Daily Manna · Day 136 · May 16
Goodness and Mercy
“Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the LORD for ever.”
Psalm 23 ends with a word that sounds gentle in English: "Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life." David knew what it was to be followed in a much harder sense. At En-gedi, near the Dead Sea, he hid among the rocks while King Saul came looking for him with "three thousand chosen men out of all Israel." Keep that picture of a hunted man in mind, because it explains the word David uses here.
"Follow" is a polite word for what the Hebrew says. The word is radaph, and it means to chase or pursue. It is the word for what Pharaoh's army did at the sea: "the Egyptians pursued after them." It is the word for what Saul did to David: "he pursued after David in the wilderness of Maon." In the psalms it is most often enemies who do the chasing, as when David asks to be delivered "from them that persecute me." Here David turns the word around and puts goodness and mercy where the hunters used to be. He is saying more than that kindness walks politely along behind him. All his life he has been chased, and the whole time God's goodness has been chasing him too.
The word for mercy is chesed. It means God's loyal love, the faithfulness that keeps its promise even when the other side has given every reason to break it. David had given God plenty of reasons.
So this verse is bigger than a reminder to count your blessings. The goodness of God has been chasing you as well. It does not lose your trail in the years you would rather not talk about. And the chase has an end: it ends at a home, "the house of the LORD," where David means to dwell "for length of days," as the Hebrew puts it, and where nobody will ever ask you to leave.
Daily Manna runs on a two-year cycle. The year two reading for day 136 is God Remembered (Exodus 2:24).