The Bible

 

Psalms 23 : The 23rd Psalm

Study

1 The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want.

2 He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters.

3 He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake.

4 Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.

5 Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.

6 Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the LORD for ever.

Commentary

 

The 23rd Psalm

By Brian David

The Lord as Shepherd, by Nana Schnarr

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.

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

From Swedenborg's Works

 

Apocalypse Revealed #161

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161. "'Remember therefore how you have received and heard.'" (3:3) This symbolically means that it should occur to them that all worship in its beginning is natural, and later becomes spiritual through truths from the Word and by a life according to them, and so on.

This is what is these words mean. They also mean that from the Word, from the teaching of the church drawn from the Word, and from sermons, everyone knows that truths must be learned, and that it is through truths that a person has faith and charity and everything else having to do with the church.

[2] The reality of this is something we showed many times in Arcana Coelestia (The Secrets of Heaven), which we published in London. See, for example, the following:

That faith is acquired through truths, nos. 4353 4977, 7178, 10367.

That love for the neighbor or charity is acquired through truths, nos. 4368 7623, 7624, 8034.

That love toward the Lord is acquired through truths, nos. nos. 10143 10153, 10310, 10578, 10645.

That intelligence and wisdom are acquired through truths, nos. 3182 3190, 3387, 10064.

That regeneration is accomplished through truths, nos. 1555 1904, 2046, 2189, 9088, 9959, 10028.

That power against evils and falsities and against hell is gained through truths, nos. 3091 4015, 10488.

That purification from evils and falsities is accomplished through truths, nos. 2799 5954, 7044, 7918, 10229, 10237.

That the church is formed by means of truths, nos. 1798 1799, 3963, 4468, 4672.

That heaven is formed through truths, 6690, 9832, 9931, 10303.

That the innocence of wisdom is attained through truths, nos. 3183 3494, 6013.

That conscience is formed through truths, nos. 1077 2053, 9113.

That order is achieved through truths, nos. 3316 3417, 3570, 4104, 5339, 5343, 6028, 10303.

The beauty of angels is due to truths, and so, too, is the beauty of people as regards their inner qualities which are those of their spirit, nos. 553 3080, 4985, 5199.

That a person is human as a result of truths, nos. 3175 3387, 8370, 10298.

Even so, however, all of these effects are occasioned by truths springing from goodness, and not by truths apart from goodness, goodness that comes from the Lord, nos. 2434 4070, 4736, 5147.

That all goodness comes from the Lord, nos. 1614 2016, 2904, 4151, 5147, 9981.

[3] But who gives any thought to this? Is it not a matter of indifference today whether someone knows this or that truth, provided he attends services of worship? Moreover, because few explore the Word in order to learn truths and live by them, people do not know anything about their worship as to whether it is lifeless or living, and yet it is according to the character of his worship that a person is himself dead or alive.

Of what value otherwise are the Word and doctrine drawn from it? Of what value otherwise are observance of the Sabbath and sermons, or theological treatises? Indeed, of what value otherwise are the church and religion?

That all worship in the beginning is natural, and later becomes spiritual through truths from the Word and a life according to them, is something people know. For a person is born natural, but is taught to become civic-minded and moral, and later spiritual, for thus he is reborn.

All of this is symbolically meant, then, by the directive, "Remember therefore how you have received and heard."

  
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Many thanks to the General Church of the New Jerusalem, and to Rev. N.B. Rogers, translator, for the permission to use this translation.