The Lord of Psalm 23: A Seven Day DevotionalНамуна

What He Sends

Almost without exception, commentators on this verse point out that the verb “follow” is, in fact, a very weak rendering. Richard Briggs goes so far as to say that it is “the one word in the whole psalm that in my opinion has been persistently poorly translated in English.”1 Instead, at the very heart of the word is the meaning “pursue.” Goodness and mercy pursue David; they do not merely follow him. The word is so intensive it is often used in combat scenes, where people are “pursued” to death, but the word itself is not negative and can be used in delightfully positive, instructive ways:

Turn away from evil and do good;

seek peace and pursue it. (Ps. 34:14)

In Psalm 23:6, says Briggs, “It is almost as if the verse attributes both agency and initiative to these divine characteristics here, whereas ‘follow’ might suggest a sort of tagging along with me. Instead, [God’s] goodness and mercy are dogged and determined in their pursuit.”2God has sent them after me.

It is common for preachers to envisage here “goodness” and “mercy” as being like two sheepdogs of the modern-day shepherd, dispatched by him to bring up the flock from the rear. Spurgeon imagines “great guardian angels” who “will always be with me at my back and my beck.”3 Dale Ralph Davis regards them as “two special agents” and “beloved denizens” whose attempts to overtake and waylay and dog David are a source of immense comfort to him.

As powerful as all these images are, I think the text means to communicate something even more wonderful: these words are another way of saying that the Lord himself is pursuing us. They are his divine attributes, yes, but the fact that they are functioning as the joint subject of the verb points to their personification as a way of stressing that these words reveal the covenant Lord himself to us. In the same way that the words “Send out your light and truth; / let them lead me” (Ps. 43:3) is the psalmist’s way of asking God himself to lead him to his holy dwelling, so it is here. For God is his own attributes. God doesn’t have goodness or love that he might dispatch them; he is goodness and love. God sends these attributes after us as a way of giving us himself. “My presence will go with you, and I will give you rest” (Ex. 33:14). So when we put the beauty of these nouns and the intensiveness of the verb together with the sense that God sets out deliberately to have us experience him in our lives through his goodness and his steadfast love, the combined effect is the beautiful reality that it is the Lord himself who pursues his people.

1) Richard S. Briggs, The Lord Is My Shepherd: Psalm 23 for the Life of the Church(Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2021), 115

2) Richard S. Briggs, The Lord Is My Shepherd: Psalm 23 for the Life of the Church(Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2021), 116.

3) Charles Spurgeon, The Treasury of David, 3 vols. (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1988), 1:356.