The beloved 23rd Psalm opens with that familiar testimony, “The LORD is my shepherd.” The image of God as shepherd of His people is a common one throughout the Bible. In the Psalms, the only other place it occurs explicitly is here in Psalm 80:1. But the two preceding psalms both end with shepherding imagery, as Israel knew themselves to be the sheep of God’s pasture (78:72; 79: 13; see also 100:3). The first use of the shepherding image for God in the Bible is found in the farewell words of Jacob. He had been a shepherd himself, so he knew from experience how difficult the work could be. Sheep are notoriously helpless, wayward, and dumb. As one of God’s sheep, Jacob himself had demonstrated these same characteristics! He acknowledged God and would have called himself a believer. But he had gone his own way, following his own judgment rather than trusting in God’s word and wisdom. Still the LORD had guided and protected him; and at the end of his life, Jacob acknowledges that God has been his faithful shepherd, delivering him from all evil (Genesis 48:15-16). But this wonderful God who tenderly cares for His sheep is also mighty in power and glorious in majesty. Shining forth as one “enthroned upon the cherubim,” the LORD is to be feared as a holy Judge (v 1b). In Psalm 80, He has brought calamity upon His people because of their sin, and the psalmist is pleading with God to now apply His strength for saving purposes (v 2). “Ephraim and Benjamin and Manasseh” (v 2) are three of the twelve tribes that descended from Jacob, and all were born of Rachel. Ephraim and Manasseh were actually grandsons of Jacob (sons of Joseph), and they were two of the major northern tribes. So this psalm is written as a prayer for the deliverance of the northern kingdom of Israel, before its fall to the Assyrian armies in 722 BC. God is angry at their sin. His face seems to be turned away from them, and the prayer is that He would be favorable once again. They desperately need God to deliver them from the destruction that is about to take place. “Restore us, O God,” is the repeated refrain (v 3, 7, 19). Sadly, the request was not granted, at least not as they wished. As James M. Boice explains, “We know that God did not smile favorably upon the northern kingdom. And we know the reason too! The people did not repent of their sins and truly seek after God and His righteousness. So the psalm warns us that restoration is not automatic. God is good—He is the Good Shepherd—but He is also a stern judge of unrepentant sin.” For further meditation: