| J.R. Miller D.D. | Page 14 |
“Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies.” We are usually told that the shepherd figure is dropped, and another scene introduced, at this point in the psalm. But Dr. George Adam Smith tells us that there is no need to cut the psalm in two in this way. The last two verses, he says, are as pastoral as the first four. “If these show us the shepherd with his sheep upon the pastures, those follow him, shepherd still, to where in his tent he dispenses the desert’s hospitality to some poor fugitive from blood.” The shepherd’s tent in the wilderness was a little sanctuary, where the hunted man was sure of shelter, where “every wanderer, whatever his character or his past might be, was received as a ‘guest of God,’ – such is the beautiful name which they still give him, – furnished with food, and kept inviolable, his host becoming responsible for his safety.”
It was this custom, Dr. Smith thinks, which was in the writer’s mind when he composed the last two verses of the psalm. “Thou spreadest before me a table in the very midst of my enemies.” We need more than shepherd care; we need also mercy and grace. Sin and its curse drive us into the wilderness. Our past is full of enemies who haunt us – the sins we have committed. Our own heart contains relentless foes of God, who give us no rest. Satan watches ever to destroy us.
But there is a place of refuge from all these pursuing foes. According to the above interpretation, the shepherd’s tent is a picture of the cross, a place of shelter for the sinner hunted by his sins. We must not forget that it was the Shepherd himself who died on the cross for us. “The good shepherd layeth down his life for the sheep.” We have in the cross not only a place of refuge within which no enemies can pursue us, but under its shadow we have also divine hospitality. “Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies.” A man fleeing from a storm ran under a great tree. There he found shelter. But he found also fruits which the storm had brought down from the tree, – food for his hunger, and a spring of sweet, pure water, at which he quenched his thirst. So in the shadow of the cross the friend of Christ finds not only refuge from all enemies, but also provision for all his wants.
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