The Shadow Of Death

“Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.” – Psalm 23:4

I am struck today by the phrase “the shadow of death,” which in Hebrew is one word, tsalmaveth, a compound word created from tacking together tsel (shadow) and maveth (death). Death-shadow. Not death itself, but the threat of death, the certainty of death, the darkness and grip of death. In reality we all live with the certainty of physical death, though the vast majority of us don’t think much about it at all, at least until we were forced to by this pandemic. It would be funny if it weren’t so morbid, the way death can be seen looming these days in every cough and on every doorknob. 

But there are all kinds of other deaths too, from sin and its addictions, from spiritual attack or situational threats, and the pandemic, like any trial, exposes these too. David says living in the shadow is like a journey through a valley, a narrow gorge with walls looming high. Not much light gets in those kinds of places. If there’s a bend in the path, you can’t see far ahead. If you’re in a battle, you’re exposed and vulnerable. The horizon is lost.

The natural response is fear. But David says, I won’t be afraid. Not, I am not afraid. It’s as if he’s willing himself into the truth, speaking it over himself: not that the valley will end. But that God is with him in it. A shepherd’s rod and staff were used to defend and protect, to retrieve, to manage and direct. They carried personal authority and significance. The comfort David has is not paltry; it is as real and reliable as the rod and staff he held in his own hands all those days in his youth.

And we have an even greater comfort. Isaiah 9 says, “The people who have walked in darkness (chosek) have seen a great light; those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness (tsalmaveth), on them has light shone.” A light shines in the death-shadow! This light is Jesus, of whom John writes, “In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” This God-with-us Jesus came to resurrect us to new life and free us forever from death.

If Psalm 22 is a song of affliction, and Psalm 24 the tale of a victorious monarch, then Psalm 23 is the bridge between them, the path we walk between suffering and triumph. Much of it may be unclear. But the sovereign God, who taught a young shepherd boy lessons he would later carry into the dark valleys of his life, is as actively present with us here as he ever was before.