Jehovah-Rohi: the Lord is my shepherd (Psalm 23)

Jehovah-Rohi means “the Lord is my shepherd”. It is taken from the first line of Psalm 23, which in Hebrew reads YHWH ro‘i, and which the American Standard Version renders “Jehovah is my shepherd”. The word ro‘i is a form of the verb ra‘ah, “to feed” or “to tend a flock”, with the ending that means “my”. Unlike Jehovah-Jireh or Jehovah-Nissi, this is not the name of an altar or a place, and it is not a title that Scripture sets apart as a name. It is the opening confession of a psalm, which later writers and hymn books joined into a single compound form. You will also see it spelled Jehovah-Raah or Jehovah-Roi, because transliteration of Hebrew varies. What the phrase says, though, is clear and deeply personal: the God whose name is Jehovah cares for his people as a shepherd cares for his sheep, feeding, leading, protecting and bringing them home.

The psalm in which the phrase is found

Psalm 23 is short enough to be read in full, and the phrase makes sense only within it. The first line names the shepherd; everything after describes what he does.

A Psalm of David. Jehovah is my shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures; He leadeth me beside still waters. He restoreth my soul: He guideth me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for thou art with me; Thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me. Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: Thou hast anointed my head with oil; My cup runneth over. Surely goodness and lovingkindness shall follow me all the days of my life; And I shall dwell in the house of Jehovah for ever.

— Psalm 23:1-6 (ASV)

Three things stand out. First, the psalm begins and ends with the name Jehovah: the shepherd of the first verse is the host of the last, in whose house the psalmist will dwell. Second, the psalm moves from speaking about God to speaking to him. In the valley of the shadow of death, “he” becomes “thou”. The darkest place in the psalm is where the relationship becomes most direct. Third, the shepherd leads “for his name’s sake”. His care is not a reward for good sheep but an expression of his own character and faithfulness to his name.

What a shepherd meant in Israel

In the world of the Bible a shepherd was not a sentimental figure. He found water and grass in dry country, guarded the flock from wild animals and thieves, carried the weak, and searched for the lost. The word was also used of kings and leaders, who were meant to care for the people entrusted to them. Jacob, near the end of his life, spoke of God as the one who had shepherded him all his days (Genesis 48:15), and Psalm 80 calls on God as the Shepherd of Israel.

When Israel’s kings and leaders failed, the prophets used the same picture to condemn them. Ezekiel 34 is a long charge against shepherds who fed themselves and left the flock to scatter. Its answer is remarkable: God himself will do the work his under-shepherds refused to do.

For thus saith the Lord Jehovah: Behold, I myself, even I, will search for my sheep, and will seek them out. As a shepherd seeketh out his flock in the day that he is among his sheep that are scattered abroad, so will I seek out my sheep; and I will deliver them out of all places whither they have been scattered in the cloudy and dark day.

— Ezekiel 34:11-12 (ASV)

A few verses later the promise is repeated in even plainer terms:

I myself will be the shepherd of my sheep, and I will cause them to lie down, saith the Lord Jehovah.

— Ezekiel 34:15 (ASV)

The same chapter also says that God will set one shepherd over his people, “my servant David” (Ezekiel 34:23). The prophet holds the two promises together: God himself will shepherd his flock, and a son of David will shepherd them.

The good shepherd who lays down his life

In John 10 Jesus steps into this prophecy. Speaking to people who knew Psalm 23 and Ezekiel 34 well, he says:

I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down His life for the sheep.

— John 10:11 (BSB)

The claim is bold. Ezekiel had said that God himself would come to seek his scattered sheep, and that a son of David would shepherd them. Jesus presents himself as both. The historic Christian faith, confessed in the Nicene Creed, reads this as one of the ways the New Testament shows that Jesus shares the identity of the God of Israel while also being truly human, the promised son of David. The entry Is Jehovah the same as Jesus? explains how Christians hold this together within the Trinity.

Jesus also adds something the psalm did not say: the shepherd dies for the sheep. The letter to the Hebrews joins the shepherd picture to the resurrection, praying to the God of peace, who “brought back from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great Shepherd of the sheep” (Hebrews 13:20). The one who walks with his people through the valley of the shadow of death has himself passed through death and come back.

Living as sheep of this shepherd

The phrase Jehovah-Rohi is most useful when it is prayed rather than merely defined. A few ways of taking it to heart:

Begin with “my”. The psalm is personal. It does not deny that God shepherds a whole people, but it invites each believer to say “my shepherd” in trust.
Let him set the pace. The shepherd makes the sheep lie down. Rest, worship and the weekly gathering of the church are part of how he restores the soul.
Expect the valley. The psalm does not promise that the path avoids darkness, only that the shepherd is present in it. Grief, illness and fear are not signs that he has left.
Follow where he leads. The paths of righteousness are his paths. Being shepherded includes being corrected by the rod and staff.

Those who have been hurt by human leaders, including leaders in churches, may find Ezekiel 34 a comfort: God himself takes the part of the scattered sheep against shepherds who failed them.

Where Christians differ

Christians agree on the meaning of Psalm 23; they differ mainly on how to speak of phrases like this one. Some devotional writers treat Jehovah-Rohi as one of a set of names by which God revealed himself, and find it helpful to pray through them. Others, more cautious about the Hebrew, point out that Scripture never presents it as a name, only as the first words of a song. This site takes the second, more precise view, while recognising that praying “the Lord is my shepherd” is exactly what the psalm invites. For a sister phrase that is also drawn from a line of Scripture, see Jehovah-Tsidkenu, and for the place of the name across the Psalter, the name in the Psalms.

For reflection

Read Psalm 23 slowly, then Ezekiel 34 and John 10, and notice how the shepherd grows from a comfort into a promise and then into a person. Pray the psalm aloud, changing nothing, and let the move from “he” to “thou” become your own. Belong to a flock: the shepherd gathers his sheep together, and a local church is where most Christians learn to hear his voice in the Scriptures.

References

Brown, Driver and Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament (1906).
C. H. Spurgeon, The Treasury of David (1869–1885).
F. Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Psalms, in Keil and Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament (English translation, 1871).
Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710).
The Preface to the American Standard Version (1901).