God Has To Bring Me Back-Psalm 23:3

Theme: Only God can Bring Me Back from Being Lost (Ps 23:3). The Need to be Brought Back. [Isaiah, Peter, Augustine, Wesley, John Newton, Ben Toh needed God to bring them back to God Himself.]

David’s classic confession “The Lord is my shepherd” (Ps 23:1a) was from last week’s sermon Nothing I Lack Beside Quiet Waters. “The Lord is my shepherd” should be every Christian’s sincerest and most deeply felt confession. If the Lord is truly my shepherd, there is absolutely literally nothing that I lack (Ps 23:1b). Despite David’s situation, good or bad, he knew that it is the Lord who provides him with all that he needs (Ps 23:2). He feels safe and secure like a sheep beside quiet waters, because he knows that his Shepherd takes good care of him.

• Knowing that it is only God who brings us back to Himself humbles us to the dust. But thinking that we made our way back to God on our own easily makes us unbearably proud and self-righteous.
• 𝑊𝑒 𝑜𝑓𝑡𝑒𝑛 𝑑𝑜𝑛’𝑡 𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑙𝑖𝑧𝑒 ℎ𝑜𝑤 ℎ𝑒𝑙𝑝𝑙𝑒𝑠𝑠 𝑤𝑒 𝑎𝑟𝑒–𝑙𝑖𝑘𝑒 𝑎 𝑙𝑜𝑠𝑡 𝑠ℎ𝑒𝑒𝑝 𝑤𝑎𝑛𝑑𝑒𝑟𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑎𝑟𝑜𝑢𝑛𝑑 𝑎𝑛𝑑 ℎ𝑢𝑟𝑡𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑜𝑢𝑟𝑠𝑒𝑙𝑣𝑒𝑠 and others. 𝑂𝑢𝑟 𝑜𝑛𝑙𝑦 ℎ𝑜𝑝𝑒 𝑖𝑠 𝑓𝑜𝑟 𝑜𝑢𝑟 𝐺𝑜𝑜𝑑 𝑆ℎ𝑒𝑝ℎ𝑒𝑟𝑑 𝑡𝑜 𝑓𝑖𝑛𝑑 𝑢𝑠 𝑎𝑛𝑑 𝑏𝑟𝑖𝑛𝑔 𝑢𝑠 𝑏𝑎𝑐𝑘.
• 𝙏𝙝𝙤𝙪𝙜𝙝 𝙨𝙝𝙚𝙚𝙥 𝙖𝙧𝙚 𝙙𝙪𝙢𝙗, 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙜𝙤𝙤𝙙 𝙨𝙝𝙚𝙥𝙝𝙚𝙧𝙙 𝙡𝙤𝙫𝙚𝙨 𝙝𝙞𝙨 𝙨𝙝𝙚𝙚𝙥–𝙚𝙫𝙚𝙣 𝙩𝙤 𝙧𝙚𝙨𝙘𝙪𝙚 𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙢 𝙖𝙩 𝙜𝙧𝙚𝙖𝙩 𝙘𝙤𝙨𝙩 𝙛𝙧𝙤𝙢 𝙩𝙝𝙚𝙞𝙧 𝙨𝙩𝙪𝙥𝙞𝙙𝙞𝙩𝙮. 𝙎𝙤 𝙞𝙩 𝙞𝙨 𝙬𝙞𝙩𝙝 𝙂𝙤𝙙 𝙤𝙪𝙧 𝙜𝙤𝙤𝙙 𝙨𝙝𝙚𝙥𝙝𝙚𝙧𝙙 𝙩𝙤𝙬𝙖𝙧𝙙 𝙪𝙨.

God brings me back from being lost (Ps 23:3a). The KJV gave the English-speaking world the revered phrase “He restoreth my soul.” This means something like “I was depressed and the Lord ‘restored my soul’ and helped me to feel better about myself and my world.” On numerous occasions English translations reshape a concrete biblical image into a concept. Anthony Thiselton astutely says, “Most English translations, especially NRSV and often NIV, simply abstract the conceptual content of the metaphor from its forceful emotive imagery.” Ps 23:3 is a prime example of this. The literal translation “he brings me back” makes clear that the sheep is lost and the good shepherd has to go after it, find it and carry it back.

Lost sheep are helpless. Shepherds in Lebanon and in the Holy Land (and Bailey’s students) say that once a sheep is lost, it hides under a bush or rock and begins quivering and bleating. The shepherd must locate it quickly lest it be heard and killed by a wild animal. On being found it is often too traumatized to walk and must be carried back to the flock or to the village. When this concrete image of “the lost sheep” embedded in Psalm 23 evaporates and is replaced with an abstract idea, the connection between this psalm and the long list of biblical stories about “a good shepherd and a lost sheep” evaporates (also Isa 53:6). Eastern Christianity has not made this mistake. The Septuagint uses the word epistrepho, which means “to bring back” or “to return.” The Arabic versions translate yaruddu nafsi (he brings me back) as does the Syriac Peshitta. The classical Armenian translation from the early 5th century reads, “He brings me from the wrong path to the right path.” This venerated early translation clearly affirms that the sheep is lost and that the shepherd must find it and restore it to the “right path.”

Shuv. Sadly, we have lost the image of a lost sheep in the West that’s at the heart of Psalm 23. Restoring this image to the psalm opens the door to reconnect the psalm with the rest of the good shepherd-lost sheep biblical stories. The verb shuv (return/repent) affirms that connection. “Shuv” the Hebrew verb appears again and again in the collection of good shepherd stories under discussion. On the story line the shepherd is “bringing (shuv) me back”(Ps 23:3; Jer 23:3; Eze 34:16; Zech 10:10). On the theological line, I am “caused to repent.” Psalm 23 uses a causative (polel) form of the verb, which makes clear that this is an action done for me. He (the good shepherd) brings me back. Unaided, the lost sheep cannot find its way home. As a lost sheep my only hope is in the good shepherd who will come after me and hopefully find me, pick me up and carry me back to safety. The repetition of this key verb shuv is important to note (Ps 23:3; Jer 23:3; Eze 34:16; Zech 10:10).

The Western tradition has not totally lost this important shuv part of the story, but it’s some distance back in history. The 3rd verse of the well-known hymn “The King of Love My Shepherd Is” reads, “Perverse and foolish oft I strayed, But yet in love He sought me, And on his shoulder gently laid, And home rejoicing, brought me.” In the 18th century Isaac Watts set Psalm 23 to verse and wrote,“He brings my wandering spirit back, When I forsake his ways; And leads me, for his mercy’s sake, In paths of truth and grace.”

Two actions are involved. The shepherd must come after me, which is a costly endeavor. Having found the lost sheep, a price must be paid by the shepherd to restore the lost sheep to the flock. The psalm before us only mentions the second (he brings me back). The first is assumed but not stated. Reflection on the effort required for the search evolves as the good shepherd tradition moves through its own special history.

“He leads me in the paths of righteousness” (Ps 23:3b). The clear assumption (affirmed by the Classical Armenian translation) is that I was lost while straying in the paths of unrighteousness and the good shepherd brings me back to the right paths and leads me on. The open wilderness in the Holy Land often exhibits a maze of faint trails worn by countless flocks of sheep. The shepherd alone knows which of them leads out of that valley to the next stage in the day’s journey, rather than abruptly ending in some dead end or at a cliff edge. The theological implications of the story is that the “paths of righteousness” are those that imitate the “righteousness of God” who, out of that righteousness, acts in history to save. His righteousness is a model for my righteousness.

“…for his own name’s sake” (Ps 23:3c) is how the good shepherd leads his flock in these righteous paths. Lamsa writes, “the shepherd is very careful about the paths, because he loves the sheep, and for his own name’s sake he would do anything to prevent accidents and attacks by animals. He has to keep his reputation as a good shepherd.” He acts out of his own integrity, which he’ll not violate. He is a good shepherd, and a good shepherd does not lose his sheep. Eze 36:22-32 expands on this theme. Archbishop Nerses astutely comments, “And why did He take such providential care? Not for any bribe, not because He needed to add me to his flock, but only for His name’s glory.” Thus, in the opening units of the psalm (1-3) the shepherd is seen to provide food, drink, tranquility, rescue and restoration.

Reference:

1. Bailey, Kenneth E. The Good Shepherd: A Thousand-Year Journey from Psalm 23 to the New Testament. IVP. Downers Grove, IL 60515. 2014
2. Christian Leadership in the NT, Ken Bailey, 8 min. The Middle Eastern mindset from the OT till today is to create meaning through simile, metaphor, dramatic action and parable. We modern people translate metaphor into concept. When you opt for a big metaphor you trade a certain degree of academic precision for a much larger degree of explanatory power. Middle Eastern authors, including authors of the Bible are interested in that explanatory power and they do lose a certain precision of language that is very important for us as a part of the Greco-Roman heritage. [Metaphors for God to Jesus to Christian leadership.]

The former shepherd Krikorian describes such a valley south of the Jerusalem-Jericho road: “There is an actual valley of the shadow of death in Palestine, and every shepherd knows of it. . . . I had the good fortune of having at least a passing view of this valley. . . . It is a very narrow defile through a mountain range where the water often foams and roars, torn by jagged rocks. . . . The path plunges downward . . . into a deep and narrow gorge of sheer precipices overhung by frowning Sphinx-like battlements of rocks, which almost touch overhead. Its side walls rise like the stone walls of a great cathedral. . . . The valley is about five miles long, yet it is not more than twelve feet at the widest section of the base. . . . The actual path, on the solid rock, is so narrow that in places the sheep can hardly turn around in case of danger. . . . In places gullies seven and eight feet have been washed.”

The original people of the Nile Valley were shepherds. A 25 inch high slate pallet discovered in Egypt dating from about 3000 B.C. depicts a king named Narmer standing over a kneeling captive. The king grasps the captive’s hair with his left hand and holds high a mace in his right hand. The king is at the point of bringing the mace down on the head of the helpless captive, and the instrument in the upraised hand of King Narmer is the identical shape and size of the shepherd’s rod we are describing. Furthermore, the mace was one of the phonograms in the hieroglyphic writing system. This same “rod” (mace) continued in use among shepherds in the holy land well into the 20th century.

In a number of places in the Holy Land, at the bottom of a valley, winter streams have cut long, deep crevices in the rock. One such valley is the entrance to the city of Petra in southern Jordan. I first visited that famous city the summer of 1957, a few months after a flash flood had thundered without warning through the long, narrow, thirty-foot high defile that is the entrance to the city. The wall of water had killed some fifty French tourists who were at that time walking through the pass. I recall the trauma that still gripped the Jordanian service personnel who worked at the site. They pointed out to us where two women who were walking ahead of the group heard the screams of their friends and managed to clamber up into the protection of a narrow side crevice, and who seconds later observed the crashing boulders and mangled bodies of their fellow travelers who were swept to their deaths a few feet away in the defile itself. It was indeed “a valley of death.” We were told that the late King Hussein visited the site by helicopter the following day to show his solidarity with the living and his compassion for the dead. I have visited a similar narrow defile in Wadi Qelt just above the Orthodox Saint George’s Monastery in the mountains near New Testament Jericho. Such water-cut defiles would have been known by a shepherd like David, and could well have been in his mind as he composed this famous psalm. The former shepherd Krikorian describes such a valley that is just south of the Jerusalem-Jericho road. He writes,

There is an actual valley of the shadow of death in Palestine, and every shepherd knows of it. . . . I had the good fortune of having at least a passing view of this valley. . . . It is a very narrow defile through a mountain range where the water often foams and roars, torn by jagged rocks. . . . The path plunges downward . . . into a deep and narrow gorge of sheer precipices overhung by frowning Sphinx-like battlements of rocks, which almost touch overhead. Its side walls rise like the stone walls of a great cathedral. . . . The valley is about five miles long, yet it is not more than twelve feet at the widest section of the base. . . . The actual path, on the solid rock, is so narrow that in places the sheep can hardly turn around in case of danger. . . . In places gullies seven and eight feet have been washed.

Lamsa notes, “Valleys of the shadow of death are paths which wind in between mountains where there are dark shadows and deep gorges. Travelers march slowly and silently in order to avoid being seen or heard by bandits. The fear of death is constantly in their minds. They tremble, they expect trouble or death at any time while they are passing through.”

The original people who settled the Nile Valley were shepherds. A twenty-five inch high slate pallet discovered in Egypt dating from about 3000 B.C. depicts a king named Narmer standing over a kneeling captive. The king grasps the captive’s hair with his left hand and holds high a mace in his right hand. The king is at the point of bringing the mace down on the head of the helpless captive, and the instrument in the upraised hand of King Narmer is the identical shape and size of the shepherd’s rod we are describing.34 Furthermore, the mace was one of the phonograms in the hieroglyphic writing system.35 This same “rod” (mace) continued in use among shepherds in the holy land well into the twentieth century.

“…a rod of iron” (Ps 2:9; Rev 2:27; 12:5) refers to this shepherd’s rod/mace with heavy pieces of iron driven into its head. The usage is like the term stone ax. The word stone applies to the head of the ax, not its handle. A “flint knife” is the same. The handle is of wood, and only the blade is flint (Josh 5:2-3). The same is most certainly the case with the “rod of iron.”What then of the shepherd’s sling? Indeed, the traditional shepherd had a sling that was used to scare away predators (if possible) and to help guide the flock. With skill in operating a sling, the shepherd could bounce a stone off a boulder or tree and keep the sheep on the desired path. But, as noted earlier, the rod/mace was the weapon of choice, even for a lion. In any case, in spite of his famous fight with Goliath, here David makes no mention of a sling.

The Arabic Bibles translate with the word as ‘uqqaz, which carries this precise meaning. The shepherd leans on his staff while standing, walking or climbing. It is usually about 5 feet long, and the shepherd is never without it. Almost always one end has a crook on it.

Jeremiah was called to prophetic ministry about 626 BC(Jer  1:2–3) about 5 years before Josiah king of Judah turned the nation toward repentance from idolatrous practices (2 Kings 22:3-13). Born: c. 650 BC; Anathoth. Died: c. 570 BC; Egypt.

Ezekiel’s span of prophecies can be calculated to occur over about 22 years. The last dated words of Ezekiel date to 570 BC. Born: possibly 622 BC. Died: possibly 570 BC (aged 51–52); Babylon.

Zechariah is specific about dating his writing (520–518 BC). During the Exile many Judahites and Benjamites were taken to Babylon, where the prophets told them to make their homes, suggesting they would spend a long period of time there.

Only God could have thought up the church. I couldn’t have thought the church up. I couldn’t have imagined “church.” That we exist, that West Loop Church exists, that our modest collection of people exist, is a miracle. I am honored beyond words to express that you allow me to preach to you each Sunday as we worship God together. Even though I’ve never been paid for this “job,” it is the best job I’ve ever had, which I wouldn’t exchange for anything else in the world. I desire to do nothing else other than what I’m presently doing every week and every day of the year: sharing the Word and living in community with the church. For sure, I didn’t think this up. For sure, God “thought us up.” Only by God’s immeasurable grace we’re God’s imagination for the world.