Why Is Psalm 23 so Loved?
by Paul Tautges | February 26, 2026 1:12 am
Unquestionably, Psalm 23 is the most famous of the 150 songs in the biblical book of Psalms, the hymnbook for the people of Israel.
Throughout my life, I have seen this Scripture inscribed on greeting cards, printed in funeral service bulletins, and engraved on key chains. In my first pastorate, I also served as a hospice chaplain and often saw Psalm 23 decoupaged on wooden plaques and hung on nursing home walls. Church hymnals typically contain more than one rendition of its comforting words, set to different melodies.
Surely, you too have seen this beloved text of Scripture used in a seemingly endless variety of ways. So famous is its poetry that even non-Christians recognize some of its lines.
As a Spirit-inspired song written by King David, for those whom he served and represented, Psalm 23 is for all of us as God’s people—his flock. But it is also for each of us, as individual sheep. We all need the message of Psalm 23.
Every one of us has found ourselves in times of need and unable to rest peacefully in green pastures or beside still waters. Even after being reconciled to God through saving faith in Jesus Christ, we still need our souls restored frequently. Many of us have watched a loved one pass through the valley of death into eternity. But even if death has not deeply wounded your heart yet, each of us has at least limped or crawled through dark, death-like shadows of fear and sadness—even depression. I certainly have.
We’ve all had days, weeks, or even years when we’ve longed for that faraway land that is free from the painful trials of this life.
Many faithful believers before us recognized this same beauty in Psalm 23. Perhaps this is one reason Charles Spurgeon, the pastor of the Metropolitan Tabernacle in London in the late 1800s, called it the Pearl of the Psalms, saying, “Of this delightful song it may be affirmed that its piety and its poetry are equal, its sweetness and its spirituality are unsurpassed.” [1][1]
Psalm 23 portrays the shepherd-and-sheep theme that is found in other biblical songs and, therefore, would have been familiar to Israel when they gathered to worship. For example:
Oh come, let us worship and bow down; let us kneel before the Lord, our Maker! For he is our God, and we are the people of his pasture, and the sheep of his hand. (Psalm 95:6–7)
Know that the Lord, he is God! It is he who made us, and we are his; we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture. (Psalm 100:3)
But there is another attribute of the book of Psalms that we rarely think about, and that is this: Psalms was not only the hymnbook of Israel; it is the songbook Jesus would have sung from as a child and through his adulthood. Even more significant is the reality that—while Jesus sang the Psalms—he often sang about himself. Through Jesus’s life, death, resurrection, and ascension, the eternal God would one day fulfill the deepest longings of the human soul expressed throughout the Psalms.
Though the book of Psalms is composed of a collection of many songs, their position is not random. Instead, like older and newer hymnbooks, the placement of the songs is intentional. Psalm 23 follows Psalm 22 for a reason. Psalm 22 gives vocabulary to the most extreme forms of suffering we experience throughout life—a true illustration of “the valley of the shadow of death.” It expresses the painful reality of traumatic suffering and records how the cry of the psalmist, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” became the agonizing cry of Jesus, the Man of Sorrows, when he took our sins upon himself on the cross of Calvary.
In a similar way, Psalm 23 gives us a glimpse of how David, and his greater Son, Jesus, endured the darkness of the valley of the shadow of death while trusting their Shepherd. And, like the Psalms as a whole, the longing of Psalm 23 finds its fullest meaning in the promised Christ. If Jesus could trust the Shepherd of Psalm 23, then certainly you can too. In living color, Psalm 23 shows us what it looks like to walk with the Lord as our personal shepherd; we see we lack nothing that we truly need.
I recently began preaching through Psalm 23, one verse at a time. So, I hope to post an article here and there throughout my sermon series.[2]
[1][3] https://www.spurgeon.org/resource-library/blog-entries/the-pearl-of-the-psalms-spurgeon-on-psalm-23/
Related
Endnotes:- [1]: #_ftn1
- sermon series.: https://www.sermonaudio.com/series/215035
- [1]: #_ftnref1
Source URL: https://counselingoneanother.com/2026/02/26/why-is-psalm-23-so-loved/
Why Is Psalm 23 so Loved?
by Paul Tautges | February 26, 2026 1:12 am
Unquestionably, Psalm 23 is the most famous of the 150 songs in the biblical book of Psalms, the hymnbook for the people of Israel.
Throughout my life, I have seen this Scripture inscribed on greeting cards, printed in funeral service bulletins, and engraved on key chains. In my first pastorate, I also served as a hospice chaplain and often saw Psalm 23 decoupaged on wooden plaques and hung on nursing home walls. Church hymnals typically contain more than one rendition of its comforting words, set to different melodies.
Surely, you too have seen this beloved text of Scripture used in a seemingly endless variety of ways. So famous is its poetry that even non-Christians recognize some of its lines.
As a Spirit-inspired song written by King David, for those whom he served and represented, Psalm 23 is for all of us as God’s people—his flock. But it is also for each of us, as individual sheep. We all need the message of Psalm 23.
Every one of us has found ourselves in times of need and unable to rest peacefully in green pastures or beside still waters. Even after being reconciled to God through saving faith in Jesus Christ, we still need our souls restored frequently. Many of us have watched a loved one pass through the valley of death into eternity. But even if death has not deeply wounded your heart yet, each of us has at least limped or crawled through dark, death-like shadows of fear and sadness—even depression. I certainly have.
We’ve all had days, weeks, or even years when we’ve longed for that faraway land that is free from the painful trials of this life.
Many faithful believers before us recognized this same beauty in Psalm 23. Perhaps this is one reason Charles Spurgeon, the pastor of the Metropolitan Tabernacle in London in the late 1800s, called it the Pearl of the Psalms, saying, “Of this delightful song it may be affirmed that its piety and its poetry are equal, its sweetness and its spirituality are unsurpassed.” [1][1]
Psalm 23 portrays the shepherd-and-sheep theme that is found in other biblical songs and, therefore, would have been familiar to Israel when they gathered to worship. For example:
But there is another attribute of the book of Psalms that we rarely think about, and that is this: Psalms was not only the hymnbook of Israel; it is the songbook Jesus would have sung from as a child and through his adulthood. Even more significant is the reality that—while Jesus sang the Psalms—he often sang about himself. Through Jesus’s life, death, resurrection, and ascension, the eternal God would one day fulfill the deepest longings of the human soul expressed throughout the Psalms.
Though the book of Psalms is composed of a collection of many songs, their position is not random. Instead, like older and newer hymnbooks, the placement of the songs is intentional. Psalm 23 follows Psalm 22 for a reason. Psalm 22 gives vocabulary to the most extreme forms of suffering we experience throughout life—a true illustration of “the valley of the shadow of death.” It expresses the painful reality of traumatic suffering and records how the cry of the psalmist, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” became the agonizing cry of Jesus, the Man of Sorrows, when he took our sins upon himself on the cross of Calvary.
In a similar way, Psalm 23 gives us a glimpse of how David, and his greater Son, Jesus, endured the darkness of the valley of the shadow of death while trusting their Shepherd. And, like the Psalms as a whole, the longing of Psalm 23 finds its fullest meaning in the promised Christ. If Jesus could trust the Shepherd of Psalm 23, then certainly you can too. In living color, Psalm 23 shows us what it looks like to walk with the Lord as our personal shepherd; we see we lack nothing that we truly need.
I recently began preaching through Psalm 23, one verse at a time. So, I hope to post an article here and there throughout my sermon series.[2]
[1][3] https://www.spurgeon.org/resource-library/blog-entries/the-pearl-of-the-psalms-spurgeon-on-psalm-23/
Related
Source URL: https://counselingoneanother.com/2026/02/26/why-is-psalm-23-so-loved/