I. The beauty and power of this verse lie very much in its composure. There is a calmness in it which almost reproduces itself in the mind whenever we say it. The calmness lies in the assurance. It is a fact, and a conclusion which springs out of that fact by a mathematical consequence; that is, it is a child's faith, and that is assurance.
II. In this calm confidence there is wrapped up the sense of devolved responsibility. Devolved responsibility may be abused. But the abuse of a thing is no argument against it. Was ever any man made idle or presumptuous by leaning too much upon God? Lean we must; every man leans somewhere; the strongest-minded always lean the most. And the reason why leaning has come to be thought a foolish thing and wrong is because so few lean on the Rock and so many lean on the reed, where they have found only a fracture or a thorn.
III. David brought together here the grandeur of God and the minuteness of God, His Deity and His care for little things, the God of the heaven of heavens and the God of our everyday, common life.
IV. The most telling word of the whole passage is the little word "my." For what would it benefit me to say, "The Lord is a Shepherd"? It would mock me. Should not I rather feel my own destitution and desolation the more if I felt that He was a Shepherd to others, and not to me, and that I could not put the seal of property on it and say, "my Shepherd"?
V. "I shall not want" for food, for drink, for grace and beauty, for quietness, for companionship, for guidance, for a welcome back again when I have wandered. Want is the excess of the desire beyond the possession. But he whose heart is right with God, as David's was, will not desire what it is not in God's providence that he shall possess.
J. Vaughan, Fifty Sermons,7th series, p. 111.
I. This verse states a fact in David's experience: "The Lord is my Shepherd." In studying this statement, we must (1) endeavour to identify the personage it sets forth. Two titles are included in his appellative: "Lord" and "Shepherd." Who is He? Let us enter "the house of the Interpreter" and ask Jesus Christ. If we do, we shall hear Him say, "I am the good Shepherd, and I know My sheep, and am known of Mine." Only when we know God in Christ do we know Him as at once Lord and Shepherd. (2) Notice the mediatorial office which this statement sets in view. Jesus has saved the life of His sheep. By His representative obedience, by His death and by His life, by His sacrifice consummated on earth and by His eternal ministry in heaven, by His work as the Saviour from death and His work as the Preserver of the life which He saves, feeding it and guiding it until brought from the perils of the wilderness and folded amidst the felicities of Paradise, Jesus has achieved the right to the title of "Shepherd." (3) Mark the language of appropriation conveyed in this statement. "The Lord is myShepherd." Distinguish between the knowledge and the appro priation of a fact. In religion the difference between mere power to use the language of theory and the power to use language of immediate proprietary application is an infinite difference; it makes all the difference between the saved and the lost.
II. This sentence not only records a fact, but the inference drawn from it. "The Lord is my Shepherd." What then? "I shall not want." (1) With regard to this inference, you are requested to study its argumentative value. Not as a believer only, but as a reasoner, does the Psalmist speak; and his language is that of fair logical induction. (2) Notice the special application of this argument to the facts of actual life. If you can use David's words, you mean to say, (a) I shall not want for appropriate food; (b) I shall not want for needful rest; (c) I shall not want for restorative mercy; (d) I shall not want for guidance in the right paths; (e) I shall not want for consolation in the valley of the shadow of death.
C. Stanford, Symbols of Christ,p. 119.
References: Psalms 23:1. Homiletic Magazine,vol. vii., p. 146; J. Budgen, Parochial Sermons,vol. ii., p. 195; G. Bainton, Christian World Pulpit,vol. xi., p. 401; G. H. Hepworth, American Pulpit of the Day,p. 23; Bishop Thorold, The Presence of Christ: Lectures on Psalm XXIII.,p. 3; J. M. Neale, Sermons on Passages of the Psalms,p. 21.