“Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me All the days of my life” Psalm 23:6. Goodness in the Hebrew text means just that; in Exodus 34:6 God “proclaimed, The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering and abounding in goodness and truth.” Mercy in the Hebrew means kindness, piety, and (rarely) reproof, but even […]
Psalm 23:5 continues “My cup runs over.” When a cup runs over it has been filled to the brim, and receiving more than it needs, or can hold, the excess flows over the side and covers the area around it. As we sit at God’s banquet table it is His plan, desire, and provision for […]
The next thing that Psalm 23:5 says of (and to) the shepherd is “You anoint my head with oil”, likely drawing from the practice of putting oil on the sheep to protect them from flies and other insects that could get into their eyes, ears, and nose. Aside from the sheep it was a custom […]
“Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me” Psalm 23:4. The rod and staff were the symbol of a shepherd; while the staff may have been used by the shepherd in walking, or as something to lean on, the obvious message here is their function in caring for the flock, and by their use the […]
The role of the shepherd is to tend and care for the flock, therefore being one of His sheep David could say, “I shall not want”, or perhaps a better translation would be, “I shall not lack”, for so is the meaning of the Hebrew word. And justifiably we should add “any beneficial thing”, for […]
(Part one, Relationship) from a Facebook post we want to look at seventeen statements that are made in Psalm 23. The first being “The LORD is my shepherd”, which I see as key to the rest of the Psalm. Who better than David would know how to compare the sheep/shepherd relationship and make the comparison […]
John 14 begins with Jesus telling His disciples about His Father’s house and that He was going to prepare a place for them after which He would return and take them there to be with Him forever. Thomas apparently not understanding all this says “Lord, we do not know where You are going, And how […]
Sheep and shepherds were a big part of ancient Israel, the nation of whom God had said was “the flock of My pasture” Ezekiel 34:31, and His commitment to them through the prophet Isaiah was that He would “feed His flock like a shepherd” 40:11. Then in Psalm 100:3 they acknowledge that “we are His […]
In Isaiah 55:1-3 God gives a special invitation: Water in the Bible speaks of life, wine represents gladness and joy, milk symbolizes nourishment, and bread that which strengthens, (cf. Psalm 104:15; 1 Peter 2:2; Revelation 21:6.) These verses in Isaiah give a clear invitation to separate from the past; to Israel at that time from […]
As we continue looking at Psalm 46, in verses 8-11 we see God as our victorious warrior. The desolations He makes in the earth are explained by Jamieson-Fausset-Brown as literally, ‘who hath put desolations’, destroying our enemies.” Making wars to cease might refer to the time the angel of the Lord slew 185,000 Assyrian soldiers […]