PSALM XXIII. I 391
word for him, the word " my," and explained personal faith in a personal Saviour. The boy grew interested, and the light dawned upon him. One day Jamie's mother met the minister at her door, and said, " Oh, come in, my Jamie is dead, and you will find his fourth knuckle folded in, and his forefinger resting upon it."i
? . 2. " The Lord is my Shepherd " isjhe language, not of nature but of grace ; and it is not until by faith we have recognized Him, not in creation, not in providence, but in redemption, and that a redemption which was wrought out for and which has taken decisive effect on us, that we can look up with a glance of child- like confidence to God, and say, " My Maker is my Father, my God is my Shepherd ; He who sitteth in the circle of the heavens has made for Himself a habitation in my heart, and the upholder of all the worlds is my best and nearest Friend."
Ask yourself, if since it was first put upon your li]3S you have ever used it with anything more than the lips ; if you have any right to use it ; if you have ever taken any steps towards winning the right to use it. To claim God for our own, to have and enjoy Him as ours, means, as Christ our Master said over and over again, that we give ourselves to Him, and take Him to our hearts. Sheep do not choose their shepherd, but man has to choose — else the peace and the fulness of life which are here figured remain a dream and become no experience for him.
^ Some years ago I tried to get one of my children to commit the Twenty-third Psalm to memory ; and, as she was too young to read for herself, I had to repeat it to her until she got hold of the words. I said, " Now, repeat after me, ' The Lord is my shepherd.' " She said, " The Lord is your shepherd." " No, I did not say that, and I want you to say to me the words I say to you. Now then, ' The Lord is my shepherd.' " Again she said, " The Lord is your shepherd." It was only after much effort I could get her to repeat the exact words. The child's mistake was in some sense natural, but many of riper years have made the same blunder, saying by acts, if not by words, " The Lord is yours, but I have no experience of His shepherdly care and protection." ^
^ Dr. James Wells, Life of James Hood Wilsmi, 291. ^ The Ex^wsitory Times, xxii. 304.
392 A PERSONAL PROVIDENCE
III.
Jehovah my Shepherd.
1. " The Lord is my shepherd." The image, natural amongst a nation of shepherds, is first employed by Jacob (Gen. xlviii.. 15, xlix. 24). There, as here, God is the Shepherd of the individual (cf. Ps. cxix. 176), still more frequently of His people (Ixxviii. 52, Ixxx. i. ; Mic. vii. 14 ; Isa. Ixiii. 13, and especially Ezek. xxxiv.) : most beautifully and touchingly in Isa. xl. 11. So in the New Testament of Christ (John x. 1-16, xxi. 15-17 ; Heb. xiii. 20 ; 1 Pet. ii. 25, v. 4). To understand all the force of this image, we must remember what the Syrian shepherd was, how very unlike our modern shepherd.
2. Shepherd-life, as David knew it, was a life essentially emotional and devotional. Shepherdhood, as David exercised it, was a relation at once so affectionately solicitous and so in- geniously resourceful as to be akin to motherhood. Por the sheep of Eastern lands live in their shepherd. He is the centre of their unity, the guarantee of their security, the pledge of their prosperity. For them, pastures and wells and paths and folds are all in him. Apart from him their condition is one of abject and pathetic helplessness. Should any sudden calamity tear him from them they are forthwith undone. Distressed and scattered, they stumble among the rocks, or bleed in the thorn-tangle, or flee, wild with fear, before the terror of the wolf. Hence a good shepherd never forsakes his sheep. He accompanies them by day and abides with them by night. In the morning he goes before them to lead them out, and in the evening, when he has gathered them into the fold, he lies down in their midst. Then as he views their still, white forms clustered about him in the darkness, his heart brims with a brooding tenderness.
Upon the hills the winds are sharp and cold, The sweet young grasses wither on the wold, And we, 0 Lord, have wandered from Thy fold. But evening brings us home.
PSALM XXIII. I 393
Among the mists we stumbled and the rocks, Where the brown lichen whitens and the fox Watches the straggler from the scattered flocks, But evening brings us home.
The sharp thorns prick us, and our tender feet Are cut and bleeding, and the lambs repeat Their pitiful complaints — oh, rest is sweet. When evening brings us home.
We have been wounded by the hunter's darts, Our eyes are very heavy, and our hearts Search for Thy coming, when the light departs. At evening bring us home.