The Lord Is My Shepherd 1 “The Lord Is . . .” Psalm 23:1
My father, John I. Morgan, was the owner of Sunset Orchard on the Tennessee and North Carolina border and a high school professor specializing in vocational agriculture, so I grew up around gardens, orchards, and livestock—especially ponies, horses, and burros. But we never raised sheep, so when Katrina and I later purchased our small flock, we hardly knew what we were doing. A helpful friend told us about a classic book on shepherding entitled Raising Sheep the Modern Way. Now published as an updated version under the title Storey’s Guide to Raising Sheep, this book proved a valuable resource not only for raising sheep but also for understanding the Twenty-third Psalm.

The authors, Paula Simmons and Carol Ekarius, begin the book saying, “When you decide to get sheep, it helps if you understand their behavior—in other words, what makes them tick. The more you understand about their behavior, the easier it will be for you to spot problems (for example, is that ewe in the corner sick or is she about to lamb?). Understanding behavior also makes handling animals much easier, on both you and them.”

The authors describe a healthy flock this way: “Sheep that are behaving normally are content and alert. They have good appetites and bright eyes. They are gregarious animals, which contributes to their flocking nature. Youngsters, like those of other species, love to play and roughhouse. Groups of lambs will run, romp, and climb for hours when they are healthy and happy. Then they’ll fall asleep so deeply that you may think they’re dead.”2

King David could have written those words three thousand years ago. He understood the contrast between healthy sheep and distressed ones, and he knew the difference was often determined by the quality of shepherding and the nature of the shepherd. Sheep, shepherds, lambs, and flocks are mentioned nearly seven hundred times in the Bible (698 times to be exact, in 563 verses in the New King James Version). The sheep is the first animal mentioned by name in the Bible (Genesis 4:2, Amplified Bible).

Roy Gustafson, dean of tour guides to Israel who conducted more than 150 trips to Bible lands before his death in 2002, once related a story of a missionary in the mountains of Turkey who gathered a group of shepherds to read the Bible to them. It was a cold night, and as they sat around a fire, the missionary read from the tenth chapter of John about the good shepherd, the thief, the hireling, the sheep, and the door to the sheepfold.

“Oh, sir, is that in the Gospel?” asked one of the shepherds in surprise.

“Yes,” said the missionary, “that is the Gospel of Jesus Christ.”

“Oh,” said the shepherd, the glow of the fire lighting his eyes, “I didn’t know before that the Bible was a sheep book.”3

Well, it is. The Bible is populated by millions of sheep. On one occasion, the Jews seized 650,000 sheep from the Midianites. The Assyrian king Sennacherib took 800,000 from his enemy’s lands. King Ahab demanded 100,000 rams as tribute from the king of Moab. At the dedication of the Temple in Jerusalem, King Solomon offered 120,000 sheep as sacrifices, and we’re told that 300,000 sacrificial animals were offered annually in Jerusalem.4

Many of the biblical heroes were shepherds, and chief among them was David—musician, herdsman, warrior king, and intrepid giant killer. Some of the most vivid shepherding material comes from his life and writings. Our mind’s eye can readily see this lad in his youth, clad in weathered leather and armed with his staff. His slingshot and shepherd’s pouch hang on his belt; he has lute and lyre at hand.

Looking at him in the distance, we’re impressed with his expressive face, his reddish hair, his muscular yet lithe frame. There he is, leaning against a boulder, keeping a sharp eye on his flocks, calling his sheep by name, composing songs on the fly, and enjoying life to the fullest. He weathers the elements with ruggedness, maintains his flocks with warmhearted discipline, and eliminates predators with coldblooded efficiency.

We first meet David in the sixteenth chapter of 1 Samuel, when the prophet Samuel arrived in Bethlehem looking for young men with royal potential. A local farmer named Jesse had a houseful of sons who seemed to fit the bill, and he trotted out his boys for inspection. Samuel was impressed with these young men, but the Lord wasn’t. Seeing the eldest, Eliab, Samuel thought to himself, “Surely the Lord’s anointed is before Him.” But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not look at his appearance or at his physical stature . . . for the Lord does not see as a man sees; for man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.” That’s sage advice for us in today’s age of glitz and glamour, where people have become “brands” and celebrities are made to appear as though they have as much depth as rain on a sidewalk.

After the remainder of Jesse’s sons had passed before Samuel and been rejected, the aged prophet asked, “Are all the young men here?”

“There remains yet the youngest,” Jesse said, “and there he is, keeping the sheep.”

The boy was summoned. He was “ruddy, with bright eyes, and good looking.” But there was a depth to him, acquired amid the rocky fields of Judea from the solitude of shepherding. He had a good and God-fearing heart. Samuel’s wrinkled hand reached for his flask of oil. Motioning for the boy to kneel, the old prophet anointed the young shepherd to be the future king of Israel, and the Spirit of the Lord came on David from that day (1 Samuel 16:1–13).

This was the boy who wrote Psalm 23. This was the man after God’s own heart. The profession of shepherding became a classroom for the crown. It was God’s apprenticeship for kingship. In loving his sheep, David learned to care for his people. While protecting his flock, David was preparing to guard his nation. As he led his animals from pasture to pasture, he acquired the skills of leading men and guiding armies. No experiences were lost, as the fields of Bethlehem became a laboratory for leadership.

The same, of course, is true for us. Wherever we are today and whatever we’re doing, it’s simply preparation for future service. No experiences should be wasted, and a day is never lost if a lesson is learned. We all have goals and aspirations, but our primary job isn’t to envision great things in the future but to tackle today’s work with enthusiasm. This is true whatever our age. Our best days are always ahead of us, and our present experiences are preparing us for greater work in the future, whether on earth or in heaven. David cared for his flocks as if there were no tomorrow. In the process, God was preparing him for tomorrow’s greatness.

Nor did David ever forget the spiritual lessons he learned during his solitary epochs in those distant pastures and lonely hillsides. In being a shepherd, he learned to think of himself as a sheep, trusting the Lord to do for him what he was doing for his flocks. He pondered the parallel long and hard, and he later summed it all up in the most reassuring words ever written: “The Lord Is my Shepherd.”
The Lord . . .
The actual word David used in Psalm 23:1 is Yahweh, the proper and the personal name of God as He made Himself known to the people of Israel. As far as we can determine, it comes from the Hebrew word meaning “to be” or “I am.” The Bible’s primary text on this subject is Exodus 3, when God had earlier appeared to another shepherd—Moses—in the burning bush. When Moses asked God for His name, the answer came back: “I AM WHO I AM.”

The Hebrew consonants for “I AM” serve as the basis for the name Yahweh. To the Hebrews, this name was too sacred to speak, so they substituted the term Adonai, which means “The Lord.” Most English translations have followed suit by printing the word LORD in small caps. As German theologians of an earlier century tried to sort out the vowels and consonants, they translated the Hebrew word as Jehovah. Many of the older books on Psalm 23 use the term Jehovah-Roi, which means “The Lord—my Shepherd!”

More recently, scholars have suggested the pronunciation Yahweh (YAH-way) is closer to the original.5 But whether you say Lord, Jehovah, Adonai, or Yahweh, the meaning seems to touch on this idea: “I Am Who I Am—God almighty, unchanging and unchangeable. I Am self-sustaining, self-existent—the Creator, not the created. I Was, and I Am, and I Will Be—from everlasting to everlasting, First and Last, Beginning and End, Alpha and Omega.”

This is tremendous to think about, for what often is missing from our lives is the contemplation of God. We spend hours contemplating finances or projects or problems or family matters. We obsess over many stressful things, and then, to forget about them, we pursue an array of diversions unmatched in history. Many of us have become afraid of a quiet mind. Yet when we learn to practice consciously the presence of God, meditating on His Word and contemplating His attributes, it has a remarkable effect on our brains and thereby on our personalities.

When we look up into a cloudy sky, as David often did from his hilltop perch, seeing bare tree limbs gnarled against a gray sky, it reveals the creative genius of He who planted the trees and fashioned the clouds. When we read a verse of Scripture such as Psalm 23:1 and look at it word for word, we are changed as we reflect on it. We memorize it. We roll its words around in our minds like stones in a tumbler. We ponder the infinities of the God who is, who has presently spoken to us, who has eternally given us His Word. Because God is God, our minds are swallowed up in His immensity.

In a recent sermon, I put it this way: I live in a bend of the Cumberland River, which snakes through Tennessee and Kentucky for seven hundred miles before dumping its waters into the Ohio River. Imagine walking with me to the end of my street, standing on the riverbank, and trying to squeeze those billions of rolling gallons into a single medicine dropper pulled from my pocket. That would be easier than absorbing all the knowledge of the Almighty. Our minds simply can’t fathom infinitude. Contemplating the limitless glories of the Creator leaves us boggled and overwhelmed. But the truth is this: we are blessed in being boggled, and undergirded by being overwhelmed.

Properly thinking about Yahweh expands our minds. It humbles our hearts, balances our thoughts, clarifies our perspectives, reassures our spirits, and strengthens our souls. As we think rightly about God, everything else assumes proper proportions.

He is true, noble, just, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent, and praiseworthy; the Bible tells us to “meditate on these things,” as advised by the apostle Paul in Philippians 4:8. Memorizing chapters such as Psalm 23 and Philippians 4, training ourselves to mull over those passages as we get up, as we go to bed, as we drive to work, as we hike the trails—that’s a practice that transfigures and transforms us.

We are who we are because He Is Who He Is. All other life in the universe is derived. Whether a tree or a plant, a bird or an animal, a person or an angel—we have a beginning. We’re created, hence creatures. But He derived His life from no one and from nowhere. He alone is the Creator. The Bible says, “Now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, to God who alone is wise, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen” (1 Timothy 1:17). Any lesser Lord couldn’t meet our needs.

We need a God of justice, for a universe without moral foundations is a catastrophe. We need a God of love, for we’re all sinners. We need an omnipotent God, because it’s critical for all things to work together for good. We need an omnipresent God, for even one moment without Him is disastrous. We need an omniscient God, because our wisdom is deficient and defective. We need a God of resurrection, for we long for permanent reunions. We need a God who is eternal, for we have eternity in our hearts. We need exactly the kind of God the Bible describes as our Shepherd—Jehovah-Roi. Adonai.

The title Adonai later became the Greek God-word employed by New Testament writers to describe the divine nature of Jesus Christ. That’s why the apostle Paul, for example, frequently spoke of “God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.” As the New Testament writers alluded to the Trinity, they tended to refer to the Father as God (Theos) and the Son as Lord (Adonai). Both are Old Testament God-words. Both names imply deity or Godness, yet they allow a distinction between the members of the Godhead.

In the original language of the New Testament, Jesus Christ is Adonai Yeshua—the Lord Jesus. Adonai (Lord) is a positional title. Yeshua is a personal name meaning “The Lord Saves.” The Hebrew version of Yeshua is Joshua. In English, it’s Jesus.

By His own testimony, Adonai Yeshua stepped into the Shepherd’s role described in Psalm 23 and claimed it for Himself. He wrapped Himself in the verses of Psalm 23 the way an ancient shepherd would put on his cloak. Jesus became Psalm 23 personified. As He explained in the Gospel of John, “The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly. I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd gives His life for the sheep” (John 10:10–11).

So we say with full biblical accuracy Yeshua is my shepherd. The book of Hebrews calls Jesus “that great shepherd of the sheep” (Hebrews 13:20), and Peter told his readers, “For you were like sheep going astray, but have now returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls” (1 Peter 2:25). He was referring to the Lord Jesus who is both God and man, both divine and human, both infinite and intimate. Revelation 7:17 says about Jesus: “The Lamb who is in the midst of the throne will shepherd them.”

Many times, I’ve found indescribable comfort in that mystery. Though He has neither beginning of days nor end of life, the Lord Jesus cares about all our mornings and evenings. Though He created everything and was created by no one, He intricately crafted us in our mothers’ wombs. Though He fashioned Orion with its bright stars and the Big Dipper with its angular points, His tenderness covers our wildest fears and mildest woes. His thunder rolls through the night, yet His Word whispers in our ears. He who counts the stars also heals the brokenhearted and lifts up the humble. He fills the universe, yet He is always near His children and His flock.
. . . Is . . .
Let’s go on to the next word, is: “The Lord is.” Though a tiny word—one syllable, two letters—is has a double meaning with enormous significance.

First, the word is connotes existence. If something is, it exists. That’s why we call it a “being verb.” God exists. He is. The Lord is. This is the tiny word that confounds atheists. I’ve been interested in the proliferation of atheistic billboards and bus signs sprouting up like weeds all over the world. They often say something like “Millions Are Good Without God.” Or “In the Beginning Man Created God.” Or “There’s Probably No God.” I saw a picture of one atheistic billboard during the Christmas season bearing the words “Heathen’s Greetings!” It doesn’t take a lot of intelligence to slap drivel on the sides of buses or buildings.

As I’m writing this book, a report surfaced about a church in Johannesburg, South Africa, that posted an opposing billboard. It showed a young man deep in thought but with an empty head. Accompanying the image was a quotation from the British poet Francis Thompson, who said, “An atheist is a man who believes himself to be an accident.” City officials promptly deemed the billboard offensive to atheists and had it pulled down.

Recently the headlines from London told of a famous professor, Richard Dawkins, who surprised his fellow atheists by confessing that he should probably call himself an agnostic since he can’t prove that God doesn’t exist. As the author of The God Delusion and a champion of Darwinist evolution, his statement stunned the audience where he was speaking and sent shock waves through atheistic circles.6

I believe that Christians, on the other hand, can hold their theism with intellectual credibility based on clear logic, sound reasoning, and compelling evidence. We not only believe in God, but we also believe that by His very nature He must be personal. We have so many sheeplike qualities built into us that we can truly think of the Creator as our Lord and Shepherd. No campaign by radical atheists can shake the impregnability of that tiny word is. It denotes existence, even as the Bible opens with the words: In the beginning God . . .

There’s a second implication of this verb. Those two letters—is—indicate not only existence but also immediacy. The present tense. The sentence does not say The Lord was my Shepherd, or He will be my Shepherd. He is my Shepherd, presently. Jesus, though timeless and eternal, is now and He is accessible, a God of the moment, a God of every moment.

The word is isn’t a promise, for a promise is a statement that declares what God is going to do in the future. The Bible is full of precious promises. In a wide assortment of verses, the Lord tells us: “I will do this; I will do that,” and the verbs are typically in future tense. The promises of God are His guarantees amid life’s uncertainties.

But Psalm 23:1 is written in the present tense; it’s a verb that doesn’t await fulfillment. Rather than a prediction, it’s a fact. It implies something God is doing presently. It’s not a promise to claim, but a reality to experience. Our Lord is a Shepherd whose presence is instant, immediate, and accessible every day, every hour, every moment. Read the following Bible verses and notice the italicized verbs is and are that follow the great nouns that refer to our Lord:

• “Surely the Lord is in this place, and I did not know it.”—Genesis 28:16

• “The Lord is my strength and my song.”—Exodus 15:2

• “The eternal God is your refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms.”—Deuteronomy 33:27

• “The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?”—Psalm 27:1

• “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.”—Psalm 46:1

• “The Lord is in His holy temple.”—Habakkuk 2:19

• “God is faithful”—1 Corinthians 1:9

• “God is stronger”—1 Corinthians 1:25

• “God is holy”—1 Corinthians 3:17

• “God is for us,”—Romans 8:31

• “God is able”—2 Corinthians 9:8

• “Before Abraham was, I AM.”—John 8:58

• “I am the Bread of life . . . I am the light of the world . . . I am the door . . . I am the resurrection and the life . . . I am the good shepherd,”—John 6:35, 8:12, 10:9, 11:25, 10:117

Some years ago when I went through a rough patch and couldn’t rest, I found I could fall asleep on the couch by wrapping myself in a blanket and continuously repeating in my mind Psalm 23 with its opening declaration: “The Lord . . . The Lord is . . . The Lord is my . . . The Lord is my Shepherd . . .” This chapter had a calming power I found nowhere else. It was a soul soother, a mental ointment. Mulling over every word was like finding another life preserver.

Many other people share a similar testimony. Recently, I met a friend who’s recovering from open-heart surgery. There were complications, and he had a horrendous time. “While I was lying there in intensive care,” he said, “I just kept quoting the Twenty-third Psalm to myself over and over. It’s what got me through.”

Following the devastating 2010 earthquake in Haiti, I read about a woman buried beneath the rubble. It took several days for rescuers to reach her. By continuously quoting the Twenty-third Psalm, she survived and was saved.

I heard of another man who went through a day of such incredible stress and anxiety that, according to his later testimony, he quoted the Twenty-third Psalm a hundred times between sunup to sundown.

Psalm 23:1 is the world’s most powerful opening for history’s most precious poem: The Lord is . . . He is Yahweh God. He is Yeshua Jesus. He is here, and He is here now for you and me.

The Lord is our shepherd!

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