Save your people and bless your inheritance; be their shepherd and carry them forever. Psalm 28:9
What a powerful and beautiful picture to end David’s psalm. …’be their shepherd and carry them forever’.
Prayers and blessings are so important, even generations later they can still be affecting the people they were spoken over. (Unfortunately so can curses, negative words). David called out to God, inspired by the Holy Spirit, on behalf of Israel, that God would, ‘carry them forever’. It’s amazing to think that these words of David’s prayer are still being answered today. Just as David prayed that God would carry Israel ‘forever’, so God entered into an everlasting covenant with David and his family line;
The Lord declares to you that the Lord himself will establish a house for you… Your house and your kingdom shall endure for ever before me; your throne shall be established for ever. 2 Samuel 7:11, 16
What are some Biblical inferences around the term ‘shepherd’? What was involved in David’s request to God to ‘shepherd’ Israel?
David’s opening words in Psalm 23, ‘The Lord’s my shepherd, I shall not want’. David trusted that because of his relationship with the Lord he wouldn’t be in need, just as the sheep trust the shepherd for their pasture.
John’s Gospel contains the seven great ‘I am’ declarations of Jesus and in John 10 He declared twice, ‘I am the good shepherd’ (The only one He repeated).
I am the good Shepherd. The good Shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.
I am the good Shepherd; I know my Sheep and my sheep know me – just as the father knows me and I know the father – and I lay down my life for the sheep. I have other sheep that are not of this pen. I must bring them also. They too will listen to my voice and there shall be one flock and one Shepherd. John 10:14, 15, 16
The Lord said He lays down His life for His sheep. The shepherd sometimes had to protect the sheep with his life; David ‘fought the lion and bear’, but Jesus actually did lay down His life for the sheep, so that there would be ‘one flock and one shepherd’.
Further in John 10, Jesus addresses the Pharisees;
…but you do not believe Me because you are not My sheep. My sheep listen to My voice; I know them and they follow Me. John 10:26
We can’t just take having Jesus as our shepherd in a blasé or casual way, our destiny depends on all that He’s done for us. His sheep hear and follow His voice, that’s an important characteristic for belonging to Him.
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