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.

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

5202. 'And behold, seven other cows were coming up after them out of the river' means falsities belonging to the natural which are also at the boundary. This is clear from the meaning of 'cows' as the truths belonging to the natural, dealt with just above in 518, so that in the contrary sense 'cows' means falsities (for most things in the Word have a contrary meaning that can be recognized from the genuine one, and therefore since truths of a natural kind are meant by 'cows' in the genuine sense, falsities of the same kind, thus falsities within the natural, are meant in the contrary sense); and from the meaning of 'the river' as the boundary, also dealt with above, in 5196, 5197. The presence of those falsities at the boundary is also evident from the use of the words 'came up out of the river', for coming or going up is used in reference to an advance made from what is exterior towards things that are interior, 3084, 4579, 4969.

[2] The implications of this, since it forms the subject in what follows, must be stated here. The previous chapter dealt with the exterior natural, with the fact that some impressions were the kind that belonged to the understanding while others were the kind that belonged to the will. The former were accepted, but the latter were cast aside. Impressions such as belonged to the understanding were represented by 'the cupbearer', and those such as belonged to the will by 'the baker'. Also, because the kind belonging to the understanding were accepted, they were also made subordinate to the internal natural. These were the matters that were dealt with in the previous chapter, in which the first stage in the rebirth of the natural is described.

[3] In the present chapter however the subject is the influx of the celestial of the spiritual into the impressions in the natural which were retained, that is to say, the impressions belonging to the understanding part there, which are meant now by 'the cows beautiful in appearance and fat-fleshed'. But as the natural cannot undergo any rebirth solely so far as ideas belonging to the understanding are concerned, desires belonging to the will must also be involved; for every individual part of the natural, to be anything at all, must include some element belonging to the understanding and at the same time another element belonging to the will. But because the will element that was present previously has been cast aside a new one must therefore enter in to replace it. This new element is received from the celestial of the spiritual which, together with its influx into the natural, is the subject in the present chapter. What the natural is like in this state is described in the internal sense - a state in which the truths there have been banished by falsities, so that the natural has been left exposed to the celestial of the spiritual. These are the considerations that are meant by the devouring of the good cows by the bad cows and the swallowing up of the full heads of grain by the empty ones, and after this by Joseph's making provision for all the land of Egypt. But in the Lord's Divine mercy more regarding these matters will be stated in what follows.

[4] They are, what is more, the kind of considerations that scarcely fall within the area of light within the human understanding, for they are the arcana of regeneration which in themselves are countless but about which a person knows barely anything at all. The person with whom good is present is undergoing rebirth every moment, from earliest childhood to the final stage of his life in the world, and after that for ever. This is happening to him not only interiorly but also exteriorly; and this rebirth involves processes that are amazing. They are processes which for the most part constitute angelic wisdom, and that wisdom, as is well known, is indescribable, embracing such things as ear has not heard, nor eye seen, and such as have never entered man's thought. ¹ The internal sense deals with such matters and so is suited to angelic wisdom; and when this sense passes into the sense of the letter it becomes suited to human wisdom, and in an unseen way it stirs the affections of those who, motivated by good, have the desire to know truths received from the Word.

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