The Lord of Psalm 23: A Seven Day Devotionalનમૂનો

How He Welcomes

You prepare a table before me . . .

you anoint my head with oil. (v. 5)

There are three verbs here, with two of them describing the explicit activity of the host and the third making his activity implicit: “you prepare a table,” “you anoint my head,” and “my cup overflows,” the sense being that he fills my cup to overflowing. Purely because of our host’s benevolence, we have moved from threat in verse 4 to triumph in verse 5, and we find ourselves, in Derek Kidner’s words, at a “well-set table,” our bodies perfumed with “festive oil,” and our hands holding a “brimming cup.”1

W. S. Plumer observes that “to prepare a table was to make ready a feast. It was to do more than to give a loaf of bread to a weary pilgrim. It was to detain one as a guest and set before him the best of everything that could under the circumstances be had.”2 I love the idea of “detaining” someone in order to treat him as a guest. Plumer has captured the sense of Psalm 23:5: the Lord is making us stop where we are, and he is holding us back a while, detaining us, specifically so that he can surprise us with the full extent of his very best care.

Consider too the head anointed with oil and the cup filled to overflowing. Just like we would take visitors’ coats on their arrival in our homes, in David’s culture, you would wash their feet and perfume their heads with oil. Just like we would never leave a guest thirsty, staring at an empty glass and wondering if there’ll ever be a refill, so too this host ensures that the cup of his guests never runs dry. Anointing is a gesture of hospitality, and it is generous, which is why the cup overflows. To speak about “my cup” is to refer to “the psalmist’s experience of life.”3 David is saying here that the blessings of the Lord have flowed freely into every part of his existence such that on every hand he sees the Lord’s bounty toward him personally.

How astonishing it is that this psalm should be clothing the Lord of the burning bush—the great “I am,” who has no need of anyone or anything—in the language of a host who is lavish beyond compare to those who have such need. The greatest of hosts himself prepares the most lavish of feasts for the lowliest of creatures. How amazing it is that the Lord of heaven should be seen here spreading his fame on all the earth by wanting to be known as a certain kind of host. This is a facet to his display of his own glory, the Lord doing everything “for his name’s sake” (Ps. 23:3), which we often overlook because we associate God’s glory and fame with his strength and salvation more than we do with his individual attention to those he has redeemed. But it is in God’s nature to serve us as much as it is to save us.

Do you know how God welcomes you? Do you know just how good the Lord Jesus is in his care of you, his guest? His welcome is second to none.

1) Derek Kidner,Psalms 1–72(Leicester, UK: Inter-Varsity Press, 1973), 111–12.

2) William S. Plumer, Psalms: A Critical and Expository Commentary with Doctrinal and Practical Remarks(Edinburgh: Banner of Truth, 1975), 314.

3) Peter C. Craigie, Psalms 1–50, Word Biblical Commentary(Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2004), 208.