🎙 Walking in a Circle: A Deep Dive into Psalm 23:3

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Welcome to our ancient future story, navigating Scripture through the Eyes of Family, where I share with you biblical stories like a family member would share a story around a dinner table. As children of God, we are a part of God's family and His family story has a lot of history. Each week we will take one story and talk about it the cultural, historical, geographical and sociological impacts. We will be looking at these stories through the perspective of our ancestors, through the lens of ancient times, in hopes of learning more about our family. This is our ancient future story. Welcome back to our ancient future story. I'm Vic and I am so excited to continue our series as we dive into the most recited chapter of Scripture, psalms 23. Just like last time, we will dive into the amazing history behind this Psalm, psalms 23.3. He restores my soul, he leads me in the paths of righteousness for His namesake. So if you're ready, grab a cup of coffee or something to drink and let's get ready to dive into Psalms 23.3. If you grew up in church, you probably have heard this Psalm many, many times. You probably memorized it. Or even if you didn't grow up in church, you have probably heard it a few times. But there are a few things that I think are interesting and will help shape the context of this story for us. So first location We've been talking about it the last few weeks. Our story takes place in the Shepherds fields, but this time on a mountainside, moving from one location to the next. We will talk about this movement and how the structure of the flock is important in just a minute. So let's break down this verse. The first part says he restores my soul. In Hebrew the word for restore is shub, which means to put back or return. So it would read he puts back my soul, which I was a little confused by. Put me back from what? Well, just like sheep who are lost in the shepherd who goes to find them, when the shepherd does find the sheep, he returns to the flock. He puts the lost sheep back into the fold. David is saying that. Likewise, when I stray from my shepherd Yahweh, he finds me and puts me back into the family. He returns me to the flock. So he restores my soul. The next part is he leads me on the paths of righteousness. Now, the word for path is what's unusual here. In this psalm, david didn't use the Hebrew word for road or street to describe the righteous way he used path, and this is interesting because the structure in which a shepherd would guide their sheep across a mountain was more or less a straight line that sheep would walk about two steps apart from the sheep next to them. These paths have long since been established as, year after year, shepherds would lead their flocks across these mountains. The purpose of this is to guide the sheep along paths so that each sheep can get a chance to eat, so that other sheep cannot cross the line and eat green pastures for themselves. It's a way of providing for the entire flock. These lines are also important for sheep not to forge their own path, for if they continue to follow the shepherd, they will have food and water and all of their needs met, but if they go off course, they can get lost, face wild beasts and be in need of rescue. However, these paths are not just in one direction, straight across the mountain. Instead, these paths actually make a circular spiral. We're standing at the base of the mountain and moving up the mountain. The word path here is Magal, which means circle, so we get this idea of sheep following their shepherd literally in circles. Okay, pause, anyone else need a minute to process. This Shepherd guides their sheep in circles. What Following in circles has a completely different dependency than following in a straight line, because if you are constantly moving in circles, you do not know the destination, you may not even know where you are. You must trust the shepherd completely, trust that they know where they are going and that they will lead you to find food, water and rest. Now, the righteousness part of this verse is also interesting because righteousness is the word Zedekah, which usually means right or made right, but it can also mean generous or generosity. So in this phrase, when David is saying the Lord leads me or guides me on the paths of righteousness, he is saying Yahweh guides me in a generous circle, which I don't know about you, but immediately makes me think of two things. One, the Israelites roaming in the desert, making circles around Mount Sinai, and God was generously shepherding them through the desert, making sure they had food, water and rest. And two, it made me think of all the times in my life I have felt like I was just walking in circles, and following Jesus sometimes feels like that, like we are just walking in circles, but we are actually moving upwards. If Jesus is guiding our life, we must trust him, like the sheep trust the shepherd. We don't always know the destination, but we trust that he does. So. All of this begs the question why? Why does the shepherd lead us in circles? Sometimes it just doesn't make sense for us, but David tells us in the last part of this verse for his namesake. To understand this, we have to first know what name means. In the ancient Jewish culture, a person's name was not just their identity, but it was their honor. In Scripture, anytime someone refers to God's name, it is usually talking about his glory or his character. Throughout the pages of Scripture, god always does things for our good and for his glory. So David is saying here Yahweh is guiding us like sheep in generous circles. Why? For his glory and for our good. Which brings us to the end of the first stanza of this Psalm, which we can take to understand that these three verses were meant to be heard and understood together. Over the last few weeks, together, we have learned the history of these three verses and I have written a Vicks personal translation of what these verses are based on what we have learned so far. Yahweh is my shepherd. He provides all I need. He stands watch while I nap. After eating, he creates still water for me to drink. When I am lost, he finds me. He puts me back into the fold. He guides me in generous circles for his glory and my good. The consensus of these verses is that Yahweh is a good shepherd. He leads, guides and protects his flock at all times, ensuring that all their needs are met. And, as we will see in the next episode, the tone is about to change in the next stanza from talking about Yahweh to talking to Yahweh, and this is an important shift in the Psalms, but more on that in the next episode. I want to take a minute and talk about Jesus again. Jesus is our shepherd. He finds and returns us to the flock when we are lost. He guides us in circles, not just to make us confused or disoriented, but to gently lead us to where he wants us to go. If we trust him, he will lead us to everything we need. So, as always, let's close our time together by reading the scripture from Psalms 23. I hope that, as you listen to it being read, that you embrace all that we have learned and that this passage will be illuminated for you. Let's read the Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters. He restores my soul. He leads me in paths of righteousness for his namesake. Thank you for listening to today's episode of our ancient future story. I hope that you really enjoyed it. This episode was written and produced by me. Vic Harmon Music is embarking on an adventure by Evan MacDonald. Please support the show by subscribing and rating us, and if you want more info or want to dive deeper, check out our website at our ancient future story dot com. See you next time. Bye, you, you, you, you.