complete verse (Psalm 23:1), shepherd

When translating Psalm 23:1, “the translators of the Kriol Bible drew on the experience of recent generations in the cattle industry to present God as a ‘good one stockman who always minds about me’: YAWEI, yu jis laik det brabli gudwan stakmen. Yu oldei maindimbat mi.” (Source: Lake, p. 69f.)

See also shepherd.

complete verse (Psalm 23:1)

Following are a number of back-translations as well as a sample translation for translators of Psalm 23:1:

  • Chichewa Contempary Chichewa translation, 2002/2016:
    “Jehovah is my shepherd,
    I will not lack anything.” (Source: Mawu a Mulungu mu Chichewa Chalero Back Translation)
  • Chichewa interconfessional translation, 1999:
    “Chauta [see tetragrammaton (YHWH)] he is my herdsman,
    I will surely not lack a [little] thing, not at all.” (Source: Wendland 1998, p. 148f.)
  • Chichewa poetic translation in the traditional ndakatulo genre to encourage oral and musical performances:
    “Herdsman of mine he’s so good-hearted.
    Chauta is that most famous name of his.
    In him, as for me — I lack nothing, not at all.” (Source: Ernst Wendland)
  • Kupsabiny:
    “God is my guard/keeper,
    I do not lack anything.” (Source: Kupsabiny Back Translation)(Source: Kupsabiny Back Translation)
  • Adilabad Gondi:
    “Due to Jehovah God being my shepherd,
    I will not lack anything.” (Source: Adilabad Gondi Back Translation)
  • Newari:
    “The LORD is my Shepherd,
    I will not lack anything.” (Source: Newari Back Translation)
  • Hiligaynon:
    “You (sing.), LORD, are my shepherd,
    so I will- not -be-lacking (anything).” (Source: Hiligaynon Back Translation)
  • Eastern Bru:
    “God cares me. So I don’t lack anything. He cares for me like a keeper ordinarily cares for his sheep.” (Source: Bru Back Translation)
  • Laarim:
    “The LORD is my shepherd,
    there will be nothing I want.” (Source: Laarim Back Translation)
  • Nyakyusa-Ngonde (back-translation into Swahili):
    “Bwana ni mchungaji wangu,
    sipungukiwi kitu chochote.” (Source: Nyakyusa Back Translation)
  • English:
    “Yahweh, you care for me like a shepherd cares for his sheep.
    So I have everything that I need.” (Source: Translation for Translators)

shepherd

The Greek, Latin, Ge’ez, and Hebrew that is translated as “shepherd” in English is translated in Kouya as Bhlabhlɛɛ ‘yliyɔzʋnyɔ — ” tender of sheep.”

Philip Saunders (2004, p. 231) explains:

“Then one day they tackled the thorny problem of ‘shepherd’. It was problematic because Kouyas don’t have herdsmen who stay with the sheep all the time. Sheep wander freely round the village and its outskirts, and often a young lad will be detailed to drive sheep to another feeding spot. So the usual Kouya expression meant a ‘driver of sheep’, which would miss the idea of a ‘nurturing’ shepherd. ‘A sheep nurturer’ was possible to say, but it was unnatural in most contexts. The group came up with Bhlabhlɛɛ ‘yliyɔzʋnyɔ which meant ‘a tender of sheep’, that is one who keeps an eye on the sheep to make sure they are all right. All, including the translators, agreed that this was a most satisfactory solution.”

Other translations include:

  • Chuj: “carer” (there was no single word for “shepherd”) (source: Ronald Ross)
  • Muna: “sheep guard” (dhagano dhumba) (there was no immediate lexical equivalent) (source: René van den Berg),
  • Mairasi: “people who took care of domesticated animals” (source: Enggavoter 2004)
  • Noongar: “sheep worker” (kookendjeriyang-yakina) (source: Warda-Kwabba Luke-Ang)
  • Kwakum: “those-who-monitor-the-livestock” (source: Stacey Hare in this post )
  • Cherokee: “deer-watcher” (source: Bender / Belt 2025, p. 16)

See also I am the good shepherd, complete verse (Psalm 23:1), and sheep / lamb.

Learn more on Bible Odyssey: Shepherds in the Bible .

AntiPsalm 23

David Powlison (1949–2019) once inverted Psalm 23 in English to portray what life feels like and looks like whenever God vanishes from sight. He called it AntiPsalm 23.

I’m on my own.
No one looks out for me or protects me.
I experience a continual sense of need. Nothing’s quite right.
I’m always restless. I’m easily frustrated and often disappointed.
It’s a jungle — I feel overwhelmed. It’s a desert — I’m thirsty.
My soul feels broken, twisted, and stuck. I can’t fix myself.
I stumble down some dark paths.
Still, I insist: I want to do what I want, when I want, how I want.
But life’s confusing. Why don’t things ever really work out?

I’m haunted by emptiness and futility — shadows of death.
I fear the big hurt and final loss.
Death is waiting for me at the end of every road,
but I’d rather not think about that.
I spend my life protecting myself. Bad things can happen.
I find no lasting comfort.

I’m alone . . . facing everything that could hurt me.
Are my friends really friends?
Other people use me for their own ends.
I can’t really trust anyone. No one has my back.
No one is really for me — except me.
And I’m so much all about ME, sometimes it’s sickening.
I belong to no one except myself.
My cup is never quite full enough. I’m left empty.
Disappointment follows me all the days of my life.
Will I just be obliterated into nothingness?
Will I be alone forever, homeless, free-falling into void?
Sartre said, “Hell is other people.”
I have to add, “Hell is also myself.”
It’s a living death,
and then I die.

Quoted by Justin Taylor

Psalm 23:1 and 2 in Tlingit

Constance Naish and Gillian Story (in The Bible Translator 1963, p. 91f. ) tell this story of a misunderstood version of Psalm 23 in Tlingit:

“‘The Lord is my shepherd…and I am His sheep — isn’t this the sense in which we understand this phrase as the result of long familiarity with the Twenty-third Psalm? But couldn’t it mean instead, ‘The Lord is the one who herds sheep for me?’ It was in some such sense that a Tlingit interpreter for some of the early missionaries understood it. His interpretation of the opening verses of this Psalm was later translated back again from Tlingit into English like this:

‘The Lord is my goat hunter;
I don’t want Him.
He knocks me down on the mountain:
He drags me down to the beach …

“The Tlingits had no domestic animals, apart from hunting dogs, and a mountain goat was the closest thing they knew to a sheep. Who would think of herding the sure-footed mountain goats? But in the northern limits of the Tlingit area goats could be hunted, so — ‘The Lord is my goat hunter.’

“‘I shall not want’ is not the normal form of expression for a modern speaker of English, and a Tlingit who had newly learned English, when most of his people still spoke nothing but Tlingit. might well be expected to be stumbled by it. ‘I shall not want’ — surely an object must be supplied? Hence the interpretation comes out, ‘I don’t want Him.’

“‘He maketh me to lie down …’ Familiarity with a shepherd’s care for his sheep helps us to understand this, but how would one make a mountain goat lie down? How did ‘green pastures’ become ‘the mountain’? In this area the forests of spruce and hemlock come right down to the water’s edge and at the lower levels are broken only by muskeg swamps or by groups of houses in cleared land. At the higher levels on the mountains there are clearings where the little plant called deer cabbage grows in abundance, the nearest equivalent to a meadow as we know it. So with no knowledge of the pasture or the shepherd comes the statement, ‘He knocks me down on the mountain.’

“‘He leadeth me beside the still waters.’ What happened to this sentence? There is more than one word in Tlingit that could be used to translate the word ‘lead.’ Probably the interpreter used the one that means ‘to lead on a string.’ as a protesting animal might be led. He failed to visualize correctly the picture presented in the Psalm. As for the ‘still waters.’ a little word meaning really ‘down to the water’s edge’ was probably used here. Since the beach is the most common ‘water’s edge’ in this area of coastlands and islands, this was the picture conjured up for the Tlingit listeners: ‘He drags me down to the beach.’”

Metrical translations of Psalm 23 from the British Isles

Following are a number of translations of Psalm 23 into metre from a number of languages in the British Isles.

The English translation by George Herbert (publ. 1633)

The God of love my shepherd is,
    And He that does me feed:
While He is mine, and I am His,
    What can I want or need?

He leads me to the tender grass,
    Where I both feed and rest;
Then to the streams that gently pass:
    In both I have the best.

Or if I stray, He does convert
    And bring my mind in frame:
And all this not for my dessert,
    But for His holy name.

Yea, in death’s shady black abode
    Well may I walk, not fear:
For You are with me; and Your rod
    To guide, Your staff to bear.

Nay, you do make me sit and dine,
    Ev’n in my enemies’ sight:
My head with oil, my cup with wine
    Runs over day and night.

Surely Your sweet and wondrous love
    Shall measure all my days;
And as it never shall remove,
    So neither shall my praise.

The Welsh translation by Edmund Prys (publ. 1621) (click or tap here)

Yr Arglwydd yw fy ’mugail clau,
    ni âd byth eisiau arnaf: 
Mi a gâf orwedd mewn porfa frâs,
    ar lan dwfr gloywlas araf. 
Fe goledd f’enaid,
    ac a’m dwg rhyd llwybrau diddrwg cyfion,
Er mwyn ei enw mawr dilys
    Fo’m tywys ar yr union. 
Pe rhodiwn (nid ofnwn am hyn)
    yn nyffryn cysgod angau,
Wyd gyda mi, a’th nerth,
    a’th ffon, ond tirion ydyw’r arfau:
Gosodaist fy mwrdd i yn frâs,
    lle’r oedd fy nghâs yn gweled:
Olew i’m pen, a chwppan llawn,
    daionus iawn fu’r weithred. 
O’th nawdd y daw y doniau hyn
    i’m canlyn byth yn hylwydd:
A minnau a breswyliaf byth
    a’m nyth yn nhy yr Arglwydd.

© British and Foreign Bible Society

The Irish translation by Norman McLeod (publ. 1836) (click or tap here)

Is é Dia féin is áodhaire dhamh,
    Aon easbhuidh orm ni bhíaidh.
Do bheir se orm go luighím sios,
    A ninbhir fhéir mhínlígh:
A’s fós re taobh na nuisgeadhuidh,
    Ag siubhal sios go mall,
Ata se do mo threórughadh,
    Go mín réidh ann ’sgach ball.
Aiseógair m’anam dhamh air ais:
    Treorochuigh se mo chéim
A slighe ghlan na fíréuntacht,
    Do bhrigh dheagh‐anma féin.
Seadh fós, da siubhlóchuin eadhon thríd,
    Glean dhorcha sgáil’ an bháis,
Aon olc na urchóid theacht oram,
    Ni heagal liom ’sní cás;
Do bhrigh go bhfuil tu leam do ghnáth;
    Do lorg ’sdo mhaide tréun,
Atáid ag tabhárt cómhfhurtacht
    A’s fuasgladh dhamh a m’fheidhm.
Gléusfa tu bórd a radhárc mo nam’d:
    Le hola d’úng mo cheann;
A taosgadh ta mo chupán fós,
    Ag meud an lainn tá ann.
Ach leanfuidh maith a’s trócair diom,
    A’n fhaid a bhias me beó;
A’s cómhnochad a náras Dé,
    Air feadh mo ré, ’smo ló.

Digitized by Bible Societies in Ireland with the help of MissionAssist

The Manx translation by Mark, Sodor and Mann (publ. 1761) (click or tap here)

Yn Chiarn eh-hene nee mish y rere,
    Tra ta mee huggey geam;
Yn bochill mie nee goaill kiarail,
    Nagh bee’m dy bragh ayns feme.
Ayns faiyr meenure as lane dy vlaa,
T’eh kinjagh fassagh mee;
    Reesht m’y leeideil gys fynneraght,
    Yn raad ta geillyn roie.
My chree waggântagh t’eh chyndaa,
    Er graih e ennym hene;
As gynsagh mee cre’n aght dy hooyl,
    Ayns raaidyn jeeragh, glen.
Ga dy beïn shooyl ayns coan y vaaish,
    Cha bee’m ayns dooyt erbee;
Dty ’latt, dty lorg nee m’y endeil,
    As kinjagh gerjagh mee.
Neayr’s ta my Yee jeh mooad’s e ghraih,
    Er reayll my vea ass gaue;
Yn vea shen neem’s y hymney da,
    As ayns e hiamble ceau.

© British and Foreign Bible Society

The Scottish Gaelic translation (publ. 1992) (click or tap here)

Is e Dia fhèin as buachaill dhomh,
    cha bhi mi ann an dìth.
Bheir e fa-near gu’n laighinn sìos
    air cluainean glas’ le sìth:

Is fòs ri taobh nan aibhnichean
    thèid seachad sìos gu mall,
A ta e ga mo threòrachadh,
    gu mìn rèidh anns gach ball.

Tha ’g aisig m’anam dhomh air ais:
    ’s a treòrachadh mo cheum
Air slighean glan’ na fìreantachd,
air sgàth dheagh ainme fhèin.

Seadh, fòs ged ghluaisinn eadhon trìd
    ghlinn dorcha sgàil a’ bhàis,
Aon olc no urchuid a theachd orm
    chan eagal leam ’s cha chàs;

Air son gu bheil thu leam a-ghnàth,
    do lorg, ’s do bhata treun,
Tha iad a’ tabhairt comhfhurtachd
    is fuasglaidh dhomh am fheum.

Dhomh dheasaich bòrd air beul mo nàmh:
    le ola dh’ung mo cheann;
Cur thairis tha mo chupan fòs,
    aig meud an làin a th’ann.

Ach leanaidh maith is tròcair rium,
    an cian a bhios mi beò;
Is còmhnaicheam an àros Dhè,
    ri fad mo rè ’s mo lò.

© 1992, 2016 Comann Bhìoball na h-Alba (Scottish Bible Society)

The Scots translation by T.T. Alexander (publ. 1928) (click or tap here)

E’en as a shepherd tents his sheep,
    The Lord for me doth fend;
He mak’s me rest, whaur pasture’s best,
    And wimplin’ waters wend.
Sood my soul ail, He mak’s it hale
    And airts my feet to gang,
For His name’s sake, the bonny gait,
    Whaur’s nocht o’ ill or wrang.
Whaun I am boon to traivel doon
    The mirky Glen o’ Daith,
Nae dreid I bruik, His stave and crook
    Sal haud me free o’ skaith.
Wi’ ample fare Thou dost prepare
    My board, while faemen glow’r;
Wi’ eintment fine my heid dis shine,
    My bicker’s skailin’ ow’re.
Guidness and mercy a’ my days
    Are siccar at my side;
And in God’s hame I’ll be fu’ fain
    For evermair to bide.

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