1Yhwh is my shepherd…6Surely
goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in
the house of the Lord forever.
The Shepherd song now
reaches the end. David has praised Yahweh
for the provision, protection and ‘promotion’ He has given to His people. David concludes by singing of Yahweh’s promises.
6Surely goodness and love will follow me…
There
is a certainty to all God’s promises. David knows that surely Yahweh will keep His promises; what
He says he does. And what is it that is
promised? First, David recognizes Yahweh’s
promise of His goodness
and love towards David.
The word ‘goodness’
refers to something ‘beautiful’ or ‘pleasant’; it is that which is good from God’s
perspective, primarily that that which is becoming to, or ‘adorns’ the life of
faith (see 2 Peter 1:5-8 and Titus 2:9-10).
The term ‘loving-kindness’ is used to attempt to capture the meaning of
the Hebrew word hesed, which is the unique,
covenantally based love and favor of Yahweh for his faithful people (it is, as
near as I can tell, the OT equivalent of the Greek agape used in the NT). This ‘goodness
and love’ of God will
follow me. Here is the sense of a pursuit or a chase, which
what the Hebrew term for ‘follow’ conveys.
Yahweh longs for and desires to win over His people and He follows hard
after them with the purpose of overtaking them and making them His special possession. David rejoices in this pursuing passion of
Yahweh.
…all the days of my life, and I will dwell
in the house of the Lord forever.
The second part of
the promise is found in these words about the duration of Yahweh’s pursuit of
David: all the days of my life. The Lord never tires in His chase to make His
people whole and blessed; each and every moment of each and every day God’s
presence is near and real for His people.
But—O the wonderful truth!—the ‘goodness and loving-kindness’ of the
Lord does not cease when a person dies, but carries them on through death in
the promise of new and eternal life: I will
dwell in the house of the Lord forever. The Hebrew literally reads, I will dwell unto perpetuity of days meaning ‘all the
days of this life and all the days of the age to come’.
What promises! What blessings for God’s people to look
forward to; to hold onto with hope and joy!
These
promises are certain. Sometimes we fail
to see the ‘good’ in things, but God always knows what is good and I am
confident that God is bringing good out of all situations. God’s unique ‘hesed’ is mine because I am one of His ‘sheep’. The goodness and love of the Lord will chase
me down every day because He loves to lavish them on me. (see Matthew 7:9-11;
Romans 5:5, 9-17, 8:28-29; 1 Timothy 1:14; Titus 3:4-6). I live in confidence knowing that because I
am God’s child, He will always have a place for me in His ‘house’, both the
body of believers here on earth or in His forever Kingdom.
All this is possible
only because Yahweh is my Shepherd. I
own no other; I desire no other. Yahweh alone—His
provision, His protection, His ‘promotion’, His promise. I have the goodness and hesed of the Lord hot on my trail.
It overcomes me and I gladly surrender.
In this life and all the ages to come, I will sing of my shepherd.
Amen!
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