He sat in silence a moment musing as if the sound were in his ear.
With quiet animation he lifted his thin hand and continued: “Now here is where you drop the shepherd figure and put in a banquet and so lose the fine climax of completeness in the shepherd’s care.”
It need not be said that we were eager listeners now, for our guest was all aglow with memories of his far-off homeland and we felt that we were about to see new rays of light flash from this rarest gem in the song-treasury of the world.
“ Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies.” In the same hushed voice in which he quoted these words he added: “Ah, to think that the shepherd’s highest skill and heroism should be lost from view as the psalm begins to sing of it, and only an indoor banquet thought of!” Again he sat a little time in quiet. Then he said:
“The word for table here means simply ‘something spread out’ and so a prepared meal, however it is set forth. There is no higher task of the shepherd in my country than to go from time to time to study places and examine the grass and find a good and safe feeding-place for his sheep. All his skill and often great heroism are called for. There are many poisonous plants in the grass and the shepherd must find and avoid them. The sheep will not eat certain poisonous things, but there are some which they will eat, one kind of poisonous grass in particular. A cousin of mine once lost three hundred sheep by a mistake in this hard task.
“Then there are snake holes in some kinds of ground, and, if they be not driven away, the snakes bite the noses of the sheep. The shepherd sometimes burns the fat of hogs along the ground to do this. Sometimes the shepherd finds ground where moles have worked their holes just under the surface. Snakes lie in these holes with their heads sticking up ready to bite the grazing sheep. The shepherds know how to drive them away as they go along ahead of the sheep.
“And around the feeding-ground which the shepherd thus prepares, in holes and caves in the hillsides there are jackals, wolves, hyenas, and panthers, too, and the bravery and skill of the shepherd are at the highest point in closing up these dens with stones or slaying the wild beasts with his long-bladed knife. Of nothing do you hear shepherds boasting more proudly than of their achievements in this part of their care of flocks.
“And now,” he exclaimed with a beaming countenance and suppressed feeling, as if pleading for recognition of the lone shepherd’s bravest act of devotion to his sheep, “and now do you not see the shepherd figure in that quaint line, Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies ?”
“Yes,” I answered, “and I see that God’s care of a man out in the world is a grander thought than that of seating him at an indoor banquet-table.”