A Picture of God's Love for His Sheep

Again, I apologize for the delay there with that.

And let's see. Bruce, I'm switched over to the lapel mic now.

Okay, I apologize for the delays there. It's one of those unexpected things that we didn't know till we got up here and tried it.

But yes again, good morning, everyone, and nice to have you with us here today.

I had originally planned on speaking on...

This is actually my third topic for today. I've switched the third time because after the feedback I heard from the sermon on the first Holy Day about desert and about how we learn to know God in the desert, I thought it would continue with some of the themes from that sermon.

In that sermon, I read part of Psalm 23 and noted that it is a Psalm that is set in the desert. It's filled with a lot of desert images.

That should not be surprising because, as we covered in the sermon, the desert is the land of milk or the land of the shepherd in the phrase, a land of milk and honey. Shepherds graze their flocks of sheep and goats in the desert.

I mentioned at some point that I would like to give a sermon on Psalm 23 to explain these desert setting and its references in that. I decided a couple of days ago to go ahead and switch the sermon topic today in light of the feedback that I received. I thought I would go ahead and speak on Psalm 23 today. The title of today's sermon is Psalm 23, A Picture of God's Love for His Sheep. We'll be going through this Psalm today.

Let's go ahead and turn. Well, actually, I'll project it up here on screen for you if you can read the somewhat blurry type there. But we'll read through the Psalm first and then we'll go back and discuss what it's talking about and how this does apply in a desert setting. The Psalm is quite short. Many of us have probably memorized it many, many, many, many years ago. But it says, a Psalm of David, the Lord is my shepherd I shall not want. He makes me to lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside the still waters. He restores my soul.

He leads me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil for you are with me, your rod and your staff, they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of mine enemies. You anoint my head with oil, my cup runs over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life and I will dwell in the house of the eternal forever. Let's go back to the beginning of this and notice first of all who is the author of this Psalm.

And as it tells us, some of the Psalms are not attributed but many of them do tell us who the author is. They're in the introduction to the Psalm. This is one that is written by David. What was David's occupation in his younger years before he became king? Over Israel and Judah, he was a shepherd boy.

And that was quite common among young boys at that time. Young boys up to about age 10, 11 didn't have a lot of physical strength. So they could not do a man's work in terms of plowing, heavy construction, heavy farm work, that sort of thing.

But they could go out and tend the sheep and the goats that belong to the family. So this was typical for the younger boys and a family to become shepherds there. And this is what is true of David. Notice 1 Samuel 16 in verse 11. And this is where the prophet Samuel is told by God to go and anoint a successor to Saul, who was the king of Israel and whose behavior had caused God to reject him.

He goes to the family of David, excuse me, the family of Jesse, David's father. And you remember the story, the sons come out one after another and Samuel says, no, not him, no, not him, not him. And finally, we get to this part of the story, and Samuel said to Jesse, are all the young men here all the sons?

Then Jesse said, there remains yet the youngest, and there he is keeping the sheep. And Samuel said to Jesse, send and bring him, for we will not sit down till he comes here. And we know the rest of the story. It turns out that David, the youngest of the sons, is the one whom God has chosen to be the next king of Israel, and he is anointed by Samuel at that time. But my point in bringing, mentioning this, is what is David doing? He's out tending the sheep. Apparently some distance away because they have to send someone to go and bring him back there to meet with Samuel.

Now where did David attend sheep? This is very important. This is key to understanding a lot of the pictures that we read about in this psalm. Let's turn to the next chapter, 1 Samuel 17 and verse 28. And the setting of this is when David goes to the Israelite encampment, the Israelite army is faced off against the Philistines and Goliath, and David goes there. His brothers have been constricted into the military there.

And David comes and shows up at this military camp, and Eliab is David's older brother. Notice what I said here. Now Eliab, his oldest brother, heard when he spoke to the men, and Eliab's anger was aroused against David. David's this scrawny little kid, probably 10, 11, 12 years old, something like that. And Eliab said, Why did you come down here? And with whom have you left those few sheep in the wilderness?

So notice here where David has been tending sheep in the wilderness or the desert. Wilderness means an uninhabited area here, and uninhabited land would have been desert. Nobody lives there. It's too tough to live there. So it's good for raising sheep and goats, and that's about it. So David has been out tending the sheep and goats out in the wilderness. We see very plainly here from Scripture. And of course, Eliab is not pleased that David has gone away.

Of course, David was a responsible young man and no doubt left someone else taking care of that. But this does show that shepherding took place in the desert. Not an area of real lush, belly-deep grass, like we talked about in the sermon there on the first Holy Day. It's interesting, too, that the town of Bethlehem, which is where David is from, it's his ancestral homeland there, is right on the border between the land of milk and the land of honey that we talked about. It's right along the central mountain ridge that runs through Israel. And you can literally go about a mile west of Bethlehem and get 20-25 inches of rain a year.

And you'd go a mile east of Bethlehem and get 2 inches of rain a year because it's in the desert. Bethlehem is right on that border. Jerusalem is, too, incidentally there. Same thing. Jerusalem gets 20-30 inches of rain a year. You go a mile, half a mile, literally off to the east, and you'll get 2 inches of rain a year there. It's a very severe desert there. So David grew up in this environment. Bethlehem would have had some farming. It was known for, well, Bethlehem, the name of the town, Bethlehem, means house of bread.

It did have wheat fields around there for growing wheat, barley, that sort of thing. But it was also close to the desert where the shepherds would go and take care of their sheep and goats out there. So David grew up in this environment. He's very familiar with desert. And when David needs to flee because people are after him trying to kill him, where does he go?

He goes out into the desert because he's used to that environment. He knows how to survive in the desert. He knows where to hide in the desert, to get water, where to scrounge up food, that sort of thing. So that is why we see this pattern in David's life. When he is in trouble, people are pursuing him trying to kill him. He flees into the desert to escape his enemies there. And that's why also many of the Psalms have desert themes, if you read through them, including this one, as we'll see today. So David did spend a lot of time alone in the desert, except he wasn't really alone. He had a sheep, he had his goats, and he had God there with him in the desert. From his shepherding, he learned a lot about how to take care of sheep. And from his time in the desert, he learned a lot about how God takes care of his sheep. And who are God's sheep? Let's notice a few verses. It talked about this, Psalm 100 and verse 3. Know that the eternal, he is God. It is he who has made us and not we ourselves. We are his people and the sheep of his pasture. So you see very plainly here that God's people are called his sheep. Let's notice another one. There are a number of scriptures, I'll just show you these two, that talk about this theme, but 1 Peter 2 and verse 25. Peter writes, For you were like sheep going astray, but have now returned to the shepherd and overseer of your souls. So Peter also says that we are sheep who have gone astray, but we have returned. Once God has called us, started working with us, we have returned to the shepherd and the overseer of our souls. So we are God's sheep. And this Psalm 23 is about our relationship with God, our relationship with our shepherd. We are the sheep and he is the shepherd who watches over us. And this Psalm is about that relationship and the loving care that he provides and offers us because it is written from the viewpoint of a sheep looking at his shepherd.

Or us looking at God and how he provides and cares for us.

Now, when we read this Psalm, we should read it through the eyes of David as someone who spent years living and working among the sheep and all kinds of circumstances, both good and bad, and actually being willing to risk his life for them, which we'll talk about a little bit later here because this is what David did. And from these experiences, he drew parallels with his relationship with his shepherd, who is God. And he draws some profound lessons there, which are recorded for us in this particular Psalm written under the inspiration of God.

David was a shepherd and David had a shepherd, which is God. And the theme of this Psalm is, again, God's love, God's care, God's concern, and taking care for his sheep.

Verse 1 lays the foundation on which the rest of this Psalm is constructed, and he begins by saying, The Lord is my shepherd. And who is that shepherd? Who is the Lord? It is Yahweh.

As it would be pronounced in Hebrew, or close to that, the Eternal, the God of the Old Testament of the Hebrew Scriptures who would later become Jesus Christ. As we read about in John 1, the word was flesh and dwelt among us, or the word became flesh and dwelt among us. In the beginning was the word, and the word was God, and the word was with God, and the word became flesh and dwelt among us, as John says. So Jesus Christ was the one who was the God of the Old Testament, and who became flesh and lived among human beings here.

So this is the shepherd that we're talking about here, the being who would become Jesus Christ, become born of a Virgin Mary, and become a human being. Now who is this shepherd then? We know it's Jesus Christ, but who is Jesus Christ? Colossians 1 and verses 15 through 20 from the New International Version tells us quite a bit, packed into these few verses, about this being, who is our shepherd. He is the image of the invisible God. In other words, God the Father is invisible, but He is the image. He is the God in the flesh that we could see, as Paul did, as the apostles did. He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by Him all things were created, things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities, all things were created by Him and for Him. These particular terms here, thrones, powers, rulers and authorities, are actually terms that Paul uses elsewhere to talk about the spirit realm, the spirit world. So what he says here is the one who became Jesus Christ is not only the creator of the physical universe that we see around us, but also the creator of the spiritual universe, this parallel universe that exists of angelic beings and things like that. As it says here, all things were created by Him and for Him. He is before all things. In other words, He existed before this physical creation and spiritual creation. And in Him all things hold together. All things hold together. What that means is that He is the one who upholds the universe, who keeps it functioning by His power, as other versions, other translations bring out. Continuing on, verse 18, and He is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything He might have the supremacy. For God was pleased to have all His fullness dwell in Him. In other words, all of the fullness of God the Father also dwelled in Jesus Christ, and through Him to reconcile to Himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, again, the spirit world, by making peace through His blood shed on the cross.

So we see a number of amazing, incredible things here about this being who is our shepherd. He is the visible image of the invisible God. He is the firstborn who is over all creation. He is the one who created all things in the physical and the spirit worlds. He existed before all things, and by Him everything exists that exists. He is the one who sustains all things. He is the head of the church. He is the firstborn from the dead and the first of many who will be raised from the dead. He is the one in whom all the fullness of God exists. He is the one by whom God the Father reconciles all things to Himself through His shed blood. This is the being who is our shepherd, as described here in the 23rd Psalm. Just really, really amazing things that should give us a lot of confidence and comfort and reassurance that we have such a great shepherd watching over and caring for us. So since he is his shepherd, how did we become his sheep? How do we become his sheep? John 15 verses 16 through 19. Christ says, you did not choose me, but I chose you.

And then in verse 19, I chose you out of the world. So we became his sheep because he chose us. He hand-picked us. Hand selected us to be a part of his flock. The God the Father draws us and Christ selected us here. And because we are a part of his flock, we are the objects of his care, of his affection, his love, and his concern. So again, the one who cares for us and shows us and watches over us is this very being that we read about who created the entire universe and sustains it by his power. And the King of the universe is the one watching over us and caring for us as our shepherd. Do we recognize his right to us? If we are his shepherd, if we are his flock, do we recognize his right to us? We are his sheep because he bought us. He bought us with the ultimate price of his life. We belong to him as a result of that, and he has every right to care for us, to manage our lives as he sees fit. Because he knows what is best for us. And as his sheep, do we respond to his leadership, to his authority? Recognizing that authority over our lives? Or instead, are we more like goats than sheep? What do goats like to do? A shepherd will tell you that goats want to create their own paths. They don't want to be led. They want to make their own paths all over the landscape. Rather than doing things the shepherd. The shepherd's way there. Do we want to do things our way or do things the way our shepherd wants them done? So if the Lord is our shepherd and we belong to him, then we should have a deep sense of mission, of purpose and direction from him being our shepherd. Let's notice a few more scriptures in John 10 where Christ says here, verse 11 through 15, I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd gives his life for the sheep, as Jesus Christ himself did. Verse 14, he says again, I am the good shepherd and I know my sheep and am known by my own. So he knows his sheep, knows each one of us by name, knows the number of hairs on our head, and we know him in turn. As the Father knows me, even so, I know the Father and I lay down my life for the sheep. A number of times in the Gospels we'll get to this in our studies in the future where Christ draws many analogies about shepherds and says that he is our shepherd and he is a good shepherd as opposed to a hireling. What does a hireling do? A hireling runs away at the sign of danger. But Christ is the good shepherd who lays down his life for his flock. And he certainly did that, laid down his life for every one of us here today, for you. And for me personally, he chose you, each one of you. He laid down his life for you personally and individually and he loves you. And he cares for you as one of his sheep. He wants only the best for us. You're not a number to him. Again, he says God knows the very number of hairs on our heads there. He knows everything about us. Let's back up a few verses here in John chapter 10 to verses 2 through 4. And Christ also says here, but he who enters by the door is the shepherd of the sheep. To him the doorkeeper opens and the sheep hear his voice. And he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. And when he brings out his own sheep, he goes before him and the sheep follow him, for they know his voice. So Christ tells us here that he knows each of us by name.

And he goes before us to lead us and we as sheep should be following him because we know him and we recognize his voice. I'll get into many specifics about that as we continue with our studies of the Gospels here. But this is talking about very specific behaviors of sheep and shepherds that we don't have time to get into fully today. But this is very specific. Christ knew sheep. He knew how they acted, knew their tendencies and that sort of thing. So this is the one who is our shepherd, the one who cares for us, who watches over us and protects and provides for us the one who leads us. So continuing back to Psalm 23 and verse 1, we talked about how this is a Psalm of David and how the Lord is my shepherd. Now he says, I shall not want. Now what does this mean? Does this mean that we will never want things that we don't have? That everything that we want God is going to give to us? Well, not really. What it means is that our shepherd gives us everything that we need.

And notice how a few other Bible versions translate this.

The NIV translates this as, I shall not be in want. The New Living Translation says, I have everything I need. And the Bible in basic English says, I will not be without any good thing.

So think back to David's life. Did David always have everything that he wanted?

Was his life the proverbial bed of roses? An easy path? Well, no. If you know anything about David's life, it was not easy. We already talked about how David spent his childhood, spent it out in the desert, in the wilderness, taking care of sheep, sometimes at great danger to himself. Sometime during that period, he killed a lion and a bear that were threatening and attacking his sheep. And again, he's probably only 10, 11, 12 years old, something like that.

He has to face down Goliath, this nine-foot giant who could probably squash David like a bug if it weren't for God's protection and God's help there. We know that King Saul tried to kill David on several different occasions. He had to flee into the desert again for his life there.

We know that he committed some horrible sins and paid a terrible price for it. His own son, Absalon, tried to kill him and to steal the throne from him. And a number of the Psalms reflect David's mental anguish that he is feeling at different times. And yet, through it all, David could say that God cared for him and gave him everything that he needed.

Certainly not everything that he wanted, but everything that he needed. And God does the same for us as well. He doesn't give us everything we want because everything we want isn't what is going to be best for us all the time. God instead gives us what we need. As we talked about in the sermon earlier in the week on the first Holy Day, sometimes we need those desert times in our lives because that is what we need. That's what we need for God to work with us, to build faith, to build a relationship with God. We need those kinds of desert times, those kinds of desert times that David experienced in his life here. Would David have come to know God as deeply as he did, as we see reflected in the Psalms, had he not had those desert times and desert experiences in his life? I don't think he would have. Those times, that type of knowledge and closeness to God comes only through experience, through experiencing God by coming to know God, not just knowing about God, as we talked about in the sermon earlier in the week. So David had to spend time in the desert to get to know God as he did. And God did give David what he needed, when he needed it. And he does the same thing for us. Let's notice over in Philippians 4 verses 11 through 13. This is again from the NIV. And Paul says here, I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well-fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want.

I can do, and he concludes here, verse 13, I can do everything through him who gives me strength.

These words could have just as easily been written by David because of the life experiences that he went through.

Both David and Paul learn to completely trust in God and to have faith in Jesus Christ and how he managed their lives. And that is a lesson for all of us as well, that we will have to learn at some point in our lives as Christians to learn to completely trust God and completely have faith in him as our shepherd, as the one who watches over us and wants only the best for us.

Another verse to look at, John 16, in verse 33, this is something we read in the Passover every year. Some of the words of Jesus Christ to his disciples shortly before he was arrested and taken away and tried and executed. And notice what he says here.

These things I have spoken to you that in me you may have peace.

In the world you will have tribulation but be of good cheer.

I have overcome the world. So Jesus is plainly saying here that we will have tribulation in this life. We will have trials. In other words, or troubles in this life, we will have problems.

We'll have trials. We'll have pressures that build up and cause us stress and strain. And at times we may face persecution for our beliefs, for obeying God according to his word. And thinking back again, the examples of David and the examples of Paul. What happened to them? They faced terrible trials in their lives. We've mentioned a few of them here. Paul, we mentioned more about David, but Paul too. Yeah, he was shipwrecked, stoned, left for dead, beaten with rods, lashed, persecuted, stoned, to the point of death, things like that. Why should we be any different?

Why should we expect any different? We are promised times in the desert in our lives. Not a life as a sheep, continually in belly-deep grass with a nice, cool, gurgling stream running right alongside us. That's not what we're promised. We're promised green pastures, which we'll talk about here in a few minutes here. Again, this is how we build faith. This is how we build faith. This is how we put faith to work in our lives. This is how we come to build a relationship of faith and trust in God. Another verse to look at in this regard, Hebrews 13, verses 5 and 6. Let your conduct be without covetousness. Why covetousness mentioned in this context? Well, if we're always concerned about what we are wanting, what we can get, what we can accumulate, what stuff we want, we're not going to have our minds focused on God. It says here, Be content with such things as you have. For he himself has said, I will never leave you nor forsake you. So we may boldly say, The Eternal is my Helper. I will not fear. What can man do to me? So again, we need to be content with what we have, as it says here.

And this ties back to what we've been covering about. David saying, I shall not want.

Yeah, we may want, but God is going to give us what we need, not necessarily all that we want.

So continuing back here in verse 2 of Psalm 23, pick up the story here.

Let's talk about lying down here first. We talked about the green pastures a bit. We'll discuss that in detail in a minute here.

There's a classic book that some of you may have heard on that was published back in 1970.

It's called A Shepherd Looks at Psalm 23 by Philip Keller, who was a shepherd, took care of sheep for eight years. It's quite a good book if you want to learn about sheep and shepherd and Psalm 23. This is a very highly recommended resource, and some of the material I'm giving you is taken from this book. However, I would give you a caveat, and that is that he is describing his experience as rearing sheep in a much more lush, rich environment than the desert.

So consequently, everything he says in here is true for that context, but not necessarily in the desert context that we're talking about here. So I would add that caveat. But if you want to read a good book about Psalm 23 and shepherding and sheep, this is a good resource. It talks a lawful lot about the behavior of sheep as it applies, as is described here in Psalm 23.

So I would recommend that book with that caveat. He never raised sheep in the desert, so there are things in here that he overlooks that I'm bringing out to you today here. So again, that's a Shepherd Looks at Psalm 23 by Philip Keller, a very popular book.

He does talk here in the context of, he makes me to lie down, he talks about four things that sheep need to lie down at night and be calm and contented and rested. And those four conditions for a sheep to calmly, for a sheep or multiple sheep to lie down calmly are, first of all, the sheep need to be free from fear. Sheep are very timid animals, very easily spooked, you might say. And there are a number of examples brought in this book. One that he mentions is how on a sheep, his sheep farm, a car, a little Pekingese puppy about eight inches long, fell out of this car. And the little dog puppy came up yipping and yapping and ran across the road and into the field where his sheep were. And there are about 200 sheep in this field, and they started a mad stampede running away from this eight inch yip yip yip yip yip dog there.

That's how afraid sheep are. They can literally be afraid of their shadow. They can glance at the ground and see the sheep moving along and think, oh, it's something out to get me. They can literally be afraid of their shadow. It's one of the things about sheep. They are very furful here. So the shepherd does need to see that his sheep are calm, that they don't have things to fear, that they are reassured and feel safe here. A second condition for sheep to calmly lay down is that they need to be free from friction within the flock. You may have heard of the term, it's related to chickens, but pecking order. You may have wondered where that comes from. Well, it comes from chickens because in a flock of chickens, they will establish a pecking order as to which chicken is the head chicken among the chickens. That chicken gets to peck first, and then the next chicken in line gets to peck second, and so on. It's called the pecking order, and it comes from the behavior of chickens. Sheep have something similar. It is called, among shepherds, the butting order. The butting order, because sheep will butt heads, they will push, they will shove one another to establish this dominance as to which is the head sheep. Typically, the rams, the male sheep, and the ewes, the female sheep, are separated until mating season. So what will typically happen is one of the older ewes will try to establish herself as the head sheep and the flock. So she will butt, she will push, she will shove the other sheep around until she has established her dominance. And eventually, the whole flock, whether it's several dozen or a hundred or more sheep, will establish their social order. Which one is on top? Which is number two? Which is number three? And you also see this in a number of wild animals.

Back when I had a life, I used to love to go up to a long I-70 to watch the bighorn during the rut in November. If you haven't seen it, you may want to go up around Georgetown.

And in November, they will get up there. The bighorn sheep and the males, the rams, will butt heads like you've seen on TV and that sort of thing. And it's natural for even wild sheep and wild goats. You can see the same thing on Mount Evans up here in summertime among the wild goats. Not in terms of head-butting and so on, but they will push and shove one another to establish the social order, the budding order, who is going to be on top and who is inferior and so on. It's something that God put within sheep and goats by instinct, that type of behavior there. Now, unfortunately, human beings have the same type of instinct within them because people want to establish a budding order as to who is in charge, who is the greatest, as Christ had to correct his disciples about, who is the greatest. People, he knew that and the Bible is clear that people want to jockey for power and for control so they can get ahead. And it does happen in the church at times, as we have seen historically. And we have to realize that Christianity is not a matter of position or recognition, but rather is a matter of service. And we'll have to say, I'm very pleased to see that within our congregations here along the Front Range, I just don't see that. I just don't see people jockeying for position and power and who's going to be over this and who's going to be over that. And so on. What I do see is a lot of humble service, a lot of giving service that contributes to the overall growth and well-being of the body. And you're all to be complemented on that.

That we don't have those type of problems and that leads to an environment of growth, an environment of peace, an environment of calmness for the entire congregation. And that's very commendable.

A third condition that sheep need to be able to lie down calmly is they need to be free from pests, from insects and parasites and things like that. How is a sheep constructed? You might compare in your mind a horse and a cow versus a sheep. What do horses and cows have that sheep don't?

They have a nice long built-in flyswatter on the end of their body. A tail that they can swish and swish away the flies, the mosquitoes, the horse flies, the things that bug them. Sheep don't. Sheep have a very short stubby tail that really isn't good for anything in that regard. So sheep are very vulnerable to being bugged by parasites, by insects, by things like that. So the shepherd does have to take care of his flock to try to eliminate the insects that will bug the sheep and can get so times it will literally drive the sheep crazy because they don't have the physical body structure, the mechanisms to prevent those insects from bugging them. And that way, that's where we get the term bugging you, by the way, because of insects, bugs, that bother us. So the shepherd needs to be sure that his flock is free of that.

And last of all, the sheep need to be free from hunger. Free from hunger, because sheep are not able to rest if they are hungry. The hunger makes the sheep restless, it makes them irritable.

I'm sure none of us can identify with that ever, but if sheep are hungry, they are going to be restless. They're not going to lay down and rest and sleep at night. They're going to be, their bellies are going to be growling. They're going to be wanting to get up and search around for some grass, something to eat on there, something to eat. Now, there are two interesting facets of each of these four points here that we've mentioned here. And the first of these is that all of these have application within the church. We all have application within the church. People need to be free from fear. People need to be free from friction so that they all get along.

People don't need things that bug them and upset them and irritate them.

And people need to be spiritually fed so that they are not hungry.

And a second interesting facet of all these four points, you can actually give a whole sermon on all of these. As I was working on this last night, I realized, you know, this really ought to be about a two or three parter to cover all of the aspects of this, but I just isn't going to work out logistically. But a second interesting aspect is that the shepherd needs to take care of these things for his flock. The sheep can't do these things for themselves. Talking about physical sheep, they can't do these things for themselves. The shepherd must do these things for them.

Now with us human beings, it's a little bit different here because we can control our feelings. We can control our thoughts. And we aren't led by instinct alone in these areas like sheep are. We don't need to fear, as sheep do, because we know we have a shepherd who is in charge. We can control ourselves so that we don't push and butt and shove other sheep. We have control of our desires and so on. We can control what things bug us and to what extent we allow them to bug us there. And we can also partake of the spiritual food that we are given and we can appreciate it and utilize it and put it to work in our lives. So we do have our own parts to play in helping our congregations to be peaceful, to be a productive environment for everyone in the flock. Now let's go back here to Psalm 23 and continue with green pastures. Talking about this. In the sermon on the Holy Day, I talked about quite a bit about this and what it means in the desert environment of the Middle East. I'm going to review that as a reminder because it is a key part of understanding this psalm in our relationship with our shepherd. Let's look again. This will be reviewed for the next few minutes for those of you who have heard that here. But look again at this landscape. I showed this photo here with a flock of sheep and goats.

And as I mentioned, an obvious question. What do they eat? What do they eat in this environment here? And I learned this background from an American man who has studied a lot about the cultural background of the Bible. How years ago he was in Israel on a college study program that involved actually living, spending the night, the day and the night out in the desert, to study the culture of the Bedouins, to study the desert environment, the many references to this environment that we find in the scripture. And this one night he and some of his fellow students had been spending the night out in the desert. Morning comes and they hear this rustling over on a hillside nearby and he crawls out of his blanket or sleeping bag and looks and sees this sight of several shepherds leading these sheep and goats up out of this wadi.

This gulch and he sees the sheep stop at rocks there and they'll stick their head down by the rock and then they'll take two or three steps, go to the next rock and go to the next rock and do the same thing. And he's just really puzzled about that and then he notices one of the other students a few feet away waking up about the same time. This other student was Israeli.

So this man asked the other students, what do these sheep eat? Are they rock-eating sheep?

And the other student answers, these are college-level students, he answers in Hebrew.

Well, now I have to get ahead of my story. The other student explains that what happens is in this desert, this is about 30 miles from the Mediterranean Sea, and late in the afternoon, breezes will come off the Mediterranean, late in with moisture. And in the desert, the rocks are hot, the dirt is hot, everything is hot there in the desert, and this moisture-laden air will come over these hot rocks and will condense just a few drops of water overnight on these rocks.

And overnight, literally overnight, several blades of grass will spring up like this around these rocks. Blades of grass, four or five inches overnight like that. So what is happening is, in the morning, the shepherds will take their sheep and their goats along these hillsides where these breezes have passed over, and the moisture is condensed, and this grass has grown up. And again, it's just enough for one mouthful at a time, just a few blades of grass. And that's what the sheep are doing. They're going from one rock, getting a few blades of grass, going to the next rock, getting a few more blades of grass, and so on. So this American student asked the Israeli student, what do you call this? And the Israeli student answered in Hebrew, quoting or paraphrasing scripture, which is very typical in this program here, he says, the Lord leads me into green pastures.

Referring back to Psalm 23, it makes me to lie down in green pastures. And the Israeli explained that in the Middle East, in the Holy Land, this is what is called green pastures. The green pastures of the shepherd. This is a desert image. And this is the green pastures of the shepherd. I certainly never envisioned it this way. You know, reading this about, he makes me lie down in green pastures.

This is what I thought that meant, because I'm used to thinking in North American terms, where you have sheep out in this belly deep grass with gurgling streams and cool breezes and shade and all of that.

But Psalm 23 wasn't written in North America. It was written about the desert, the desert there of the Holy Land. And I think we can, you know, we can, the danger of this is we can read this and think that, well, this is what our life is going to be like when God calls us. That from that point forward, God is going to give us everything that we want, everything that we need. We've got to be sitting in these lush green pastures. We're going to have this, all the shade that we want, all the cool water that we need. All we got to do is just lean over and drink it.

Life is going to be problem-free. All we have to do is just reach out and take it. But is that what life is like for us? Is that what life was like for David? No, of course not. Maybe it is like that for us at times in our lives. And when it is, we should thank God for that. Praise God for that. But it's not the norm. Life has its ups and downs. It has its rocky past that we talked about. It has its blistering hot sun at times. And sometimes we just don't know whether we're going to make it or not. But look at these sheep. Are the sheep worried? They're not worried because all they have is one mouthful of grass. One mouthful. But the sheep aren't worried because they have something else. Because they have a shepherd. And that shepherd will take them from one mouthful of grass to the next mouthful of grass to the next mouthful of grass. And that is a metaphor for what God does for us, too. It doesn't give us everything we want. It doesn't give us a life of leisure and luxury. That sort of thing. It's describing this is a setting in the desert that it's talking about here. A desert setting here. It's describing shepherding in the Middle East, not in North America. And in the Middle East, the picture is as long as you have a shepherd, and as long as you follow that shepherd, when the grass is gone, the shepherd is always going to lead you to the next mouthful. He's going to keep you going. He'll lead you to more green pastures. But it will only be enough to deal with what's happening in your life at that time, at that moment. And that's a picture of life in the desert. All God has promised us is green pastures. Like this. Just enough to deal with what is going on in our lives right now. And the danger is if we have everything that we need, then what use is God? We don't need God if we have everything we need. That's a danger. We talked about that in the the sermon. That's the story of what happened to the kingdoms of Israel and Judah. When God moved them out of the land of milk of the desert to the land of honey, where they had agricultural abundance and plenty of all of that, what happened? They turned their backs on God. They forgot God and became no different from the nations around them that God promised to drive them out, drive out of the land before them. So if God is our shepherd, whatever it is that's going on in our lives right now, an hour from now, a day from now, if we follow the shepherd, he will always give us the green pastures that we need to deal with whatever happens to us. And again, that's not to say that we don't plan for the future, that we don't deal with the future, but what it means is we need to learn to trust, to trust God, to have faith in him, which is a desert picture entirely. Because if we have faith in our shepherd and to follow him, that is why God gives us those desert times in life.

Not because it's easy, but because it is not easy. Because that is how we build faith.

That is how we exercise faith. That is how we come to know God, as opposed to just knowing about God. And that is what David is talking about in this psalm, when he refers here to green pastures.

That's the story. That's the picture. Once you see it in a desert setting. Continuing back to verse 2, the next phrase is, He leads me beside the still waters. What is that talking about?

Well, question for you. In the desert, where do you find water?

Where do you find water? In the desert. Where does it come from? Where do you find enough water to quench not just your thirst as a shepherd, but the thirst of several dozen, maybe several hundred sheep and goats in a desert setting? And what is the significance of this phrase, still waters?

Why still waters? Why not just waters? Period there. What's the significance of that?

Well, there aren't many sources of water in the desert. That's pretty obvious. One source is wells. And we find that mentioned a number of times in the book of Genesis, where you might think of some of the conflicts between Abraham and his herdsmen, it's called, his shepherds, who have Abraham, sheep and goats out in the desert. And they get into conflicts with the other peoples around them over the wells, the sources of water, because that's a very valuable resource in the desert. And there are these conflicts, and Abraham moves around and sometimes surrenders a source of water in the desert to maintain peace with the neighboring people in that area. So wells are one source of water. There are also occasional springs in the desert that you'll find reference to in the Bible as well. A lot of wells were built around springs. There would be a little seep of water coming up out of the sand or the rocks or the gravel, and they would dig down there knowing that there's a water source there and build a well around it. So some of the wells are around water sources like that. But there are also springs in the desert.

But those are very few and far between, and you can bet that in the desert every shepherd knows where those springs are. They have to know for them and their sheep to survive. There are also a few streams in the desert where there are springs enough to actually create a stream that will run for some distance there. But those were even more rare than springs there. And during the rainy season around spring, sometimes you would find streams where there's enough water to create a stream. And sometimes in the desert there are also puddles or large puddles or pools of water as a result of flash floods in the desert. Every so often in the news, we'll hear about some hiker or tourist here in Colorado or New Mexico or Arizona or Utah who gets drowned in a flash flood in the desert. And why are those dangerous? Actually in Israel, you know what the number one killer of people is in the desert in Israel? It's not scorpions, it's not snakes, it's not heat exhaustion, heat stroke. They drown from flash floods.

Because in Israel, like here in the American West, the desert is primarily rock. It doesn't absorb, it doesn't hold the water. So it can literally rain 10, 15, 20 miles away. And you can be hiking in a desert wadi or canyon like this. And next thing you know, you know, not a cloud in the sky where you are, but it's several inches of rain 20 miles away. And next thing you know, you've suddenly got a wall of water as high as this roof coming down this canyon toward you. And you're washed away and you drown. That's what happens with flash floods in the desert here in the west.

You can see one here. This is a Judean desert, not too far from Jerusalem. You see this huge waterfall and this wadi down here? Look at the volume of water pouring over there. And imagine yourself being hiking down here in this wadi and suddenly you see a wall of water the size of this room coming down this wadi toward you and there's no way to climb out. And you drown. You drown there.

So this is the type of thing that happens. And this gives rise to this phrase there in Hebrew about quiet waters or still waters as some burdens translated, or peaceful waters.

The issue is not whether the water is moving. The issue is whether the water is dangerous for you there. Quiet waters or still waters means water that you can go drink because it's not at the bottom of a wadi. It's not water that could get you killed because the location of that water is dangerous being at the bottom of a wadi. And if the shepherd is there with the sheep and the wadi, the sheep know that the water is okay because the shepherd will be able to hear the water. They actually have warning systems there in the desert and the shepherd will be able to scent and smell the rain that is coming. But if the shepherd is not there, this is a dangerous location because the sheep will go down in the bottom of a wadi like this where there's some puddles left over after the last flood and they'll drink the water and they don't realize the danger that they're in being washed away in a flood. So David writes here that the shepherd leads me beside still waters, not waters that are dangerous where flash flood can come along and take your life. There.

Going back here to Psalm 2, he leads me beside the still waters. The Hebrew literally means quiet waters or waters of quietness, meaning what the shepherd tells me I ought to drink not only satisfies my thirst, but it's safe in the process. It's not something that's going to kill me if I drink of that water. And that applies to life in general as well. How much of what looks so good and so appealing to us in the end could kill us. A lot of things in life are like these cool puddles of water in the bottom of a wadi. They look good. They look appetizing, especially if you're in a desert environment like that. They look cool. They look fresh. They look inviting. But the truth is, if we're not careful, those things can kill us because we don't recognize the danger. Some things in life may not be physically dangerous, but they can be dangerous spiritually and mentally and emotionally. And we may not realize that. So we better be paying attention to the shepherd who tells us that might look good, might look like it's going to satisfy you, but it's poison. It's dangerous. It can take your life and you should not go near that.

And there are a lot of things in this life that are that way. We'd better be paying attention to what the shepherd says. And when he tells us this is what is really good for us, when he'd apply that, pay attention to that. Because it won't hurt us. It won't endanger us, our lives in the process. There's a lot we could talk about here. This is a powerful image because it shows that we, like sheep, don't always know what is good for us and right and best for us. And we don't recognize the things that are dangerous to us. So there is an important lesson here about these still waters. Continuing now back in verse 3 of Psalm 23.

I am going to pick up the pace here. Verse 3, the next phrase, is, He restores my soul. He leads me in the paths of righteousness for His name's sake.

We might wonder if Christ is our shepherd, why would it be necessary for Him to restore our soul or our lives, as the word means here. The idea here is that the sheep has wandered off from the flock and gotten itself in trouble. It has gotten itself in a dangerous situation and has to be rescued by the shepherd. In the desert, sheep faced a lot of different dangers on many forms. The shepherd has to always be alert to a number of these different dangers.

Let's notice one particular danger, Psalm 42 in verse 11. It says here, Why are you cast down, O my soul? And why are you disquieted within me?

Hope in God, for I shall yet praise Him, the help of my countenance and my God.

And the phrase I'd like to draw our attention to is cast down here, because this is actually a shepherding term here that's used among shepherds. Sheep are not the most sturdy creatures, they're not the most durable and the most coordinated, that sort of thing. And sometimes sheep in the desert will find a cool place. They will lie down to rest, perhaps under a bush that we talked about earlier, something like that. They'll lay down to rest in the desert. And because they are kind of round and with heavy wool on them and so on, sometimes they will lie down and they can't get up. They will lay down and their center of gravity will shift.

And with this wool, this big cushion, pillow kind of surrounding them, they can roll over on their back and with their legs flailing away in the air and they literally can't get up.

And if you're a sheep in a position like that, you're totally helpless.

Because the next predator that comes along, whether it's a leopard, a lion, a hyena, jackal, whatever like that, you're totally defenseless and you're literally dead meat in a case like that. Also, a sheep like this will tend to panic, being trapped like that, not able to get up. So in the desert, they will exhaust themselves and within a few hours they can die from exhaustion and heat stroke and things like that and other things we don't have time to go into, physiological things. So it's a very dangerous situation. This is what is called a sheep being cast down. They've fallen and they literally can't get up. So what does the shepherd have to do? This is why it's important for a shepherd to monitor his sheep in the desert, to know where they are, to count them, to keep track of all of them. And if one wanders away to be aware of that, to know where they are, maybe he starts seeing the buzzards circling and knowing, uh-oh, I've got a sheep that's in trouble and he goes out to rescue that sheep. And we do find this referred to in one of Christ's parables, Luke 15 verses 4 through 6. Christ says, Christ says, what man of you, having a hundred sheep, if he loses one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness, in the desert, and go after the one which is lost until he finds it? And when he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders rejoicing. And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and neighbors, saying to them, Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep which was lost. Now notice that the shepherd, when he finds a sheep, what does he do?

As it says here, he lays it on his shoulders and brings it back to the flock. Why does he do that? Well, it's because the sheep is exhausted. It's worn out from being cast down. There's some other problem like that. So what the shepherd does, he finds the sheep out in the wilderness. He'll stand at first, roll it over so it's not as panicked, so it can start breathing normally again. Then he'll gently lift it up to get it all on its all four feet again, so it's stable. And then, because the sheep is panicked, exhausted, worn out, he'll pick up the sheep, lay it on his shoulders, and bring it back and restore it to the rest of the flock. And of course, there are obvious spiritual analogies for us too. We can find ourselves in situations that we find ourselves getting into where we are trapped with no way out. And God has to come and rescue us from the circumstances we've gotten ourselves in. He has to come along and rescue us lest we perish in the wilderness like a sheep that is cast down. Continuing back here, Psalm 23 and verse 3, He leads me in the paths of righteousness for His name's sake. What are these paths of righteousness? Well, let's notice first of all that it says He leads me. In the desert, this is very important. Earlier we talked about waddies or gulches or canyons there in the desert. Some of these are literally hundreds of feet deep.

So the shepherd has to walk out in front leading the sheep. And sheep are natural followers there.

But the shepherd has to choose his path carefully in the desert because of these waddies and canyons. Because if he walks too close and a sheep isn't paying attention, the sheep can fall off. Then in some of these canyons, it may be up to several hundred feet deep. So the shepherd has to lead the sheep in right paths, which is what this term means here. The paths of righteousness. Sheep aren't righteous, but they do walk in right paths, correct paths is what the term means here.

The shepherd can't walk just anywhere in the desert because of dangers like this. This is a kind of terrain you see there. And if a shepherd's walking too close to the edge, the sheep can fall off there. The sheep will follow exactly where the shepherd goes. So if the shepherd starts going up a slope that's too steep, or down a slope that's too steep, the sheep will follow right along behind him. If it's too steep and the sheep can't make that, can't navigate that, they'll fall. They can injure themselves, break a leg, break a bone, something like that. And so the shepherd has to choose a safe path for the sheep. Now the problem with us as sheep is human beings is sometimes we don't want to be led. We're more like goats than like sheep. We want to choose our own way, and that gets us into trouble. That's a reason that Christ talks about in some of his parables about in the end the sheep are on his right hand and the goats are on the left. The sheep go into his kingdom and the goats go somewhere else, kind of like a desert environment where it's a little hotter.

There. So goats are like that. They will go here, there, everywhere, all over the landscape there.

Whereas the sheep are following the shepherd and the goats go anywhere but following the shepherd.

And in the end they pay the price for that, for those choices. Continuing on, verse 4, Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil.

This is actually very much a desert setting as well. And this word death, shadow of death, isn't in the Hebrew. There's no word there for death.

What it...

It could more accurately be translated something like the... And valley is misleading, too, we think again of our nice broad lush valleys. This is talking about gulches, waddies, gullies, ravines.

So what this is talking about, and probably better translated, would be the ravine of the darkest dark. It's literally what the Hebrew would mean, the ravine of the darkest dark. What's that talking about? Well, again, think of the desert waddies with deep gulches that crisscross the desert there where the water is carved them, perhaps over many, many years. And as the sun begins to go down in late afternoon, the shadows get longer and the waddies get darker and darker because they're in the shadow there.

And also, if you are in a hilly area, walking or leading a bunch of sheep, through that it is dangerous because, again, the sheep can stumble, fall into one of these waddies, break a bone, get trapped in the bottom of it, and the shepherd can't rescue the animal out of this deep waddie.

Also, as it got dark, various deadly creatures would come out.

What are some of the animals that come out in the desert at night?

Snakes, scorpions, hyenas, leopards, things like that.

So nighttime in the desert can be pretty dangerous. That's why the shepherds get their sheep into a safe place by nightfall. They're not just left out in the open or wandering around in the desert at night. Notice also that it says here that earlier we read how the shepherd led the sheep. He leads me in the pass of righteousness. And now the sheep says that you are with me. The shepherd is with the sheep. What is that talking about? Well, as it starts getting in late afternoon in the desert, as it starts to get on toward darkness, the shepherd is no longer out in front leading the sheep. The shepherd draws back right in the middle of the sheep, with the sheep surrounding them. The sheep are with him. Because again, the visibility is getting poor. The dangers are growing. So the shepherd has to be right there with the sheep, right there among the sheep there to keep them safe. And that is why, as we read here, I will fear no evil. The sheep do not fear when the shepherd is right there among them, in this time of potential danger. The sheep aren't afraid because they know that their shepherd is right there with them. And next it says here, your rod and your staff, they comfort me. And this is talking about two different tools of the shepherd. The rod, and here's a photo from about a hundred years ago of a shepherd there in the Holy Land, and he's got his rod. It's about a two-foot club, is what we would call it. A piece of wood with a knot on the end of it there, to protect the animals with as a tool or as a weapon. It's not used to discipline the sheep or to beat the sheep, it's used to protect the sheep from dangers, from wild animals.

You might remember, I referred to this earlier, but let's read it here, that David killed a lion and a bear. Notice what he says here.

This is when he's again about to confront Goliath, 1 Samuel 17, verses 34 through 36.

David said to Saul, your servant used to keep his father's sheep, and when a lion or a bear came, and took a lamb out of the flock, I went out after it and struck it, and delivered the lamb from its mouth, and when it arose against me, I caught it by its beard, and struck and killed it.

Your servant has killed both lion and bear, and this uncircumcised Philistine, referring to Goliath, will be like one of them, seeing he has defied the armies of the living God.

So, notice that, as it says here, that David killed the lion and the bear by striking them.

What did he strike them with? His bear hands? His sling? No, he struck them with his club!

The club that he carried to protect the sheep. Grabbed the animals, probably beat them on the head with his club until he killed the lion and the bear. Remarkable! Remarkable story of bravery and dedication. There, in several times in Scripture, we won't turn to them, but God talks about using a rod to punish people. In Isaiah, he talks about using Assyria as the rod through which he's going to punish Israel. He's talking about this club, which can be a very deadly weapon, and the hands of someone who knows what they're doing with it. The rod also had another use, and that was to inspect the sheep. We find reference to this in Ezekiel 20 verses 37 through 38, where God says, I will make you pass under the rod, and I will bring you into the bond of the covenant. I will purge the rebels from among you and those who transgress against me. I will bring them out of the country where they dwell, but they shall not enter the land of Israel. Then you will know that I am the Eternal. What this is referring to is both inspection and separation.

What the shepherd would do with this rod is he would take his rod and would rub it against the grain of the wool of a sheep to lift it up. You might try that with your dog or cat, you know, run against the way their fur goes, and you can see down to the skin then you can inspect it.

The shepherd allowed him to inspect the quality of the wool of the sheep. I'm not sure if they used that technique on goats or not, but they weren't shearing the goats. That would let him inspect the quality of the wool and also see down to the skin to see if the animal had any injuries, ticks, scabs, wounds, things like that. It was a tool for inspecting the animals. If the animals passed inspection, they had passed under the rod and were good and healthy, but if they had problems, if they had injuries, disease, the wool quality wasn't bad, they could wasn't good, they could be separated out. So the rod is used as a tool of inspecting and separating the animals. This is what is being referred to here in Ezekiel 20. The next tool that we find referred to is the staff. Your rod and your staff comfort me. The staff is this traditional shepherd's crook. We've probably seen illustrations for a number of years. A pole about five, six, eight feet long with a crook on the end of it. The exact shape of the crook might vary, but it was something like this. This was called the staff of the shepherd. It was another very useful tool. It was used primarily in three different ways. It was used to lift newborn baby lambs after they'd been born.

And they're kind of laying there in a daze. What happened? What do I do now? Because if the shepherd went over and picked up the animal and took it to its mother, it would have human scent on it. You've probably heard about this about wild animals. You find a wild baby in the woods. Leave it alone. It's not abandoned. The mother's off somewhere nearby. But if you handle the animal, it will get human scent on it. The mother won't have anything to do with it. The animal will die. Same type of thing with lambs. So the shepherd would use the crook to help the lamb stand up and steer it to its mother there. It was also used. Some sheep are very timid, scared, as we talked about earlier. So sometimes the shepherd could reach out several feet away and grab a sheep and gently pull it to him. So he could then inspect it, see if it's hurt, see if it's injured, things like that. And third, the staff was used to guide the sheep. If a sheep is going off on the wrong path, it can reach his staff out and tap the sheep on the side or poke it in the ribs to get it to go in the right direction that the sheep wants to go. So there are three very important uses for the staff. But what is most important about the staff and the rod is the last point there. All of these connote tender care and protection. And thus they comfort the sheep. And that's why the sheep says, your rod and your staff, they comfort me. Because they know that it's there to protect, to comfort, to provide, and to show the shepherd's love for the sheep. Next, and we're getting close to wrapping this up now. Psalm 23 verses 5 and 6 say, you prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil, my cup runs over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Eternal forever. Now there are two different views as to what these words, these last two verses are talking about.

One view is that it's continuing to talk about the sheep. And thus the table that is prepared is just referring to again the shepherd leading the sheep into pastures, into grain pastures where the table is figurative. He's laid out a meal there and the sheep go through and eat the grass. And that is what is meant by the table there. And then also, in the presence of my enemies, that's referring to the sheep standing guard and watching over the sheep like this to to be alert for any predators, wolves, hyenas, jackals, it might be lurking around, snakes, poisonous plants. You'll keep an eye out to keep the sheep away from those dangers.

And so those are the enemies that is described here. And then if this is still referring to sheep, the anointing with oil would be referring to olive oil being mixed with different minerals and spices to protect or give the sheep relief from insects, from parasites, like we talked about earlier. Their skin infections, that sort of thing.

And the cup running over would refer to the shepherd giving a sheep that was fatigued plenty of water to drink. He might cup water in his hands and hold it out for the sheep to drink or or have some sort of skin sack or something like that to give the animal water to quench its thirst.

And then verse 6 would refer to the sheep living contentedly in the presence of the shepherd knowing that the sheep is being taken care of by that shepherd who loves it and who takes care of it.

Now my view, I think those last two verses are talking about something different which is also a desert picture. And that is talking about the hospitality of the Bedouin people, specifically what took place in a Bedouin tent. Now the nomadic Bedouin lifestyle, I've talked about this before. Bedouin, Badou is Arabic for desert. Badouin is somebody who lives in the desert wandering around. This nomadic lifestyle, this had been this lifestyle been practiced for at least a thousand years by the time David writes this psalm. Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Jacob were Bedouin traveling around with their flocks of sheep and goats and camels and so on. So this had been going on at least a thousand years by the time David writes this psalm. You might think back to one aspect, a very important aspect of this Bedouin culture is that of hospitality.

You might think back to when God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah and the three messengers come before Abraham and Sarah in their tent in the desert. And what did they do?

Three total strangers show up at their tent and they fix a big meal for them.

There. That's typical of this Bedouin hospitality there because the desert is a hostile place.

People care for one another, show that hospitality to one another. Another aspect of that is once you came as a guest into the tent, you were under the protection of the host. The host would give his very life for you to protect you if you were being pursued by your enemies. That is still practice to this day. Some of the most hospitable people in the world are the Bedouin of the desert there. So they will protect you from anyone or anything. You are considered an honored guest while you are in their tent there. That is what I think is a more accurate view of what is being described here. Also, this Hebrew word table can mean a literal table, but it can also refer to a piece of cloth or leather or something like that spread out on the ground in a Bedouin tent.

Again, thinking back to the illustration here that this table, the Hebrew word translated table, would also describe this. A cloth or a mat of some sort laid out where everybody would gather around and eat their meal. So I think this is more likely the table that is being referred to here.

Also, whose tent are they in? Whose tent is this narrator of Psalm 23n? He's in God's tent.

God is the one who is providing David with a sumptuous meal, a very generous meal.

And David's enemies may still be around, may still be pursuing him, but he's under the protection of the person who owns the tent. He's under the protection of his host, who will give anything up to and including his own life to protect his honored guest from his enemies. And it's also common in a setting like this for the host to provide perfumed oil for his guests to help them smell nice because after all, where do they live? They live in a desert. You get sweaty, you get smelly. So it's common to anoint people with oil, perfumed oil. So they would smell nice and enjoyable and it would be a refreshing thing for them too. And my cup runs over, would be referring to the to the host giving the guest all of the water, all of the wine, all of the tea that they would need to drink as a show of hospitality and generosity. And then in verse 6, it concludes, And surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the eternal forever. And I think again this is continuing that theme of being in God's presence where where the writer is safe from all enemies and completely secure, feels completely secure in every way. All he is experiencing is God's goodness, God's mercy, God's compassion in every way. And that also mentioned here that that house I will dwell in the house of the Lord.

House, somebody were familiar with this word, I've talked about it before, it's a Hebrew word, bet, spelled B-E-T generally bet. It means house, means temple, can mean tent, household, dwelling place.

I would simply translate it in this context as place or presence. I will dwell in the place or in the presence of the Lord forever and ever. It's not talking about a literal house. Again, this is a desert setting, it's a tent setting here. So David would be saying that he is going to dwell forever in the place or the presence of God, the place where God is. And to live, of course, to live with God forever means that he knows that he will have eternal life. He will live forever with his loving shepherd. So this psalm starts with the Lord is my shepherd. And it ends in complete confidence that he will live with his loving shepherd forever. And an eternity of blessing, of goodness, of mercy coming from his shepherd. And that is God's promise from the ultimate shepherd who loves his sheep and wants to live forever with them in his kingdom.