Psalm 23: The Lord Is My ShepherdUkázka

# The Lord is MY Shepherd The LORD is my shepherd : David knew this in a personal sense. He could say, “ my shepherd .” It wasn’t just that the LORD was a shepherd for others in a theoretical sense; He was a real, personal shepherd for David himself. “A sheep is an object of property, not a wild animal; its owner sets great store by it, and frequently it is bought with a great price. It is well to know, as certainly as David did, that we belong to the Lord. There is a noble tone of confidence about this sentence. There is no ‘if’ nor ‘but , ’ nor even ‘I hope so;’ but he says, ‘The Lord is my shepherd.’” (Spurgeon) “The sweetest word of the whole is that monosyllable, ‘ My. ’ He does not say, ‘The Lord is the shepherd of the world at large, and leadeth forth the multitude as his flock,’ but ‘The Lord is my shepherd;’ if he be a Shepherd to no one else, he is a Shepherd to me; he cares for me, watches over me, and preserves me. ” (Spurgeon) Overwhelmingly, the idea behind God’s role as shepherd is of loving care and concern . David found comfort and security in the thought that God cared for him like a shepherd cares for his sheep. David felt that he needed a shepherd. The heart of this psalm doesn’t connect with the self-sufficient. But those who acutely sense their need – the poor in spirit Jesus described in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5:3) – find great comfort in the idea that God can be a shepherd to them in a personal sense. Spurgeon said that before a man can truly say, “ the LORD is my shepherd ,” he must first feel himself to be a sheep by nature, “for he cannot know that God is his Shepherd unless he feels in himself that he has the nature of a sheep.” He must relate to a sheep in its foolishness, its dependency, and in the warped nature of its will. Based on the Enduring Word Bible Commentary by David Guzik.