Devotional Short Note to Psalm 23: Two Psalms should be placed side by side here to depict the wonderful role of the Messiah: 23 Messiah as Shepherd and 24 Messiah as Warrior. In this Psalm the Shepherd image dominates. The Lord as Shepherd is also explicit in Psalm 95:7. Jesus spoke of Himself in John 10:3: “to him the Doorkeeper opens, and the sheep hear His [Shepherd] voice, and He calls His own sheep by name, and leads them out.”

The verb of 23:2 is a future passive in a causative sense: “He will cause me to be laid down in green pastures”.

In 23:2b David says that “upon waters from rest He will [future] cause me to be led”. The word used for ‘rest’ here is one that was used in a bilingual Dictionary at Niniveh during the days of Ashurbanipal in 650 BCE when Israelites were scribes in the Library there and it said that the word “Sabbath” is synonymous with this word David is using, namely “noah of the heart” or “rest of the heart = umu (UD) nuh libbi in K4397 Column 2 line 16 the word “Sabbath” and in Column 1 line 16 the explanation of “day of the rest of the heart”. This dictionary is 300 years after David wrote Psalm 23 but the root is the same, “rest”. Noah’s name means “rest” because the Ark rested on Ararat. According to David the Lord leads you upon waters from the Sabbath, if 300 years stretch can be made. The thirsty soul is quickened on the Sabbath of the Lord.

The result of this Sabbath-rest experience is “He will [future] cause my soul to be restored. He will cause me to be guided in paths of righteousness for His name sake [literally: ‘for the purpose of His name’]”. The role of sanctification and the process of sanctification is outlined here in accordance with the way Paul and James understood it in the New Testament. It is also the way Ellen White explains the role of sanctification. It is not a salvation by Deism as “cheap grace” want to pretend, namely, Christ quickly save the person and then disappear leaving the person to continue to live in sin by himself or herself. Salvation is also “from sin” and it is to follow the Guide.

Now some challenges to David: Even if he walk in the valley of deaths’ shadow, “not will I fear evil” (23:4a-b). In Psalm 48:15b is a similar phrase in a Psalm by Korah. “He will cause us to be guided over [preposition `al] death”. It is a powerful expression of the reality of Resurrection surety. The Resurrection will take place at the point in time indicated in this verse in Psalm 48:15a when it says: “This is God, our God forever and unto…” It means punctual when this historical time stops and eternity starts. That is at the Second Coming of Christ and that is when the Resurrection is also going to take place in biblical theology, (see Daniel 12:1).

No evil is feared, “for You are with me” (23:4c-d) “Your rod and Your staff they will [future] cause me to be comforted”. The Rabbis explained that a rod is a weapon to defend the sheep and himself and the staff is to lean on when he needs rest or to hook the sheep around their neck when necessary. The rod is the fighting in future of the Warrior Messiah when He will eliminate all evil and the staff is the Shepherd Messiah guiding all through sanctification to have the Sabbath-rest of Hebrews 4:4 and Psalm 23:2b.

“You will cause to prepare before me a table before me” (23:5a). This is not providing me to have lots of food on the table every day or wealth in abundance. This context is the eschaton and Isaiah 25 elaborated on the same theme. Isaiah 25:9c-d “this is the Lord for whom we have waited. Let us rejoice and be glad in His salvation”. Back to the millennium of the Book of Revelation language in Isaiah 25:8b “and the Lord God will wipe tears away from all faces” back to the Resurrection in Isaiah 25:8a “He will swallow up death for all time”. Back to the announcement of the preparation of a banquet before the Resurrection to be taken place after the Resurrection in Isaiah 25:6a-c: “And the Lord of hosts will prepare a lavish banquet for all peoples on this mountain, a banquet of aged wine, choice pieces with marrow, refined aged wine” (of course very good grape-juice since it is the Lord’s Supper celebration that He told His disciples that He will have it together with them again in heaven). This event of victory in heaven happens after the Second Coming when the wicked disintegrate by His glorious appearance and thus with the saints carried by the angels to heaven “before my enemies” (23:5b). It is eschatological. An artist has drawn a picture of a glaring large cat sitting outside a glass door towering over two mice on the inside sitting at the table enjoying themselves with laughter with the glass as protection and this Psalm was quoted.

David is not using future verbs when he said that his head was anointed (23:5b). Also when he said that his cup “overflowed”. These are reality experiences that David had during his life and is not schedules in the eschaton. God bestowed upon him many blessing so that his cup was overflowing of it.

Back to the Eschaton schedule, David says in 23:6a “Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life and I live [past tense which we call ‘prophetic past’ at that time when eternity starts] in the house of the Lord unto the length of days” [= eternity, forever] (compare Revelation 3:12 “He who overcome I will make him a pillar in the temple of My God and he will not go out from it anymore…”).