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)

5247. 'And he clipped [his hair and beard]' means a casting aside and the change made so far as the coverings of the exterior natural were concerned. This is clear from the meaning of 'clipping' - that is, clipping the head and beard - as casting aside the coverings of the exterior natural. For 'hair' which was clipped means the exterior natural, see 3301. Also, both hair on the head and that composing the beard correspond in the Grand Man to the exterior natural. This explains why in the light of heaven sensory-minded people - that is, those who have had no belief in anything apart from that which is natural, and have had no desire to understand how anything more internal or purer can exist apart from that which they can perceive with their senses - have a hairy appearance in the next life. They look so hairy that their faces are scarcely anything else than hairy beards. I have seen faces covered with hair like these on many occasions. But rationally-minded people, that is, spiritually-minded ones, with whom the natural has played a correctly subordinate role, are seen with tidy hair. Indeed from the state of people's hair in the next life one can tell what the natural with them is like. The reason spirits appear with hair on their heads is that in the next life spirits look exactly like people on earth. This too is why the Word sometimes includes a description of the hair of the angels people have seen.

[2] From all this one may now see what is meant by 'clipping', as in Ezekiel,

The priests the Levites, the sons of Zadok, shall put off their garments in which they have been ministering and lay them in the holy chambers, and they shall put on other garments, and they shall not sanctify the people in their own garments. And they shall not shave their head and shall not let their hair grow long; they shall surely clip their heads. Ezekiel 44:15, 19-20.

This refers to a new Temple and a new priesthood, that is, to a new Church. 'Putting on other garments' means holy truths; 'not shaving their head, and not letting their hair grow long, but surely clipping their heads' means not casting aside the natural but taking measures to make it conformable, and so to make it subordinate. Anyone who believes that the Word is indeed holy can see that these and all the other details mentioned by the prophet which describe a new land, a new city, and a new Temple and priesthood must not be taken literally. The statement, for example, that the priests the Levites, the sons of Zadok, will minister there, at which time they will put off their ministerial garments and put on new ones, and will also clip their heads, is not meant literally; rather, each and all the details given by the prophet have as their meaning such things as are aspects of a new Church.

[3] The following rules were laid down for the high priest, the sons of Aaron, and the Levites, in Moses,

The priest who is chief among his brothers, on whose head the anointing oil has been poured and who has been consecrated ¹ to wear the garments, shall not shave his head or rend his garments. Leviticus 21:10.

The sons of Aaron shall not introduce any baldness on their head or shave the corner of their beard. They shall be holy to their God, and they shall not profane the name of their God. Leviticus 21:5-6.

You shall purify the Levites like this: Sprinkle over them the water of expiation, and they shall pass a razor over their flesh and wash their garments, and they shall be pure. Numbers 8:7.

These rules would never have been given unless they had held holy ideas within them. Can there be anything holy or anything of the Church in the actual rule forbidding the high priest to shave his head or rend his garments, or in the actual rule forbidding the sons of Levi to introduce any baldness on their head or shave the corner of their beard, or in that commanding the Levites to shave their flesh with a razor when they underwent purification? Rather, the possession of an external or natural man made subordinate to the internal or spiritual man, both of which have thereby been made subordinate to the Divine, is the holy idea within those rules; and it is also what angels perceive when man reads about them in the Word.

[4] The same goes for what is said about a Nazirite who was holy to Jehovah. If someone next to him happened to die suddenly and so defile his consecrated head, the Nazirite was required to clip his head on the day of his cleansing; on the seventh day he had to clip it. On the day that the days of his Naziriteship were completed he had to clip his consecrated head at the door of the Tent of Meeting and to take the hair from his head and put it on the fire which was under the sacrifice of peace offerings, Numbers 6:8, 9, 13, 18. For the meaning of a Nazirite and what aspect of holiness he represented, see 3301. No one can possibly understand why anything holy existed within the Nazirite's hair unless he knows from correspondence what is meant by 'the hair' and from this what aspect of holiness a Nazirite's hair corresponded to. Nor can anyone likewise understand how the source of Samson's strength lay in his hair, which he told Delilah about in the following description,

No razor has come upon my head, for I have been a Nazirite of God from my mother's womb. If I am shaved, my strength will depart from me, and I shall become weak and be like anyone else. And Delilah called a man who shaved off the seven locks of his hair; and his strength departed from him. After that, when the hair on his head began to grow, even as it had been shaved off, his strength returned to him. Judges 16:17, 19, 22.

Without any knowledge of correspondence who can see that the Lord's Divine Natural was represented by 'a Nazirite', or that 'Naziriteship' had no other meaning than this, or that Samson's strength was due to that representation?

[5] Anyone who does not know, and more so one who does not believe that the Word has an internal sense, and that the sense of the letter serves to represent the real things contained in the internal sense, will recognize scarcely anything holy at all in these matters, when in fact the greatest holiness lies within them. Anyone who does not know, and more so one who does not believe that the Word has an internal sense that is intrinsically holy cannot know what the following texts enfold within them: In Jeremiah,

Truth has perished and has been cut off from their mouth. Cut off the hair of your Naziriteship and throw it away. Jeremiah 7:28-29.

In Isaiah,

On that day the Lord will shave by means of a razor hired at the crossing-places of the River - by means of the king of Asshur - the head and the hair of the feet; and it will consume the beard also. Isaiah 7:20.

In Micah,

Make yourself bald, and shave your head for the children of your delight; extend your baldness like an eagle, for they have departed from you. Micah 1:16.

Nor will anyone know the aspect of holiness contained in the reference to Elijah's being a man covered with hair, who wore a skin girdle around his loins, 2 Kings 1:8. Nor will he know why the children who called Elisha baldhead were torn apart by the bears out of the forest, 2 Kings 2:23-24.

[6] Both Elijah and Elisha represented the Lord as to the Word, and so represented the Word itself, specifically the prophetical part, see Preface to Genesis 18, and 2762. Being covered with hair and having a skin girdle meant the literal sense, 'a man covered with hair' meaning that sense so far as truths were concerned, 'wearing a skin girdle around his loins' so far as forms of good were concerned. For the literal sense is the natural sense of the Word since it employs ideas formed from things that exist in the world, whereas the internal sense is the spiritual sense because it employs ideas formed from things existing in heaven. These two senses are related to each other in the way that the internal and the external are related in the human being. But because the internal can have no existence without the external, the external being the last and lowest degree of order within which the internal is held in being, the calling of Elisha 'baldhead' therefore meant the shameful accusation made against the Word that it lacked so to speak an external and so lacked a sense suited to man's capacity to understand it.

[7] From all this one may see that every particular detail in the Word is holy. However, this holiness within the Word is discerned by no one unless he is acquainted with the internal sense; yet an inkling of it flows from heaven into someone who believes that the Word is holy. The internal sense known to the angels is the channel through which that influx comes; and even if the person has no understanding of that sense it nevertheless stimulates an affection in him, because the affection felt by the angels who know that sense is communicated to him. From this it is also evident that the Word was given to man so that he might have a means of communication with heaven and so that by flowing into him Divine Truth in heaven might stimulate affection in him.

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