The LORD is my Shepherd!

The Lord is my Shepherd. The Lord is my Shepherd! The Lord is my Shepherd! So often it is the “shepherd” part of this sentence on which we focus—the predicate; and the subject of the sentence gets lost as we try to make sense of the imagery. But as every good grammarian knows in a sentence bearing the verb “to be”, both the subject and the predicate are of equal importance. The Lord is my Shepherd!

It’s even more so in Hebrew, because there is no verb “to be”. There are only verbs about what has happened and what is happening. States of existence don’t need to be proclaimed, they just are. The Lord is my Shepherd!

So in this Hebrew sentence, there are only 2 words: one word that we translate as “The Lord” and another, that we translate as “my Shepherd”. And what we translate as “the Lord” is not “the Lord” at all. It is the name of God which is never to be spoken. So tradition places over it this veneer of a reference that hides so much more than it reveals. The Lord is my Shepherd!

The Hebrew word that is translated as “the Lord” is the closest thing that the Hebrew language gets to having the verb “to be”; and it has a very specific application—it applies to the very being and nature of God. The word consists of 4 consonants—the equivalent of our YHWH—and we really have no idea what the vowels might have been; although we make a scholarly guess and say that the word was possibly, probably something like Yahweh. Yahweh is my Shepherd.

Now, in Jewish tradition, because the name of God could not be spoken, wherever this series of consonants occurred, the reader was invited to say instead ‘Adonai, meaning “Lord”. In most of our English translations wherever you see the word “LORD” in capital letters in the Old Testament, it is indicating that the underlying Hebrew word is the name of God which cannot be said—this impossible verb of being. An alternate Jewish tradition, simply has the reader saying Hashem—the Name; instead of Lord. Either way the name whatever it is or was is hidden—not revealed either to the reader or to the hearers. The One who cannot be named is my Shepherd.

As I said, this unpronounceable name is the closest thing to the verb “to be” that the Hebrew language has; but as I also indicated there is no tense for the present static state—something either has happened or it is happening. So this unpronounceable name probably means something like “the One who is being who this One is”. We are familiar with the Greek and Christianised version of this reflexive term from the book of Revelation: the One who is and was and is to come. Other ways in which Christians have tried to express something of the mystery of the unpronounceable name is in phrases like “the great I AM” or “I am who I am”. It’s not a word, it’s not a name that pins too much down—God is the One who is God; the Eternal One; the Being One. The Eternal One is my Shepherd. The One who is who this One is, is my Shepherd.

The unpronounceable name and the mystery that surrounds it invites us into an exploration of the character of this One; for this One cannot be known by knowing this One’s name. In order to understand who this One is, we are invited into relationship.

We like to think that things are defineable. We like to know what things are called; how they work; who people are. It makes us feel somehow that we just might have a little control if we can address something or someone with their correct label. It makes us feel that we can understand our world if we can manage to put everyone and everything in their appropriate boxes. But this God whose name is unpronounceable, untranslatable, and lost in mystery defies our primitive drive to name, to know and to control. This One who is the One who is invites us into relationship in order that we might explore what that One is all about.

And in the context then of this exploration, when we put the imagery of the Shepherd alongside the Name, we are confronted by a striking proclamation: this One who is who this One is, is the One on whom life and death depend. This One who is who this One is, is the One who accompanies us through every aspect of our human life from celebration to misery, from the festal table to the shadow of death. This is the One who always is, who is always being; and in relationship with this One, we can know not who this One is, but who we are in this One.

So this unpronounceable, untranslatable, mysterious name is not just an invitation to be in relationship, but it is an invitation to be in relationship where we discover something of who this One is, and miraculously even more of who we are to this One. The One who is who this One is, is my Shepherd.

We know who we are, not because we have been concentrating on ourselves—navel-gazing, but because we have become engaged with this mysterious One who holds us in every stage of our life, in every kind of moment, in life and in death, from woe to go, and all the way through. And who does not hold us alone, but the whole of Creation, longing for the kind of relationship where each part of it can know and be fully known in the eternal nature of God.

Jesus said: “I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me.” (John 10:14) And in Jesus, we are invited to enter into the journey of relationship with a God who longs for us to know God and longs for us to be known by God. And that happens when we are enfolded into the very life of God through our participation in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus; not for just a present moment, but as a continuing process, an ongoing discipline of choosing to focus not on ourselves but on the God is who the One who is, and who wants only authentic relationship with God’s own Creation—and that includes you and me! The Lord is our Shepherd.