The Lord Is My Shepherd -Part II
There is natural tendency when reading through the 23rd psalm to presume David was inspired by his time in the fields, growing up as young shepherd boy. We tend to believe, maybe he wrote the psalm in his youth while out tending his flock and before his life became especially complicated. Or, maybe he wrote it as an aged and hardened king, looking back with fondness to those simpler days of nomadic isolation.
There is a rugged simplicity and beauty of David’s song that makes us hear it with a sense of romantic idealism. And, amidst the hustle and bustle of our hectic twenty-first century world, who of us would not relish the solitude of green pastures and still waters? Truthfully, we know nothing of the time and circumstances of the psalm’s composition, we simply assume with its opening line and following descriptive landscapes, David is persuading us to think of God as our idyllic Shepherd. However, David was, yes a shepherd, but he was also a military commander and more notably, a king (*military command was assumed of kings in much of the ancient world). Considering this, could this psalm be shaped by David’s role as a militaristic king just as much as it was by him being a shepherd? To answer this riddle, consider an unearthed treasure discovered a century ago…
King Tutankhamun (A.K.A. King Tut), Egyptian pharaoh of the 18th dynasty (c. 1334–1325 BC) , is perhaps the most recognized of Egyptian Pharaoh’s in our current age. Historically speaking, King Tut was not very exceptional as far as pharaoh’s go (after all, he died at age 19). What memorialized King Tut was Howard Carter’s historic discovery of his royal tomb in 1922, with this king’s magnificent burial treasure still intact (I was fortunate to visit both Tutankhamun’s tomb in the Valley of the Kings and see the exhibit of his belongings at the Cairo Museum during my visit to Egypt). The most iconic and priceless of all the items discovered was the pharaoh’s sarcophagus (see image). Upon looking at the beautiful and ornate nesting shrine of King Tut, one cannot help but notice the two items the ancient king is clutching, the crook and the flail. The flail was the ancient symbol for agricultural fertility, and the crook, or more specifically the shepherd’s staff, was the ancient symbol for kingship. To the ancient semitic mind, to say, “The Lord is my Shepherd,” was another metaphoric way of saying, “The Lord is my King!”
As we continue to delve into this beloved text, we will consider both what this psalm tells us about God, both as our Good Shepherd, but also, as our Mighty King? Knowing this, we will consider next week the first promise given, “Thou shalt not want.”
