Hebrew Word Study – My Shepherd – Ra’i  רֹ֝עִ֗י  Resh Ayin Yod

Psalms 23:1: “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.”

This is Chapter 2 from my book on the 23rd Psalm 

With the word shepherd we start off with the shepherding motif.  Webster defines a motif as something such as an important idea or subject that is repeated throughout a story or poem. Here we learn that God is a shepherd.  Oh, we can talk for hours on that subject. There have been multitudes of sermons preached on the nature of a good shepherd. God is not a literal shepherd and we are not literal sheep. That whole picture is a metaphor and the caring nature of a good shepherd is used to give an earthly illustration of a Heavenly Guardian.

Indeed, that appears to be the motif of this poem but we will see in later chapters that the shepherding motif does break down and what appears is more of a picture of a king or an everyman who is on a journey through life and is looking to a Heavenly Protector and Guide. Notice, however, that the word for Shepherd in the Hebrew has multiple usages.  It is the word  ro’i from the root word ra’ah.  

Now, if you are really bent on learning something new you will go to your lexicons where you will find that the word ra’ah means a friend as well as a shepherd.  Repeat this in your mind; “The Lord is my friend.”  We hear the Lord being our shepherd so much, that we are unaffected by those words. But when we use an alternative word which is proper for the word ra’ah and say the Lord is our friend, that gives us a new appreciation.

However, as we search out this word ra’ah we find it is also used for evil.  The Lord is an evil friend?  Hardly.  As you search deeper you begin to realize there are many levels of evil and  ra’ah is a specific type of evil  It is an evil of consumption, a consuming passion. A consuming passion for drugs, alcohol or any addictive substance is evil.  A mother’s consuming passion for her baby? Maybe that is not so evil. So, the Lord, YHWH a feminine noun,  is not only a friend to David, a shepherd to David but is David’s consuming passion as a mother’s baby is her consuming passion.  Because God is the Psalmist’s all-consuming passion, he doesn’t want anything else but God in his life. 

Try this, “The Lord is my consuming passion, I have no wants.”  In other words, just simply being in love with God takes precedence over everything else in our lives. Our jobs, our finances, family, hopes and dreams fall second to our passion for God. A passion is a strong and barely controllable emotion.  It is a strong feeling of enthusiasm or excitement for something or someone.  It is so strong you are willing to make a complete and utter fool of yourself over that passion. To have a consuming passion for God means you are not afraid of what people think about you even if stand on a street corner passing out tracts, witnessing to strangers, praying in public, carrying your Bible etc. It is the passion a believer has for God who lives in a country where their faith is illegal such that they are willing to give up their jobs, livelihoods, family, friends, perhaps suffer imprisonment for their love for God and maybe torture and death. That is a consuming passion for God that the Psalmist is expressing here in verse one.  

The Lord is not only our Shepherd but our consuming passion which may explain why, as discussed in the previous chapter this verse start off with the word YHWH the name of God in a feminine form. Perhaps Jesus explains that in Matthew 23:37: “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who killed the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were not willing.”  

I often wondered why Jesus used the word hen and her chicks until I read a story about a group of firefighters who were working back through the devastation of a forest fire to make sure and the hot spots had been extinguished.  As they marched across the blackened landscape they found a large lump on the trail. When they took a closer look they noticed the charred remains of a large bird. Since birds can so easily fly away from the approaching fire the firefighters wondered what must have been wrong with the bird that it could not escaped.  Was it sick or injured?

When they kicked the remains off the trail they were startled by a flurry of activity at their feet Four little birds scurried off down the hillside. The mother’s body covered them from the searing heat of the flames while it had consumed her. Its babies found safety underneath her wings as she faced the rising flame. Despite the pain and subsequent death  she stayed with her young even though she might have saved herself if she chose.

The ancients observed nature very well and they found like farmers today who raise free range chickens that not all chicks run to their mothers in time of danger. Some of the may have wandered to far from their mother hen. They become paralyzed by fear or some just run away in a panic to find a way to save themselves.  The mother hen cannot run around gathering them individually, they have to come to her.  If two cats work together, they will try to cut off a chick from the brood if they wander away because cats will never mess with a mother hen. 

The Lord is indeed our shepherd but as YHWH he is also our mother hen who will protect us with His life (as He did on the cross) but we must come to Him, He cannot gather us to Himself. 

Available on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Hebrew-Teacher-Explores-Psalm-Discovering/dp/1960024299/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3NMYRXDXTADN5&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.GHrxwdIzkSEGUvgojFP5cZQlOTvC6LUdvSg5hCcC4-2pNStt71gkO6N_ToEFoQIpMfZbYRx4koIDgOybYKKUpnNLws3zGKeN_ge-ci5S2L4.AoJnZAO03p97hb4zmB-MIJUcubFztDVxLZuzQFdMHP8&dib_tag=se&keywords=chaim+bentorah+psalm+23&qid=1726765307&sprefix=%2Caps%2C139&sr=8-1

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