One of the earliest names of God the Father is Elohim which is plural for “El”. There are two letters in ancient pictographic Hebrew that comprise “El”. The first is the ox head. The second is the shepherd’s staff. So powerful was this ancient letter in God’s name that the Egyptian Pharaohs often were depicted even on their casket effigies like Tutankhamun holding a shepherd’s staff. Combining the letter meanings of “El” we get an ox head meaning “strong and mighty leader” who carries a shepherd’s staff meaning “he leads his people gently like a shepherd with a staff”. Psalm 23 embodies this image of the Lord, a strong and mighty God who leads gently and tenderly like a loving shepherd does his flock.
There is a lot of imagery in the Old Testament about the evil of a chaotic sea like a monster crossing the boundary of the land. Noah’s flood was still fresh in the minds of the Israelites. The covenant God made with Noah was that He would never destroy the earth again by flood. As a witness to God keeping that covenant, he put a rainbow in the sky for the first time in the history of the earth.[i] Jeremiah talks of the shore boundary preventing the chaotic sea from crossing onto land:
“Do you not fear Me?” declares the LORD. “Do you not tremble before Me, the One who set the sand as the boundary for the sea, an enduring barrier it cannot cross? The waves surge, but they cannot prevail. They roar but cannot cross it.”[ii]
Not only will the sea not cross the land, but the chaos of the sea represented by Leviathan the sea monster in the Old Testament will be destroyed in the last days. Isaiah says:
“In that day the LORD with his sore and great and strong sword shall punish leviathan the piercing serpent, even leviathan that crooked serpent; and he shall slay the dragon that is in the sea. In that day sing ye unto her, A vineyard of red wine.”[iii]
Revelations tells the same story of the destruction of the chaotic sea monster:
“And I saw rising out of the sea a beast, having ten horns, and seven heads, and on its horns, ten diadems, and upon its heads, names of blasphemy…. And the beast was captured, and with him the false prophet, the one having done the signs before him, by which he deceived those having received the mark of the beast and those worshiping its image. The two were cast living into the lake of fire burning with brimstone.”[iv]
This chaos of the sea in the days of Noah and the last days caused by wickedness is in marked contrast to the “still waters” reserved for the righteous in Psalm 23. Water is used for baptizing the righteous. Paul talks about the baptism of the Israelites in crossing the Red Sea:
“I do not want you to be unaware, brothers, that our forefathers were all under the cloud, and that they all passed through the sea. They were all baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea.”[v]
So for those seeking God, and desire to follow Jesus Christ, God will overcome the chaos in our lives, calm the raging sea, and give us baptism by “still waters” to be cleansed from all our sins, and give us peace and hope of a better world when He comes again.
Roger J Simpson
[i] Genesis 9:13-16 KJV
[ii] Jeremiah 5:22 Berean Standard Bible
[iii] Isaiah 27:1=2
[iv] Revelations 13:1 and Revelations 19:20 Berean Standard Bible
[v] 1Corinthians 10:1-2 Berean Standard Bible