Heart Aflame - March 14, 2010

Psalm 23:2-3

He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters.  David relates how abundantly God has provided for all his necessities.  The heavenly Shepherd had omitted nothing which might contribute to make him live happily under his care.  He, therefore, compares the great abundance of all things requisite for the purposes of the present life which he enjoyed, to meadows richly covered with grass, and to gently flowing streams of water; or he compares the benefit or advanraga of such things to sheep-cots; for it would not have been enough to have been fed and satisfied in rich pasture, had there not also been provided waters to drink, and the shadow of the sheep-cot to cool and refresh him.

He restores my soul.  He guides me in paths of righteousess for his name's sake.  As is the duty of a good shepherd to cherish his sheep, and when they are diseased or weak to nurse and support them, David declares that this was the manner in which he was treated by God.  The restoring of the soul, or the conversion of the soul, as it is, literally rendered is of the same import as to make anew, or to recover.

By the paths of righteousness, David means easy and plain paths.

God is in no respect wanting to his people, seeing he sustains them by his power, invigorates and quickens them, and averts from them whatever is hurtul, and they may walk at ease in plain and straight paths.  That, however, he may not ascribe any thing to his own worth or merit, David represents the goodness of God as the cause of so great liberality, declaring that God bestows all these things upon him for his own name's sake.  And certainly his choosing us t be his sheep, and his performing towards us all the offices of a shepherd, is a blessing which proceeds entirely from his free and sovereign goodness.