David can pen Psalm 23 in sincerity and integrity because want from which he is safe is not bodily want at all but the want of his soul. David’s soul, and therefore his life, and therefore his hope, is secure with Yahweh as his shepherd. David is content with that, and we can be too.

“The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not want” – Psalm 23:1

What a lovely sentiment. I have seen this psalm invoked many times by people attempting to comfort themselves or others. It may not be too much to say that this entire psalm is devoted to reassuring God’s people in times of fear. So it is an appropriate psalm for us to examine.

The 23rd Psalm and Real Life

This verse tells us that those who have the LORD as their shepherd need not fear need. Yahweh’s people are not subject to want or lack in the same way that those who do not have him as shepherd are. At the same time, it is possible for God’s people to pass through the valley of the shadow of death. The presence of Yahweh as shepherd does not preclude exposure to danger; it only limits the nature and extent of that exposure. This limiting of the nature and extent of the exposure is a key to which we must pay close attention.

The message of psalm 23 is, in part, that God’s people can live free of fear of want. And yet, rather incredibly, God’s people can and do suffer want. God’s people have been persecuted, martyred, and subject to famine and drought just like other people. And while we tend to enjoy focusing on the victories in King David’s life as a young shepherd boy or as a persevering and faithful king elect, it is much harder to reconcile this psalm’s message with the character and events of David’s life following his sins against Bathsheba and Uriah. From that point on, and by the decree of God no less, relatively few good things happen to David in the last half or so of his life. He loses a child, one son rapes his half-sister, more than one rebellion occurs, David is forced to flee Jerusalem, and one of David’s sins brings a plague on the people.

In fact, we have a terrible penchant for overlooking the morally gory and sinfully grisly details of the lives of saints whom we love to eulogize. We read Psalm 23 as a pastoral psalm with the same escapist desires as someone who might take up and read Far From the Madding Crowd. Psalm 23 must be able to be read for real life with all its mundane dangers and fears. We need God to be our shepherd for real life and not just for those times we wistfully wish for another kind of existence. The Lord is our shepherd for this existence, and this existence is hard. So what is Psalm 23 saying?

It cannot be saying that bad things will never happen to God’s people.

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