Psalms — A Sheep in the Mirror

Title & Source Summary

Episode: 381 — Psalm 23
Hosts: Brent Billings, with Reed Dent and Josh Bosse (Josh leads the discussion)
Focus: Psalm 23

Psalm 23 may be the best-known passage in the Bible. People read it at funerals, memorize it as children, and include it in literature anthologies. In this episode Josh Bosse asks the group to hear it “with fresh ears.” They use Robert Alter’s literary translation, look at how the psalm is built, and use the orientation / disorientation / new orientation framework from earlier Psalms episodes. Then they “huff the chiasm,” following its hidden structure to an unsettling reading. The sheep imagery may never go away. If the sheep image runs through the whole psalm, the table becomes an altar, the oil anoints a sacrifice, and the overflowing cup holds blood. Read this way, Psalm 23 is about trusting God so completely that a person can give their life for their enemies without feeling any break in their relationship with God.

Key Takeaways

• Familiarity can hide meaning. Psalm 23 works on most people as comforting poetry. That “lullaby effect” can stop readers from hearing what the text actually says.
• The psalm has two halves. Verses 1–3 speak about God in the third person (“The Lord is my shepherd”). Verses 4–6 speak to God in the second person (“You set out a table before me”).
• The imagery seems to shift from the life of a sheep to the life of a person (table, oil, cup, enemies). The “rod and staff” in verse 4 are still shepherd’s tools, though, which hints that the sheep never leaves the picture.
• The psalm is a chiasm. Verse 1 mirrors verse 6, verse 2 mirrors verse 5, and verse 3 mirrors verse 4. The center sits between verses 3 and 4.
• “Evil” can mean “harm.” Alter translates “I fear no harm.” The Hebrew word for evil often means harm or calamity, not only moral wrong.
• The enemies are “opposite” the psalmist. The Hebrew behind “in the face of my foes” comes from neged (opposite, over against), the same root used in Genesis 2:18 (ezer kenegdo). The enemies could be across the table, not just threatening from a distance.
• “Pursue” is a predatory word. The verb for goodness and kindness “pursuing” the psalmist usually describes hunting someone down to harm them.
• The sacrificial reading: a sheep in God’s house, an altar-table, oil on the sacrifice, and blood overflowing the basin. The speaker trusts God even when their life is given up to reconcile their enemies.
• This is new orientation at its deepest. The psalmist feels no disorientation. The disorientation belongs to readers, who realize partway through what may be going on.
• It anticipates Jesus. Love of enemies, the Lamb led to slaughter, the Eucharistic meal, and sharing in Christ’s death and resurrection all echo in this reading.

Main Concepts & Theories

1. Hearing a Familiar Text Freshly

• The lullaby effect: A text we have heard many times starts to work on rhythm and feeling, not meaning. Psalm 23 is soothing to say, so it is easy to stop paying attention to it.
• The hosts’ personal connections:
  • Brent’s grandfather, who was not religious, asked a minister to read Psalm 23 to him near death.
  • Reed found it in college poetry anthologies and memorized it with his children.
  • Josh mentions Jon Foreman’s musical setting and the image of dwelling in God’s house forever.
• Two ways to hear it fresh:
  1. Read an unfamiliar translation (Robert Alter’s).
  2. Pause for a short breathing meditation before reading.

2. Robert Alter’s Translation

Alter is a Hebrew literary scholar who tries to keep the poetic and literary qualities of the text. His wording changes several familiar phrases:

Traditional (KJV-style)	Alter’s Translation	Significance
Green pastures	Grass meadows	Fresh imagery
He restoreth my soul	My life he brings back	Someone who almost stopped breathing and is revived
Paths of righteousness	Pathways of justice	Ties into restorative justice
Valley of the shadow of death	Vale of death’s shadow	Reed still prefers the traditional rhythm
I will fear no evil	I fear no harm	“Evil” as harm, not only moral wrong
They comfort me	It is they that console me	Rod and staff as active agents (Brent’s observation)
Thou anointest my head	You moisten my head with oil	Luxurious grooming, not formal anointing
Goodness and mercy shall follow me	Let but goodness and kindness pursue me	“Pursue” carries the sense of a hunt
Forever	For many long days	Literally “for length of days”

3. Structure: Two Halves

• Shift in voice: third person (vv. 1–3) to second person (vv. 4–6).
• Apparent shift in imagery: sheep and shepherd (vv. 1–3) to a person with enemies, a table, oil and a cup (vv. 4–6).
• Shift in sense of place:
  • The first half gives clear landscape details: meadows, waters, valley. Reed could picture a real place in Northeast Missouri.
  • The second half feels dreamlike and placeless. Where is this table?
  • Brent and Reed both pictured the table sitting in the meadow, which suggests the halves connect underneath.
• Line length: In Alter’s layout the second-half verses are longer. Each adds an extra two-line unit (a doublet). That suggests something changes, or is added, at the turning point.

4. Orientation, Disorientation, New Orientation

This framework (associated with Walter Brueggemann) sorts psalms by where the speaker stands:

• Orientation: Life is stable and God is good (“I shall not want,” lying down in meadows).
• Disorientation: Suffering, chaos, lament.
• New orientation: Having been through the crisis, the speaker has a deeper trust.

What the hosts noticed:

• Reed hears orientation at the start and new orientation in the valley and at the table: danger is present, but fear is gone.
• Brent hears new orientation even in verse 3. “My life he brings back” implies the speaker has already come through a near-death experience.
• Josh agrees the psalm seems to jump straight over disorientation. He argues the disorientation happens in the reader, once the hidden meaning comes into view.

5. The Chiasm

A chiasm is a mirror-image literary structure (A-B-C-C′-B′-A′). The center often carries the main point, and the paired sections shed light on each other.

A — Verse 1 / A′ — Verse 6: Relationship with the LORD

• These are the only two places the divine name YHWH (the Tetragrammaton) appears.
• “The LORD is my shepherd” pairs with “I shall dwell in the house of the LORD.”
• Both describe close, ongoing care: not wanting anything, and being pursued by goodness and kindness.
• Both are communal. A shepherd implies a flock, and a house (bayit) implies a family.

B — Verse 2 / B′ — Verse 5: Luxurious provision

• Grass meadows and quiet waters pair with a set table and an overflowing cup.
• Food matches food and water matches drink.
• Both are deliberately exaggerated. Real sheep usually graze dry scrub, and no cup really overflows forever. Josh calls these “screen saver background images.”

C — Verse 3 / C′ — Verse 4: Brush with death and God’s care

• “My life he brings back” pairs with “Though I walk in the vale of death’s shadow.”
• These are the only three-line units in the poem.
• In both, the speaker comes close to danger and God sustains them.

The turning point: Something between the halves changes everything. That is where the extra doublets begin.

6. The Hidden Reading: A Sheep All the Way Through

Josh notes that the first extra doublet in the second half, “Your rod and your staff… console me,” is still sheep imagery. What if the sheep never goes away? Reading from the outside in:

1. A sheep in the house of the Lord (v. 6): God’s house means the tabernacle or temple. Sheep are there to be sacrificed.
2. A table set before me (v. 5): the altar.
3. Head moistened with oil (v. 5): Oil was used with sacrificial offerings (for example, grain offerings mixed with oil).
4. My cup overflows (v. 5): Blood was collected in basins at sacrifices. The sheep’s blood overflows the basin.
5. Walking through the vale of death’s shadow (v. 4): a sheep being led into a narrow, frightening place where it senses death nearby, yet unafraid because “you are with me.”
6. Goodness and kindness pursue me (v. 6): God’s goodness is, in a sense, after the sheep’s life.

What this reading means:

• The psalmist imagines being the shepherd’s sheep and accepts that shepherds sometimes sacrifice their sheep.
• The sacrifice is offered so that enemies can be reconciled, sitting “opposite” at the same table, with their power to oppose overcome by the meal rather than by violence.
• The psalmist does not feel hunted because of the enemies’ sin. They see God’s goodness and kindness at work in their own giving of themselves.
• This is new orientation: trust so deep that personal sacrifice feels like a continuation of the meadows and streams, not a break from them.

7. “Many Long Days” and Life Beyond Sacrifice

Reed asks how a sacrificed sheep can dwell in God’s house “for many long days.” Josh gives two answers:

1. Smoke rising to God: The burnt sacrifice becomes a “pleasing aroma” (which can also be read as “a spirit of rest”) in God’s presence. That is a long day in the sense of a rich, meaningful one.
2. The peace-offering feast: Torah requires a peace offering (shelamim) to be eaten in a short window at the sanctuary. A whole animal is too much for one family, so the courtyard fills with shared feasts. Josh imagines a well-off worshiper sharing their meal with someone who brought a sin offering they cannot eat. Former strangers, or enemies, become companions. The sacrificed animal’s “days” continue in the feasting and reconciliation its death made possible.

8. Blurring Identity: “For His Name’s Sake”

• In verse 3 God revives the speaker’s life “for his name’s sake.” Josh says the Hebrew blurs whose life is in view, the speaker’s or God’s.
• God’s love is central to God’s name and identity.
• As that love becomes part of our identity, self-giving love is no sudden hardship. It is the same pattern continuing: God saved my life because he loves me, and now I get to give my life to redeem someone else.
• Even at the altar, when the sheep is no longer with its shepherd, it still says “you are with me.”

Examples & Applications

• Facing death: Brent’s grandfather’s request shows how the psalm reaches people at the end of life. The sacrificial reading adds that walking into death can be an act of trust and an offering.
• The dreamlike table: Josh compares the scene to dreaming you are back in high school among your bullies and somehow feeling fine. It captures the strange calm of eating at peace “opposite” one’s enemies.
• Overcoming enemies by a meal: Reed notes that the enemies are not defeated by the sword. The strategy is to sit down and eat. This points to the Eucharist and Jesus eating with tax collectors, sinners and his betrayer.
• Sacrificial love wears you out, and God restores you: Reed says pursuing restorative (not retributive) justice for enemies takes something from you. The psalm repeats “my life he brings back,” and the cup keeps overflowing. Like a stream, God’s restoring care keeps flowing.
• How a life changes its view of enemies: Reed imagines David writing this late in life, after decades of enemies, and seeing something deeper as he approaches his own death. Compare other psalms:
  • Psalm 137 ends with “Happy are they who dash your little ones against the rock.”
  • Psalm 139 moves from “knit together in my mother’s womb” to “O that you would slay the wicked.”
  • Wanting vengeance is natural, and the Psalms make room for it. Growing in the Spirit moves us toward overcoming enemies by a shared meal and finally by giving ourselves for them.
• New Testament echoes:
  • “If we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his” (Romans 6:5).
  • “Always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested” (2 Corinthians 4:10).
  • “While we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son” (Romans 5:10).
  • “Like a lamb that is led to the slaughter” (Isaiah 53:7).
• Josh’s caution: This reading is about self-giving love and trust. It does not encourage physical self-harm.
• Group exercise: Brent suggests listening to the many musical settings of Psalm 23 (listed on its Wikipedia page) and comparing how each one interprets the text.

Potential Areas for Further Exploration

1. Sacrificial practice: Study the use of oil, blood basins and altar procedures in Leviticus 1–7, and the rules for eating the peace offering (Leviticus 7:11–21).
2. The Hebrew word ra’ (evil/harm): Look at passages where God brings ra’ (for example, Isaiah 45:7; Amos 3:6) to see how wide the word’s meaning is.
3. Neged and kenegdo: Trace the “opposite / corresponding to” root from Genesis 2:18 to Psalm 23:5.
4. The verb radaf (pursue): Survey how it is used for hostile pursuit and why the psalmist might apply it to goodness and kindness.
5. Chiastic structure in the Psalms: Compare Psalm 23 with other psalms that hide their meaning in a mirrored structure.
6. Shepherd and lamb imagery across Scripture: Ezekiel 34, Isaiah 53, John 10 (“the good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep”), and Revelation 5 (the slain Lamb).
7. Psalms that ask for vengeance: How Psalms 137 and 139 fit with a theology of loving enemies, and how faith grows in its view of enemies over time.
8. Translation comparison: Read Psalm 23 in Alter, the KJV, the NRSV, the JPS Tanakh and others, and note how word choices change the meaning.
9. The Eucharist and the sacrificial meal: How the Lord’s Supper takes up Israel’s peace-offering feast and the theme of reconciliation at the table.
10. David’s life and enemies: Read the David narratives (1–2 Samuel) and consider how his relationships with Saul, Absalom and others might shape a late-life reading of Psalm 23.

Comprehension Questions

1. How does Psalm 23 shift halfway through in voice (third person to second person) and in imagery, and which detail in verse 4 suggests the sheep imagery never actually goes away?
2. Name the three chiastic pairs (vv. 1/6, 2/5, 3/4) and explain one parallel the hosts found in each.
3. How does Robert Alter’s rendering of “I fear no evil” as “I fear no harm” change the meaning of the verse, and what does it suggest about the Hebrew word for evil?
4. In the sacrificial reading, what do the table, the oil and the overflowing cup stand for, and how does the predatory sense of “pursue” fit this reading?
5. How does the Torah’s practice of shared peace-offering feasts help explain how a sacrificed sheep could “dwell in the house of the Lord for many long days,” and how does this connect to reconciling with enemies?

Personalized Summary

This episode takes a psalm almost everyone thinks they know and makes it unfamiliar again. On the surface Psalm 23 is a beautiful picture of God’s care: green meadows, still waters, comfort in the dark valley, and a feast. Following its chiastic structure and keeping the sheep in view the whole way through reveals something harder. The sheep goes into God’s house, the table becomes an altar, the oil anoints a sacrifice, and the overflowing cup holds the offering’s blood. All of this happens “opposite” the psalmist’s enemies, who are reconciled not by the sword but by a shared meal paid for with the psalmist’s own life. The psalmist feels no break in trust. Giving one’s life for one’s enemies feels like a continuation of the abundance God has always given. For readers, this turns a funeral psalm into a call to love our enemies sacrificially, trusting that God keeps restoring our life and filling our cup. It also points to the Good Shepherd who became the Lamb, and to resurrection beyond the valley of the shadow of death.