He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of
righteousness for his name's sake. (Psalm 23:3)
As it is the duty of a good shepherd to cherish his sheep,
and when they are diseased or weak to nurse and support them, David declares
that this was the manner in which he was treated by God. The restoring of
the soul, as we have translated it, or the conversion of the soul, as
it is, literally rendered, is of the same import as to make anew, or to
recover, as has been already stated in the 19th psalm, at the seventh
verse.
By the paths of righteousness, he means easy and
plain paths. As he still continues his metaphor, it would be out of place to
understand this as referring to the direction of the Holy Spirit. He has stated
a little before that God liberally supplies him with all that is requisite for
the maintenance of the present life, and now he adds, that he is defended by
him from all trouble. The amount of what is said is, that God is in no respect
wanting to his people, seeing he sustains them by his power, invigorates and
quickens them, and averts from them whatever is hurtful, that they may walk at
ease in plain and straight paths.
That, however, he may not ascribe any thing to his own worth
or merit, David represents the goodness of God as the cause of so great
liberality, declaring that God bestows all these things upon him for his own
name’s sake. And certainly his choosing us to be his sheep, and his
performing towards us all the offices of a shepherd, is a blessing which
proceeds entirely from his free and sovereign goodness, as we shall see in the
sixty-fifth psalm. (Commentaries)
No comments:
Post a Comment