the “great congregation”; the praise of the fireside, with the sweet child-voices chiming in; the praise of solitude, ringing through the wood or rising from the lonely fisherman’s boat; the unheard praise of the workshop or street, when we “carry music in our heart.” And its restoring efficacy is not less wonderful. When Israel chanted that lofty song on “the shore of deliverance,” when Paul and Silas sang aloud in the dungeon at midnight, the very singing uplifted their spirits, doubtless, into a higher region.

Song lies nearer the centre of life than we think; and the words were spoken from a true insight, “Give me the making of a nation’s songs, and I care not who makes its laws.” In the great revival of religion in New England last century, Jonathan Edwards mentions, as a sign of the Spirit’s work and an instrumentality He employed, “the great disposition to abound in the Divine exercise of singing praises, not only in appointed solemn meetings, but when Christians occasionally met together at each other’s houses.” He even gives his approval, under certain limitations, to the practice of singing psalms on the way to or from public worship, and says it “would have a great tendency to enliven, animate, and rejoice the souls of God’s saints, and greatly to propagate vital religion.” As a means of revival, the importance of praise is coming to be recognized more and more by all good men. 1 [Note: J. Culross, God’s Shepherd Care, 65.]

Praise is devotion fit for mighty minds,

The diffring world’s agreeing sacrifice;

Where Heaven divided faiths united finds:

But Prayer in various discords upward flies.

For Prayer the ocean is, where diversely

Men steer their course, each to a sev’ral coast;

Where all our interests so discordant be

That half beg winds by which the rest are lost.

By Penitence when we ourselves forsake

’Tis but in wise design on piteous Heaven;

In Praise we nobly give what God may take,

And are, without a beggar’s blush, forgiven. 2 [Note: Sir W. Davenant, Gondibert, Canto vi.]

(4) Then there is the communion of saints, in all its breadth, including not only our converse one with another, but our whole intercourse and fellowship in worship and service—communion marked by sympathy, love, joy, and full of spiritual impulse and strength.

“I believe in the Communion of Saints.” That cannot mean a very lukewarm interest in their welfare. If the body of Christ is one, and one of the members suffer, all suffer. Infantile and poorly educated as the Church in Uganda doubtless is, yet not a few children of God here have shown a strength of faith and resistance unto blood which their fellow-believers in Europe, to-day at least, know little or nothing of. I cannot but think that their heroism deserves the commendation of all true men of God throughout the world. It must be remembered, too, what their fellows are still suffering on account of the faith. All the evils of persecution, so vividly pictured in the end of Hebrews 11, are being bravely, yet meekly, endured to-day. 3 [Note: Mackay of Uganda, 324.]

3. What are the methods which God employs in this moral restoration of our souls?

(1) He begins at the very beginning.—Deep down in the heart of every man, wearied and weakened by sin, lies the instinct that for him restoration can come only through beginning life again at the very beginning; and Christ is worshipped to-day by men as their Saviour, because He has a gospel and a power to satisfy this instinct. He said to men, come back and begin again at the beginning, and, trusting Him, they found they could. He did not do this in the merely negative way in which His Gospel has sometimes been misrepresented. He did not only say, Thy sins are forgiven thee; live out the rest of thy life, sparingly with the dregs thy prodigal past has spared thee. Nor only, Thou art free, go thy way. He did not leave men where their life had run to sand. He led them back to where life was a fountain. Sometimes He did this in the simplest way. When the woman who had sinned was left alone with Him, He did not only say, “Neither do I condemn thee,” and so get rid of her. He added, “Go and sin no more.” What an impossible order for poor mortals to receive! Yet to hear Christ say it is not only to hear the command but to feel its possibility. And why? Not because the soul is overborne by a magical influence, which works without respect to her own powers; but because Christ makes her feel that in forgiving her God infects her with His own yearning for her purity, constrains her faculties by His love, enlists her will among the highest forces of the Universe, and the purest personalities of her own kind, and above all trusts her—there is no more natural or moral power in all the Universe than that of trust—trusts her to do her best in the discipline and warfare that await her; trusts her to be loyal to Him, and trusts her capacity to overcome.

(2) He awakens in us the conscience of the infinite difference between obedience and disobedience.—If we carefully read the Gospels, we shall find that next to revealing the Father, our Lord insisted most upon the infinite difference between obedience and disobedience. On this His words are always stern and frequently awful. “Except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no wise enter into the kingdom of heaven. Ye have heard that it was said to them of old time, Thou shalt not kill; and whosoever shall kill shall be in danger of the judgement: but I say unto you, that every one who is angry with his brother shall be in danger of the judgement.” Can we, however sleepy or dull of conscience we may be, however self-indulgent or flattered by the world—can we listen to words like these without a startling restoration of the soul? Yet it is not only the Lord’s words but Himself who restoreth our soul. How He lived, even more than what He said, is our conscience. You know the plausible habit we all slide into of giving ourselves this or that indulgence because it is within our right, or because the tempter said it was natural. Then there rises before us the figure of the Son of God tempted even thus in the wilderness. And immediately we have power to see that a thing is not right to do merely because we can do it, or because it lies along the line of our natural appetites. And our soul is restored as nothing else could have restored it.

I am to think of Jesus as the Good Shepherd who speaks to me. He calleth His own sheep by name. If I will, I can hear His voice in words spoken from the pulpit, in the conversation of friends, in the reading of devout books. Sometimes He speaks in sweet thoughts which come to me, in the tender touches of the Spirit of God in the soul. If He speaks to me, I must listen. How am I to listen for the Divine voice? To listen for Him I must hold the powers of my soul in restraint. I must keep myself in calmness and peace. External things are in movement. Without, is the noise of the world. If this noise is filling my soul, I cannot hear the voice of the Good Shepherd. The danger of excessive pleasure, excessive business, excessive work, is this—the powers of the soul become dissipated. I must keep some time for retirement, for watching over myself, for listening to the voice of the Good Shepherd; then—by His Holy Spirit—He will guide me. If He find me quiet, attentive, listening, then Jesus will teach me. “Speak, Lord; for thy servant heareth.” I must follow His teachings, and obey His voice, if I am indeed to be “the lost sheep” found. I must be ready and generous, willing to make ventures, strong to make sacrifices. Sometimes He may call me to trial—I must endure it; to silence—I must refrain my lips; to speech—I must speak out. Dear Shepherd, whether the way Thou callest me to be smooth or rough, give me grace to follow. Alas! how often have I failed in this! How different would my spiritual state be, had I only obeyed. Obedience to the voice is better than sacrifice, but sacrifice must, indeed, often be the duty to which I am called if I practise obedience. 1 [Note: Canon Knox Little, Treasury of Meditation.]

Obedience is not an easy thing to learn. We do not learn it by singing beautiful hymns about it; by repeating with devotion “Thy way, not mine, O Lord,” or “My God, my Father, while I stray”; nor by hearing exhortations about it; but by practising it. Christ learned obedience by the things that He suffered; and we can learn in no other way. 1 [Note: Bishop G. H. S. Walpole, Personality and Power, 86.]

(3) He reveals self-sacrifice as the only secret of the fulness of life.—The restoration of the soul which Christ begins in us by forgiveness and the faith that we are the children of God, and which He makes so keen and quick by the example of His obedience and service—this restoration, He tells us, is perfected only through self-sacrifice. That is a discipline which has always been ready to suggest itself. Most moral systems inculcate it; and there never was a man in whose heart, however obscure or ignorant, the thought of it did not arise as a resource in danger or as compensation for sin. It has been preached by religion as penance; and many a man feeling the world to be intrinsically bad, or his own body very evil, has forsaken the one or mutilated the other. But to Jesus self-sacrifice was never a penalty or a narrower life. It was a glory and a greater life. He called men to it not of fear, nor for the purpose of appeasing the Deity, or of having their sins forgiven; but in freedom and for love’s sake. He urged it not that men might save a miserable remnant of life by resigning the rest, but that through self-denial they might enter a larger conception of life, and a deeper enjoyment of their possibilities as sons of God. “He that findeth his life shall lose it, but he that loseth his life shall find it.”

Francis of Assisi was no truer follower of Jesus Christ in poverty and simplicity of life than was David Hill. They are kindred spirits indeed in their sweetness, purity, and loving-kindness, and in different ages and in different climes they were both possessed by the same dominant idea, to follow Jesus literally, and to witness for Him to men; and in this fact is the explanation of their similarity. A self-denying life is often called an ascetic one; the two things are different, though related. Self-denial is a means to an end, asceticism is an end in itself. The monastic conception of holiness was of purity attained by rigid self-discipline, and there it stopped. The New Testament ideal of holiness is of a perfect love—a love that denies self in order to bless others. The Lord Jesus Christ left His Father’s throne, and came into this world, and lived the life of a poor working-man for our sakes, but He was no ascetic. Following Him, David Hill lived a life of poverty and self-denial, and his beautiful and holy renunciation was not practised in order to obtain saintliness for himself, but that he might win the Chinese to be saints. 1 [Note: J. E. Hellier, Life of David Hill, 72.]

When, after his great breakdown in health, Bishop Lightfoot returned for too short a time to work, he made a statement on the subject, in a public speech, of almost sublime manliness. He then hoped that he had regained, or would regain, his old vigour; but he said, boldly and frankly, that if his overwork had meant a sacrifice of life, he would not have regretted it for a moment: “I should not have wished to recall the past, even if my illness had been fatal. For what, after all, is the individual life in the history of the Church? Men may come and men may go—individual lives float down like straws on the surface of the waters till they are lost in the ocean of eternity; but the broad, mighty, rolling stream of the Church itself—the cleansing, purifying, fertilizing tide of the River of God—flows on for ever and ever.” That is really the secret of happiness—to dare to subordinate life and personal happiness and individual performance to an institution or a cause, and to be able to lose sight of petty aims and selfish considerations in the joy of manly service. 2 [Note: A. C. Benson, The Leaves of the Tree, 206.]

Literature

Armstrong (R. A.), Memoir and Sermons, 160.

Austin (G. B.), The Beauty of Goodness, 50, 98.

Banks (L. A.), Sermons which have Won Souls, 397.

Brooke (S. A.), Sermons in St. James’s Chapel, 56.

Brooks (P.), The Spiritual Man, 281.

Cooke (G. A.), The Progress of Revelation, 105.

Culross (J.), God’s Shepherd Care, 28.

Cumming (J. E.), Consecrated Work, 43.

Darlow (T. H.), Via Sacra, 205.

Fairbairn (A. M.), Christ in the Centuries, 69, 83.

Finlayson (T. C), The Divine Gentleness, 223.

Freeman (J. D.), Life on the Uplands, 1.

Gray (W. H.), Our Divine Shepherd, 1.

Griffin (E. D.), Plain Practical Sermons, ii. 230.

Horne (C. S.), The Soul’s Awakening, 131.

Howard (H.), The Shepherd Psalms , 1.

Jerdan (C.), Pastures of Tender Grass, 37.

Jones (J. M.), The Cup of Cold Water, 17.

Knight (W. A.), The Song of Our Syrian Guest, 1.

Levens (J. T.), Clean Hands, 92.

McFadyen (J. E.), The City with Foundations, 201.

McFadyen (J. E.), Ten Studies in the Psalms , 23.

Maclaren (A.), Sermons Preached in Manchester, i. 307.

MeNeill (J.), Regent Square Pulpit, i. 241.

Newbolt (W. C. E.), Penitence and Peace, 77.

Parker (J.), City Temple Pulpit, vii. 270.

Parker (J.), Studies in Texts, iv. 183.

Price (A. C.), Fifty Sermons, i. 257.

Robertson (P. W.), The Sacrament Sabbath, 211.

Robertson (S.), The Rope of Hair, 79.

Sadler (T.), Sermons for Children, 180.

Smellie (A.), In the Hour of Silence, 142.

Smith (G. A.), Four Psalms , 1.

Smith (G. A.), The Forgiveness of Sins, 238.

Spurgeon (C. H.), Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, xix. (1873) No. 1149.

Stalker (J.), The Psalm of Psalms , 37.

Talmage (T. De Witt), Fifty Sermons, ii. 151.

Vanghan (J.), Sermons (Brighton Pulpit), xii. (1875) Nos. 900, 901.

Watt (L. M.), The Communion Table, 137.

Christian Age, liii. 2 (Hepworth), 244 (Talmage).

Christian World Pulpit, xi. 401 (Bainton); xii. 5 (Bainton); xxi. 387 (Haines); xxxiii. 82 (Darnton); lxv. 232 (Parker); lxvii. 193 (Aked); lxxv. 36 (Balgarnie).

Church of England Magazine, lxix. 56 (Morton). [Note: The Great Texts of the Bible: Job to Psalm XXIII, ed. James Hastings (New York; Edinburgh: Charles Scribner's Sons; T&T Clark, 1913), 319-402.]

Verses 2-4

The Valley of the Shadow

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

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

Thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me.— Psalms 23:4.

1. The various methods of God’s leading of His flock, or rather, we should say, the various regions into which He leads them, are described in this Psalm in order. These are Rest, Work, Sorrow; and this series is so combined with the order of time that the past and the present are considered as the regions of rest and of work, while the future is anticipated as having in it the valley of the shadow of death.

2. The word rendered “valley” does not answer exactly to our English word, which suggests a pleasant lowland sweep bounded by sloping hillsides; nor even to the modern Arabic “wady” or torrent-bed, filled in the rainy season and dry the rest of the year; it is rather, as its derivation indicates, a chasm or rent among the hills—like Gehenna—a deep, abrupt, faintly-lighted ravine with steep sides and narrow floor, the bushes almost meeting overhead. Some savage glen among the hills of Judah, familiar to David during his shepherd-life, may have supplied the image; some deep narrow defile where the robber lurks and takes the flock at a disadvantage, or in which some fierce beast of prey has its lair. Of course in the failing light and blackening shades of dusk the gloom would be more than doubled.

The wilderness of Judæa is not a barren waste of sand and land without water, as a major portion of the Occidental world believes it to be. “Wilderness,” as the word is now understood, is altogether a misnomer. The “Wilds of Judæa” would be more correctly descriptive. The wilderness of Judæa is about forty miles long and ten miles broad. It stretches along the western coast of the Dead Sea and the southern portion of the Jordan Valley. This land of plateaus rises by steps westward from twelve hundred to fifteen hundred feet. This district presents a series of chalky, flint-strewn eminences and small plains separated by narrow torrent beds, worn deep by the winter rains, and here and there by terrific rocky gorges forming gloomy precipitous rifts through the beds of limestone. These gorges are veritable “valleys of the shadow of death”; for in these cragged mountains there are innumerable caves, both natural and hewn in the solid rock of the “everlasting hills” ( Hebrews 3:6). In these caves still live numerous wild beasts. Lions have been extinct since the days of the Crusaders, who hunted and killed till they exterminated as much life as they could during their occupation of the country. Leopards are rare, and bears are now found only in the Lebanon ranges; but hyenas, wolves, wildcats, and jackals still roam at will over the country, as also birds of prey, such as eagles and vultures of great size and strength and beauty. All these are the natural “enemies” of the flocks of sheep and goats. 1 [Note: A. F. Mamreov, A Day with the Good Shepherd, 16.]

3. One word is translated “shadow of death” (Heb. tsalmâveth). The same word (differently punctuated) means “deep shadow” or “deep gloom.” And it is practically certain that this is the word the Psalmist used, although the Ancient Versions and all the great English Versions take it in the former way. In any case, it is evident from the Psalm itself that the reference is not to death. The Psalm is a series of pictures of a believer’s life, and confidences. And after “the valley of the shadow of death” comes “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, “and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.” Driver’s translation (in The Parallel Psalter) is, “Yea, though I walked in a ravine of deathly gloom, I would fear no evil.”

To think only of dying is greatly to narrow the application of David’s words; especially now, under the dispensation of the Spirit. If death throws down tremendous shadow, Christ has brought life and immortality to light through the Gospel. As a rule, believers do not find the avenue to the other world dark; on the contrary, the eternal light flings its radiance on their path; the eternal peace attends them; the eternal love is shed abroad within their bosom; not seldom they rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory.

John Bunyan knew the Bible well, and he also had an intimate knowledge of the Christian life. Where does he place “the Valley of the Shadow of Death” in The Pilgrim’s Progress? Not at the very end of the pilgrimage,—he puts the bridgeless river there,—but in the middle of the pilgrim’s way. 1 [Note: C. Jerdan, Pastures of Tender Grass, 41.]

After this long misery of haunted loneliness (in the Valley of the Shadow of Death) there comes the infinite relief of the human voice, as Christian hears great words spoken by a man going before him.… The verse which the unseen man is repeating is from the 23rd Psalm, where there is as yet no word of ending, and the comfort comes simply from the fact that God is with the man. By and by the day breaks, and Bunyan, who was intensely sensitive to the changes of light and darkness, finds a deep satisfaction in the new light. His poems of sunrise are well worth consulting. There is in them that authentic note of true poetry which reminds us sometimes of Chaucer and sometimes of Spenser. They contain the finest touches in his printed poems. The verse that Christian utters is, “He hath turned the shadow of death into the morning”: it is the same that is engraved upon the tombstone of Dr. Guthrie. 2 [Note: John Kelman, The Road, i. 150.]

4. But this need not lead us away from the associations with which our old translation has invested the words. For it is not only darkness that the poet is describing, but the darkness where death lurks for the poor sheep—the gorges, in whose deep shadows are the lairs of wild beasts, and the shepherd and his club are needed. It stands thus for every dismal and deadly passage through which the soul may pass, and, most of all, it is the Valley of the Shadow of Death. There God is with men no less than by the waters of repose, or along the successful paths of active life.

One night, when I was a lad, lying in my bed at home, long ago, I awoke, and it was dark, and I heard a voice in the night—not a song, but I heard the voice of my mother as she lay upon her bed of pain. She was twenty-five years in the valley of the shadow of death. Her “light affliction” endured for a quarter of a century, but it was “but for a moment,” seeing that it led to the “eternal weight of glory.” I shall never forget how the sound of her voice floated into my dark room and my disquieted heart—“Yea, though I walk through the valley”—think of it rising in the air at two o’clock on a dark winter morning with the wind howling round your house—“Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for thou art with me.” 1 [Note: John McNeill, Regent Square Pulpit, i. 254.]

This verse is full of comfort; its very terms are reassuring. Death has become, certainly to us Christians, that which the Psalmist imagined here—only a shadow. It is dark, cold, gloomy, terrible, but only a shadow. So said Archbishop Laud on the scaffold: “Lord, I am coming as fast as I can. I know I must pass through the shadow of death before I can come to see Thee. But it is but umbra mortis, a shadow of death, a little darkness upon nature; but Thou, Lord, by Thy goodness, hast broken the jaws and the power of death.” 2 [Note: W. C. E. Newbolt, Penitence and Peace, 116.]

I knew an old soldier who had served throughout the Peninsular War and at Waterloo, a plain, simple-minded man who had lived a blameless Christian life, and whose most noticeable characteristic, perhaps, was the singular elevation of his spirit in prayer. As his strength declined and he wore slowly away, his cheerfulness increased, and he would talk with solemn gladness about what lay before him. Dying had ceased to trouble him; he always called it “falling asleep.” As I shook hands with him on the morning of his death, he said—and his face beamed with a most perfect serenity—“I have taken many a journey in my time; this morning I am taking the pleasantest journey of all—I am going home to my Father’s house.” 3 [Note: J. Culross, God’s Shepherd Care, 100.]

I.

Courage

“I will fear no evil.”

1. Even when we know that Love leads us in, it is natural for our poor, weak human hearts to shrink and fear in the entering. Not the timid only, but those who are constitutionally brave. Not children only, but even strong men; and sometimes strong men more than children. “They feared as they entered the cloud”—bright though it was. Imagination peoples the darkness with shapes of terror. Somewhere or other there may be danger couching invisible in the gloom, watching its opportunity, and ready to spring forth upon us without warning; and even when there is none, our faithless hearts call up a thousand frightful possibilities; and our fears are none the less distressing that they are vague and shapeless, but rather all the more.

David did not mean to say that he was devoid of all fear, but only that he would surmount it so as to go without fear wherever his Shepherd should lead him. This appears more clearly from the context. He says, in the first place, “I will fear no evil”; but immediately adding the reason of this, he openly acknowledges that he seeks a remedy against his fear in contemplating, and having his eyes fixed on, the staff of his Shepherd: “For thy staff and thy crook comfort me.” 1 [Note: Calvin, Psalms, i. 395.]

In the Manchester Art Gallery there is a famous picture by Briton Rivière, entitled “In Manus Tuas, Domine!” of which the artist says: “I have failed indeed if the story does not carry some lesson to ourselves to-day, whatever be our doubts or fears.” The message it conveys is the victory of faith. The picture represents a fair-haired young knight clad in armour, seated upon a white charger whose downcast head, quivering nostrils and quivering limbs denote intense fear. At the charger’s feet there crouch three bloodhounds, also gazing before them in terror. Behind the knight is the forest glade through which he has passed, rich in green sward and sun-kissed paths, but the path in front is full of gloom and unknown terrors. In his fear the knight is at one with the trembling brutes, but he has that within him which raises him above them and gives him aid. It is faith. Lifting his sword before his face, it forms itself into a cross. “Into Thy hands, O Lord,” he says, and goes forward. He conquers fear by faith, and by it, “though he walk through the valley of the shadow, he will fear no evil.” 2 [Note: J. Burns, Illustrations from Art (1912), 128.]

2. What is the bearing of the Lord’s flock in entering this valley? It comes into view in these words, which one speaks for all, “I will fear no evil.” Mark, it is a single voice that speaks, a man all alone, conscious only of the presence of God. I will go into the death-gloom without dread and palpitation of heart. There may be threatening, alarm, evil (tiger-like) watching its opportunity, all around; curses flung out of the darkness by the enemy, as if they were yet unrepealed; but I shall not be disquieted or dismayed, for evil shall not be allowed to harm me, yea, rather shall be compelled to contribute to my well-being.

Hardly any one, when the time comes, is really afraid of death. My sister said: “I have a great fear, but also a great hope.” This is uncommon. My mother said: “I wonder whether I shall ever sit in the garden any more.” I am glad to be nearer death for one reason—because I can see the problems of theology in a truer manner, and can get rid of illusions. 1 [Note: The Letters of Benjamin Jowett, 247.]

About this time Mr. Romanes drew up a paper, which is given here, as it may interest some readers:—

“18 Cornwall Terrace, Regent’s Park, London, N.W.

“Dear Sir or Madam,—While engaged in collecting materials for a work on Human Psychology, I have been surprised to find the greatness of the differences which obtain between different races, and even between different individuals of the same race, concerning sentiments which attach to the thoughts of death. With the view, if possible, of ascertaining the causes of such differences, I am addressing a copy of the appended questions to a large number of representative and average individuals of both sexes, various nationalities, creeds, occupations, etc. It would oblige me if you would be kind enough to further the object of my inquiry by answering some or all of these questions, and adding any remarks that may occur to you as bearing upon the subject—

“ ‘ Do you regard the prospect of your own death ( a) with indifference, ( b) with dislike, ( c) with dread, or ( d) with inexpressible horror?

“ ‘ If you entertain any fear of death at all, is the cause of it ( a) prospect of bodily suffering only, ( b) dread of the unknown, ( c) idea of loneliness and separation from friends, or ( d), in addition to all or any of these, a peculiar horror of an indescribable kind?

“ ‘ Is the state of your belief with regard to a future life that of ( a) virtual conviction that there is a future life, ( b) suspended judgment inclining towards such belief, ( c) suspended judgment inclining against such belief, or ( d) virtual conviction that there is no such life?

“ ‘ Is your religious belief, if any, ( a) of a vivid order, or ( b) without much practical influence on your life and conduct?

“ ‘ Can you trace any change in your feelings with regard to death as having taken place during the course of your life?

“ ‘ If ever you have been in danger of death, what were the circumstances, and what your feelings?’ ” 1 [Note: Life and Letters of George John Romanes, 188.]

Most wonderful is it how largely and how variously this fearless confidence comes out in the Book of Psalms—not from the sanguine and untried, but from those who have had widest and profoundest experience—who have been in the valley and have come forth from it unhurt, yea, nobler and loftier spiritually. “Though an host should encamp against me, my heart shall not fear.” “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore will not we fear though the earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea.” “Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by night, nor for the arrow that flieth by day; nor for the pestilence that walketh in darkness; nor for the destruction that wasteth at noonday.” “The Lord is thy keeper; the Lord is thy shade upon thy right hand. The sun shall not smite thee by day, nor the moon by night. The Lord shall preserve thee from all evil; he shall preserve thy soul: The Lord shall preserve thy going out and thy coming in from this time forth, and even for evermore.” 2 [Note: J. Culross, God’s Shepherd Care, 106.]

I remember going down one night, about twelve o’clock, to the seaside, and I stood in the shadow of a gloomy wood. In the front of me for miles stretched the frith of the sea. Away across yonder were the Argyleshire hills, and up above them, again, the gloomy heavens, with here and there a star peeping out. It was like the valley of the shadow of death. The sea was lapping at my feet, and a gentle breeze was blowing over it, when suddenly I heard a sound. I listened and strained my ear, and that sound turned out to be the sound, first of all, of oars in the rowlocks—a dull, thumping sound as some fishermen urged their boat along its way. And still I listened, and what I heard was the sound of music; and as the boat came nearer, there was borne to me across the waves the sound of singing. Those fishermen were Christians, and even while tugging at the weary oar in the dark and lonely night they were cheering themselves with the songs of Zion. 3 [Note: John McNeill.]

There is a courage, a majestic thing

That springs forth from the brow of pain, full grown,

Minerva-like, and dares all dangers known.

And all the threatening future yet may bring;

Crowned with the helmet of great suffering,

Serene with that grand strength by martyrs shown

When at the stake they die and make no moan,

And even as the flames leap up are heard to sing.

A courage so sublime and unafraid,

It wears its sorrows like a coat of mail;

And Fate, the archer, passes by dismayed,

Knowing his best barbed arrows needs must fail

To pierce a soul so armoured and arrayed

That Death himself might look on it and quail. 1 [Note: Ella Wheeler Wilcox, Poems of Passion, 145.]

3. On what does this fearless courage rest? Not on the thought that there is no evil in the dark valley. That were false because groundless security. There may be evil great and manifold in the valley; evil that has the heart, if only it had the opportunity, to ruin us; tens of thousands setting themselves against us round about; the devil himself going about like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour. Nor does it rest on the foolish fancy that we are able ourselves to cope with the evil. We cannot even see to defend ourselves, although we had the strength; and any fight in which we might engage were a fight in the dark. Our courage rests on our consciously enjoying the presence of Jehovah our Shepherd. All minor considerations are omitted here—such as, that others have been in the valley already, the hope of getting well through it, the thought that bright-harnessed angel-guards surround us, and so forth—and the soul fixes on this chief thing of all, the Shepherd’s presence.

It is the love of Christ and trust in Him that alone can give true courage. For notice that there is no attempt made in the Psalm to paint death otherwise than it is, in itself evil, fearful, and appalling. But it is the love of Christ that gives the confidence, the courage that we need. The God who has fed us, the Good Shepherd who has guided us through so many perils, is true and staunch, and will not desert His sheep in the hour of danger. Having loved His own which were in the world, He loved them unto the end.

Among Mr. Brown’s duties as assistant to Edward Irving in London one was to visit the Sunday schools, once a month each, when one of the exercises was the repetition of metre Psalms. An incident connected with this duty made such a deep impression on him that more than sixty years afterwards, when he was in his ninety-second year, he recorded the circumstances in a journal conducted by the Young Men’s Christian Association of Aberdeen. A poor, sickly boy, too unwell to be out, had repeated the Twenty-third Psalm. Next month it was reported that he was dying, and Mr. Brown went to see him, and found him in a miserable place—a sort of drying loft. The mother met him with tears in her eyes, and told him that her boy had been speaking all night. “What has he been speaking about?” asked Mr. Brown. “Well, sir, you see I am a Roman Catholic, and I don’t know your hymns, but it’s something about death’s dark vale.” “Oh! my woman, I know well what your boy has been speaking about; take me to him.” “On reaching his bed [Dr. Brown explained], I found it was a deal box, and he was lying on straw. ‘My dear boy,’ I said, as he looked up smiling, ‘you are dying.’ ‘Yes, sir.’ ‘Are you afraid to die?’ ‘No, sir.’ ‘Why?’ ‘Because I am going to Jesus.’ ‘But how do you know that you are going to Jesus?’ ‘Because I love Him.’ It was a child’s answer [said Dr. Brown], but it was music to me.” 1 [Note: W. G. Blaikie, David Brown, D.D., LL.D., 36.]

4. The spirit of the verse is that of fearless courage in going forward to encounter the dark unknown. It is not possible to evade entering the valley; but it is possible to be in it and not to fear realizing a Divine Presence in the gloom, aware of a love and power on which we may securely count. And so this verse, breathed three thousand years ago from the heart of one whom God had comforted, comes down through the ages as God’s great Fear not to His people when He leads them into the darkness; rather, indeed, His great Fatherly assurance that all things shall work together for their good. It is laid up in the Book for the use of all future ages, a promise and strength and joy for whatever evil days may come. Just like those snatches of song and sudden bursts of exaltation that lie scattered throughout the Apocalypse—like that great Alleluia which is to be uttered when the Lord God Omnipotent reigneth—so this verse, mighty for the past, is written for times still future, and lies waiting till there shall be hearts and lips to sing it.

The highest courage has its root in faith. One may be bold because he is ignorant or because he lacks sensitiveness; one may be indifferent to danger because he is indifferent to fate; one may be brave from that instinctive pluck which focusses all a man’s powers on the doing of the thing in hand, or the resolute holding of the place to which one has been assigned; but the quality which sees with clear intelligence all the possibilities of peril, which is sensitive to pain and loss, which loves life and light and the chances of work, and yet calmly faces calamity and death, is born of faith, and grows to splendid maturity by the nurture of faith. 1 [Note: H. W. Mabie, The Life of the Spirit, 120.]

Edward Irving returned to London to find himself forbidden to administer the Sacraments, for the act of deposition was a judicial act, depriving him of his authority as a minister. Though he was re-ordained by the apostles of his own Church, he never recovered from the blow. He accepted it with a humility which was the more touching from his confidence in his extraordinary powers. But his heart was broken. Slowly his life ebbed from him. His faith in his mission was unshaken; he believed in it with all the fervour and strength of his soul, and toiled still to gain for it the ear of the world; but in vain. In September 1834 he left London a dying man. Riding through Shropshire and Wales, and visiting his scattered congregations as he went, he reached Liverpool. In his touching letters to his wife are messages to his little daughter, Maggie, sent in the simply-told stories that he gleaned on his way. When other comforts had failed, and fame had fled, he clung to his Bible, and made the Psalms his constant companions. “How in the night seasons,” he writes on October 12th, “the Psalms have been my consolations against the faintings of flesh and spirit.”

At Liverpool he took ship and sailed for Glasgow. The end was near. For a few weeks he was able to preach, though, at forty-two, his gaunt gigantic frame bore all the marks of age and weakness. His face was wasted, his hair white, his voice broken, his eyes restless and unquiet. As November drew to its close, his feebleness increased, till it was evident that his life was rapidly passing away. His mind began to wander. Those who watched at his bedside could not understand the broken utterances spoken in an unknown tongue by his faltering voice. But at last it was found that he was repeating to himself in Hebrew, Psalms 23, “The Lord is my Shepherd.” It was with something like its old power that the dying voice swelled as it uttered the glorious conviction, “Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil.” The last articulate words that fell from his lips were, “If I die, I die unto the Lord. Amen.” And with these he passed away at midnight on December 7th, 1834. 1 [Note: R. E. Prothero, The Psalms in Human Life, 313.]

II.

Companionship

“For thou art with me.”

1. Most men will agree that it is the loneliness of death that constitutes its chief dread. If we could die in families, in groups, in communities; if hand in hand we could move down the dark valley, hand in hand breast the dark river, hand in hand pass into the Paradise of God, then death would indeed lose much of its terror and gloom. But, alas! each must die for himself, even though he may die with others. Loved ones, however dear, can only see us off. The most they can do is to smooth our passage down to the edge of the shadow, and then wish us a good voyage as we embark. Last words have to be spoken, final leave has to be taken; and then alone, as far as human eye can see, and unattended, the soul must pass out into the night that men call death. So, indeed, it seems to our dull sight; but not to the Psalmist’s. With a prophet’s keen vision he pierces the veil, and, seeing no break in the sheltering care of the All-Fatherly hand, triumphantly declares that even the death-crisis cannot come between him and his Shepherd-Guide. “Thou art with me!”

I remember being much struck with the remark made by a former Sabbath-school teacher of my own. His mother was a widow, and he lived with her. When the doctor told him he could not survive the night, he bade good-bye to all his friends; and after they had left the house, turning to his mother he said, “We will meet the king of terrors alone.” Yet even she had to leave him to die alone. But they who have God as their Shepherd are not even then alone. The Son of God has promised that He will come again to take them to Himself; that where He is, there they may be also. 2 [Note: W. H. Gray, Our Divine Shepherd, 21.]

“Thou art with me.” I have eagerly seized on this; for out of all the terrors which gather themselves into the name of death, one has stood forth as a champion-fear to terrify and daunt me. It is the loneliness of death. “I die alone.” 1 [Note: W. C. E. Newbolt, Penitence and Peace, 118.]

Jesu, have mercy!

’Tis this new feeling, never felt before,

(Be with me, Lord, in my extremity!)

That I am going, that I am no more.

’Tis this strange innermost abandonment,

(Lover of souls! great God! I look to Thee,)

This emptying out of each constituent

And natural force, by which I come to be.

Pray for me, O my friends; a visitant

Is knocking his dire summons at my door,

The like of whom, to scare me and to daunt,

Has never, never come to me before. 2 [Note: Newman, Dream of Gerontius.]

2. Loneliness is a thing which we must learn to face, in our work, in the separations of life, and in times of quiet. Certainly, whether we like it or not, we must be alone in death, as far as this world is concerned. And men preach to us detachment. “Sit loosely to the world,” they say, that the wrench may be less when it comes. But the Good Shepherd says rather, learn attachment. It is His promise: “Fear not; I will be with thee.” It is our confidence: “I will fear no evil: for thou art with me.” It is more; it is our joy: “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?” And is not this the true answer to our fears—How can I go to meet that shadow? How will my faith stand its cold embrace? How shall I ever believe in the bright promise of a land beyond, when here all is dark? Let us ask rather—How am I going to meet the duty just before me? Is He with me now? Have I learned to find Him in the quiet hours of the day? Have I found His presence in desolating sorrow? Have I felt His hand in darkness and doubt? Have I found Him near me in prayer and Eucharist? If so, I need not look forward. He is leading me on, step by step, and day by day. He is habituating me, little by little, to the withdrawal of the light, and to utter trust in Him. “Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.” There is grace given me for the new day’s work; there is grace given me under this desolating sorrow. There is grace given me to live well; when I need it, there will be grace given me to die well. “For thou art with me.” Now is the time to make firm that companionship. To be still, and know that He is God. To find the guiding Hand in all its strength and security, amid the death and life of each day’s hopes and fears. And then, when we enter the shadow, still it will be “with God onwards.”

What is it that a mother’s love with its infinite tenderness and ministry should welcome us into the world, what is it that friendship and love should gladden life through all its days, if when we pass away from earth there be but an awful solitude, a horror of great darkness, where no hand grasps ours, and no voice cheers us? What is it that the sun should shine, or that earth should yield ten thousand things to meet my commonest needs, if these highest and deepest wants within me be all unmet, and I go forth perishing with hunger? If in what is there be any prophecy of what shall be, if the beneficence of the present is any promise and pledge of the future, surely it must be that love shall not fail us then—then when we need it most. All hope, all need, all the goodness and promise of every day do find their fulness in the words of our Lord: “I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also.” 1 [Note: M. G. Pearse, In the Banqueting House, 145.]

3. Observe at this point the change in David’s manner of address. Hitherto he has been speaking about the Lord the Shepherd in the third person; now as he moves into the sphere of darkness, like a child creeping closer to his father’s side in the blackening gloom, he draws closer to God, and changes from “he” to “thou”! Instead of speaking about Him, he speaks directly to Him, as to one near and hearing. In the last verse of the Psalm it was “ He leadeth me”; now, in the region of death-shadow, it is “ Thou art with me.” The change, I think, marks the energizing of faith, and its closer grip of the great Hand in the dark. What a conception it gives us of the greatness of God that He hears, really hears, this breathing of the heart, “Thou art with me.” Think what multitudinous voices rise to the ear of God—voices of sin, distress, joy, praise, prayer—in whispers, groans, shrieks, hosannas—in all tones—in all languages—by night and by day—from the whole earth! And yet my feeble voice is not lost in the din, but reaches His ear, when I draw close to Him in the darkness, and breathe out my confidence, “Thou art with me.” 1 [Note: J. Culross, God’s Shepherd Care, 113.]

III.

Comfort

“Thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me.”

1. The shepherd is as powerful as he is tender; for he carries in his hand a great oak club to beat off the wild beasts. Even to-day “many adventures with wild beasts occur, not unlike that recounted by David ( 1 Samuel 17:34-36); for, though there are now no lions here, there are wolves in abundance; and leopards and panthers, exceeding fierce, prowl about these wild wadies. They not unfrequently attack the flock in the very presence of the shepherd, and he must be ready to do battle at a moment’s warning” (Thomson, The Land and the Book). The staff is different from the rod: on it the shepherd leans; with it in various ways he helps his sheep. So that rod and staff together symbolize the power and the affection of the Divine Shepherd. Well might the Psalmist point to them with pride and gladness, and say, “ They are my consolation.”

There are several places in which this word “rod” occurs that show us its meaning. The first is in Leviticus 27:32. The reference is to the numbering of the sheep, driving them into a corner, so that they can pass through a gap only one at a time, and the rod is dipped over them as they are counted. So the rod is the symbol of possession. Then, again, although the word is not used, there is the same thought in Jeremiah 33:10. It is the beautiful picture of Israel’s restoration. “Again shall there be heard in this place, which ye say is desolate … the voice of joy, and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom, and the voice of the bride, and the voice of them that say, Praise the Lord of Hosts: for the Lord is good; for his mercy endureth for ever: … in this place, which is desolate … shall be an habitation of shepherds causing their flocks to lie down … the flocks shall pass again under the hands of him that telleth them, saith the Lord.” It is the picture of fullest and most assured possession.

2. The rod and the staff are not by any means those of the pilgrim, which would be a misleading sudden transition to a different figure, but those of Jehovah the Shepherd as the means of guidance and defence. The rod and staff in God’s hand comfort him, i.e. impart to him the feeling of security, and therefore make him of good cheer. Even when he walks through a narrow defile, dark and gloomy as the grave, where surprise and disasters of every kind threaten him, he fears no misfortune.

The staff of the mountaineer is often inscribed with the names of his triumphs. And on this staff what triumphs are written! Hold it and read what is written thereon: “Able to save to the uttermost all that come to God by him.” “Able to keep us from falling.” “Able to present us faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy.” Here is no room for fear. Here faith must sing her cheeriest, sweetest song: “Thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me.” 1 [Note: M. G. Pearse, In the Banqueting House, 152.]

3. The rod and staff are sometimes regarded as two names for one object, used for different purposes. The more natural meaning of the double phrase is, however, the more correct. The shepherd carries both a shebet, a kind of club or mace slung by the side and used as an offensive weapon when needed, and a mish’eneth, a long straight pole carried in the hand and used for climbing, for support, and for helping the sheep in various ways.

The shepherd’s staff is not a crook, as painted by foreign artists. The shepherds of Palestine never used a crook, nor do bo to-day. It is a camel-herder that carries a light cane with a crook at one end, with which he catches the camel by hooking its neck with the crook, and guides it by taps of the crook instead of a halter when riding it. 2 [Note: A. F. Mamreov, A Day with the Good Shepherd, 27.]

Going before the flock, the shepherd beats the grass and bushes with his staff to drive out the serpents lurking in the paths. These reptiles usually glide quickly away and escape, but occasionally one bolder than the rest will show fight. Then quick as a flash the good shepherd strikes the serpent with his heavy-headed club, taking care to crush its head, because a snake is not fatally wounded whose head is not crushed, the vital organs being situated, as with fishes, close to the head. Otherwise, even if cut in half, it is still capable of inflicting mortal injury by its sting. 1 [Note: A. F. Mamreov, A Day with the Good Shepherd, 72.]

4. “They comfort me.” What does “comfort” mean, as used in the Bible? It means with strength. Comfortare is to give strength, to comfort by increasing power; not to smooth and quiet and hush down, and say, “No, be quiet, be calm.” That is not the Bible comfort; comfort in the Bible is to gird with strength, to strengthen, to stimulate. He is comforted, He is made strong enough to resume the war. “They comfort me”; they make me so strong that I take up Death, and in the great wrestle I fling him to the dust.

Death! I know not what room you are abiding in,

But I will go my way,

Rejoicing day by day,

Nor will I flee or stay

For fear I tread the path you may be hiding in.

Death! I know not if my small barque be nearing you;

But if you are at sea,

Still there my sails float free;

“What is to be will be.”

Nor will I mar the happy voyage by fearing you.

Death! I know not what hour or spot you wait for me;

My days untroubled flow,

Just trusting on I go,

For oh, I know, I know,

Death is but Life that holds some glad new fate for me. 2 [Note: Ella Wheeler Wilcox, Poems of Experience, 29.]

There came a critical moment in my life when I was sadly in need of comfort, but could see none anywhere. I could not at the moment lay my hands on my Bible, and I cast about in my mind for some passage of Scripture that would help me. Immediately there flashed into my mind the words, “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.” At first I turned from it almost with scorn. “Such a common text as that,” I said to myself, “is not likely to do me any good.” I tried hard to think of a more recherché one; but none would come, and at last it almost seemed as if there were no other text in the whole Bible. And finally I was reduced to saying, “Well, if I cannot think of any other text, I must try to get what little good I can out of this one,” and I began to repeat to myself over and over, “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.” Suddenly, as I did so, the words were illuminated, and there poured out upon me such floods of comfort that I felt as if I could never have a trouble again. 1 [Note: Mrs. Pearsall Smith, The God of all Comfort, 45.]

5. “ They comfort me.” “They” is emphatic, because they are thy rod and thy staff, says Perowne. Here we must regard “they,” not as the personal pronoun, but as a survival of the older function of the word, i.e. as a demonstrative. It would be a good practice if we followed an example which has been set by some of the Germans, and printed such latent demonstratives in spaced type. This “they” is so essential, it is so distinct and emphatic in the Hebrew, Septuagint, Vulgate, and Jerome, that it is strange Coverdale should have overlooked it. 2 [Note: J. Earle, The Psalter of 1539, 267.]

6. And they bring me through. “Though I walk through the valley,” says David. There are words, says Pearse, that are like the shells to which children listen, hearing the roll and murmuring of the sea; words like the crystal stones within whose depths are a thousand mysteries of beauty. Such is this word through. I listen—it is the music of the angels that I hear, faint and afar off. I look into the word, and the light breaks, soft and pure, the light of heaven. Through,—it is as when one goes through some Alpine tunnel—on this side the bleak heights, the glaciers, the snows and solitude of an eternal winter; then the darkness, on and on, until at last we come forth from the gloom. Suddenly about us breaks the light of Italy, the green slopes that face the sunny south, the olive trees, the vineyards, the pastures gay with a thousand flowers, the hills all musical with waterfalls, the fertile plains rich with all kinds of crops. Through,—there is a way out, another side.

It is a tunnel, but only a tunnel, and, like all tunnels, it has light at both ends, and certainly it has light at that end to which you are travelling. Most of the railway stations, I notice, are entered through tunnels. I do not know why, but it so happens that coming into most of our London termini you shoot through a long, dreary, ghostly, rattling tunnel, and then there is the terminus, and your father there, or your wife there on the platform, and then the embrace and the kiss and the hearty welcome. We are going through the tunnel, and at the end of it is the terminus, and, please God, we shall soon be there. It is dark and noisome and spectral, and a little awesome and fearsome just now. Sing. Sing this Psalm of heart-confidence, and the shadows will become somewhat luminous with the light that is about to reveal itself—the light of heaven, our eternal home. 1 [Note: John McNeill.]

How should it be a fear

To leave the spirit’s house

Where is our certain pain?

The wide path waits and here

We dully pine and drowse.

The Fields, the illimitable Seas,

The Snows and Storms and Suns

Are for our own soul’s foot.

With them will be our ease

When the free spirit runs

Out from the gate at last.—

O halting soul, to yield

Unto this lovely change!

To let the lot be cast—

Be bold—and sure—and yield! 2 [Note: M. M‘Neal-Sweeney, Men of No Land, 77.]

When a child is born into the world, one of the most wonderful things to watch is how utterly it takes its surroundings for granted; it nestles to its mother’s breast, it does not doubt that it is welcome; then, as it begins to perceive what is happening to it, to look round it with intelligence, it smiles, it understands love, it imitates words, it claims the rights of home and family; it has not the least sense of being a stranger or a sad exile; all that it sees belongs to it and is its own. So will it be with the new birth, I make no doubt; we shall enter upon the unseen world with the same sense of ease and security and possession; there will even be nothing to learn at first, nothing to inquire about, nothing to wonder at. We shall just fall into our new place unquestioning and unquestioned; it will be familiar and dear, our own place, our own circle. The child is never in any doubt as to who it is and where it is; and in the vast scheme of things, our little space of experience is assured to us for ever. 3 [Note: A. C. Benson, Thy Rod and Thy Staff, 60.]

Literature

Brooks (P.), The Spiritual Man, 286.

Burns (J. D.), Memoir and Remains, 301.

Cooke (G. A.), The Progress of Revelation, 107.

Culross (J.), God’s Shepherd Care, 93.

Drew (H.), Death and the Hereafter, 86.

Duff (R. S.), The Song of the Shepherd, 95.

Eyton (R.), The Search for God, 75.

Fairbairn (A. M.), Christ in the Centuries, 90.

Finlayson (T. C.), The Divine Gentleness, 240.

Freeman (J. D.), Life on the Uplands, 79.

Gray (W. H.), Our Divine Shepherd, 19.

How (W. W.), Plain Words, i. 45.

Howard (H.), The Shepherd Psalms , 65, 71.

Hutton (W. R.), Low Spirits, 188.

Jerdan (C.), Pastures of Tender Grass, 41.

Joseph (M.), The Ideal in Judaism, 121.

Knight (W. A.), The Song of Our Syrian Guest, 14.

Lonsdale (J.), Sermons, 248.

McFadyen (J. E.), Ten Studies in the Psalms , 23.

McNeill (J.), Regent Square Pulpit, i. 252.

Mamreov (A. F.), A Day with the Good Shepherd, 71, 75.

Newbolt (W. C. E.), Penitence and Peace, 115.

Parker (J.), City Temple Pulpit, v. 175.

Pearse (M. G.), Parables and Pictures, 68.

Pearse (M. G.), In the Banqueting House, 143.

Phillips (S.), The Heavenward Way, 88.

Roberts (D.), A Letter from Heaven, 124.

Service (J.), Sermons, 243.

Smellie (A.), In the Hour of Silence, 142.

Spurgeon (C. H.), Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, xxvii. (1881) No. 1595.

Stalker (J.), The Psalm of Psalms , 77.

Vaughan (J.), Sermons (Brighton Pulpit), New Ser., xv. No. 1031.

Voysey (C.), Sermons, xxiii. (1900) No. 20.

Christian World Pulpit, iv. 206 (Collyer); xxi. 387 (Haynes); lxv. 232 (Parker).

Church of England Magazine, xxiii. 272 (Kelk); xxix. 256 (Perkins); xxxiv. 24 (Hull); lx. 308 (Hull).

Expository Times, v. 288 (Clemens).

Preacher’s Magazine, vi. 404 (Pearse).

Verse 3

Good Guidance

He guideth me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.— Psalms 23:3.

1. “He guideth me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.” There is an insinuating and pervasive calmness in the very words, and the leisureliness of the long vowels induces something of the serenity which breathes through the entire Psalm. We cannot read them at a gallop. The words are gracious sedatives, and minister to the fretful and irritable spirit. And therefore it is well to have such restful passages ready at hand. Some people have little medicine chests which they carry about on their journeys, and to which they can turn in moments of sudden ailment or accident. And would it not be possible for us to have an analogous ministry for the spirit?—words for times of panic, moral sedatives when we are inclined to become feverish; spiritual refreshers and restoratives? Just to repeat them to ourselves very quietly is a helpful means of grace.

And yet, although the words are very restful, this particular passage is descriptive of life which is “on the move.” We are on the open road. We are in the midst of the ministry of change. We are leaving one thing for another. The tents have been struck, and we are on the march. We must not forget what immediately precedes the words of our meditation. That is ever the difficulty of any expositor who seeks to sever a portion of this Psalm from the whole. Every part belongs to every other part. It is dependent upon every other part for its true interpretation. If we cut out a bit it will bleed. So we must take it in its vital relationships. Look back to what precedes it. “He maketh me to lie down in green pastures.” How rich is the significance! It speaks of treasure, and leisure, and pleasure; it is a combination of sustenance and rest. It is a stretch for the weary limbs amid fat and juicy nutriment. “He leadeth me beside the still waters.” Again, how rich is the significance! We are led by the waters of stillness where there are no dangerous floods, where the cattle can stand knee-deep on the feverish day, and slake their thirst. And so this is the environment of our text, a steeping, nutritive rest. And what is the purpose of the rest? It is just that we might be prepared for a more valiant walk in the “paths of righteousness.” We have been taken to the field of rest in order that we may be equipped for the roads of activity.

Oh, splendour in the east!

Oh, glory in the west!

Who is it knows the least

Of all your joy and rest?

Oh, yellow spring-time leaves,

Oh, golden autumn corn,

Sweet glow of summer eves,

Red light of wintry morn!

Mute snow upon the lands,

Glad sunshine of the Springs—

Who is it understands

As ye do, silent things—

How good it is to do,

How sweet it is to rest?

God gave us both, who knew,

Not we, which gift was best. 1 [Note: Mrs. Stanford Harris.]

2. This is, according to the Authorized Version, the second time the word “lead” occurs in this Psalm; but it is with a totally different signification. The Authorized Version gives no hint of any change of meaning, but the Revisers have substituted the word “guide “for “lead “as an indication that the distinction should be noted. The fact is that the word translated “leadeth” in the first case implies something done for the Psalmist. He is catered for, provisioned. The Septuagint says “fostered” or “nurtured,” so that the reference is primarily to the meeting of physical needs; whereas the Hebrew word which lies behind the second word “leadeth” implies something done in the Psalmist.

Wherever St. Francis and his six friends went, their sermons excited the greatest attention in peasant circles. Some would speak to them, asking what order they belonged to and whence they came. They answered that they were of no order, but were only “men from Assisi, who lived a life of penance.” But if they were penitents, they were not for that reason shamefaced—with Francis at their head, who sang in French, praised and glorified God for His untiring goodness to them. “They were able to rejoice so much,” says one of the biographers, “because they had abandoned so much.” When they wandered in the spring sunshine, free as the birds in the sky, through the green vineyards of Mark Ancona, they could only thank the Almighty who had freed them from all the snares and deceits which those who love the world are subject to and suffer from so sadly. 1 [Note: J. Jörgensen, St. Francis of Assisi, 68.]

On meeting with so many obstructing influences, I again laid the whole matter (of becoming a missionary) before my dear parents, and their reply was to this effect:—“Heretofore we feared to bias you, but now we must tell you why we praise God for the decision to which you have been led. Your father’s heart was set upon being a minister, but other claims forced him to give it up. When you were given to them, your father and mother laid you upon the altar, their first-born, to be consecrated, if God saw fit, as a missionary of the Cross; and it has been their constant prayer that you might be prepared, qualified, and led to this very decision; and we pray with all our heart that the Lord may accept your offering, long spare you, and give you many souls from the heathen world for your hire.” From that moment, every doubt as to my path of duty for ever vanished. I saw the hand of God very visibly, not only preparing me for, but now leading me to, the foreign mission field. 2 [Note: John G. Paton, i. 92.]

I.

That We are Guided

“He guideth me.”

1. There are few things more largely written in Scripture, or more evidently and certainly experienced in good men’s lives, than the leading of God—leading which is partly outward and providential, partly inward and spiritual. To the man of the world, for whom nature is a veil that hides the face of God, and who walks by the sight of his eyes and the hearing of his ears, or at the best by natural reason, it is wholly unreal, visionary, impossible, Utopian—a beautiful fancy, and nothing more. To the man of faith, on the other hand, who is “as seeing him who is invisible,” there is nothing more absolutely certain and worthy of confidence. To him, life is a course in which he may enjoy the guidance of the Infinite Wisdom and the Infinite Love: to him, Jehovah is “the Shepherd of Israel,” who “leadeth Joseph like a flock”; who “bringeth the blind by a way that they know not”; in whose paths “the wayfaring men, though fools, shall not err.” And so it is written, “The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord”: “In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths”: “Commit thy way unto the Lord; trust also in him, and he shall bring it to pass”: “I am the Lord thy God, who teacheth thee to profit, who leadeth thee by the way that thou shouldest go.”

The fulness of meaning contained in the words, “He leadeth me,” could not be known by Old Testament saints; could not be known till the Good Shepherd came and dwelt among us. Unlike what we are accustomed to, the Eastern shepherd literally “leads” his flock; he goes before them, and calls them by name, and they follow him: and this is what the Divine Shepherd has done. He has not merely marked out the way for us in His Word; He does not merely lead us by His providence and by the inward impulse of His Spirit; but He has also gone before us,—has given us an example that we should walk in His steps: and now our part is to follow Him; to reproduce His life among men; to be in the world even as He was in the world; so that we may be able to say, by no mere figure of speech, “I live; yet not I; but Christ liveth in me.”

Is God your leader?—or does He only rein you in? Are you personally conscious of the vast difference between these two experiences? It is well to be held back from sin, no doubt, but the joy of the God-directed, sanctified man, is certainly beyond that of the horse and mule which have no understanding, and whose mouth must be held in with bit and bridle.

There is no holiness of a radical sort without Divine, positive, everyday guidance. This differs not only in degree but in kind from negative restraint. The latter may be no more than the rebuke or cry of our own alarmed conscience. Laws written involuntarily upon our heart operate upon our fears. Guidance appeals to our faith.

“ I will guide thee with mine eye” is a promise to God’s people which goes far ahead of conscience, and so universally is it intended to be enjoyed that it was given even long before the coming of our Lord.

But there is no guidance of this highest kind without the eager and abiding desire for it—a desire strong enough in its faith and intensity to survive during the severest trial and suffering.

Direct, Divine, personal guidance is the privilege of the sanctified. There is a poise of the spirit which God, when truly sought, produces. It is without bias from “self” or other influence, and may be as sensitive to Divine impressions as the photographer’s film is sensitive to the light. Its possession is rare, yet how to possess it is an open secret. The conditions are of the simplest order—a real preference for the will of God, and an approach to Him by our Lord Jesus Christ.

Inbred or inherited sin is no other than a born preference for our own way. Actual sin is the carrying out of this preference into practice. Holiness, on the other hand, is a “born-from-above” preference for the will of God, resulting in love and everyday good works. When the will of God is thus preferred and practised, sin has no longer a place within us!

God’s perfect guidance is perfect holiness. He cannot guide us in, or into, sin. No wonder that Paul prayed, “That ye may be filled with the knowledge of his will”; or, that, living in the centre of it, John could exclaim, “Truly our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ”; and again, “Whosoever abideth in him, sinneth not.” 1 [Note: F. W. Crossley, in Life by Rendel Harris, 165.]

2. The means and methods of Divine leadership are many. The Great Leader is like a wise human leader, and He adapts His ministries to the nature of the child and the character of the immediate need. Let us mention two or three of these varied methods of leadership as we find them in the Word of God.

(1) Here is the first: “And the Lord spake thus to me with a strong hand.” It is the speech of a young prophet, and it describes a leading of God. Let us apprehend the figure. The counsel of the Lord has come to Isaiah like a strong hand, as something he could not escape. The intuition was laid upon him like an arrest. What was the nature of the counsel? He was called upon by the Lord to separate himself from his nation by a solemn act of detachment. He was commanded to confront his people, to oppose them, to leave the majority and stand alone. He was bidden to prophesy the unpleasant and even to predict defeat. We know how such men are regarded—they are denounced as unpatriotic, as devoid of national feeling and fraternal ambition. The young prophet shrinks from the task; he is tempted to silence and retirement; he meditates retreat; but the Word of the Lord came to him “with a strong hand.” The imperative gave him no freedom; heaven laid hold on him with holy violence; the invisible gripped his conscience as a man’s arm might be gripped, until it ached in the grasp. This was the kind of leading that came to Saul as he journeyed to Damascus. It was the kind of violent arrest that laid hold of John Bunyan as he played on Elstow green.

Of dogma Cromwell rarely speaks. Religion to him is not dogma, but communion with a Being apart from dogma. “Seek the Lord and His face continually,” he writes to Richard, his son: “let this be the business of your life and strength, and let all things be subservient and in order to this.” To Richard Mayor, the father of his son’s wife, he says: “Truly our work is neither from our own brains nor from our courage and strength; but we follow the Lord who goeth before, and gather what He scattereth, that so all may appear to be from Him.” Such is ever the refrain, incessantly repeated, to his family, to the Parliament, on the homely occasions of domestic life, in the time of public peril, in the day of battle, in the day of crowning victory; this is the spirit by which his soul is possessed. All work is done by a Divine leading. He expresses lively indignation with the Scottish ministers, because they dared to speak of the battle of Dunbar, that marvellous dispensation, that mighty and strange appearance of God’s, as a mere “event.” 1 [Note: John Morley, Oliver Cromwell, 55.]

(2) Here is a second method of leading: “I will guide thee with mine eye.” How startling the change: We pass from the grip of the hand to the glance of an eye, from a grip as severe as a vice to a touch as gentle as light. We pass from a nipping frost to a soft and cheering sunbeam. We find the word in the Thirty-second Psalm, and the Psalm itself provides us with the figure of violent contrast. “Be ye not as the horse or the mule.” The mule is headlong and headstrong, and he is to be guided by the “strong hand.” But the Lord would guide us by His eye. How exceedingly delicate is the guidance of a look! What tender intercourse can pass through the eyes! There is a whole language in their silent communion. But let it be marked that this eye-guidance implies very intimate fellowship. Eye-speech is the speech of lovers. We may be guided by a “strong hand” even when we are heedless of God; we can be guided by His eye only when we are gazing on God.

“They looked unto him and were lightened.” That is guidance by a look. Whilst they worshipped they received the light. Their minds were illuminated while they gazed. “They caught the ways of God,” and they had a certain radiance of spirit which assured them that they had found the King’s will. We cannot say much about the delicate experience through the clumsy medium of words. There are some communions for which ordinary language is altogether insufficient. Who can explain the message that passes between souls in love with one another; and who can describe the gentle communion of souls in love with God? But there is another instance of this delicate guidance of the eye: “Jesus turned and looked upon Peter.” That, too, was a look from Lover to lover. I know that one of the lovers had failed, but his love was not quenched. He had failed at the test, but the love was still burning. And Jesus turned, and with a look of poignant anguish He led His disloyal disciple into tears, and penitence, and reconciliation, and humble communion, and liberty. Peter was guided by the eye of his Lord. 1 [Note: J. H. Jowett.]

What meaning, what warning, what rebuke, what counsel, what love, the eye can flash forth—so subtly, so fully, so quickly, so certainly, so powerfully! At the fireside, for example, a mother can speak to her children by glances which the stranger cannot understand, and compared with which speech is slow and uncertain. The Lord looked on Peter, and he went out and wept bitterly. 2 [Note: J. Culross, God’s Shepherd Care, 77.]

The clergy of London were at first inclined to regard their new bishop (Dr. Temple) as cold and unsympathetic, not to say brusque and overbearing; but, with personal knowledge of him, the feeling quite wore away and was exchanged, all over the diocese, for a universal conviction that under the masculine exterior there beat a heart of almost womanly tenderness. The clergy of Hackney will not forget how, on one occasion, when speaking of the supreme value of home influence as a preparation for Confirmation, he completely broke down in relating an early experience of his own about a fault, then corrected by his mother, which had never been repeated. “She said nothing: she only looked at me with a look of pained surprise; and I have never forgotten that look.” 1 [Note: Frederick Temple, Archbishop of Canterbury, ii. 16.]

O Jesu, gone so far apart

Only my heart can follow Thee,

That look which pierced St. Peter’s heart

Turn now on me.

Thou who dost search me thro’ and thro’

And mark the crooked ways I went,

Look on me, Lord, and make me too

Thy penitent. 2 [Note: Christina G. Rossetti.]

(3) There is leading by hindering. “After they were come to Mysia they assayed to go into Bithynia; but the spirit suffered them not.” And what kind of leading was this? It was leading by impediment. It was guidance by prohibition. It was the ministry of the closed door. There came to the Apostle what the Friends would describe as a “stop in the mind.” His thought was resisted and had no liberty. He felt that his purpose was secretly opposed by an invincible barrier. In certain directions he had no sense of spiritual freedom, and therefore he regarded that way as blocked. “The angel of the Lord stood in the way for an adversary.” 3 [Note: J. H. Jowett, in The Presbyterian, Sept. 1, 1910.]

A streamlet started, singing seaward-ho!

But found across the path its fancy planned

A stone which stopped it with the stern command,

“Thus far and never farther shalt thou go.”

Then, where the tiny stream was wont to flow,

A shining lake appeared with silver strand,

Refreshing flower-strewn fields on either hand—

Reflecting starry skies and sunset glow.

So oftentimes we find our progress stayed

By stones that bar the steps we fain had trod,

Whereat we murmur with a sense of wrong;

Unmindful that by means like this is made

That sea of glass where stand the saints of God

To sing the new and never-ending Song of Solomon 1 [Note: Ellen Thorneycroft Fowler, Verses Wise and Otherwise, 192.]

3. “He guideth me.” Mark that word me. There is not only general guidance for the whole flock, but leading for each individual member of it. Will God really concern Himself about me, so insignificant, so poor and needy? The experience uttered in this verse answers, Yes. There is nothing that comes out more clearly in Scripture than the individual care granted to all who trust in God, exactly adapted to the various conditions and circumstances of each. The very hairs of the head are numbered.

That is the supreme wonder—the infinitely gracious God takes charge of thee and me! We are neither of us overlooked in the vast crowd. “I know my sheep.” “He calleth his own sheep by name, and leadeth them out.” So let me step out without fear, “Whither he doth lead—to the thirsty desert or the dewy mead.”

II.

That We Are Guided Aright

“He guideth me in the paths of righteousness.”

1. Here and there in the grazing country of Judæa the traveller will come upon narrow, well-worn paths. Generations of shepherds and myriads of flocks have trodden these old ways. They are the recognized highways, traversing the land from well to well and from fold to fold. To come upon one of these paths is to pick up a clue that leads out from the mazes of the wilderness to some familiar rendezvous. A competent shepherd has expert knowledge of all these paths. Only with this knowledge can he plan the day’s pilgrimage with accuracy and preclude the danger of being overtaken with his flock by night in wild and undefended places.

The picture which we have before us now is that of the shepherd guiding his rested and freshened flock along one of these old paths. It was a fortunate thing for the sheep that they had experienced the rest and refreshment of the well before they attempted the long strip of road that stretched before them now. Restoration there has conditioned them for sturdy climbing here. For these paths are often steep and stony, severely testing the flock’s strength. Before the day is done and the night fold reached, they must make heavy draught upon their stored-up energy.

A man in Glasgow translated the Psalms into broad Scotch, because he thought that broad Scotch had wonderful affinities in its idiom to simple, old-world Hebrew; and I think he was right. He said here, “He leadeth me in richt roddins.” There are little bits of country-road that seem to lead nowhere, but the farmer needs them all and uses them all. Tourists, if they struck them, would find that they led nowhere; but the farmer uses them, and the shepherd uses them, and the dairymaid knows all about them for her charge. So with the Lord Jesus Christ. He leads us by little bits. He does not lay out a whole champaign of country, and cast us on the great highway. No; but He leads us along this sheep-track to-day, and another sheep-track to-morrow. And these tracks never lose themselves in the moor, for He will always be with us, and it will always be found that there was a track and a path, and that it was the right path. Literally translated, it is, “He leadeth me in the straight paths.” They have an expected end and termination because He is Leader and He is Guide. 1 [Note: John McNeill.]

2. The paths of righteousness—that is an admirable phrase, and yet it blurs the edge of the Psalmist’s meaning. It is an interpretation of his words—an excellent interpretation, as far as it goes—rather than a translation. The Psalmist was writing as a poet, and he expressed his thought in a metaphor; the phrase strips off the imaginative clothing of the thought; explains the metaphor instead of reproducing it; and the explanation is incomplete. What the Psalmist says is that God will guide His flocks in the right paths, the direct paths, to their water and their pasture; so that the sheep will not follow tracks which will bring them no nearer to what they want to reach; they will not lose themselves and waste their strength. Or, dismissing the metaphor, he means that God will lead us by the surest and safest ways to the blessedness and honour to which He has destined us. Of course, these paths are righteous paths, or the righteous God would not lead us in them; and only righteous paths can bring us to where God desires us to come.

Righteousness has here no theological meaning. The Psalmist, as the above exposition has stated, is thinking of such desert paths as have an end and goal, to which they faultlessly lead the traveller: and in God’s care of man their analogy is not the experience of justification and forgiveness, but the wider assurance that he who follows the will of God walks not in vain, that in the end he arrives, for all God’s paths lead onward and lead home. 1 [Note: G. A. Smith, Four Psalms , 19.]

A mother, when teaching her little daughter the 23rd Psalm, was asked, “What are the paths of righteousness?” “Well, dear, you know the little tracks up and down the hills where the sheep tread?—those are called paths.” One day, when out walking with her nurse, Muriel wandered away by herself up a hill. On being asked where she was going, she replied, “I’m walking in the paths of righteousness.” 2 [Note: W. Canton, Children’s Sayings, 114.]

So many, many roads lie traced

Where wanderers may stray—

Roads twining, weaving, interlaced,

Roads sorrowful and gay.

Running through countryside and town

They climb the mountain steep,

Through storied realms of far renown

Unceasingly they creep.

When silver moonlight floods the nights—

O hark! across the sea

These roads, the wanderer’s delights,

Are calling you and me.

Singing their challenge sweet and clear

For wanderers to roam;

But, all at once, I only hear

The road that leads me home. 3 [Note: Alice Cary.]

3. While they are paths of righteousness they are something more. For a man may say, “I acknowledge that the great thing is to keep a good conscience, to do justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with my God. But I may do that, and yet miss my way. My life may be a succession, not of sins, but of blunders. I may be misled through my own fault or the fault of other people, or through accident and misadventure. I may make nothing of my life; or, at any rate, I may make much less of it than I might have made. The great thing is to be righteous; but, without any moral blame, through defective information or defective judgment, I may make a wrong decision in one or two critical moments, and my whole life comes to be a miserable failure.” But the Psalmist means that if a man is under God’s guidance he will be protected from making a wrong decision in critical moments; he will not take the wrong track; he will be kept in the right path—the righteous path, no doubt; but also the path which will lead him to the successful achievement of the great ends of life. God’s guidance keeps a man from sin; but it also keeps him from wasting his strength and failing to make the most of all his powers and opportunities.

St. Paul in his Epistles and spirit is more than ever clear and dear to me. As soldiers cried once, “Oh, for one day of Dundee!” so do I feel disposed to cry, “Oh, for one day of Paul!” How he would puzzle and astonish and possibly pain our Churches, ay, us all, for he is far in advance of us all yet! But as Max Piceolomini, when wishing for an angel to show him the true and good, said, why should he wish this when he had his noble Thekla with him to speak what he felt; so much more surely you and I and all who seek the truth may have peace, with the loving, patient, and wise Spirit and Guide, who will search us and lead us into all truth! 1 [Note: Memoir of Norman MacLeod, ii. 193.]

I suppose that in all projects for doing service to mankind, a devout man may trust God to guide him in right paths. How much time and strength and thought and money and earnestness have been spent on schemes which were well meant, and which seemed full of promise, but which have come to nothing; schemes of religious and philanthropic work; schemes of moral, social, and economical reform; schemes which had very modest though very excellent aims; schemes which it was hoped might confer enduring good on great communities! With some men nothing seems to succeed. They have a genuine desire to serve God and man; and they work hard at the methods of service which they have chosen; but somehow they always miss their way; they achieve nothing; or, if now and then they have a success, their successes are only an occasional break in a monotonous procession of failures. Other men hit on the right path and have the joy of seeing all they hoped for. The end is not yet; and it may be that the apparent failures of some men were necessary to the success of others; in any case, self-sacrificing to do good will not be forgotten in heaven. But for myself, I am less and less inclined to soothe my own disappointments by taking optimistic views of human life. I cannot resist the conviction that in the plain sense of the words a great deal of good work is wasted. It was well intended; God accepts it and thinks kindly of the man who did it; what was meant to be a “cup of cold water” given to a brother of Christ will not lose its reward, even though, through the clumsiness of the hand that offered it, the water was spilt before it reached the parched lips; but it would have been better if it had not been spilt; in the plain sense of the words, the water was wasted. 1 [Note: R. W. Dale, in The Sunday Magazine, 1892, p. 38.]

4. These paths of righteousness to the righteous, led of God in them, are also in the highest sense paths of “pleasantness.” In the highest sense—for to the selfish heart they are irksome, and oftentimes intensely disagreeable. But to one who has tasted the joy of walking with God and doing His will, the paths of righteousness have a delight which cannot be expressed. It is, indeed, a common thought, and has done much mischief, that the ways of the Lord are ways of gloom. In part it is the whisper of the devil in the heart; in part it is a deduction from the lives of some good men who, instead of “rejoicing in the Lord alway,” have thought it their duty to “hang down the head like a bulrush, and to spread sackcloth and ashes under them”; and in part we have mistakenly embodied it in our religious teaching.

Mr. Edmund Gosse’s poem, “To Tusitala,” addressed to Robert Louis Stevenson, reached him at Vailima three days before his death. It was the last piece of verse read by Stevenson, and it is the subject of the last letter he wrote on the last day of his life. The poem was read by Mr. Lloyd Osborne at the funeral. It is now printed in Mr. Gosse’s In Russet and Silver. It concludes as follows:—

By strange pathways God has brought you,

Tusitala,

In strange webs of fortune sought you,

Led you by strange moods and measures

To this paradise of pleasures!

And the body-guard that sought you

To conduct you home to glory,—

Dark the oriflammes they carried,

In the mist their cohort tarried,—

They were Languor, Pain, and Sorrow,

Tusitala!

Scarcely we endured their story

Trailing on from morn to morrow,

Such the devious roads they led you,

Such the error, such the vastness,

Such the cloud that overspread you,

Under exile bow’d and banish’d,

Lost, like Moses in the fastness,

Till we almost deem’d you vanished.

Vanish’d? Ay, that’s still the trouble,

Tusitala.

Though your tropic isle rejoices,

’ Tis to us an Isle of Voices

Hollow like the elfin double

Cry of disembodied echoes,

Or an owlet’s wicked laughter,

Or the cold and horned gecko’s

Croaking from a ruined rafter,—

Voices these of things existing,

Yet incessantly resisting

Eyes and hands that follow after;

You are circled, as by magic,

In a surf-built palmy bubble,

Tusitala;

Fate hath chosen, but the choice is

Half delectable, half tragic.

For we hear you speak, like Moses,

And we greet you back, enchanted,

But reply’s no sooner granted,

Than the rifted cloudland closes. 1 [Note: J. A. Hammerton, Stevensoniana, 92.]

My mother’s unquestioning evangelical faith in the literal truth of the Bible placed me, as soon as I could conceive or think, in the presence of an unseen world; and set my active analytic power early to work on the questions of conscience, free will, and responsibility, which are easily determined in days of innocence; but are approached too often with prejudice, and always with disadvantage, after men become stupefied by the opinions, or tainted by the sins, of the outer world: while the gloom, and even terror, with which the restrictions of the Sunday, and the doctrines of the Pilgrim’s Progress, the Holy War, and Quarles’ Emblems, oppressed the seventh part of my time, was useful to me as the only form of vexation which I was called on to endure; and redeemed by the otherwise uninterrupted cheerfulness and tranquillity of a household wherein the common ways were all of pleasantness, and its single and strait path, of perfect peace. 1 [Note: Ruskin, Praeterita, i. 224.]

III.

The Assurance

“For his name’s sake.”

1. The ground of the Psalmist’s confidence that God will guide him aright is expressed in the words “for his name’s sake.” That phrase is the secret of God’s kindness to us. God hath loved us with an everlasting love. Divine love springs from nothing external to God Himself. It is His very essence and being. “I do not this for your sakes, O house of Israel, but for mine holy name’s sake.” And here is our hope and inspiration. The love we do not cause we cannot change or destroy. Be our state what it may, we are still the objects of the love of God. Then with all our sins, if we throw ourselves on that absolute and boundless affection, we shall be both welcomed and blessed.

Very falsely was it said, “Names do not change Things.” Names do change Things; nay, for most part they are the only substance which mankind can discern in Things. 2 [Note: Carlyle, Miscellanies, iv. 116.]

2. A true name of old not only pointed out and identified, but also described. It did not merely turn our thoughts to a particular individual, but was significant—carried a meaning in it, declared something characteristic of the individual. Thus the dying Rachel called her boy Benoni, “the son of my sorrow”; and Hannah called hers Samuel, “asked of God,” saying, “Because I have asked him of the Lord.”

The name of God not only distinguishes Him from other beings, but describes Him; tells who He is, and what He is; so that if we know His name, we know Himself. The name is much more glorious for us than it was for David. Marvellous disclosures have been made since his time, both in word and act; above all, the name has been revealed in Jesus, so that “whosoever hath seen him hath seen the Father also.” I do not think that David has in view the name as given to Abraham or to Moses; but the name which he has used in the beginning of this Psalm—the shepherd-name—which tells of care, love, guidance, defence, fellowship, salvation. 1 [Note: J. Culross, God’s Shepherd Care, 90.]

3. When God leads us in the paths of righteousness “for his name’s sake,” it is implied that the reason for the leading is not in us, but in Himself; He is true to His shepherd-name. It is a name that He has taken to Himself; and He will not falsify, He will not dishonour it. In all His dealings with me He will show forth that He is my Shepherd. And this is why He leads me in the paths of righteousness: it is “for his name’s sake.”

We should have expected him to say, “God is leading me in green pastures on account of the good life I have led.” On the contrary, he says, “God is leading me in green pastures to further the good of other people—to minister to those who have not led a good life.” And I think the experience of the Psalmist will be found true to all experience. I do not believe that any man is led into prosperity or into adversity for the sake of that prosperity or adversity; it is always for the sake of God’s name or holiness. You pray for worldly wealth and it comes to you. Has God led you into that wealth? Yes, but not to reward your prayer. Rather would I say that the prayer and the riches are both parts of His guidance into a path of humanitarian righteousness where you can minister to the sorrows of man. Why was Abraham promised the land of Canaan? As a reward for leaving Ur of the Chaldees? No, but with the view of making blessed all the families of the earth. God did not give him the new country as a recompense for leaving the old; He inspired him to leave the old because He meant to give him the new. 2 [Note: George Matheson, Thoughts for Life’s Journey, 21.]

There is a valley paved with tears,

Whose gates my soul must pass,

And to dim sight it yet appears

Darkly as through a glass.

But in its gloom faith sees a light

More glorious than the day;

And all its tears are rainbow bright

When Calvary crowns the way.

Jesus, my Lord, within that veil

Thy footsteps still abide;

And can my heart grow faint or fail

When I have these to guide?

Thy track is left upon the sand

To point my way to Thee;

Thine echoes wake the silent land

To strains of melody.

What though the path be all unknown?

What though the way be drear?

Its shades I traverse not alone

When steps of Thine are near.

Thy presence, ere it passed above,

Suffused its desert air;

Thy hand has lit the torch of love,

And left it burning there. 1 [Note: George Matheson, Sacred Songs, 86.]

Literature

Brooks (P.), The Spiritual Man, 281.

Burns (J. D.), Memoir and Remains, 293.

Clarke (G.), From the Cross to the Crown, 16.

Cooke (G. A.), The Progress of Revelation, 105.

Culross (J.), God’s Shepherd Care, 74.

Duff (R. S.), The Song of the Shepherd, 81.

Finlayson (T. C), The Divine Gentleness, 223.

Freeman (J. D.), Life on the Uplands, 63.

Gray (W. H.), Our Divine Shepherd, 1.

Griffin (E. D.), Plain Practical Sermons, ii. 230.

Howard (H.), The Shepherd Psalms , 46, 55.

Hunt (A. N.), Sermons for the Christian Year, i. 199.

Jerdan (C), Pastures of Tender Grass, 37.

Jowett (J. H.), in The Presbyterian (Canada), Sept. 1, 1910.

Knight (W. A.), The Song of Our Syrian Guest, 1.

McFadyen (J. E.), The City with Foundations, 201.

McFadyen (J. E.), Ten Studies in the Psalms , 23.

McNeill (J.), Regent Square Pulpit, i. 241.

Mamreov (A. F.), A Day with the Good Shepherd, 44.

Matheson (G.), Thoughts for Life’s Journey, 21.

Newbolt (W. C. E.), Penitence and Peace, 77.

Parker (J.), City Temple Pulpit, vii. 270.

Smith (G. A.), Four Psalms , 1.

Stalker (J.), The Psalm of Psalms , 57.

British Congregationalist, Feb. 27, 1908 (Jowett).

Christian World Pulpit, xii. 5 (Bainton); xxi. 387 (Haines); lxv. 232 (Parker).

Expository Times, iii. 329; xix. 51.

Sunday Magazine, 1892, p. 378 (Dale).

Verse 5

Entertainment, Enjoyment, Enrichment

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

Thou hast anointed my head with oil; my cup runneth over.

Psalms 23:5 .

1. We all love to look at pictures of happiness and content. We linger over the pages which describe the peaceful Garden of Eden. We love to read about the courtship of Isaac and Jacob. We take up the Book of Ruth with the same emotion. We gaze with pleasure upon the picture of little Samuel, waking up and answering the call of God. We underscore such verses in the Bible as “Ho! every one that thirsteth” and “Come unto me all ye that labour and are heavy laden.” We print the Beatitudes in large type. With much reading we soil those pages where words of comfort lie. The sacred page opens of itself at the fourteenth chapter of John, where these words meet us, “Let not your heart be troubled.” Often do we turn to the joy-producing miracles. Well acquainted are we with the road to Bethany, with the resurrection morning, and with the picture painted in the 23rd Psalm.

Those poems in which the cup runs over are read the most and will live the longest. “The Deserted Village” cannot die, nor the “Cottar’s Saturday Night,” nor the “Village Blacksmith.” The bright lines of happiness in the Greek and Latin poets draw us back to them again and again. We listen to men who lift us up with hopeful words. When a David sings “My cup runneth over,” travellers stop to listen. The song of happiness will make some chord tremble in every human breast.

2. This Psalm seems to belong to the later years of David’s life. There is a ripeness and maturity of experience in it, also a fulness in its tone of trust, and thankfulness, and hope. Youth could hardly write in so rich and full and immortal a strain of the goodness and all-encompassing care of God. This sweet, serene, poetic strain of the man who had been taken from the sheepfolds, from following the ewes great with young, to be king over Israel, seems to have been sung when the sun in his life’s day was beginning to descend, and the shadows were beginning to lengthen. There are some things which youth has that age has not. Youth has its energy, its buoyancy of spirit, its fervid impulses, its hopeful outlook, arising partly from inexperience of life, its fresh susceptibility to impressions from the scenes of nature and events of human life. It has these things which age has not, or has only in a feeble degree. But, on the other hand, age has something which youth has not. Where the life has been devout, thoughtful, righteous, godly, there is with the passing years growth of the soul in moral qualities and in the knowledge of the unfailing care and providence of God. A man then has a wider outlook upon the events and experiences of human life, and a richer store of inward peace and faith and hopeful assurance, and can sing a sweeter, loftier song of loyal, filial praise. As we pass from youth to old age, we lose something out of our life, but with the loss there may also be gain in those things which make life real and blessed. It was so with the shepherd king of Israel, when he sang of the Lord as his Shepherd and Helper.

3. It would seem at first sight as though this Psalm had been sung amid happy surroundings, so peaceful and calm and even joyous is its strain; but it is probable that it belongs to a dark and troublous period in his life—the period, indeed, when Absalom was in revolt. We are to picture the king as an exile, having fled from Jerusalem for refuge. Absalom, in his unfilial ambition, has won the hearts of the people, and now seeks to overthrow his father, and to ascend the throne and place the crown on his own brow. It is a shameful revolt. Upon the son who now plots against him the king has lavished all the affection of his noble and intense heart. The weight of this new trouble lies heavy upon him. The pain that is smiting his heart is sharp and cruel. His life is suddenly darkened, and black tempests—charged clouds of sorrow—fill his sky. And yet, while so much trouble was in his life, he could still calmly see and realize God and the goodness of God. You do not find any weak repining, fretful crying out against God, morbid dwelling upon the gloomy events that darken his life. Anything but that. His trouble did not blind him to the Almighty guidance and love around him. His hands could still sweep the strings of his harp and draw forth tones of gratitude and hope. Faith, trust, and love, with their beautiful offspring, peace, joy, and serenity, were still strong in his soul. He could look out over the whole range of his life—back upon the past, around him upon the present, onward into the future—and behold, throughout it all, the hand of one who was as a shepherd. “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters.”

David was far more a victor than when he had slain Goliath and received the triumphant shouts of a rejoicing people. It is in times of trouble that a man is tested. That we see the goodness of God when there is no trouble to darken our way is very well, but the difficult thing is to see God in His fatherly love when sorrow, like a mountain mist, envelops us and intercepts our view. How many fail in this! They cannot recall how they have been led in green pastures and beside still streams. They cannot feel that they are guarded as sheep by a tender Shepherd. They cannot hope that when they walk through the narrow, sunless ravine, where dangers lurk, they will feel a Divine rod and staff comforting them. Trial conquers them, and drives them before it as a dismasted, rudderless ship is driven before the gale. It is a great victory for the soul to rise above trial and pray, but it is a greater victory still for the soul to rise above trial and sing. 1 [Note: T. Hammond.]

4. There are three acts in one drama: (1) Entertainment—“Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies”; (2) Enjoyment—“Thou anointest my head with oil”; (3) Enrichment—“My cup runneth over.”

I.

Entertainment

“Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies.”

i. The Table

1. What a picture of peace it makes, this supper on the darkening wold, when the sheep feed richly on the guarded green! For now the dew is again upon the earth. The grass is moist. The air is incense-laden from the flowers which all day long have been breathing forth their fragrance. And the fold is near.

The analogy holds true in the experience of Christ’s followers. The Shepherd and Bishop of our souls reserves His choicest swards for the delectation of our later days. Beulah Land lies near the bounds of life. It comes after the long march on the roads and the adventures in the glen. Let those who face the “sunset of life” lay this comfort on their hearts! The gospel is “a great supper,” as well as a satisfying breakfast, for the soul. It opens into the richest enclosures toward the day’s end. Our Shepherd surpasses Himself in the banquet which He spreads for His followers on the evening tablelands of life. 1 [Note: J. D. Freeman, Life on the Uplands, 92.]

2. Beyond question, the prepared table is an emblem of the provision divinely made and secured for the wants of our spiritual and immortal nature. The idea is expanded in those numerous passages, both in the Old Testament and in the New, which speak of the blessings of grace as a feast which the Lord of Hosts has prepared, and to which are invited even the poor and maimed and halt and blind from the streets and lanes of the city, and the homeless wanderers from the highways and hedges. “The meek shall eat and be satisfied; they shall praise the Lord that seek him.” Just as the body is nourished by appropriate food, so the spiritual being is up-built by those blessings which God’s free grace provides and bestows, and which we include under the name of salvation. There is enlarging knowledge of truth and enlarging capacity of apprehending it, the blossoming of all beautiful and holy affections, growing force and greatness of nature, deepening and expanding power.

3. There is fellowship at this table. You talk with a stranger on the highway, walking side by side in the same direction; you shake hands with an acquaintance in the street; you invite a friend to your table. The very eating of an ordinary meal together at the same table, even in our own country, is so far a seal of friendliness, and makes us feel nearer to one another; and so it was to a much greater extent in old days in the East, and, indeed, is still. There was something almost sacred in the common meal; and the guest felt that he could trust his entertainer’s faithfulness to the utmost, as Sisera, after partaking of the hospitality of Jael, resigned himself to sleep in her tent with a feeling of perfect security. It was counted perfidy of the worst kind when one who had eaten another’s bread proved unfaithful to him; and so David says in another Psalm, “Mine own familiar friend, in whom I trusted, which did eat of my bread, hath lifted up his heel against me.” 1 [Note: J. Culross, God’s Shepherd Care, 128.]

4. This idea of fellowship is prominent in the Sacrament of Holy Communion. We sit down together at the table of our heavenly Father; we take the bread as from the hand of the unseen Christ; we acknowledge our brotherhood, with all its high and sacred obligations, in the Divine family; we feel ourselves united, by closer ties than those of blood relationship, to all the children of God, some of whom are before the throne, and some struggling, and praying, and rejoicing here on earth.

By fellowship is meant one-mindedness, sympathy, agreement. It is not the submission of a servant to a command because it is a command. It is more, much more, than this. It is the sympathy of the friend with the friend, seeing and appreciating his character and plans, and entering into them with real heart satisfaction. It is the “amen,” the “so let it be,” of the spirit. “I have not called you servants, but friends.” To have this fellowship two things are needed: first, knowing our Master’s will, and secondly, having that mind and spirit in us which necessarily sympathizes with it. It is delightful to stand in spirit beside Christ, and look outwards from that central point, and see things as He sees them. This is having His “light” and “life,” and therefore so living and seeing as He does; and while we do so, He has fellowship with us! There is something very grand I think in this high calling, to be made partakers of Christ’s mind and joy! It is such godlike treatment of creatures! It shows the immense benevolence of Christ, to create us so as to lift us up to this sublime position, to make us joint heirs with Himself in all this intellectual and moral greatness and blessedness. 1 [Note: Norman Macleod, in Memoir, by his brother, i. 328.]

5. There is even more than this to be taken into account, in order to enter into the full significance of David’s words here. If you sit down to eat at the table of an Eastern chief, if you should even taste his salt accidentally, you come thereby under his defence; and obligations of kindness and faithfulness are created which he would count it foulest dishonour not to own.

I sit down at Jehovah’s table, which He has prepared before me in the presence of mine enemies. It is not merely that I find supply for all the wants of my spiritual and immortal nature, but I am Jehovah’s guest; He has received me into His pavilion His tabernacle, His palace; He has set me at His table; thus He binds Himself to protect me; He covers me with His defence, and takes me into relations of friendship with Him; my enemies look on, and know that my cause is His cause, and that in reaching me for harm they must first pierce through His defence. Thus we perceive how the words are much more than a repetition, with change of figure, of the opening idea of the Psalm; and how they lay a foundation for the great confidence, “If God be for us, who can be against us?” 2 [Note: J. Culross, God’s Shepherd Care, 130.]

Chalmers came to know afterwards, from one of the chiefs, that again and again the murder of the whole missionary party had been determined, and that those appointed to do the deed had come once and again to the low fence which surrounded the rough mission home. They had only to step over it and rush in upon and murder the unarmed man and his wife. Had they done this they would have been hailed as heroes by local Suau opinion. But the same chief told Chalmers that at the low fence they were restrained by some mysterious thing which held them back. What was it? To the devout mind there can be no doubt. It was the restraining Hand of that God and Father in whom both His servants so firmly trusted, at whose call they had come to Suau, and for whose sake they were willing to lay down their lives. 1 [Note: R. Lovett, James Chalmers, 168.]

ii. The Enemies

1. “In the presence of mine enemies”—it is the one note which has a suspicion of jar in this Psalm’s music of content. Were it not for the sudden intrusion of this phrase, one might suppose that for the Psalmist the whole world had been so absolutely transformed that no element of ugliness or hostility remained: here alone does his eye, as it roams over the field, alight upon something which reminds him that opposition is not quite done with yet. With all this deep peace within him—with all these marvellous mercies of God around him—the enemies still keep their hostile watch and await their chance to attack and slay. Notwithstanding the sweetness and sufficiency of the feast, it is in the presence of foes that the feast is spread. The Psalmist’s joy is not a joy that blinds him to the harder realities of life, not a joy that prevents him from feeling their presence or recognizing the danger they hold; and he beholds still the unlit spots upon his world where possibilities of tragedy and harm are gathered.

2. David sees himself in his tent on the plains of Bethlehem. There it rises covered with black skins, a rough-made dwelling-place, a shelter from the scorching heat of noon or the drenching dews of night; a place where he turns aside to eat his meals, and where he keeps his supply of food. Some day he sits in the door of the tent, the sheep moving quietly about him or lying down in the green pasture, when afar off in the distance he sees one flying for very life. David starts, and, shading his eyes, stands fixed, watching eagerly. For a moment the fugitive appears on the height of the limestone cliff, then leaps down the steep path and rushes on his way. Now on the height appears the enemy that pursues him—the avenger of blood. Instantly is hurled the spear that rattles on the rocks beside the hunted man. On comes the fugitive madly; a moment’s hesitation, a falter, a slip will mean certain death. He has caught sight of the shepherd’s tent, and makes for it. Now he has reached the plains, and the sheep scatter as the runner comes near. The avenger sees his last chance, and puts forth all his strength in pursuit. David stands lifting the folds of the tent. Another minute, and the man rushes within its folds, and falls fainting on the ground. Now he is safe. Here he is “the guest of God,” as it is called to this day. The avenger has reached the tent door, and stands with eyes flashing in furious hatred, the hand grasping the hilt of the dagger. But no foot of an enemy dare come within the tent. Its folds are as buttressed walls. Within its kindly shade David kneels, and lifts the fainting man, and holds to his lips the cup of milk—the cup that runneth over. Now the languid eyes open. The man feels the arm that supports him; he hears the voice that comforts him. He sips the proffered cup. He starts as he catches sight of the avenger, then turns and blesses the kindly shelter and the friendly succour: “Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies.” 1 [Note: M. G. Pearse, In the Banqueting House, 160.]

There was another sacrament no less reverend in Oriental eyes and no less potent for the ratification of a covenant than the blood of sacrifice. It was the sacrament of food. Let men once eat in company, sharing table and salt, and they were forthwith bound one to the other by an inviolable bond, yea, though they had aforetime been enemies and had eaten together only by accident or inadvertence. It is told of a Bedouin sheikh whose son had been slain by an unknown hand, that, while his sorrow was yet green, a stranger came to his tent craving food and rest, and was welcomed with the generous hospitality which obtains among the sons of the desert. As they communed, the sheikh discovered that the stranger was none other than the slayer of his son. His impulse was to rise and smite him; but the stranger had eaten from his dish and drunk from his cup, and the bond of hospitality restrained him. He sat in silence, his soul burning within him; and, when the meal was ended, he led him to his son’s grave and told him who lay under the mound of sand; and he bade him haste away lest the lust for vengeance should prevail and drive him to sin against the sacred covenant of hospitality. 2 [Note: D. Smith, The Pilgrim’s Hospice, 73.]

Dear Jesus! Thou camest, Thy glory forsaking,

In quest of Thy sheep that had wandered away.

Sweet Jesus! true Shepherd! on me pity taking,

O draw me unto Thee no longer to stray.

I am the lost sheep in misery lying;

From Hell’s mouth devouring, Jesus, me free.

If Thou cleanse me from sin in the blood of Thy dying,

O Jesus, my soul’s love Thy guerdon shall be.

Thou comfort of sadness, Thou heart of all gladness,

Love, Fountain of grace, Delight of all lands,

Good Saviour, true Shepherd! from th’ Enemy’s madness

Protect me, and pluck me at death from his hands.

Jesus, how fair Thou art, Spouse of my ravished heart,

Than honey more sweet, more serene than the sun!

May Thy free grace relieve me, Thy mercy forgive me,

Thy glory receive me when life’s course is run.

3. The Psalmist did not close with the fourth verse, otherwise so natural a climax. For he knew that weariness and death are not the last enemies of man. He knew that the future is never the true man’s only fear. He remembered the inexorableness of the past; he remembered that blood-guiltiness, which sheep never feel, is worse to men than death. As perchance one day he lifted his eyes from his sheep and saw a fugitive from the avenger of blood crossing the plain, while his sheep scattered right and left before this wild intruder into their quiet world,—so he felt his fair and gentle thoughts within him scattered by the visitation of his past; so he felt how rudely law breaks through our pious fancies, and must be dealt with before their peace can be secure; so he felt, as every true man has felt with him, that the religion, however bright and brave, which takes no account of sin, is the religion which has not a last nor a highest word for life.

(1) Here then is an enemy— the sin of yesterday. We cannot get away from it. When we have half forgotten it, and leave it slumbering in the rear, it is suddenly awake again, and, like a hound, it is baying at our heels. Some days are days of peculiar intensity, and the far-off experience draws near and assumes the vividness of an immediate act. Yesterday pursues to-day, and threatens it!

O! I have passed a miserable night,

So full of ugly sights, of ghastly dreams,

That, as I am a Christian faithful man,

I would not spend another such a night,

Though ’twere to buy a world of happy days,

So full of dismal terror was the time.

And what were the “ugly sights” which filled the time with “dismal terror”? They were the threatening presences of old sins, pursuing in full cry across the years! The affrighted experience is all foreshadowed by the Word of God. Whether we turn to the Old Testament or to the New Testament the awful succession is proclaimed as a primary law of the spiritual life. “Evil pursueth sinners.” That sounds significant of desert-flight and hot pursuit!

So it is that David thinks of himself, but it is no more as the sheep that lie in the morning, calm by the green pasture. He sees himself not as one led, but as one pursued. The broken law has its avenger. Every sin tracks a man until it runs him down—nothing can turn it aside, nothing can stay it. That is the deepest need of the human heart—deliverance from sin. No help can avail us anything unless it can save us from our sins. The foe that destroys us is not in our circumstances, or misfortunes, or pains, or poverty—out of the heart comes the murderer that seeks to slay us. This is the strength and glory of our holy religion, that it never hides or lessens the black fact that we have sinned; and yet it provides for every man a Saviour. The figure fails us here, for lo, there comes forth One to greet us who gave Himself for us, the Just for the unjust, that He might bring us to God. With a new and fuller meaning we may say indeed: “This man receiveth sinners, and eateth with them.”

There is a resemblance in structure, if perhaps only superficial, between this Psalm and the fifteenth chapter of the Gospel of Luke. That chapter opens with the picture of a good shepherd, and closes with a view of the festal joy when the lost son is received back into his father’s house. “Let us eat, and be merry,” the father says; “for this my son was dead, and is alive again; and was lost, and is found.” In like manner, this Psalm begins by speaking of the Lord as our Shepherd, and ends by telling of the joy with which we are received at His table and made to dwell in His house. The verses already considered set forth the relation of God to His people as that of a shepherd to his flock, and bring into view His careful, thoughtful, patient, mighty, sheltering love on the one side, and their trusting helplessness on the other. 1 [Note: J. Culross, God’s Shepherd Care, 121.]

Wherever He may guide me,

No want shall turn me back;

My Shepherd is beside me,

And nothing can I lack.

His wisdom ever waketh,

His sight is never dim,—

He knows the way He taketh,

And I will walk with Him.

Green pastures are before me,

Which yet I have not seen;

Bright skies will soon be o’er me,

Where the dark clouds have been.

My hope I cannot measure,

My path to life is free,

My Saviour has my treasure,

And He will walk with me. 2 [Note: A. L. Waring.]

(2) Here is another enemy— the temptation of to-day. Yesterday is not the only menacing presence; there is the insidious seducer who stands by the wayside to-day. Sometimes he approaches in deceptive deliberateness; sometimes his advance is so stealthy that in a moment we are caught in his snare! At one time he comes near us like a fox; at other times he leaps upon us like a lion out of the thicket. At one time the menace is in our passions, and again it crouches very near our prayers! Now the enemy draws near in the heavy guise of carnality, “the lust of the flesh”; and now in the lighter robe of covetousness, “the lust of the eyes”; and now in the delicate garb of vanity, “the pride of life”! But in all the many guises it is the one foe. In the manifold suggestions there is one threat. “The enemy that sowed them is the devil.” If I am awake I fear! If I move he follows! “When I would do good evil is present with me.” “O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” The soul is in the desert chased by the enemy of ever-present temptation.

When you say, “Lead us not into temptation,” you must in good earnest mean to avoid in your daily conduct those temptations which you have already suffered from. When you say, “Deliver us from evil,” you must mean to struggle against that evil in your hearts, which you are conscious of, and which you pray to be forgiven. 1 [Note: Cardinal Newman.]

There are temptations, commonly so called, which can be a trouble, even when they have ceased to be a dread, just at the moment when we are enjoying the beauty of the scene.

It is a beauteous evening, calm and free;

The holy time is quiet as a nun

Breathless with adoration; the broad sun

Is sinking down in its tranquillity;

The gentleness of heaven is on the sea.

Just when all is peace and glory, there comes the ribald murmur of an evil thought, the haunting disquiet of some evil imagination. In a moment the vast unprotected surface of the mind is ruffled and clouded as with a storm-gust, and pitted with stinging suggestions of falling evil. Most certainly “those that trouble us” take the shape of evil thoughts.

Now it is not God’s care to remove temptation, but to strengthen the tempted. He never promised to remove trouble; but He has promised to make anxiety out of the question. He never promised to remove pain; but He has promised to elevate it into a bearing, supporting cross. “He prepares a table before me in the presence of mine enemies,” as they stand, like a lion greedy of his prey, casting their eyes down to the ground. 2 [Note: W. C. E. Newbolt, Penitence and Peace, 133.]

You must recollect all places have their temptations—nay, even the cloisters. Our very work here is to overcome ourselves and to be sensible of our hourly infirmities; to feel them keenly is but the necessary step towards overcoming them. Never expect to be without such while life lasts; if these were overcome, you would discover others, and that both because your eyes would see your real state of imperfection more clearly than now, and also because they are in a great measure a temptation of the Enemy, and he has temptations for all states, all occasions. He can turn whatever we do, whatever we do not do, into a temptation, as a skilful rhetorician turns anything into an argument. 3 [Note: Letters of J. H. Newman, ii. 428.]

(3) Here is a third enemy— the death that awaits us to-morrow. “And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him.” Man seeks to banish that presence from his conscience, but he pathetically fails. The pale horse with his rider walks into our feasts! He forces himself into the wedding-day! “To love and to cherish until death us do part!” We have almost agreed to exile his name from our vocabulary. If we are obliged to refer to him we hide the slaughter-house under rose-trees, we conceal the reality under more pleasing euphemisms. I have become insured. What for? Because to-morrow I may—— No, I do not speak in that wise. I banish the word at the threshold. I do not mention death or dying. How then? I have become insured, because “if anything should happen to me——?” In such circumlocution do I seek to evade the rider upon the pale horse. Yet the rider is coming nearer! To-morrow he will dismount at the door, and his hand will be upon the latch! Shall we fear his pursuit? “The terrors of death compassed me,” cries the Psalmist. “Through fear of death” they “were all their lifetime subject to bondage,” cries the Apostle of the New Covenant. It is an enemy we must all meet. “The last enemy … is death.”

“God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in time of trouble.” In the Lord our God is the fugitive’s refuge. “In the secret of his tabernacle shall he hide me.” In the Lord our God we are secure against the destructiveness of our yesterdays, the menaces of to-day, and the darkening fears of the morrow. Our enemies are stayed at the door! We are the Lord’s guests, and our sanctuary is inviolable! 1 [Note: J. H. Jowett, The Silver Lining, 88.]

Goodness and mercy

Ever attend,

Guidance and keeping

On to the end;

Solace in sorrow,

Brightness in gloom,

Light everlasting

Over the tomb.

Counsel and comfort

Whate’er befall

Thou wilt afford us,

Saviour, in all.

Let Thy glad presence

Still with us dwell:

Nothing shall harm us,

All shall be well.

Faint yet pursuing,

Upwards we rise;

See the bright city,

Yonder the prize!

On to the haven,

To the calm shore,

In the fair city

Safe evermore. 1 [Note: Horatius Bonar.]

II.

Enjoyment

“Thou hast anointed my head with oil.’

1. If the figure of the shepherd and his sheep is still retained, as some hold, then the anointing refers to a singularly beautiful custom which the Eastern shepherd has. It is the last scene of the day. At the door of the sheepfold the shepherd stands, and the “rodding of the sheep” takes place. The shepherd stands turning his body to let the sheep pass: he is the door, as Christ said of Himself. With his rod he holds back the sheep while he inspects them one by one as they pass into the fold. He has the horn filled with olive oil, and he has cedar-tar, and he anoints a knee bruised on the rocks, or a side scratched by thorns. And here comes one that is not bruised, but is simply worn and exhausted; he bathes its face and head with the refreshing olive oil, and he takes the large two-handled cup and dips it brimming full from the vessel of water provided for that purpose, and he lets the weary sheep drink. There is nothing finer in the Psalm than this. God’s care is not for the wounded only, but for the worn and weary also. “He anointeth my head with oil, my cup runneth over.” 2 [Note: W. A. Knight, The Song of Our Syrian Guest, 19.]

It is an exquisite picture of Christ’s tender grace as He stands to anoint and refresh the souls of believers when, weary and worn, they look up to Him in the gloaming of life’s little day. No office which our Saviour performs is more precious and beautiful than this in which He touches His weary ones with balm, that they may retire with cool, clean souls to rest.

On August 18, 1887, Dr. Ullathorne writes to a friend as follows: I have been visiting Cardinal Newman to-day. He is much wasted, but very cheerful. We had a long talk, but as I was rising to leave an action of his caused a scene I shall never forget. He said in low and humble accents, “My dear lord, will you do me a great favour?” “What is it?” I asked. He glided down on his knees, bent down his venerable head, and said, “Give me your blessing.” What could I do with him before me in such a posture? I could not refuse without giving him great embarrassment. So I laid my hand on his head and said: “My dear Lord Cardinal, notwithstanding all laws to the contrary, I pray God to bless you, and that His Holy Spirit may be full in your heart.” As I walked to the door, refusing to put on his biretta as he went with me, he said: “I have been indoors all my life, whilst you have battled for the Church in the world.” 1 [Note: W. Ward, Life of Cardinal Newman, ii. 531.]

There comes to mind a great educationist. In the realms both of secondary and of higher education, he was a master. He wrought out for and established in two Canadian provinces their splendid system of free schools. In a third province he gave great impetus to the thought that resulted in the creation of a vigorous Christian university. For a brief period he stood at its head. Then, realizing that his strength was broken, he suddenly stepped aside. With a single step he passed from noon to twilight. Those of us who knew him intimately knew that the pain of the twilight was acute in his heart. But the compensations were sweet and satisfying. The Master held out to him the brimming cup of joy.

Then purged with euphrasy and rue

The visual nerve, for he had much to see.

And he told us what he saw in kindling speech. The fountain of song was unsealed within his heart. For the few years that were left to him he moved among us like a winged spirit. He was our nightingale singing in the twilight. He was our inspirationist, our prophet, our guide, philosopher, and friend. The beauty, the richness, the literary fruitfulness of those years were the marvel and delight of all who saw. In the twilight of his day God crowned him with loving-kindness and tender mercies; He satisfied his mouth with good things, so that his youth was renewed like the eagle’s. 2 [Note: J. D. Freeman, Life on the Uplands, 106.]

2. But the thought is not less beautiful if we adopt the usual view of the structure of the 23rd Psalm, that at the fifth verse the figure of a shepherd tending his sheep is replaced by that of a host welcoming and entertaining a guest. Now, at their feasts, when they wished to express joyous welcome of a guest, they would anoint his head with a fragrant oil. When Jesus sat at meat in the house of Simon the Pharisee, He took note of the omission of this observance: “My head with oil thou didst not anoint,” as men do to bidden and welcome guests. In ordinary cases, it was done by a servant, as the guest took his place at table; in special cases, it was done by the master of the house himself. So it is here. Jehovah, as it were, pours oil on the head of him whom He has invited to His table, in token of His joyous welcome. I am received, not as with reluctant and half-compelled consent, but with all the joy of His gracious heart.

Compared with us in the more sunless West and North, the old Hebrews had a much keener appreciation of everything fragrant, as we see in their plentiful use of incense and perfumed oils in their religious rites and services, and in all that we know of their social life. Even we can know the delightful charm of a clover field, or of a hillside covered with furze and heather, or of a garden in which a thousand flowers mingle and blend their perfume; but still greater is the charm to the children of the sun, who live in regions where

Eternal summer dwells,

And west winds, with musky wing,

About the cedarn alleys fling

Nard and cassia’s balmy smells.

We have only to turn over the leaves of the Bible, and we find a thousand illustrations of this love of fragrant substances among the Hebrews;—in the “sweet savour” that rose from Noah’s sacrifice; in the “smell of a field which the Lord hath blessed”; in “the scent of waters”; in the “perpetual incense” offered every morning and evening in the tabernacle or temple; in the “oil of gladness” with which God has anointed the king; in the “holy oil” poured upon “one that is mighty”; in the “precious ointment” to which brotherly love is likened; in the prayer “set forth before God as incense”; in the “oil of joy” given for mourning; in the “name as ointment poured forth”; in the “incense and a pure offering” that shall be offered to God’s name in every place; in the “golden vials full of odours, which are the prayers of saints.” 1 [Note: J. Culross, God’s Shepherd Care, 131.]

3. In Scripture anointing with oil is employed as an emblem of the gracious influences of the Holy Spirit. “Ye have an unction from the Holy One.” “The anointing which ye have received from him abideth in you.” It is not only that there is the hope of a future salvation possessed by the believer, but the joy of a present salvation begun even now—not only the “earnest of the Spirit,” as the evidence that the inheritance is purchased, but the purifying presence of the Spirit consciously preparing him for its sacred delights and occupations. Christ is said to have been “anointed with the oil of gladness above his fellows,” but all His fellows, every man in His own order, are partakers of it.

III.

Enrichment

“My cup runneth over.”

When seated at His table, He puts a cup into my hand—the cup of blessing, the cup of salvation; and it is not merely full but overflowing. He can afford to fill it; for the “Fountain of Jacob,” the source of blessing, is inexhaustible. This overflowing cup represents His abundant goodness. The year is crowned with the goodness of God; the earth is full of it; but this is “the goodness of his house,” the goodness which He has laid up for them that fear Him; and wrought for them that trust in Him before the sons of men. It comprehends blessings of all sorts, all gifts of His holy and loving heart, fitted to contribute to our well-being and joy.

If God were recognized at all times as the Giver and the Gift, every natural meal would be truly sacramental in all degrees, being recognized as the expression of Divine love in visible form, the natural clothing and continent of spirit and life. All truth would be realized as Divine truth, all labour as God’s working through His children, all needful rest and recreation as God’s Sabbath; every day the Lord’s Day; every dwelling a Bethel, and every man the Temple of the Lord in whom Christ dwells. 2 [Note: J. W. Farquhar.]

1. Our cup of natural blessings is overflowing. We see this—

(1) In the beauty of creation as opposed to mere utility. The sad philosopher of antiquity confessed: “He hath made everything beautiful in his time”; and the poet of to-day rejoices: “All things have more than barren use.” Some modern cynics have roundly abused nature and tried hard to show the seamy side of the rainbow, but the loveliness and grandeur of things are too much for them, and the poet’s vocation is not yet gone. Our natural belief also in the spirituality and transcendence of the beautiful and sublime is too profound to be uprooted by the utilitarian, however ingeniously he may argue on the material and physiological. Everywhere we see nature passing beyond utility into that delightful something we call beauty, glory, grandeur. Sounds harmonize into music; colours glow until the round world seems a broad, unwasting iris; cries blend into songs; the earth breaks into blossoms; the sky kindles into stars.

Nature never did betray

The heart that loved her; ’tis her privilege,

Through all the years of this our life, to lead

From joy to joy: for she can so inform

The mind that is within us, so impress

With quietness and beauty, and so feed

With lofty thoughts, that neither evil tongues,

Rash judgments, nor the sneers of selfish men,

Nor greetings where no kindness is, nor all

The dreary intercourse of daily life,

Shall e’er prevail against us, or disturb

Our cheerful faith, that all which we behold

Is full of blessings. 1 [Note: Wordsworth.]

(2) In the abundance of creation as opposed to mere sufficiency. “Thou preparest a table before me.” And how richly is that table furnished! We have a school of political economists which is tormented by the dread of population outstripping the means of subsistence, and is ever warning society against the awful peril. What confusions of heart and understanding do all these ominous vaticinations betray, seeing we dwell in a world so rich and elastic!

However the utilitarian may urge his sordid story, we cannot look at the superb dome of many-coloured glass above us, or ponder the vast panorama of earth and sea, full of pictures, poems, and symphonies which human art at best only darkly mirrors, without feeling that life inherits riches far beyond all material uses. The gorgeous garniture of the universe, at which the mere physicist stumbles, and which generations of metaphysicians fail to explain, is simply the overflow of our royal cup. 1 [Note: W. L. Watkinson, Mistaken Signs, 156.]

At one period of his life John Stuart mill was distressed by the apprehension of the exhaustibility of musical combinations, but he came to see that the possibilities of original harmony are practically infinite. It would be a blessing if that school of economists with which mill is identified could be brought to perceive that the possibilities of the world on every side are practically infinite. 2 [Note: Ibid.]

2. Our cup of social blessings is overflowing. God setteth the solitary in families. He has constituted society that the joy of life might be full. See the precious clusters which through this gracious arrangement are pressed into our cup!

First, perhaps, to strike the eye amongst the clusters of our Canaan is Home—the father’s reason made silken by affection; the mother’s voice sweeter than any music; the kindly strength of the brother; the fondness of the sister; the comeliness and sparkle of little children. Friendship is a kindred cluster englobing rich wine. Another fruition is Philanthropy, delicious as a fruit of Paradise plucked from some branch running over the wall. Then the eye longs to drink as well as the lip, and the ear to drink as well as the eye, so Art displays creations refreshing as the vineyard’s purple wealth; the artist with marble and canvas unsealing fountains of beauty, the musician with pipe and string pouring streams of melody. Science shows the earth a great emerald cup whose fulness flashes over the jewelled lip. Literature is a polished staff bearing grapes beyond those of Eshcol. Commerce is a whole vine in itself, and we gaze at its embarrassing lavishment with amazed delight. “Fir trees, cedars and oaks; silver, iron, tin, lead, and vessels of brass; horns of ivory and ebony; wheat, honey, oil, and balm; horses and horsemen, lambs, rams, and goats; wine and white wool; chests of rich apparel, bound with cords; emeralds, purple and broidered work, and fine linen, coral and agate; cassia and calamus, with chief of all spices, and with all precious stones and gold.” By our ships we are replenished and made very glorious in the midst of the seas. Patriotism is a first-rate grape whose generous blood gives to the spirit that unselfish glow which surpasses all sensual pleasure; and the best wine runs last in that sentiment of Humanity which gives the crowning joy to the festival of life.

3. The munificence of God is revealed to the uttermost in the cup of spiritual blessing. The cup of salvation runs over. It was not the study of God just to save us, but to save us fully, overflowingly.

May 28, 1892. If spared till to-morrow I shall have finished the eighty-second year of my pilgrimage. When I read the other day that verse in Deuteronomy 2:7, “The Lord thy God hath blessed thee in all the works of thy hand; these forty years he hath been with thee, thou hast lacked nothing,” I said to myself, “These eighty-and-two years He has been with me,” twice the time mentioned there, and I can truly say “I have lacked nothing.” More than that, He has given me “that blessed hope,” the prospect of being for ever in the kingdom with Him who has redeemed me by His blood. It was in the year 1830 that I found the Saviour, or rather that He found me, and laid me on His shoulders rejoicing, and I have never parted company with Him all these sixty-two years. 1 [Note: A. A. Bonar, Heavenly Springs, 206.]

I praise Thee, while Thy providence

In childhood frail I trace,

For blessings given, ere dawning sense

Could seek or scan Thy grace;

Blessings in boyhood’s marvelling hour,

Bright dreams and fancyings strange;

Blessings, when reason’s awful power

Gave thought a bolder range;

Blessings of friends, which to my door

Unask’d, unhoped, have come;

And, choicer still, a countless store

Of eager smiles at home.

Yet, Lord, in memory’s fondest place

I shrine those seasons sad,

When, looking up, I saw Thy face

In kind austereness clad.

I would not miss one sigh or tear,

Heart-pang, or throbbing brow;

Sweet was the chastisement severe,

And sweet its memory now.

Yes! let the fragrant scars abide,

Love-tokens in Thy stead,

Faint shadows of the spear-pierced side,

And thorn-encompass’d head.

And such Thy tender force be still,

When self would swerve or stray,

Shaping to truth the froward will

Along Thy narrow way.

Deny me wealth; far, far remove

The lure of power or name;

Hope thrives in straits, in weakness love,

And faith in this world’s shame. 1 [Note: Cardinal Newman.]

(1) We see it in the pardon of sin.—God does not forgive sin with measure and constraint, but graciously multiplies pardons. The overflowing cup is the sign of a grand welcome, of a cordial friendship, of a most hearty love. The forgiveness of God is not official, arithmetical, hesitating, but free and full beyond all compare. “He will abundantly pardon. For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.”

If God had not told a man that his sins are forgiven, it would be presumption in him to believe that they are forgiven; but if God has told him that they are forgiven, then the presumption consists in disbelieving it or doubting it. 2 [Note: Thomas Erskine of Linlathen.]

During the visit to Cañon City, Colo., in 1899, the Governor of the State, hearing that Mr. Moody was to speak at the penitentiary on Thanksgiving Day, wrote him, enclosing a pardon for a woman who had already served about three years. Seven years more were before her. Mr. Moody was greatly pleased to be the bearer of the message. The woman was quite unaware of the prospective good fortune. At the close of the address, Mr. Moody produced a document, saying, “I have a pardon in my hands for one of the prisoners before me.” He had intended to make some further remarks, but immediately he saw the strain caused by the announcement was so severe that he dared not go on. Calling the name, he said, “Will the party come forward and accept the Governor’s Thanksgiving gift?”

The woman hesitated a moment, then arose, uttered a shriek, and, crossing her arms over her breast, fell sobbing and laughing across the lap of the woman next her. Again she arose, staggered a short distance, and again fell at the feet of the matron of the prison, burying her head in the matron’s lap. The excitement was so intense that Mr. Moody would not do more than make a very brief application of the scene to illustrate God’s offer of pardon and peace.

Afterward he said that should such interest or excitement be manifest in connection with any of his meetings—when men and women accepted the pardon offered for all sin—he would be accused of extreme fanaticism and undue working on the emotions. Strange that men prize more highly the pardon of a fellow-man than the forgiveness of their God! 1 [Note: W. R. Moody, The Life of Dwight L. Moody, 281.]

(2) We see it also in the sanctification of the soul.—We are saved by Christ not merely from ruin, but into a surpassing perfection of life. The Psalmist prayed: “Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean: wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow.” What is whiter than snow? We have white clouds, flowers, foam, shells; but in the whole realm of nature we know nothing whiter than snow. Are we then to dismiss the Psalmist’s aspiration as so much Oriental rhetoric? The highest poetry contains the deepest truth, and we must seek lovingly for great meanings in expressions which are really a Divine rhetoric. Is not the truth here, that grace gives our spirit a perfection beyond all perfection found in nature? Science declares that in things most perfect there is some imperfection, that there is an ideal perfection which nature rarely or never reaches, that the most exquisite organs lack theoretical harmony and finish. Rude matter does not attain all the delicacy of the Divine thought, and the naturalist with the Psalmist complains: “I have seen an end of all perfection.” But the human spirit aspires to a truthfulness, purity, and beauty beyond that of the physical universe, it pants to be whiter than snow; and this sublimest aspiration of our being is destined to attainment in Jesus Christ.

(3) There is, last of all, boundless provision in Christ Jesus.—History tells that an ancient king granted pardon to some criminals under sentence of death, but when these discharged malefactors applied for relief at the palace gates the king refused them, protesting: “I granted you life, but did not promise you bread.” This is not the theory of the Gospel; Christ not only saves from destruction, but opens to the soul sources of rich strengthening and endless satisfaction. “In this mountain shall the Lord of hosts make unto all people a feast of fat things, a feast of wines on the lees, of fat things full of marrow, of wines on the lees well refined.” This prediction is grandly accomplished in Him in whom “dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily.” The Gospel of Christ is not a scheme meeting a certain dreadful exigency and then of no further significance; it is the fullest revelation of the Divine truth and love and holiness, on which the spirits of the just shall feed and feast for ever.

Heart of Christ, O cup most golden,

Taking of thy cordial blest,

Soon the sorrowful are folden

In a gentle healthful rest:

Thou anxieties art easing,

Pains implacable appeasing:

Grief is comforted by love;

O, what wine is there like love?

Heart of Christ, O cup most golden,

Liberty from thee we win;

We who drink, no more are holden

By the shameful cords of sin;

Pledge of mercy’s sure forgiving,

Powers for a holy living,—

These, thou cup of love, are thine;

Love, thou art the mightiest wine. 1 [Note: T. T. Lynch, The Rivulet, 87.]

“It passeth knowledge.” It overflows the heart. The saint sometimes cries with Fletcher: “Lord, stay Thine hand, or the vessel will break.” As in certain parts of Australia the abundance of flowers fills the air with sweetness until it becomes painful to the senses, so does the saint sometimes so vividly realize the grand all-encompassing love of God that the soul is overwhelmed with the mingled pain and bliss, and only finds vent in adoring tears.

Joy through our swimming eyes doth break,

And mean the thanks we cannot speak. 1 [Note: W. L. Watkinson, Mistaken Signs, 165.]

Annually when the ice breaks up in Russia the Czar goes in state to drink of the River Neva; and, having drunk, it was long the custom for the Czar to return the cup to his attendants full of gold, but year by year the cup became so much larger that at length a stipulated sum was paid instead of the old largesse. But however large the vessel we bring to God, and however much it increases in capacity with the discipline of years, God shall still make it to overflow with that peace and love and joy which is better than rubies and much fine gold. Let us pray

Open the fountain from above,

And let it our full souls o’erflow. 2 [Note: Ibid. 168.]

4. How is our cup to be kept overflowing?

(1) By keeping it always under the spring.—The cup stands under the spring, and the spring keeps running into it, and so the cup runs over, but it will not run over long if you take it from where the springs pours into it. It is our unwisdom that we forsake the fountain of living waters and apply to the world’s broken cisterns. We say in the old proverb, “Let well alone,” but we forget this practical maxim with regard to the highest good. If your cup runs over, hear Christ say, “Abide in me.” David had a mind to keep his cup where it was, and he said, “I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.”

(2) By drinking fully.—“My cup runs over, then let me, at any rate, drink all I can. If I cannot drink it all as it flows away, let me get all I can.” “Drink,” said the spouse, “yea, drink abundantly, O my beloved.” The Master’s message at the communion table always is, “Take, eat!” and again, “Drink ye, drink ye all of it.” Oftentimes, when the Lord saith to us, “Seek ye my face,” we answer, “But, Lord, I am unworthy to do so.” The proper answer is, “Thy face, Lord, will I seek.”

(3) By communicating to others.—If your cup runs over, call in your friends to get the overflow. Let others participate in that which you do not wish to monopolize or intercept. Christian people ought to be like the cascades seen in brooks and rivers, always running over and so causing other falls, which again by their joyful excess cause fresh cascades, and beauty is joyfully multiplied. Are not those fountains fair to look upon where the overflow of an upper basin causes the next to fall in a silver shower, and that again produces another glassy sheet of water? If God fills one of us, it is that we may bless others; if He gives His ministering servants sweet fellowship with Him, it is that their words may encourage others to seek the same fellowship; and if their hearers get a portion of meat, it is that they may carry a portion home.

O look, my soul, and see

How thy cup doth overflow!

Think of the love so free

Which fills it for thee so!

Let fall no tears therein

Of self-will or of doubt;

There may be tears for sin,

But sinful tears keep out.

What lies within? Life, health,

Friends—here, or gone before;

Promise of heavenly wealth,

Of earthly, some small store;

Power to act thy part

In earth’s great labour-field;

Grace which should make thy heart

An hundred-fold to yield.

The drops that overflow

Shine in the morning sun,

And catch the evening glow,

When each day’s work is done.

And if there mingle there

Some drops of darker hue,

What colour would all bear

If all were but thy due?

What God’s own wisdom planned,

Is it not right and meet?

Shall aught come from His hand,

And not to thee seem sweet?

Literature

Burns (J. D.), Memoir and Remains, 305.

Clark (H. W.), Laws of the Inner Kingdom, 72.

Culross (J.), God’s Shepherd Care, 121.

Duff (R. S.), The Song of the Shepherd, 111, 129, 143.

Freeman (J. D.), Life on the Uplands, 91.

Howard (H.), The Shepherd Psalms , 84.

Jowett (J. H.), The Silver Lining, 83.

Knight (W. A.), The Song of Our Syrian Guest, 16.

Newbolt (W. C. E.), Penitence and Peace, 131.

Pearse (M. G.), In the Banqueting House, 155.

Price (A. C), Fifty Sermons, ii. 41.

Smith (D.), The Pilgrim’s Hospice, 73.

Spurgeon (C. H.), Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, xv. (1869) No. 874; xxi. (1875) No. 1222.

Stalker (J.), The Psalm of Psalms , 91.

Vaughan (J.), Sermons (Brighton Pulpit), x. (1873) No. 815.

Watkinson (W. L.), Mistaken Signs, 155.

Wynne (G. R.), In Quietness and Confidence, 123.

Christian World Pulpit, xx. 123 (Hammond).

Church Pulpit Year Book, viii. (1911) 78.

Churchman’s Pulpit, Harvest Thanksgiving: xcvii. 61 (Hammond).

Homiletic Review, xlviii. 465 (Norris).

Verse 6

Pursuit and Permanence

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.— Psalms 23:6.

1. The phrase of the poet, that “this wise world is mainly right,” has no better illustration than the use it makes of this 23rd Psalm. There is no other form of words which it holds so dear, except perhaps the Lord’s Prayer; but if that has a superior majesty, this has a deeper tenderness; if one is Divine, the other is perfectly human, and its “touch of nature makes the whole world kin.”

2. It was probably written by David, not while he was a shepherd-boy, but after an experience of life, and perhaps during the very stress of it. For a shepherd-boy does not sing of flocks and pastures, even if he be a true poet, but of things that he has dreamed yet not seen, imagined but not realized. Hence youthful poetry is of things afar off, while the poetry of men is of things near at hand and close to their life—the daisies under their feet, and the hills that rise from their doors. The young, when they express themselves, are full of sentimentality; that is, feeling not yet turned into reality under experience; but there is no sentimentality here—only solid wisdom, won by experience and poured out as feeling. The shepherd-boy becomes a warrior and king; life presses hard on him; he covers it in its widest extremes, tastes all its joy and bitterness; his heart is full and empty; he loves and loves; he is hunted like a partridge and he rules over nations; he digs deep pits for himself into which he falls, but rises out of them and soars to heaven. David’s nature was broad and apparently contradictory, and every phase of his character, every impulse of his heart, had its outward history. Into but few lives was so much life crowded; few have touched it at so many points, for he not only passed through vast changes of fortune, but he had a life of the heart and of the spirit correspondingly vast and various; and so his experience of life may be said to be universal, which cannot be said of Cæsar or Napoleon—men whose lives outwardly correspond to his. Hence, when some stress of circumstance was heavy upon him and faith rose superior to it, or perchance when the whole lesson of life had been gone over and he grasped its full meaning, he sang this hymn of faith and content.

This Psalm of reminiscence is not simply a leap over intervening years into the first of them, but, starting thence with a metaphor, it is a review of life and an estimate of it; it is an interpretation of life. On looking it over and summing it up, the author states his view of life; his life, indeed, but what man ever had a better right to pronounce on life in general? If life is evil, he certainly ought to have known it. If life is good, he had abundant chance to prove it by tasting it in all its widest variety. We are not to read these words of flowing sweetness as we listen to soothing music, a lullaby in infancy and a death-song in age, but as a judgment on human life. It is Oriental, but it is logical; it is objective, but it goes to the centre; it is simple, but it is universal; it is one life, but it may be all lives. It is not the picture of life as allotted and necessary, but as achieved. Live your life aright and interpret it aright, and see if it is not what you find here. 1 [Note: T. T. Munger, The Appeal to Life, 69.]

3. The Psalm now passes from faith and gratitude forward to hope. The preceding part of it contemplates the past mainly; this closing verse contemplates only the future. We see a man going through life with goodness and mercy, like angel-guardians, following him, and home full in view. It supplies an illustration of the way in which “experience worketh hope.” David has reposed his trust in the Lord, and surrendered himself to His holy and loving will; he has had proof of His faithfulness and mercy and all-sufficiency in the ever-varying circumstances of many years, and so he hopes in Him for the days or years to come; and as a bird sings forth its pleasant song even in the faint noontide from the coolness and greenness of sheltering leaves, his soul sings forth its joyful hope in God. “Because thou hast been my help, therefore in the shadow of thy wings will I rejoice.”

This verse coming at the end of the Psalm is full of blessing. It is like the great “Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world. Amen.” After the falls of the third verse, after the fears of the fourth, after the temptations of the fifth, still it is “goodness and mercy” that he has to think of. “My song shall be alway of the lovingkindness of the Lord: with my mouth will I ever be shewing thy truth from one generation to another.” 1 [Note: W. C. E. Newbolt, Penitence and Peace, 142.]

Thou Heart! why dost thou lift thy voice?

The birds are mute; the skies are dark;

Nor doth a living thing rejoice;

Nor doth a living creature hark;

Yet thou art singing in the dark.

How small thou art; how poor and frail;

Thy prime is past; thy friends are chill;

Yet as thou hadst not any ail

Throughout the storm thou liftest still

A praise that winter cannot chill.

Then sang that happy Heart reply:

“God lives, God loves, and hears me sing.

How warm, how safe, how glad am I,

In shelter ’neath His spreading wing,

And there I cannot choose but sing.” 2 [Note: D. C. Dandridge, Rose Brake.]

I.

The Pursuit

“Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life.”

1. Goodness and mercy.—At once these words, “goodness and mercy,” attract our attention. It was “goodness and mercy” that led us first out of the fold, with an aim and object in life. There was “goodness and mercy” in that shelter from the noontide heat. But now it is “goodness and mercy” all the days of my life. And we think of grace, which is not only preventing and accompanying, but also subsequent. We owe a great deal to the grace that comes after, the grace that follows us; not only the grace that gives us the wish to do what is right, not only the grace that starts us and helps us in what is right, but also the grace that helps us to finish.

Here is that striking characteristic of the love of God Almighty which comes out in all His dealings with us, namely, its completeness. “Having loved his own which were in the world, he loved them unto the end.” Creative love, which placed man in the world, did not exhaust the goodness of God towards him: redemptive love met him when he fell. And as if redemptive love itself were not sufficient, sanctifying love came in to fill up where redemptive love seemed to lack. So it is with each single soul. God completes His work.

Perfect the day shall be, when it is of all men understood that the beauty of Holiness must be in labour as well as in rest. Nay! more, if it may be, in labour; in our strength, rather than in our weakness; and in the choice of what we shall work for through the six days, and may know to be good at their evening time, than in the choice of what we pray for on the seventh, of reward or repose. With the multitude that keep holiday, we may perhaps sometimes vainly have gone up to the house of the Lord, and vainly there asked for what we fancied would be mercy; but for the few who labour as their Lord would have them, the mercy needs no seeking, and their wide home no hallowing. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow them, all the days of their life; and they shall dwell in the house of the Lord—for ever. 1 [Note: Ruskin, Lectures on Art, § 96 (Works, xx. 94).]

Ought not we who bear the name of Jesus to ask ourselves whether we are keeping pace in new purposes and answering with devotion God’s summoning gifts and challenging mercies? When the year is old or the year is young, and we think of the passing of life, it is a good thing to ask whether our trees justify the room they take and the nourishment they get in the Master’s vineyard. Is your tree standing because “it brings forth more fruit”? or is it because of the mercy, the hope, the patience, of the Lord who intercedes,—“Spare it yet another year; it may be it will bear fruit”? Let the goodness of God lead us to repentance and a better return in fruitfulness and fidelity for His loving care. 2 [Note: M. D. Babcock, Thoughts for Every-Day Living, 36.]

No gloomy foreboding as to a dark and unknown future—no dread of the King of Terrors—no doubts as to his acceptance in Christ, obscured the radiance of his setting sun. In the same letter, written within six weeks of his death, when he was in good health, James Haldane thus affectionately addresses his eldest son in London, as if anticipating that his years (now eighty-three) were numbered: “This is the last day of the year, and the last letter I shall write this year. My life has been wonderfully preserved, much beyond the usual course of nature. Goodness and mercy have followed me all the days of my life, and, without the shadow of boasting, I can add, I shall dwell in the house of the Lord for ever. May the blessing of God Almighty rest on you and yours!” 1 [Note: A. Haldane, The Lives of Robert and James Haldane, 640.]

Enough that blessings undeserved

Have marked my erring track;—

That wheresoe’er my feet have swerved,

His chastening turned me back;—

That more and more a Providence

Of love is understood,

Making the springs of time and sense

Sweet with eternal good;

That death seems but a covered way

Which opens into light,

Wherein no blinded child can stray

Beyond the Father’s sight;—

That care and trial seem at last,

Through Memory’s sunset air,

Like mountain-ranges overpast;

In purple distance fair—

That all the jarring notes of life

Seem blending in a psalm,

And all the angles of its strife

Slow rounding into calm.

And so the shadows fall apart,

And so the west-winds play;

And all the windows of my heart

I open to the day. 2 [Note: Whittier, My Psalm.]

2. The Psalmist’s hope is uttered in a twofold form of speech. First and in general, it is the hope of “goodness and mercy”; “ goodness,” including all that contributes to our well-being, temporal and spiritual, and “satisfies” the wants of our nature,—not mere cold beneficence that chills us while it aids, but having a heart of lovingkindness; “ mercy,” including all the manifestations of His favour, whether as compassion, forbearance, long-suffering, deliverance, forgiving love, help in time of need, or whatever else may be named—all that it glorifies God to bestow, and blesses us to receive.

There is a touching story of Lord Westbury which Sir William Gull told me. He was dying of a painful disease, and said to Sir William and Sir James Paget, “Surely this is, if ever there was, a case for Euthanasia, or the happy despatch.” They argued with him that their duty was to preserve life, and on the following day he said, “I suppose you are right. I have been thinking over the story of what the Roundhead said when he met the Royalist in heaven. He was surprised at his presence, and asked him how it had come about. The Royalist answered—

Between the saddle and the ground

I mercy sought and mercy found.

I suppose you think that might be my case.” 1 [Note: Sir Algernon West, Recollections, i. 304.]

(1) We may compare Goodness to an angel with a radiant countenance, bright as the sun, ever beaming with smiles that shed gladness all around her. She has a light and buoyant step, and movements musical as the chiming of marriage bells. Flowers grow where she treads, and springs of living water flow to refresh the thirsty ground. She has a full and yet open hand, for while always dispensing her gifts, her store is never exhausted.

We connect her ministry with the brightest times in our history, when all is manifestly going well with us. We see it most clearly in what may be called the summer of the soul, when the sky is bright and the air balmy, and the flowers open their petals to the sun, and the grass grows upon the mountains, and the pastures are covered with flocks, and the valleys with corn. We see her presence in the home, when health and happiness are there, when she covers the table, and makes our slumbers light and refreshing, and sweetens the intercourse of brothers and sisters, and gladdens the hearts of parents with the welfare and well-doing of their children, and endows them all with health and strength.

And if sometimes Goodness veils her brightness and appears in such guise that men may not be conscious of her presence, in what may be called the wintry season of the soul, and there is less radiance on her countenance, and less music in her tread, and an apparently less liberal dispensation of her gifts; even then to the eye of faith her features are the same, and the same blessed ends are promoted by her gentle, holy ministry. There is the same kindness in her heart, although it be not so visibly manifested; the same words of blessing on her lips, although the ear hears them less distinctly; the same expression on her countenance, although it be somewhat veiled; the same benefactions bestowed by her hand, although they be not so sweet to the taste. A stronger faith would see the essential features under the dim disguise, and share in the Psalmist’s assurance that Goodness as well as Mercy follows all the good man’s steps. 1 [Note: W. Landels.]

When Jacob looks at the coat of his darling son dedaubed with blood, a horror of great darkness falls upon his mind. He rends his garments. His anguish is pitiful. His hopes are crushed. The light of his life is gone out. He puts on sackcloth, and mourns for his son many days. He “refuses to be comforted.” He sees nothing before him but a set grey life, and then the dreariness of Sheol. He will follow his son into the darkness. His faith in God is not so grandly steadfast as that of Abraham, who believed that

Even the hour that darkest seemeth

Will His changeless goodness prove.

Men of stronger faith have learned to answer even such questions as, “Is this thy son’s coat?” without rending their garments and refusing to be comforted. Richard Cameron’s head and hands were carried to his old father, Allen Cameron. “Do you know them?” asked the cruel men who wished to add grief to the father’s sorrow. And he took them on his knee, and bent over them, and kissed them, and said, “I know them! I know them! They are my son’s, my dear son’s.” And then, weeping and yet praising, he went on, “It is the Lord! Good is the will of the Lord, who cannot wrong me and mine, but has made goodness and mercy to follow us all our days.” 2 [Note: J. Strachan, Hebrew Ideals, ii. 94.]

(2) Mercy is closely allied to Goodness, and closely resembles her, as twin sisters frequently resemble each other, although she exercises her ministry chiefly under different circumstances, and in slightly different ways. She is less buoyant and radiant than the other, with more gravity and tenderness of manner. Her eye is tearful, as if she were ever ready to weep with those that weep, and her lips tremulous with pity. She has a noiseless step, and a soft, gentle touch, and a voice that falls like music on the dull ear of sorrow. With whispered consolation on her lips, and a cordial in her hands, her favourite haunts are chambers of sickness, or prison cells, or closets where souls groan in secret under heavy loads of sin and woe; and there, in her mild accents, she bids the guilty be of good cheer because their sins are forgiven, and with her strong though gentle hand lifts the burden from the heavy laden, and with her fragrant ointment tenderly heals the broken in heart and binds up their wounds. She is seen more frequently in the shade than in the sunshine, and exercises her ministry most when some darkly brooding sorrow hangs over the individual or the family or the nation’s heart. When Goodness puts on her veil, and works behind her disguise so that men know her not, then is Mercy often employed most actively in furthering her gracious designs. Her ministries are more specific than those of Goodness, and confined to a more limited sphere, a preparedness of heart being necessary to fit men for receiving them. But withal they are not less spontaneously, or freely, or cheerfully exercised.

The quality of mercy is not strain d,

It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven

Upon the place beneath.

Unpurchased, oftentimes unsolicited, Mercy pays her visits and impart her benefactions; and those who have profited most by her ministry are sometimes those who never thought of her till they found her by their side. 1 [Note: W. Landels.]

I have a very great confidence indeed in the kindness of God towards us. I do believe if we shall find ourselves mistaken on either side in Eternity, it will be in finding God more merciful than we expected. 2 [Note: Life of Charles Loring Brace, 83.]

Miss R. having told Dr. Duncan that a young man had said at a meeting that “there was not mercy in God from everlasting—there could not be mercy till there was misery,” he said, “God is unchangeable; mercy is an attribute of God. The man is confounding mercy with the exercise of mercy. There could not be the exercise of mercy till there was misery; but God was always a merciful God. You might as well say that there could not be justice in God till there were creatures towards whom to exercise punitive justice.” 1 [Note: Memoir of John Duncan, LL.D., 422.]

Silent, alone! The river seeks the sea,

The dewdrop on the rose desires its sun!

Oh, prisoned Soul, shalt thou alone be free?

Shalt thou escape the curse of death and birth

And merge thy sorrows in oblivion?

Thou, thou alone of all the living earth?

Silent, alone! I know when next the dawn

Shall cast its vision through the desert sea

And find me not, the sword that I have drawn

Shall flash between the twilights, and a word

Shall praise what I was not but strove to be,

Saying: “Behold the mercy of the Lord.” 2 [Note: George Cabot Lodge, Poems and Dramas, i. 55.]

3. “Goodness and mercy shall follow me.” It is a strong word that the Psalmist uses, the strong fierce word pursue—the very word used of the pursuit of the enemy in battle. It is as if God’s love were so eager to find the man that it was determined to run him down. Look! there they are, two blessed and gentle figures, Love and Pity, angels twain, on the heels of every man, running and resolved to find him. And when they find him, and bring him into the quiet tent, as the guest of God, is it any wonder that he longs to dwell there “throughout the length of days”?

He pursues us with the zeal of a foe, and the love of a Father; pursues us “throughout the length of days” with a Divine impatience that is never faint and never weary. He is not content to follow us; He pursues us, because He means to find us. Behind the loneliest man is a lovely apparition; nay, no apparition, but angels twain, Goodness and Mercy, shielding and urging him on. Will he not turn round and look at them? For not to smite, but to bless, are the hands uplifted behind him. Had the powers that pursue us not been Goodness and Mercy, they would have slain us long ago, as cumberers of the ground. 1 [Note: J. E. McFadyen, The Divine Pursuit, 201.]

When night came the church was packed. “Now, beloved friends,” said the preacher, “if you will turn to the third chapter of John and the sixteenth verse, you will find my text.” He preached the most extraordinary sermon from that verse. He did not divide the text into “secondly” and “thirdly” and “fourthly”; he just took the whole verse, and then went through the Bible from Genesis to Kevelation to prove that in all ages God loved the world. I never knew up to that time that God loved us so much. This heart of mine began to thaw out; I could not keep back the tears. It was like news from a far country: I just drank it in. So did the crowded congregation. I tell you there is one thing that draws above everything else in this world, and that is love. 2 [Note: The Life of Dwight L. Moody, 127.]

How many unsatisfied hearts there are, tired of their own tired question, “Who will show us any good?” Nor are they only the hearts which have tried the less pure springs of earthly happiness and rest. Not long ago there died a man eminent in scientific knowledge and achievement, who towards the close of his comparatively brief life was brought back from remote mental wanderings to God in Christ. I refer to the late Mr. George Romanes. He was a man of blameless morals, exemplary in every personal duty; and he seemed constrained, to his own infinite unhappiness, to disbelieve in God. He tried, in this sad condition, to make life satisfactory without Him. He gave himself up fully to his own refined and elevated line of thought and work. He was a diligent and masterly observer and enquirer amidst the mysteries of nature, and a kindly and unselfish man besides. But was he satisfied? Listen to his own avowal: “I felt as if I were trying to feed a starving man with light confectionery.” It would not do. Nothing would do but the living God. He sought, he felt, he knelt his way back to Him, and he was satisfied at last. 3 [Note: Bishop H. C. G. Moule, All in Christ, 204.]

4. The idea of goodness and mercy following a man is exceedingly beautiful and suggestive. There is a phrase in the Bible, with which we are familiar, which speaks of the “preventing mercies” of God, this word “prevent” formerly meaning not to hinder, as it does now, but simply to go before—God’s mercies outrunning our necessities, going before them to anticipate and provide for them. It is in this sense that we usually think of the goodness and mercy of God, as going before us to prepare our way and provide for our wants. But in our deeper moods we feel that we need quite as much that goodness and mercy should follow us. Our greatest troubles are ever those which belong to our past, which come from the things that are behind us, which we are striving to forget. Our march through life is like the march of an army through a hostile region. While we are conquering and possessing the present, we are leaving unsubdued enemies, and unconquered fortresses, and old inveterate habits of sin behind us, that will assuredly rise up and trouble us again. Our past is not dead and buried; it is waiting for us in some future ambush of our life.

How precious in such an experience are the words of the text, assuring us that God is following us—not as the American Indian follows upon the trail of his enemy to slay him, not as the avenger of blood follows in his awful vendetta upon the track of the manslayer, but with goodness and mercy! He cries to us as we hasten away from Him in the sullenness and unbelief which sin produces—“I, even I, am he that blotteth out thy transgressions for mine own sake, and will not remember thy sins.” He can cast our sins behind His back; remove them as far as east is from the west. He can follow us as Jesus followed Peter when he cut off Malchus’s ear with the sword, to heal the wounds we have inflicted, to redress the wrongs we have committed, to neutralize the consequences of our folly, ignorance, or sin. He can gather up all our woeful past in His boundless mercy, and enable us as little children to enter His kingdom again. He can separate us from the debasing associations of our sin, give us a sense of recovered freedom and enlargement of heart, and enable us to begin anew, without the disabilities of former days clinging like fetters about our feet and impeding our steps.

The Psalmist does not ask that blessings shall continue to lead him, but that goodness and mercy shall follow him. They are not to be the guides of his life, but the consequences of his life. He is to go his way as well as he can, through the pastures and valleys of experience, and after him there are to follow more goodness and more mercy. Perhaps he is still thinking of the Oriental shepherd in whose name the Psalm began. “The Lord,” he has said, “is my shepherd”; and in the East the shepherd goes before, and the sheep hear his voice and follow him. Thus the man who has been blessed of God is to go steadily on, and behind him, like a flock of sheep, will follow the good thoughts and merciful deeds of a better world.

Such is the Psalmist’s picture of the blessed life. The man who thus goes his way up and down the hills of experience does not have to look behind him to watch for goodness and mercy; they know his voice and follow him. He meets his obstacles and reverses, and as he looks ahead, life may not appear good or merciful; but what he is concerned about is the consequence of his life, and he goes his way bravely to clear the path for goodness and mercy to follow. Says Whittier—

The blessings of his quiet life,

Fell round us like the dew,

And kind thoughts where his footsteps pressed

Like fairy blossoms grew.

It was a figure which Jesus Himself liked to use. He did not expect to get much mercy from the world: He prayed that after Him might follow a world of mercy. “For their sakes,” He said, “I sanctify myself; that they also might be sanctified through the truth.” “I am the good shepherd; the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep.” Here is the self-respecting, rational end of any modern psalm of praise: “Thou hast led me through many blessings, among green pastures, and by still waters. I do not ask for more of this quiet peace. I ask for strength to go my way bravely along the path of duty, so that after me it shall be easier to do right and to be merciful, and goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life.” 1 [Note: F. G. Peabody, Mornings in the College Chapel, ii. 36.]

I asked my God to go before

To light with signs the unknown shore

And lift the latch of every door;

He said, “I follow thee.”

I asked Him to prepare my way

By kindling each uncertain ray

And turning darkness into day;

He said, “I follow thee.”

He bade me linger not till light

Had touched with gold the morning height,

But to begin my course by night,

And day would follow me.

He told me when my hours were dark

To wait not the revealing spark,

But breast the flood in duty’s ark,

And peace should follow me.

Therefore, O Lord, at Thy command

I go to seek the unknown land,

Content, though barren be the sand,

If Thou shalt follow me.

I go by night, I go alone,

I sleep upon a couch of stone;

But nightly visions shall atone

If Thou shalt follow me.

I sow the seed in lowly ground,

I sow in faith and hear no sound;

Yet in full months it may be found

That Thou hast followed me. 1 [Note: G. Matheson, Sacred Songs, 10.]

There is a mercy which goes before us, and there is a mercy which follows us. The one is the clearing of our own path; the other is the clearing of a path for our brother man. There is an expression, “May your path be strewn with flowers!” That may mean one or other of two things. It may be the wish that you may be called to tread a flowery way, or it may be the wish that when you tread the thorny way you may leave flowers where you have passed. The latter is the Psalmist’s aspiration, and it is the nobler aspiration. It is an aspiration which can come only from a “restored soul.” Any man can desire to be cradled in green pastures and led by quiet waters. But to desire that my life may make the pastures green, to desire that my life may make the waters quiet—that is a Divine prayer, a Christlike prayer. There is a prosperity for which every good man is bound to pray. It is finely expressed, I think, in a line of Tennyson’s “Maud”—

Her feet have touched the meadows, and have left the daisies rosy.

The daisies were not rosy in advance; they became rosy by the feet touching them. It was the footsteps themselves that exerted a transforming power; they created a flowery path for future travellers; goodness and mercy followed them. 1 [Note: G. Matheson, Rests by the River, 50.]

5. The hope uttered here has no element of doubt mingling with it. This is indicated by the word “surely.” Here is not only hope, but the full assurance of it. When our hope rests on an earthly friend, it is necessarily more or less troubled, because our friend may change, his love may grow cold, his power may fail, he may forget us in his own distractions, he may die, or in some one of a thousand ways we may pass out of the sphere within which alone he can help us; but there is no such element of disturbance and unquietness in the hope we repose in God; it is, it has reason to be, assured hope. Instead of “ surely,” some commentators make it “ only”—“only goodness and mercy shall follow me”; just as in the 73rd Psalm they read, “God is good and only good—nothing but good—to Israel, even to such as are of a clean heart.” Nothing but goodness and mercy shall pursue me. What a contrast to the lot of the wicked man, pursued by the angel of judgment ( Psalms 35:6), hunted by calamity ( Psalms 140:11).

6. “All the days of my life.” A continuance of grace and strength is needed every hour till the close. Often is the saint surprised by severe trial even when nearing home, like a vessel which has safely weathered the storms of a voyage and seems past all danger, but is nevertheless wrecked almost in entering port. Above all such fear of failing at last the believer’s confidence triumphs in the assurance that He whom he has known and trusted will never leave his side.

Grace being an endowment above the strength of nature, what is it else, but young glory? For that the knowledge of the one will lead us by the hand unto the knowledge of the other: as glory is grace in the bloom and fullest vigour, so grace is glory in the bud and first spring-time; the one is holiness begun, the other holiness perfected; the one is the beholding of God darkly, as through a glass, the other, beholding Him face to face. 2 [Note: Andrew Wellwood.]

II.

Permanence

“I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.”

1. Not only are Goodness and Mercy—these two white-robed messengers of God—to follow us instead of the avenger of blood, but we are to dwell in the house of the Lord for ever. The manslayer who fled to one of the old cities of refuge in Palestine had not only the right of asylum there, safety from the vengeance of the friends of the murdered man, but also the right of citizenship. Though he did not by birth belong to the city to which he fled, and had no possession in it; though his crime had made him an outcast from his own city and inheritance, his very necessity constituted a title to be received as a citizen in the new dwelling-place. And by the merciful provision of the Mosaic law, his very misery and danger raised him from the condition of a stranger and a fugitive, to be an associate with the priests of God in their holiest services.

But great as were the privileges which he enjoyed in the city of refuge, they were only temporary. He was only to dwell there till his case should be investigated by the proper authorities, or at the utmost till the death of the man who happened to be high priest at the time. He must then, if pronounced guilty, be given up to the just doom connected with his crime, or, if found innocent, depart to his own home. But it is not so with the house of the Lord, to which the Psalmist refers. David knew that the sanctuary on Zion would be a secure place of refuge; and often did he long with an intense yearning for its privileges, and contrast the miserable spiritual privations of his exile in the wilderness with the means of grace which he used to enjoy. But even if he had been restored to the sanctuary, he could not have said of it, “This is my rest for ever: here will I dwell; for I have desired it.”

At Cadiz, in Spain, above the entrance of the Casa di Misericordia, or House of Refuge, is carved the inscription in the words of the one hundred and thirty-second Psalm—“This is my rest: here will I dwell.” The ear misses the two familiar words of the Psalm “for ever.” A friend has told me that as he looked up one day at the inscription and noticed the omission, the Superior, who happened to be near, with a smile explained the reason. “This Casa,” he said, “is the rest of the poor—but not for ever.” 1 [Note: H. Macmillan, The Mystery of Grace, 148.]

2. David must have looked beyond the earthly sanctuary to the city which hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God; beyond the dark valley of the shadow of death to the house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. There alone should he be everlastingly safe and blessed.

We also fled to this house of the Lord for safety in a time of sore distress; and we have found in it the true rest of life. We were driven by stress of trial and danger into it when all other refuge failed us, and we looked on our right hand and viewed, but there were none to know or help us; and now so blessed are we in it that we would not leave it if we could. No sin can accuse us there; no death can snatch us from its joy. Nothing can shake the security, nothing can mar the peace, of those who dwell thus in the house of the Lord. Goodness and mercy have wiped away all the evils of our life, and converted them into good. And “neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

3. But the dwelling does not begin when the “days of our life” are ended; the two are simultaneous, and go on together. There is indeed no termination to the dwelling in God’s house, it reaches into eternity and never ceases; but it begins at present, and runs parallel with our enjoyment of God’s goodness and mercy. It is the “one thing” that David says elsewhere he desired of the Lord, and would seek after all the days of his life, and that inspired such Psalms as the Sixty-third and Eighty-fourth, which express so wonderfully the soul’s longing for conscious fellowship with God.

We see the faith and feeling of the man expand and enlarge, till they embrace the great and ultimate future of the life that is to be; and he says, I feel that I have been led onwards to that. These capacities and affections of mine, the stirring of a spiritual life within me, were never made to find their perfection here. I carry within myself, in my own religious consciousness, a prophecy, an earnest of something greater than the life which now is; and I believe that “I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever,” and that the goodness and the mercy that have followed me hitherto, and which, I believe, will follow me still, shall effloresce and bear fruit in the upper world, in the blessedness which is prepared for the people of God. I believe it! I believe that I shall pass away from the rich satisfactions of the spiritual life here, which, however rich, are still mingled. I am still in the presence of my enemies; and though they do not hurt me or come near me, still they suggest feelings, thoughts, that partake of fear, and occasion a necessity for watchfulness, and for the exercise of duties from which I shall one day be delivered. I shall pass away from the feast here, rich as it is, to a richer and a better; for I shall “sit down at the marriage supper of the Lamb.” Or—to change the figure, and go back to the previous picture—I believe, reasoning from the past and the present to that which is to come, that I shall pass away from this lower scene, these verdant and pleasant pastures, only to find myself, in a higher world, one of that flock of which it is said—“For the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall feed them, and shall lead them unto living fountains of waters: and they shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more; neither shall the sun light on them, nor any heat.” “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.”

None other Lamb, none other Name,

None other Hope in heaven or earth or sea,

None other Hiding-place from guilt and shame,

None beside Thee.

My faith burns low, my hope burns low,

Only my heart’s desire cries out in me

By the deep thunder of its want and woe,

Cries out to Thee.

Lord, Thou art Life tho’ I be dead,

Love’s Fire Thou art however cold I be:

Nor heaven have I, nor place to lay my head,

Nor home, but Thee. 1 [Note: Christina G. Rossetti.]

4. “For ever”—literally, “throughout the length of days”: what a wonderful phrase! To one who knows God to be the Shepherd of his life, the valley of the deep shadow will only lead from the green pastures and the quiet waters of earth to the pastures more green and the waters more quiet of heaven. For this Jesus of ours has Himself been through the valley of the deepest shadow, and He came out on the other side, and said: “Peace be unto you!” Shall we not then take heart, as we yield ourselves to the guidance of our Shepherd, who is good and wise and strong, to whom belong the pastures on this side of death and the pastures on that? And so throughout the length of days we shall praise Him—all our days in the world that now is, and then in the world everlasting.

Jesus utilizes the great parable of the Family for the last time; and as He had invested Fatherhood and Sonhood with their highest meaning so He now spiritualizes Home. What Mary’s cottage at Bethany had been to the little company during the Holy Week, with its quiet rest after the daily turmoil of Jerusalem; what some humble house on the shore of Galilee was to St. John, with its associations of Salome; what the great Temple was to the pious Jews, with its Presence of the Eternal, that on the higher scale was Heaven. Jesus availed Himself of a wealth of tender recollections and placed Heaven in the heart of humanity when He said, “My Father’s House.”

Literature

Binney (T.), in The Pulpit, lxvii. 29.

Burns (J. D.), Memoir and Remains, 308.

Culross (J.), God’s Shepherd Care, 141.

Cunningham (W.), Sermons, 1.

Duff (R. S.), The Song of the Shepherd, 157.

Freeman (J. D.), Life on the Uplands, 113, 131.

Howard (H.), The Shepherd Psalms , 91, 98, 105.

Landels (W.), Until the Day Break, 33.

McFadyen (J. E.), The Divine Pursuit, 201.

Macmillan (H.), The Mystery of Grace, 135.

Matheson (G.), Rests by the River, 50.

Melvill (H.), Fifty Sermons, 31.

Munger (T. T.), The Appeal to Life, 67.

Newbolt (W. C. E.), Penitence and Peace, 142.

Pike (J. K.), Unfailing Goodness and Mercy, 1.

Price (A. C), Fifty Sermons, vii. 169.

Stalker (J.), The Psalm of Psalms , 107.

Tipple (S. A.), Sunday Mornings at Norwood, 233.

British Weekly Pulpit, i. 597 (Macmillan).

Christian World Pulpit, xx. 123 (Hammond).