Many people misuse the 23rd psalm, snatching at its phrases and blandly
interpreting them in the light of their received theology without
reflecting on what the author meant; particularly, is this done at times
of grieving and death.

The main culprit to encourage such misuse is the phrase “tho I walk thru
the valley of the shadow of death I will fear no evil”. It is entirely appropriate to trust the Shepherd at all times including death but this phrase can not by any fair reading be taken to mean “even when I die I will still be all right”; it means either “when I am in deep dark valleys” (death being a Hebraic form of intensification) or “when I am threatened with death, I am trusting the Shepherd won’t let me die”. A pious assertion (which I read recently in a tract for the bereaved) such as:”David was convinced that death was not the end, merely a part of the journey” is reading David thru New Testament eyes.

Any belief David may have held in the afterlife was vague at best, it seems to me, and most times he thought that if he were to die young, God would have failed him.

Even the words when Bathsheba’s baby dies “He can’t come to me but I will go to him” is these days translated “Some day I will join him in death,[not in the after-life] but he can’t return to me.” (2 Sam 12:23,CEV)

The other phrase that is used to assert that David was believing in an
afterlife is the phrase “I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever”
which is understood or translated as “I will dwell in the presence of
God forever.” or “in God’s home”, etc. “The house of the Lord” to any
Israelite was not heaven, it was the temple. David is saying, when I
get out of this mess I’m gonna sing up a storm in the Temple for the
rest of my life!

There is nothing in the psalm that refers to an after-life in my
opinion; David’s great hope and faith was that goodness and mercy would
tag him all the days of his life, and he didn’t need expectations beyond
that.

It isn’t until the Resurrection of Christ that believers begin to say
“neither life nor death…shall separate me”. To me the classic case is
the way Peter takes Psalm 16 (also said to be authored by David) in his
Acts 2 sermon and turns David’s assertion ‘you will not abandon your
chosen one TO the grave’ into a reference to Christ, reading it as ‘you
will not abandon your chosen one IN the grave’. David understood God’s
care to be manifested in keeping him alive; Peter says Jesus extended
that to a belief that even if he die, God will care for him and bring him back.

So we have often read such after-life NT confidence into OT texts where
it does not fit, and even in the NT, I think we have misread many
this-life references and made them next-life. But I’ll spare you my
thoughts on that!

Psalm 23 is a great psalm but it distorts it greatly to see it as a
promise of post-death care.

Geoff Leslie

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Response by another friend:

Your post reminded me of this excellent article on the ABC’s new online religion site – Stanley Hauerwas “Reflections on Learning to Speak Christian”. http://www.abc.net.au/religion/articles/2010/08/16/2984111.htm

Hauerwas says, “Confronted by a sudden and unexpected death of a “loved one,” it is natural to use the phrase, “they have gone to a better place.” It is hard to resist that language, not only because ministers want to help, but because that language helps them not feel helpless.

But this is not the language of faith. God is not a ‘place.’ Moreover such language can underwrite the pagan assumption that we possess a soul that is eternal and, thus, fail to gesture our conviction as Christians that our life with God on either side of death is a gift.

It’s a good defence of how our language shapes our faith, and why it is therefore important to get language right.