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)

10659. 'Because in the month of Abib you came out of Egypt' means because then there was deliverance from hell. This is clear from the meaning of 'the month of Abib' as the beginning of a new state, as immediately above in 10658; and from the meaning of 'coming out of Egypt' as deliverance from molestation by falsities, thus also from hell, dealt with in 9292, and in the places referred to in 8866, 9197. From all this it becomes clear that the feast of Passover, which was also called the feast of unleavened bread, was established for a remembrance of the Lord's deliverance of mankind from hell. This deliverance was accomplished by the Lord's subduing of the hells and glorifying of His Human, see just above in 10655.

[2] The majority of people within the Church believe that the Lord came into the world to reconcile the Father through the passion of the Cross, after which those for whom He interceded would be accepted. They also believe that He released mankind from damnation by the fulfillment - by Himself alone - of the law, which otherwise would have condemned everyone; and thus that all who held to that belief with confidence and assurance would be saved. But those with any enlightenment from heaven can see how wrong it is to think that the Divine, who is Love itself and Mercy itself, could cast the human race away from Himself and condemn them to hell; that He had of necessity to be reconciled by the passion of His Son on the Cross; that His Mercy was not aroused by anything other than this; that afterwards no one would be condemned for the way he lived, provided he held with confidence to belief in that reconciliation; and that all salvation is accomplished through faith or belief instilled out of mercy. Those who think and believe such things cannot see anything at all; they speak but have no understanding of anything. Mysteries therefore is what they call those things which are to be believed but not by any means understood. From this it follows that any enlightenment from the Word showing that the situation is different from what they suppose it to be is rejected; for light from heaven cannot enter where such dimness resulting from contradictory ideas prevails. The word 'dimness' is used to describe that which is not understood at all.

[3] But to those who receive enlightenment the Lord imparts an ability to understand the things they believe. Those who acknowledge the Lord and love to lead a life in keeping with His commandments are the ones who are enlightened when they read the Word and who have an understanding of it, not those who say they believe and do not lead such a life. For the Lord flows into a person's life and from this into his belief, but not into a person's belief separate from his life. What those who are enlightened by the Lord through the Word understand is that the Lord came into the world to subdue the hells and to restore everything there and in the heavens to order, which could not by any means have been accomplished except through His Human; for He was able from the Human, but not from the Divine without the Human, to fight against the hells. Their understanding is that He also came into the world to glorify His Human, in order that through that glorified Human all things restored to order by Him might be maintained forever in that condition. From this comes the salvation of mankind. For every person is surrounded by the hells; each one is born into evils of every kind, and where evils exist, so do the hells. And unless these had been thrown back by the Lord's Divine Power no one at all could have been saved. These are the things which the Word teaches and which are discerned by all who let the Lord into their life, these, as stated above, being people who acknowledge Him and love to lead a life in keeping with His commandments. See what has been quoted and shown from the Word in 9937, 10019, 10152, 10579, and many other places.

[4] Being led away from evils, being regenerated, and so being saved is all an act of Mercy. This Mercy however does not operate by direct intervention, as people believe, but indirectly, that is, in those who depart from evils and so let the truth of faith and the good of love from the Lord into their life. The direct intervention of mercy, which everyone would experience if no more than God's good pleasure were necessary, is contrary to Divine order; and what is contrary to Divine order is contrary to God, since order begins in God and what is Divine and His in heaven constitutes order. When people accept order in themselves they are saved, and this comes about solely as a result of their leading a life in keeping with the Lord's commandments. The regeneration of a person takes place to the end that he may accept the order of heaven within himself; and that regeneration is accomplished by means of faith and the life of faith, which is charity. Anyone who has that order within him is in heaven, and also presents a kind of image of heaven; but anyone who does not have it is in hell and presents a kind of image of hell. One cannot by any means be changed and transformed into the other by any direct intervention of mercy, since they are opposites; for evil is the opposite of good, and good has life and heaven within it, whereas evil has death and hell within it. The impossibility for one to be transformed into the other is the Lord's teaching in Luke,

Abraham said to the rich man in hell, Between us and you there is a great gulf fixed, so that those who want to pass across from here to you cannot, nor can those who are there pass across to us. Luke 16:26.

Furthermore if the direct intervention of mercy were possible all people in the world, however many, would be saved, and hell would not exist; for the Lord, being Love itself which desires the salvation of all and the death of none, is Mercy itself.