The 23rd Psalm is one of the best-known and most-loved literary works in the world, and it may well be the best poem ever written. It is also a fine example of the power of figurative language: We read deep things into the vision of ourselves as sheep, led to green pastures and good water by a kind shepherd. It’s empowering to feel the confidence to go fearlessly into the valley of the shadow of death, and to feel the love and caring of a table prepared by the Lord and a cup so full it overflows.

What people don’t know, however, is that this language actually has precise internal meanings, and that when we see them there is an even deeper beauty in the poem. That’s because what it actually describes is the path to heaven, and the fierce desire the Lord has to lead us there.

The first step is to let the Lord be our shepherd – to accept His teaching and His leadership. The green pastures and the still waters represent the things He will teach us for the journey. Then He begins working inside is, setting our spiritual lives in order, so that we desire to do what’s good and to love one another. That’s represented by restoring our souls and leading us in the paths of righteousness.

But we will still face challenges. We still live external lives, out in the world, and we are subject to desires that arise in those externals, in our bodily lives. That’s the valley of the shadow of death. But the rod and staff represent truth from the Lord on both external and internal levels, ideas that can defend us against those desires.

And if we keep following, the Lord will prepare a table for us – a place inside us that he can fill with love (the anointing oil) and wisdom (the overflowing cup). Thus transformed, we can enter heaven, with love for others (“goodness”) and love from the Lord (“mercy”) and can love and be loved to eternity.

One of many beautiful things about this is the fact that it is the Lord who really does all the work. In the whole text, the only action taken by the sheep is walking through the valley of the shadow of death. Other than that, they follow the Lord, trust the Lord, accept the blessings of the Lord. And that is really true! In external states (in the valley) we might seem to be doing the work ourselves, but internally, spiritually, we simply need to give ourselves to the Lord and let Him bless us.

The underlying idea here is that the Lord created us so that He could love us, in loving us wants us to be happy, knows that our greatest happiness will come from being conjoined to Him in heaven, and Himself wants nothing more than to be conjoined to us. So everything He does, in every moment of every day for every person on the face of the planet, is centered on the goal of getting that person to heaven. He wants each and every one of us in heaven more than we are capable of imagining. We just need to cooperate.

(Verweise: Apocalypse Explained 375 [34], 727 [2]; The Inner Meaning of the Prophets and Psalms 273)

876. And adore Him who made the heaven and the earth and sea and fountains of water, signifies the acknowledgment and confession of Him from whom is the all of heaven and the church, and from whom is the Divine truth or the Word. This is evident from the signification of "adoring," as being to acknowledge in heart, thus to confess and worship (See above, n. 790, 805, 821); also from the signification of "the heaven and the earth," as being the internal and the external of the church (See above, n. 304, 752); it also signifies heaven and the church, because with man the internal of the church is heaven, for it is in conjunction with the angels, even so as to make one with them; for, as has been said above, man's internal is formed to the idea and image of heaven, but his external to the idea and image of the world. So long, however, as man lives in the world the church in him is in his natural, which is his external. Yet the church is in man's natural or external only when the internal has been opened; for the church cannot exist with anyone unless he has heaven within, from which enlightenment and influx from the Lord may pass into the natural or external which is beneath. The above is evident also from the signification of "sea" as being the Divine truth in ultimate things, thus the Word in the letter, for this is Divine truth in ultimates. This is the signification of the "sea" because in the lowest parts of heaven there appear to be seas; for it is the Divine truth proceeding from the Lord that forms the heavens and all things in them; and the higher heavens appear to be in an ethereal atmosphere, the lower in an aerial atmosphere, and the lowest in a misty atmosphere; and this atmosphere appears to the eyes of those who stand afar off like a sea, but not to those who dwell in it. Those who dwell in it are in the ultimates of Divine truth, and that Divine truth is such as the Word is in the sense of the letter. It is from this that the "sea" has this signification. But on this see above (n. 275, 342, 511, 600). The "sea" here signifies the Word in the letter, because it is said "sea and fountains of waters;" and "fountains of waters" signify interior Divine truth such as the Word is in its spiritual sense. That this is the signification of a "fountain of water" can be seen from passages from the Word and their explanation above (n. 483). That "fountains of waters" here signify Divine truths that are from the Word can be seen from this, that "the heaven and the earth" signify the internal and the external of the church; and both are formed by the Divine truth or the Word, as it is said in John (John 1:1, 2, 14), the internal of the church by spiritual Divine truth, and the external by natural Divine truth; and this is why "fountains of waters" are here mentioned among the things made by the Lord.

[2] It can be seen from all this and from many other things how spiritual ideas, which are the ideas of angels, differ from natural ideas which are the ideas of men. To the angels, whose ideas are spiritual, "to adore Him who made the heaven and the earth and sea and fountains of waters" means nothing else than the acknowledgment and confession of the Lord, from whom is the all of heaven and the church, and from whom is the Divine truth, or the Word in its natural and spiritual sense. The angels so understand these words because the heavens in which they are, and which appear to the sight altogether like our lands, but full of paradises, flower beds, and shrubberies, are not permanent like the lands on our globe, but come into existence in a moment, in the exact measure of the reception of the Divine truth by the angels; consequently the aspects of all things there change as the state of reception and therefore of their intelligence and wisdom, changes, thus according to the states of the church with them, and this even to the extent that all things spring forth correspondently before their sight according as the church is in them. So when "the heavens and the earth" are mentioned they can have no other idea than an idea of the church, because to them all things are from that. But men, when "the heaven and the earth" are mentioned, can have no such spiritual idea, because they are ignorant of such things; but they have a natural idea, which is according to what they see; for they see a heaven and an earth that are permanent, and that are not changed according to reception of the Divine truth, and thus of the church, as in the angelic heavens; consequently they mean by "heaven" nothing else than the visible heaven, and by "earth" nothing else than the earth inhabited by men.

[3] The state of heaven and earth in accord with the state of the church was represented with the sons of Israel by changes in the aspect of the land of Canaan, where they dwelt, according to the states of the church with them, but only in respect to the products, namely, of the harvest, the oil, the vine, the fruits, and as to the rains. This took place because all things with them were representative of things celestial. This is why it is so often said in the Word that "the land should yield its increase" if they would keep the statutes and do them. But it is otherwise at this day, when the interior things of the church have been laid open by the Lord; and the external things that were representative of the interior things have ceased. All this makes clear what a difference there is between the ideas of the angels and the ideas of men respecting the new heaven and the new earth. For the angels from their ideas understand the destruction of the heavens and the earths in the spiritual world, but men the destruction of the heavens and the earths in the natural world. Moreover, according to the predictions, there has been a destruction of those heavens and earths in the spiritual world upon which were those who had lived a moral life in externals but not at the same time a spiritual life from internals. But of this more may be seen in the small work on The Last Judgment.