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)

4529. A certain person who had been famous and renowned in the learned world because of his expert knowledge in botany heard in the next life, after he had died, that flowers and trees were to be seen in that life also. At this he was astounded, and because botany had been the delight of his life he was burning with the desire to see whether what he had heard was true. He was as a consequence taken to the paradise gardens where he saw very beautiful plantations of trees and very lovely flower-beds extending very far. Because he had now entered into his heart's desire he was allowed to wander through those grounds and not only to see each thing growing there but also to pluck it, hold it up to his eye and examine whether it was really what it appeared to be.

[2] He spoke to me from there and said that he had never believed anything such as this, and that if people in the world were to hear of such things they would regard them as absurdities. He went on to say that the flowers visible there were far more abundant than those he had seen at any time in the world and were scarcely able to be appreciated by any worldly kind of discernment, and that each one sparkled with unimaginable brightness because it was a product of the light of heaven. He was not as yet able to perceive that that sparkling had a spiritual origin, namely that in every one there existed some measure of intelligence and wisdom - the attributes of truth and good - as the source of their sparkling. He said in addition that people on earth would never believe this because few believe in the existence of any heaven or hell; and those who do believe may know merely that there is joy in heaven, few among these believing that things exist there such as the eye has never seen, the ear has never heard, and the mind has never been able to contemplate. Such unbelief exists in spite of their knowing from the Word that amazing scenes were seen by the Prophets, like the many seen by John, as described in the Book of Revelation, which however were nothing other than representatives which occur continuously in heaven and which were seen by him once his internal sight had been opened.

[3] But these things are comparatively unimportant. People who possess true intelligence and wisdom, in which those representatives originate, dwell in a state of happiness which is such that the things which have been mentioned belong among those that are not so important. There have also been others who have said when in the paradise gardens that these surpass every degree of happiness. They were therefore taken into a heaven further over to the right whose radiancy was brighter still, and at length to that heaven where they experienced the blessedness of intelligence and wisdom which those representatives hold within them. While they were there they spoke to me, saying that the things which they had seen previously were as nothing compared with what they experienced now. At last they were taken to that heaven where they were scarcely able to bear the bliss of interior affection, for that bliss pierced them through to the marrow; and when their marrow so to speak was dissolved into bliss they began to sink into a holy swoon.