I. The Shepherd Psalm (3 of 3)

There is no question as to who wrote it, David's autograph is on every verse. But when and where did it first utter itself upon the ear of man? Was it sung first amid the hills of Bethlehem, as the sheep were grazing over the wolds, dotting them like chalk-stones? Or was it poured first upon the ear of the moody king, whose furrowed brow made so great a contrast to the fresh and lovely face of the shepherd lad, who was ,,withal of a beautiful countenance, and goodly to look to?" It may have been. But there is a strength, a maturity, a depth, which are not wholly compatible with tender youth, and seem rather to betoken the touch of the man who has learned good by knowing evil, and who, amid the many varied experiences of human life, has fully tested the shepherd graces of the Lord of whom he sings.

These words were surely first sung by one who had suffered deeply; who had tasted many a bitter cup; who had often been compelled to thread his way through many a dangerous labyrinth, and beneath many an overhanging, low-browed rock.

We are told, in Persian story, of a vizier who dedicated one apartment in his palace to the memory of earlier days, ere royal caprice had lifted him from lowliness to honour. There, in a tiny room with bare floors, was the simple equipment of shepherd life,- the crook, the wallet, the coarse dress, the water-cruse; and there he spent a part of each day, remembering what he had been, as an antidote to those temptations which beset men in the dazzling light of royal or popular favour. So David the king did not forget David the shepherd boy. There was a chamber in his heart whither he was wont to retire to meditate and pray; and there it was that he composed this psalm, in which the mature experience of his manhood blends with the vivid memory of a boyhood spent among the sheep.

This only we say further, as we close this meditation: that as this psalm hath virtue, which streams to heal those who touch, so it is true that its power lies in dwelling so little upon man, and so much on God. See how every verse-tells us what He is doing. This is the true policy of life. Unbelief puts circumstances between itself and Christ, so as not to see Him; as the disciples did, through the mist, "and they cried out for fear." Faith puts Christ between itself and circumstances, so that it cannot see them "for the glory of that light." Unbelief fixes its gaze on men, and things, and likelihoods, and possibilities, and circumstances. Faith will not concern herself with these; she refuses to spend her time and waste her strength in considering them. Her eye is fixed steadfastly on her Lord, and she is persuaded that He is well able to supply all her need, and to carry her through all difficulties and straits.

O trembling heart, look away, and look up! Your sorrows have been multiplied indeed by looking at difficulties and second causes. Now cease from all this. Talk no more about the walled cities and giants, about the rugged paths and dark valleys, about lions and robbers; but think of the love, the might, and the wisdom of the Shepherd. Love that spared not its blood! Might that made the worlds! Wisdom that named the stars! Your salvation does not depend on what you are, but on what He is. For every look at self, take ten looks at Christ. Cease using the first pronoun, and substitute for it the third.

Tell us no more of your tears, your failures, or your 'sins; but tell us, oh, tell us, of the all-sufficiency of Jesus, and how your needs have been the foil of His deliverances; Sing again the old song of how all wants are swallowed up in the shepherd love of God. And emphasise each "HE" as you say again the psalm of childhood and of age.

I. The Shepherd Psalm (2 of 3)

"It has remanded to their dungeon more felon thoughts, more black doubts, more thieving sorrows, than there are sands on the seashore. It has comforted the noble host of the poor. It has sung courage to the army of the disappointed. It has poured balm and consolation into the heart of the sick. It has visited the prisoner and broken his chains, and, like Peter's angel, has led him forth in imagination, and sung him back to his home again. It has made the dying Christian slave freer than his master, and consoled those whom, dying, he left behind mourning, not so much that he was gone as because they were left. Nor is its work done. It will go singing on through all the generations of time, and it will not fold its wings till the last pilgrim is safe and time ended; then it shall fly back to the bosom of God, whence it issued, and sound on, mingled with all those harmonies of celestial joy which make heaven musical for ever."

But it may also be compared to the holy of holies of old, the inner shrine of that splendid temple which rose, noiseless as some tall palm, at the bidding of Solomon. However eager or noisy might be the tide of human life that throbbed and surged through the narrow streets of the Holy City, or even pulsed in the temple courts, yet there was always one quiet and undisturbed enclosure where angel guardians stretched out their wings in calm repose over the ark of God. There at least was rest; and if the priestly occupants had only been allowed to tarry in that secret place of the Most High, surely they had forgotten the fret and rush of life under the spell of that unutterable repose. Dusty haste and restless anxiety must doff their garments and shoes ere they could enter there.

And all this is the psalm before us. It is an oasis in the desert; it is a bower on a hill of arduous climbing; it is a grotto in a scorching noon; it is a sequestered arbour for calm and heavenly meditation; it is one of the most holy places in the temple of Scripture. Come hither, weary ones, restless ones, heavy-laden ones; sit down in this cool and calm resort, while the music of its rhythm charms away the thoughts that break your peace. How safe and blessed are you to whom the Lord is Shepherd! Put down this volume and repeat again, in holy reverie, the well-known words to the end, and see if they do not build themselves into a refuge on which the storms may break in vain.

I. The Shepherd Psalm (1 of 3)

The Psalm of Psalms

This psalm has sometimes been called the Psalm of the Crook. It lies between the Psalm of the Cross and the Psalm of the Crown. If the Twenty-second tells of the Good Shepherd, who died, and if the Twenty-fourth tells of the Chief Shepherd, who is coming again, the Twenty-third tells of the Great Shepherd, who keeps His flock with unerring sagacity and untiring devotion. No hireling is He. He asks no wage; He takes no reward. He counts not the cost. The sheep are His own. And in these sweet words we learn what He is towards them to-day, in all His shepherd tenderness and love.

Some have spoken of this psalm as a creed. I have it on good authority that one thinker at least, wearied with the perplexing questions that agitate so many hearts and brains in this strange questioning age, and pressed to give some positive affirmation of his creed, began reciting these words with solemn pathos of voice and kindling rapture of eye. And when he had finished the whole psalm he added: "That is my creed. I need, I desire no other. I learned it from my mother's lips. I have repeated it every morning when I awoke, for the last twenty years. Yet I do not half understand it; I am only beginning now to spell out its infinite meaning, and death will come on me with the task unfinished. But, by the grace of Jesus, I will hold on by this psalm as my creed, and will strive to believe it, and to live it; for I know that it will lead me to the cross, it will guide me to glory."

Yes, the testimony is true. And as one looking into some priceless gem may see fountains of colour Welling upward from its depths, so, as we shall gaze into these verses, simple as childhood's rhymes, but deep as an archangel's anthem, we shall see in them the gospel in miniature, the grace of God reflected as the sun in a dewdrop, and things which eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man conceived. Read into these words the meaning of the Gospels, and you have an unrivalled creed, to which all Christians may unhesitatingly assent.

Others have spoken of it as a minstrel. Before me lies a page that describes it in some such terms as these: that it is a pilgrim minstrel commissioned of God to travel up and down through the world, singing so sweet a strain that none who hear it can remember whatsoever sorrow has been rending and tearing at the heart! This, too, is true. This psalm speaks in language that the universal heart of man can comprehend. It exercises a spell that can charm away the griefs that bid a bold defiance to philosophy and mirth.

PREFACE

To see a masterpiece of painting on the walls of an art gallery, whilst a throng of conventional sight-seers is pressing past, is a very different matter to seeing it quietly, on the walls of some stately mansion, when there is time to sit down and drink in the artist's thought, or catch the different lights of early morning, of noon, or of the fading day.

Perhaps the enjoyment is the more complete when some devoted lover of the work stands beside, telling the story of its daily effect upon the mind, and indicating subtle beauties which had escaped the first superficial gaze.

It is with some such intention that this book is sent forth. That in the quiet of the sick-chamber, or of the prayer-closest, attention may be again concentrated on this inimitable Psalm; that the familiar words may be considered in the light of growing Christian experience; and that perchance some unnoticed beauty may be suggested by one who seldom comes to it without discerning some fresh reason to thank the Spirit of Inspiration, that He ever led the sweet minstrel of Scripture to indite the Shepherd Psalm.

F.B. MEYER.