The Lord Is My Shepherd Series

The LORD is my shepherd, I lack nothing. (Psalm 23:1)

There is such an interesting relationship between the sheep and the shepherd. So much is written about sheep and shepherds in commentary on Psalm 23.

I called my brother because after his wife finished a rigorous veterinary school, she went to England to study sheep. I asked my brother to tell me something your wife learned or experienced about sheep and shepherds when she traveled and lived overseas to study sheep. He apologized because he said it was not as dramatic as when David using his bare hands rescued a lamb from the mouth of a lion or a bear.

He said that when bloodthirsty coyotes were attacking the sheep the shepherds would shoot them. The animals attacking sheep may have changed and the ways to protect them are more advanced. One thing remains the same. That is shepherds provide protection and leadership for their sheep.

This study, The Lord is my Shepherd, is part of our studies on the names of God. We will look at Jehovah-Rohi. The Lord is my Shepherd.

Some of the other names:

Jehovah-Jireh: The Lord is our provider. (Genesis 22:14)

Jehovah-Rapha: The Lord is our healer. (Exodus 15:26)

Jehovah-M’kaddesh: The Lord is our Holiness. (Leviticus 20:8)

Jehovah-Nissi: The Lord is our banner, our victory. (Exodus 17:15)

Jehovah-Shalom: The Lord is our peace. (Judges 6:26)

Jehovah-Tsidkenu: The Lord is our righteousness. (Jeremiah 23:6)

Jehovah-Shammah: The Lord is present (Ezekiel 48:34)

The name Jehovah-Rohi. The Lord is my Shepherd has brought comfort to the hurting. It is the go-to verse in a funeral to help the grieving. It has been used to sooth the troubled souls. The name The Lord is my Shepherd, Jehovah-Rohi goes beyond all other names in communicating the tenderness and intimacy of God to his people.

What the shepherd is to his sheep, God is to his people. It begins the most beloved Psalm of all; the 23rd Psalm, the shepherd psalm. The Psalm of David as he writes through his own experience as a shepherd. David spent his youth caring for his father’s sheep.

The shepherd and his sheep become a beautiful and fitting analogy of the relationship between God and his people. The imagery of shepherd conveys both the tenderness and strength characteristics of God.

David himself had put his own life on the line to rescue one of his own sheep from the mouth of a lion or the mouth of a bear. It was when David demonstrated the strength God gave him. David told this when he was about to face Goliath.

But David said to Saul, “Your servant has been keeping his father’s sheep. When a lion or a bear came and carried off a sheep from the flock, I went after it, struck it and rescued the sheep from its mouth. When it turned on me, I seized it by its hair, struck it and killed it. (1 Samuel 17:34-35)

David demonstrated tenderness as he watched over the sheep with a pure heart. The occupation of Shepherd dates back to the second son of Adam and Eve. Able is recorded as keeping flocks.

Later she gave birth to his brother Abel. Now Abel kept flocks, and Cain worked the soil. (Genesis 4:2)

Being a shepherd is good training for leadership. Moses was serving as a shepherd tending the flocks when God called him to lead his people.

Now Moses was tending the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, the priest of Midian, and he led the flock to the far side of the wilderness and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. (Exodus 3:1)

We see God as our shepherd. To be a shepherd primarily means leading the sheep to feed the flocks and lead them to pasture. The context of where David was shepherd in Israel was a dry and rocky land. He must lead his sheep to water and to the green pastures. It is a fitting picture of God caring for us.

The image of God as shepherd stands in contrast with the set apartness of God and his unapproachable glory. The glory aspect of God is seen when Moses can scarcely stand to see a passing glimpse of God.

But,” he said, “you cannot see my face, for no one may see me and live.” (Exodus 33:20)

The image of the Lord is our shepherd portrays how, by the grace of God, he puts himself into a relationship with his people who he has redeemed.

He tends his flock like a shepherd: He gathers the lambs in his arms and carries them close to his heart; he gently leads those that have young. (Isaiah 40:11)

There is a profound intimacy between the shepherd and his sheep. This is even more so with God and his people. It is amazing that God offers himself to such a relationship. We need to know the depth of God’s love for us that we can say, “The Lord is my Shepherd.”