Psalm 23 (1928 BCP)

Psalm 23 (1928 BCP) is the psalm Dominus regit me, appointed in the Book of Common Prayer (1928) for the Burial Office. Its six verses move from the LORD's provision and guidance, through danger, to the table and the house of God. In Christian prayer it is first Israel's confession of trust in the LORD, and is then heard in the light of Jesus Christ, the Good Shepherd.

Prayer Book Text

THE LORD is my shepherd; * therefore can I lack nothing. 2 He shall feed me in a green pasture, * and lead me forth beside the waters of comfort. 3 He shall convert my soul, * and bring me forth 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 comfort me. 5 Thou shalt prepare a table before me in the presence of them that trouble me; * thou hast anointed my head with oil, and my cup shall be full. 6 Surely thy loving-kindness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life; * and I will dwell in the house of the LORD for ever.

The first clause is a confession before it is a promise: “the LORD” is the shepherd, so the speaker can lack nothing necessary to the LORD's care. The green pasture and waters of comfort name received sustenance; “convert my soul” and the paths of righteousness name restoration and direction. The reason is not the worshipper's achievement but God's own Name. The psalm therefore gives the Church words for gratitude, correction, danger, and final hope without separating any of them from the Shepherd's presence.

The Shepherd and Christ

The New Testament supplies the Church's explicit Christological hearing of this imagery. Jesus does not merely borrow a pleasant rural figure: he calls himself the good shepherd and identifies his shepherding with the giving of his life.

I am the good shepherd: the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep.

Thus Christian use does not cancel the psalm's original address to the LORD. Rather, it confesses that the shepherdly care for which Psalm 23 prays is made known in the incarnate Son, whose costly service excludes a sentimental reading of protection.

My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand.

“Thou art with me” in verse 4 is therefore not a promise that the path avoids the valley. It is trust in the Shepherd's presence and governance within it. The rod and staff are signs of pastoral authority and protection; they comfort because the sheep belong to and follow the shepherd, rather than because suffering has become unreal.

Canon John Macquarrie describes the biblical and ecclesial development of the image in a meditation published in Ave, a magazine of the Society of St Margaret. His account properly joins Psalm 23 to Christ and to the pastoral vocation of the Church.

In the Old Testament, God himself is represented as the Shepherd. “The Lord is my shepherd” (Psalm 23). He is the “Shepherd of Israel”, who leads his people like a flock (Psalm 80). It was natural for Jesus Christ, who is God incarnate, to apply the picture to himself. “I am the good shepherd”, he tells us, and in a parable he describes how the faithful shepherd goes out in search of the lost sheep. Then in turn the idea of the shepherd is applied to our Lord's apostles. “Feed my sheep!” is the command that he gives to Peter (John 21). Even today the word “pastor”, meaning shepherd, is one of our commonest words for a minister of Christ.

Macquarrie's interpretation prevents two reductions. The shepherd is neither merely a private comfort-symbol nor a title for clerical status; it names God's saving care in Christ and sets a pattern of self-giving service for those entrusted with pastoral responsibility.

Valley, Table, and the House of the LORD

The psalm's fourth verse permits honest speech about death and danger. Its confidence rests on “thou art with me,” not on the denial of enemies or shadows. John Henry Hobart, Episcopal Bishop of New York, applied the verse to Christian hope in a sermon preached in 1832. His is a devotional and theological reception of Psalm 23, grounded in Christ's death and resurrection.

Believing in him, the heart of the Christian is no longer troubled: his Guide through the valley of the shadow of death is that heavenly Shepherd whose rod and whose staff support him: his Comforter in his last hour is that Saviour who himself tasted the bitterness of death. Supported and invigorated by faith in this Almighty Redeemer, the Christian passes through the grave and gate of death to a joyful resurrection.

Verse 5 changes the scene from path to table. The table, anointing, and full cup speak of the generous hospitality of God in the face of trouble; they should not be reduced to a proof-text for one sacramental doctrine. In the context of the whole psalm, they nevertheless accord with the Church's thanksgiving that God nourishes his people and receives them as guests.

For the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall feed them, and shall lead them unto living fountains of waters: and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes.

Revelation's paradoxical Lamb who shepherds supplies a New-Testament horizon for the final verse. To dwell in the house of the LORD for ever is the psalm's lasting end: not escape from creation, but abiding communion with God, whose loving-kindness and mercy pursue the worshipper all the days of life.

Prayer Book Use

The 1928 Prayer Book appoints Psalm 23 first among the psalms to be said after the procession has entered the church in the Burial Office. The direction makes the psalm a public prayer of trust amid bereavement, not a claim that mourning is forbidden or that every grief is already resolved.

When they are come into the Church, shall be said the following Psalms; and at the end of each Psalm shall be said the Gloria Patri; Dominus regit me. Psalm xxiii.

The Burial Office itself closes with the prayer to “the great Shepherd of the sheep,” echoing Hebrews 13:20. The Office therefore lets Psalm 23's confidence be voiced alongside Scripture, committal, prayer, and the Church's hope in the risen Christ.

THE God of peace, who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus Christ, the great Shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant; Make you perfect in every good work to do his will, working in you that which is well pleasing in his sight; through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.

Neale's Commentary

Neale's "Argument" for the psalm sets its keynote at once. Thomas Aquinas gives it as "That Christ prepares for His Church eternal pastures," the voice of the Church after Baptism, to be read with Esther; Bede hears through the whole psalm "the Christian regenerate in Baptism," giving thanks that he has been brought "from the barrenness of sin into a green pasture and the still waters" — and notes that, as Psalm 15 gave the Decalogue of the Law, the Christian here rejoices in ten blessings. Eusebius of Caesarea calls it "the doctrine and the first institution of the new people," and Athanasius simply "a Psalm of boasting in the Lord."

The first verse follows Psalm 22, as Neale reads the sequence: "In the last Psalm we heard of the Passion of Christ: now we hear of the effects of that Passion." Albert the Great's gloss gives the logic of the verse in one sentence:

> It was because He stood in need of everything, that we lack > nothing.

Neale's exposition presses the same point to its sacramental end: "He gives us His Body, He gives us His Soul, He gives us His Divinity, and will He deny us bread?"

For verses 2–3, the green pasture is, in its widest sense, the Church, "constantly refreshed with the dew of the Holy Ghost," and the greater number of the Fathers refer the psalm to the Sacraments: the waters of comfort are the waters of Baptism, the oil is Confirmation, and the cup is the Blessed Eucharist — waters purchased for us by Christ's cry on the Cross, "I thirst." Conversion of the soul is then the second grace after Baptism, necessary after the falls that follow it, before the Christian is led forth in the paths of righteousness for His Name's sake.

The valley of the shadow of death (v. 4) is why the psalm is employed in the Office for the Dead: the grave is the fold in which the Lord's sheep are penned safely till the morning of the Resurrection, and the Shepherd himself tasted the trials he permits his sheep to know. Rod and staff are punishment and support — and together, Neale notes, they make the Cross. The table of verse 5 is taken by the greater number of commentators of the Blessed Eucharist: Cyril's table prepared by God against Satan's table of poisonous delicacies, and the Eucharist as the safeguard with which Cyprian and the Council of Carthage armed those facing martyrdom. The anointing oil is both royal and priestly unction, and mercy following all the days of life ends in dwelling in the house of the Lord for ever.

Source for this section: J. M. Neale, A Commentary on the Psalms from Primitive and Mediaeval Writers, Vol. I, Psalms I to XXXVIII, second edition (London: Joseph Masters, 1869), Psalm XXIII, pp. 307–316. Neale died in 1866; the text is in the public domain. The quotations above were checked against the scan images (printed pp. 307–308; PDF pp. 317–318) and not taken from the scan's OCR alone, which garbles words throughout this volume.

See Also

• Book of Common Prayer (1928)
• The Psalter (1928 BCP)
• Daily Office (1928 BCP)
• Burial of the Dead (1928 BCP)
• Psalm 22 (1928 BCP)
• Psalm 24 (1928 BCP)

External Links

• Psalm 23 in the 1928 BCP Psalter
• John Henry Hobart on Christian hope in death
• John Macquarrie, “The Good Shepherd”

Source pages

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