Psalm 23 is so well-loved and so familiar. We might think we know what it means. But then someone might come along and bring something new from it that we didn’t see before.
In 1970, Phillip Keller published his book A Shepherd Looks at Psalm 23. This book has been quite popular – my copy says that over 1 million copies are in print and that was a 1996 edition. I’m sure more have been printed since. It’s been popular because it claims to give new insights into Psalm 23 based on the experiences of the author as a shepherd.
Psalm 23:5 says that God prepares a table for David in the presence of his enemies. Phillip Keller says that the idea of the shepherd with his sheep continues through the psalm right to the end. He claims that the “table” in verse 5 is referring to the high country, the table-lands. The “table” is the summer range for the sheep.
The problem is that the Hebrew word for table never refers to an area in the high country for sheep to graze. In fact, the word literally refers to an animal skin that you’d spread on the ground to sit on and eat. Later it came to mean a low piece of furniture usually made out of wood on which you would place your food. Sometimes a table is just a table.
Wes Bredenhof | “The Hospitable God” | November 3, 2025
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