Psalm 23
For centuries, Psalm 23 has been the psalm believers turn to first. As a pastor, I have prayed these six verses beside hospital beds, spoken them at gravesides, and used them again and again to comfort people whose hearts were broken by grief, illness, or fear. Over fifty years of ministry, I do not know a passage of Scripture I have leaned on more often, or watched do more good for a person in need of comfort.
As a seminary professor, I taught a course on Wisdom Literature every other year, and that course always included a careful study of the Psalms. Whenever we came to Psalm 23, I slowed down. I wanted my students to see not only its comfort but its craftsmanship, the way six short verses move a reader from green pastures, to the valley of the shadow, to a table prepared in the presence of enemies, to a house where one dwells forever. Many of my students chose to write their term papers on this psalm, and I was never surprised. There is enough here to occupy a lifetime of study, and still not exhaust it.
Several years ago, that classroom attention became something more personal. I began writing a series of devotionals on Psalm 23, taking up each phrase of the psalm in turn and asking what it meant, not only for a congregation or a classroom, but for a single reader carrying a single burden. I finished the project, and then, as sometimes happens, I set it aside. It lived quietly in my files. I always intended to publish these studies on my blog. I never did.
That changed with the publication of my book, Praying the Psalms: Finding Your Voice in Israel’s Prayer Book. Working on that book reminded me of these unfinished studies, so I went back and reread them. I revised them, rewrote what needed rewriting, and reworked the language so that a reader coming to them today, whatever their situation, would find them speaking directly and freshly to their own life. What began as a scholarly exercise has become, I hope, a companion for anyone who needs one.
Beginning Monday, I will publish this series here on the blog: twenty-five studies, each one taking up a single phrase of Psalm 23, from its opening declaration, “The Lord is my shepherd,” to its closing promise that goodness and mercy will follow us all the days of our life, and that we will dwell in the house of the Lord forever. Each study is short enough to read in a single sitting, and each closes with a prayer, so that these are not simply devotionals to think about, but devotionals to pray.
My hope is that an intensive, phrase-by-phrase study of this psalm will bless you the same way it has blessed me, first when I wrote these studies years ago, and again now as I have prepared them for you. Whatever valley you may be walking through, whatever table you have already been seated at, whatever season of rest or of struggle you find yourself in, I believe Psalm 23 has something true to say to you, and I invite you to discover it with me, one phrase at a time.
As you read, I would love to hear from you. Let me know how these studies speak to you, and how they meet a need in your own life. That has always been the purpose of this work: not simply to explain a psalm, but to help you trust the Shepherd it describes.
Be blessed as you study Psalm 23 with me, beginning Monday.
Claude Mariottini
Emeritus Professor of Old Testament
Northern Baptist Seminary
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If you are looking for other series of studies on the Old Testament, visit the Archive section and you will find many studies that deal with a variety of Old Testament topics.
