^ We should have expected him to say, " God is leading me in green pastures on account of the good life / have led." On the contrary, he says, " God is leading me in green pastures to further the good of other people — to minister to those who have not led a good life." And I think the experience of the Psalmist will be found true to all experience. I do not believe that any man is led into prosperity or into adversity for the sake of that prosperity or adversity ; it is always for the sake of God's name or holiness. You pray for worldly wealth and it comes to you. Has God led you into that wealth ? Yes, but not to reward your prayer. Eather would I say that the prayer and the riches are both parts of His guidance into a path of humanitarian righteousness where you can minister to the sorrows of man. Why was Abraham promised the land of Canaan ? As a reward for leaving Ur of the Chaldees ? No, but with the view of making blessed all the families of the earth. God did not give him the new country as a recompense for leaving the old ; He inspired him to leave the old because He meant to give him the new.^
There is a valley paved with tears,
Whose gates my soul must pass. And to dim sight it yet appears
Darkly as through a glass. But in its gloom faith sees a light
More glorious than the day; And all its tears are rainbow bright
When Calvary crowns the way.
' J. Culross, God's Shepherd Care, 90.
^ George Matheson, Thoughts/or Life's Journey, 21.
PSALM XXIII. 3 443
Jesus, my Lord, within that veil
Thy footsteps still abide ; And can my heart grow faint or fail
When I have these to guide ? Thy track is left upon the sand
To point my way to Thee; Thine echoes wake the silent land
To strains of melody.
What though the path be all unknown?
What though the way be drear ? Its shades I traverse not alone
When steps of Thine are near. Thy presence, ere it passea above,
Suffused its desert air; Thy hand has lit the torch of love,
And left it burning there.^
^ George Matheson, Sacred Songs, 86,
The Valley of the Shadow.
445
Literature.
Brooks (P.), The Spiritual Man, 286. Burns (J. D.), Memoir and Remains, 301. Cooke (G. A.), The Progress of Revelation, 107. Culross (J.), God's Shepherd Care, 93. Drew (H.), Death and the Hereafter, 86. Dufif (R. S.), The Song of the Shepherd, 95. Eyton (R.), The Search for God, 75. Fairbairn (A. M.), Christ in the Centuries, 90. Finlayson (T. C), The Diviiu Gentleness, 240. Freeman (J. D.), Life on the Uplands, 79. Gray (W. H.), Our Divine Shepherd, 19. How (W. W.), Plain Words, i. 45. Howard (H.), The Shepherd Psahn, 65, 71. Hutton (W. R.), Low Spirits, 188. Jerdan (C), Pastures of Tender Grass, 41, Josej)!! (M.), TJie Ideal in Judaism, 121. Knight (W. A.), The Song of Our Syrian Guest, 14. Lonsdale (J.), Sermons, 248. McFadyen (J. E.), Ten Sticdies in the Psalms, 23. McNeill (J.), Regent Square Pulpit, i. 252. Mamreov (A. F.), A Day with the Good Shepherd, 71, 75, Newbolt (W. C. E.), Penitence and Peace, 115. Parker (J.), City Temple Pulpit, v. 175. Pearse (M. G.), Parables and Pictures, 68. „ „ Li the Banqueting House, 143.
Phillips (S.), The Heavenward Way, 88.
Roberts (D.), A Letter from Heaven, 124.
Service (J.), Sermons, 243.
Sraellie (A.), In the Hour of Silence, 142.
Spurgeon (C. H.), Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, xxvii. (1881) No. 1595.
Stalker (J.), The Psalm of Psalms, 77.
Vaughan (J.), Sermons (Brighton Pulpit), New Ser., xv. No. 1031.
Voysey (C), Sermons, xxiii. (1900) No. 20.
Christian World Pulpit, iv. 206 (Collyer) ; xxi. 387 (Haynes) ; Ixv. 232 (Parker).
Church of England Magazine, xxiii. 272 (Kelk) ; xxix. 256 (Perkins) ; xxxiv. 24 (Hull) ; Ix. 308 (Hull).
Expository Times, v. 288 (Clemens).
Preacher's Magazine, vi. 404 (Pearse).
446
The Valley of the Shadow.
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, they comfort me. — Ps. xxiii. 4.
1. The various methods of God's leading of His flock, or rather, we should say, the various regions into which He leads them, are described in this Psalm in order. These are Eest, Work, Sorrow ; and this series is so combined with the order of time that the past and the present are considered as the regions of rest and of work, while the future is anticipated as having in it the valley of the shadow of death.
2. The word rendered "valley" does not answer exactly to our English word, which suggests a pleasant lowland sweep bounded by sloping hillsides ; nor even to the modern Arabic "wady" or torrent-bed, filled in the rainy season and dry the rest of the year ; it is rather, as its derivation indicates, a chasm or rent among the hills — like Gehenna — a deep, abrupt, faintly- lighted ravine with steep sides and narrow floor, the bushes almost meeting overhead. Some savage glen among the hills of Judah, familiar to David during his shepherd-life, may have supplied the image ; some deep narrow defile where the robber lurks and takes the flock at a disadvantage, or in which some fierce beast of prey has its lair. Of course in the failing light and blackening shades of dusk the gloom would be more than doubled.