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)

4783. 'To comfort him' means to provide explanations based on the sense of the letter of the Word. This is clear from the meaning of 'comforting' as calming a turbulence of mind with a hope concerning some thing, dealt with in 3610, in this case a turbulence or mourning over lost good and truth. And because this mourning cannot be subdued except by means of explanations based on the Word, and because reference is being made at this point to Jacob's sons and daughters, who mean those governed by falsities and evils, 4781, 4782, 'comforting' means explanations based on the sense of the letter. For the sense of the letter of the Word contains general ideas which, being like vessels, can be filled with truths or else with falsities and so can be given whatever explanation suits one's own point of view. And because they are general ones they are also obscure compared with other ideas, receiving light from nowhere else than the internal sense. For the internal sense exists in the light of heaven because it is the Word as angels know it, whereas the sense of the letter exists in the light of the world because it is the Word as men know it before they come to the light of heaven received from the Lord, by which light they are then enlightened. From this it is evident that the sense of the letter serves to introduce the simple to the internal sense.

[2] This use of explanations when one is expounding the Word - explanations which are based on the sense of the letter and which fit in with one's own point of view - is quite evident from the fact that all religious ideas, including heretical ones, are substantiated by such explanations. For example, the accepted teaching about faith separated from charity is substantiated by the following words spoken by the Lord,

God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that everyone who believes in Him may not perish but have eternal life. John 3:16.

From these words and other places people deduce that eternal life is acquired through faith alone without works. And once these people have become convinced of this they no longer pay any attention to what the Lord said so many times about love to Him, and about charity and works, 1017, 2373, 3934. Thus they pay no attention to the following in John,

As many as received Him, to them He gave power to be sons of God, to those believing in His name, who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. John 1:12-13.

If they are told that no one can believe in the Lord except him who has charity, they instantly take refuge in explanations like these: The law has been abolished; people are born in sins and so cannot do good of themselves, and those who do do it cannot do other than claim merit for it. These explanations too they substantiate from the sense of the letter of the Word, for example from what is stated in the parable about the Pharisee and the tax collector, Luke 18:10-14, and from other things that are stated. But these statements have an altogether different meaning from the explanations they resort to.

[3] Also, the adherents to faith separated from charity can have no other belief than that everyone is able by grace to be admitted into heaven, no matter what kind of life he has been leading, so that it is not a person's life but his faith that awaits him after death. This too they substantiate from the sense of the letter of the Word. But from the spiritual sense of the Word it is clear that the Lord has mercy on everyone, so that if a person reached heaven by mercy or grace irrespective of whatever life he has led everyone would be saved. The reason the adherents to faith separated from charity believe the way they do is that they have no knowledge at all of what heaven is because they do not know what charity is. If they knew how much peace, joy, and happiness is present within charity they would know what heaven is; but this is entirely hidden from them.

[4] Nor can the adherents to faith separated from charity have any other belief than that they will rise again with the physical body, though not until judgement day. This too they substantiate from many places in the Word, explained according to the sense of the letter. They give no thought at all to what the Lord said - many times in addition to the following - about the rich man and Lazarus, Luke 16:22-31, or to what He told the robber,

Truly I say to you, Today you will be with Me in paradise. Luke 23:43.

The reason the adherents to faith separated from charity believe the way they do is that if they were told that the body is not going to rise again they would refuse to believe in any resurrection at all, for what the internal man is they neither know nor have any conception of. Indeed no one can know what the internal man is and the internal man's life after death is except him who has charity; for charity is an attribute of the internal man.

[5] The adherents to faith separated from charity can have no other belief than that the works of charity consist solely in giving to the poor and helping the distressed. This belief too they substantiate from the sense of the letter of the Word. But in fact the works of charity consist in each person doing what is right and fair in his employment, from a love of what is right and fair, and of what is good and true.

[6] The adherents to faith separated from charity do not see anything in the Word apart from what substantiates their own accepted teachings, for they have no real insight. Indeed people who are not moved by the affection belonging to charity have merely external sight, or an inferior insight. With this no one can possibly behold higher things, for higher things are seen by him as darkness. Consequently such people see falsities as truths, and truths as falsities, and so by explanations based on the sense of the letter they ruin the good pasture and pollute the pure waters of that sacred spring which is the Word, as accords with the following in Ezekiel,

Is it a small thing to you? You feed off the good pasture and tread down with your feet the rest of your pastures; you drink the water that has settled down ¹ and stir up the rest with your feet. You butt with your horns all the weak [sheep] till you have scattered them abroad. Ezekiel 34:17-18, 21.

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