"The care of sheep is the subject of frequent allusion in Scripture. The shepherd leads (not drives) them to pasture and water (Ps. 23; 77:20; 78:52; 80:1); protects them at the risk of his life (John 10:15). To keep them from the cold and rain and beasts, he collects them in caves (1 Sam. 24:3) or enclosures built of rough stones (Num. 32:16; Judg. 5:16; Zeph. 2:6; John 10:1). The sheep know their shepherd, and heed his voice (John 10:4). It is one of the most interesting spectacles to see a number of flocks of thirsty sheep brought by their several shepherds to be watered at a fountain. Each flock, in obedience to the call of its own shepherd, lies down, awaiting its turn. The shepherd of one flock calls his sheep in squads, draws water for them, pours it into the troughs, and, when the squad has done, orders it away by sounds which the sheep perfectly understand, and calls up another squad. When the whole of one flock is watered, its shepherd signals to it, and the sheep rise and move leisurely away, while another flock comes in a similar manner to the troughs, and so on, until all the flocks are watered. The sheep never make any mistake as to who whistles to them or calls to them. 'They know not the voice of strangers' (John 10:5). Sometimes they are called by names (John 10:3). Syrian sheep are usually white (Ps. 147:16; Isa. 1:18; Dan. 7:9), but some are brown (Gen. 30:32-42; Revised Version 'black'). No animal mentioned in Scripture compares in symbolical interest and importance with the sheep. It is alluded to about five hundred times."
The Singing Pilgrim
A CHARACTERIZATION OF THE TWENTY-THIRD PSALM
HENRY WARD BEECHER
"The Twenty-third Psalm is the nightingale of the psalms. It is small, of a homely feather, singing shyly out of obscurity; but, oh, it has filled the air of the whole world with melodious joy, greater than the heart can conceive! Blessed be the day on which that psalm was born!
"What would you say of a pilgrim commissioned of God to travel up and down the earth singing a strange melody, which, when once heard, caused him to forget whatever sorrow he had? And so the singing angel goes on his way through all lands, singing in the language of every nation, driving away trouble by the pulses of the air which his tongue moves with divine power. Behold just such an one! This pilgrim God has sent to speak in every language on the globe. It has charmed more griefs to rest than all the philosophy of the world. It has remanded to their dungeon more felon thoughts, more black doubts, more thieving sorrows, than there are sands on the seashore. It has comforted the noble host of the poor. It has sung courage to the army of the disappointed. It has poured balm and consolation into the heart of the sick, of captives in dungeons, of widows in their pinching griefs, of orphans in their loneliness. Dying soldiers have died easier as it was read to them; ghastly hospitals have been illuminated; it has visited the prisoner and broken his chains, and, like Peter's angel, led him forth in imagination, and sung him back to his home again. It has made the dying Christian slave freer than his master, and consoled those whom, dying, he left behind, mourning not so much that he was gone as because they were left behind and could not go too.
"Nor is its work done. It will go on singing to your children and my children, and to their children, through all the generations of time; nor will it fold its wings till the last pilgrim is safe, and time ended; and then it shall fly back to the bosom of God, whence it issued, and sound on, mingled with all those sounds of celestial joy which make heaven musical forever."