There may be a problem for Christians with the Bible passages they know and feel comfortable with. We heard them several times. We read them several times. We may have heard the sermons many times. The result is that we no longer think of them when we read them, hear them read, or hear them being preached. We think we already know what they mean. Sometimes it’s good to stop when you read them, go over them sentence by sentence, word for word, wondering what they mean. It is good to think of them, to meditate on them, to meditate on them, so that we can listen to them again and thus hear the Word of God speaking to us again.
“Restore my soul”. Four simple words. Two simple words in Hebrew, but what do they mean?What should they tell us? We have before us the image of the shepherd with his flock. The images in verse 2 are clear. We can see the lush pastures by the quiet stream where the herd is under the watchful eye of its shepherd. But “Does this restore my soul?” How do we imagine that?How do we see the shepherd restore the souls of his flock?It’s easy to think that David may have changed his appearance as a sheep to a man here. However, the following sentences also refer to herd and direction. of the pastor, which allows us to consider what would be the link of this clause with those who precede it and those that follow it.
- He is the Good Shepherd.
- So he is the one who restores our souls.
- Heals our wounds.
- Heals our diseases and gives us strength instead of weakness.
He’s restoring. It is at this point that we receive the help of other pastoral passages. Perhaps the best pastoral passage of the Old Testament is Ezekiel 34; this passage may have been in Jesus’ mind when he began his talk about the good shepherd in John 10. In Ezekiel 34, we hear the Lord condemn the shepherds of Israel, part of their fault is that they did not bring back the stray sheep (v. 4). When the Lord, later in the passage, declares that he himself will be his shepherd, he says, in part, that he will bring back the wayward sheep (v. 16). There’s the connection. We usually see sheep resting peacefully in the countryside and forget that sheep are stubborn animals. They’re getting up. They’re walking. They’re missing out. The pastor’s job is to bring them back. In the psalm we see the shepherd, active, chasing these lost sheep, returning them to the flock, and we are comforted to know that our Good Shepherd will not allow us to go too far, he will look for us and take us home.
My soul. My life. My nephesh [1]. The Good Shepherd not only resurrects the stray sheep, but also gives life to the dead. We were dead in our grievances and sins, and our Good Shepherd gave us a new life. Weak, sick, or wounded sheep, the shepherd strengthens, heals, and heals (Eze 34:16). It brings them back to life, so that they may stand, walk and eat, to be part of the flock. Our old life has not only left us dead in our sins. , but weak, sick and wounded for our sins. That is why it is the Good Shepherd who, by restoring our souls, heals our wounds, heals our ailments and gives us strength rather than weakness.
Our nephesh is not only our life, but the seat of our desires. By restoring our souls, it gives us hunger and thirst for justice. He feeds that hunger, queers that thirst. Our nephesh is also the seat of our emotions; by restoring our souls, it gives us joy in the morning after the night of weeping; turns our pain into dance. He removes our bag of mourning and anguish, giving us the new attire of joy. Nephesh also sometimes refers to our mental acts, our thoughts, and our knowledge. By restoring our souls, the Good Shepherd restores our thought and knowledge. We are beginning to understand things in a new way The words that used to be only words on a page begin to make sense We begin to listen, understand and know the voice of our shepherd We hear his call and respond following his advice takes us through the valley of shadow of death.
Our restoration is also not merely individual, although psalm is often read as a promise to the individual. The shepherd is never the shepherd of a single sheep. He is the shepherd of the flock; by restoring the lives of sheep, it also restores the life of the flock; makes a herd of healthy and strong sheep, able to unite for the good of the flock.
Apart from the new life, none of these restorations are instantaneous; it takes time to heal the sick and wounded; strengthening the weak takes time. Renewing desires and mind takes time. The Good Shepherd uses the flock to restore the individual. As the individual becomes stronger, the pastor uses it to restore other souls. May we be happy that our Good Shepherd restores our souls so that we can be used by him to restore the souls of others.
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[1] Editor’s note: Nephesh is a Hebrew biblical word that appears in the Hebrew Bible.