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)

5119. 'And I took the grapes and pressed them into Pharaoh's cup means a reciprocal influx into good deeds that have a spiritual origin. This is clear from the meaning of 'grapes' as the good deeds of charity, dealt with just above in 5117, and so as good deeds that have a spiritual origin, since every good deed of genuine charity originates there; and from the meaning of 'pressing into Pharaoh's cup' as a reciprocal influx. The expression 'reciprocal influx' does not mean that the exterior natural flows into the interior natural, for that is not possible. Exterior things cannot by any means flow into interior ones, or what amounts to the same, lower or posterior things into higher or prior ones. The reciprocal influx takes place when the rational calls forth things present in the interior natural, and also, by means of the interior natural, those present in the exterior natural. Not that it calls forth what actually exists there but what is deduced or so to speak extracted from what is there. This is what the reciprocal influx is.

[2] It does seem as though things in the world pass by way of the senses into what is present within; but that is an illusion of the senses. The reality is that what exists within flows into what is outward, and that this influx is what enables discernment to take place. I have discussed these matters with spirits on several occasions and have been shown through actual experiences that the interior man sees and discerns within the exterior man what is taking place outside the exterior man, and that the life of the senses has no other origin; that is, neither the ability to perceive with the senses nor actual sensory perception has any other origin. But the nature and power of this illusion are such that it cannot by any means be banished from the natural man, nor even from the rational, unless the rational man can be made to stand aside from sensory impressions. All this has been mentioned to show what reciprocal influx is.