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)

9186. 'He shall pay silver according to the dowry of virgins' means another kind of truth which consents instead. This is clear from the meaning of 'silver' as truth, dealt with in 1551, 2954, 5658, 6112, 6914, 6917; from the meaning of 'paying' as a substitution instead of the former, for the one who pays a dowry and does not take the virgin gives something else for her; and from the meaning of 'the dowry of virgins' as a token of consent to a joining together, dealt with just above in 9184. This token is truth that consents to, is in agreement with, interior good; for the dowry was fifty pieces of silver given to the young woman's father, Deuteronomy 22:29, thus truths that lead into a full joining together. For 'silver' means truth, as shown immediately above, and 'fifty' means to the full, 2252, at this point some other truths instead of the former, which consent to, and are in agreement with, good.

[2] The situation in all this has been shown above; but let the following be added. To turn a wrongful joining together into a rightful one the good that flows in from the Lord by way of the internal man must join to itself the truth that enters by way of the external man, that is, through the external man's hearing. If this truth does not accord with that good, then another kind of truth which does accord or consents to be joined must be substituted.

[3] It would be possible to give examples to throw light on this subject; but since the notion of goodness and truth joined together lies in thick darkness, because people have separated the good of love from the truths of faith, thrown it back behind truths, and virtually turn their backs on it, no examples will help to make the subject clearer. As a rule the internal sense of the Word and thus matters of angelic wisdom fail to be apprehended by anyone unless he knows and understands that every single thing in heaven has a connection with goodness and truth, and that nothing there comes into being except from one joined to the other. So it is that those who separate one from the other are in the dark, that is to say, who separate the truth of faith from the good of charity, as do those who say that a person is saved by faith alone, or by the confidence that accompanies faith. Because they attribute everything to faith and nothing to charity, they cannot apprehend anything at all of the heavenly matters contained in the internal sense of the Word. For they walk in darkness as regards knowledge of good, thus also in darkness as regards knowledge of goodness and truth joined together, consequently as regards knowledge of truth itself since it is enveloped in the same darkness. This accounts for the existence of so many and such great delusions and heresies. People who are in the light as regards knowledge of truths are the few who have been taught the truth and live it out.

[4] Let those who subscribe to faith alone recognize that all the ideas in the thinking of angels who inhabit the second heaven and are called spiritual spring from truths that have become forms of good through the life those angels lead. Let them recognize also that all the ideas in the thinking of angels who inhabit the third heaven and are called celestial spring from good, and that these angels are consequently in possession of wisdom itself, the marvels of which wisdom will in the Lord's Divine mercy be described elsewhere.