The Lord is My Shepherd
Psalm 23
Purpose: Today we shall see the three seasons in our lives in which Christ is our shepherd so that we would trust in Him and have Him as our Shepherd today.
- The Lord is my shepherd during ordinary times (v.1-3)
- The Lord is my shepherd during difficult times (v.4-5)
- The Lord is my shepherd for eternity (v.6)
Some words about Shepherd: The verse opens up right away with the declaration that “The Lord is my shepherd” (v.1)
- “Lord” here literally is “Yahweh.” It is the subject and appears twice in this Psalm, with it appearing here in the beginning of the Psalm and also in the last verse in the end of the Psalm.
- Why is the person that says “my” here? This is a Psalm by David according to the subscript above verse 1: “A Psalm of David”
- Remember David was once a Shepherd and he would have written about something he knew about.
- The imagery of a shepherd is also one in which the people of Israel would have been familiar with as well.
- The first person singular suffix here indicates this is David speaking possessively of the Shepherd. That is, God isn’t just “a Shepherd” but “my Shepherd.” We need to see God as “my shepherd” too.
- More about Shepherd in the Bible
- King Saul was told by God to shepherd God’s people and Scripture in 2 Samuel 5:2 and Ezekiel 37:24 he failed in this task; this point shouldn’t be missed since David authored Psalm 23 and he recognized that God was His Shepherd.
- There are also other Psalms that talk about God as Shepherd in Psalms 28:9; 80:1. But more importantly Jesus also saw Himself as the Shepherd in John 10:11-15.
- Ultimately I see Psalm 23 to be talking about Jesus because Psalm 23 is part of a three part Psalm about the Messiah.
- Psalm 22 is about Jesus in the past: He is the one suffering on the Cross.
- Psalm 23 is about Jesus in the present: He is our Shepherd.
- Psalm 24 is about Jesus in the future: He is the coming King.
- I think we can use interchangeably God and Christ for shepherd in this Psalm.
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