The King of Love My Shepherd Is

Aug 29

An Anglican clergyman with a great passion for hymns wrote one of the most beautiful paraphrases of Psalm 23 you’ll ever find. Hear his story and take a look at his lovely lyrics, in today’s episode.

Introduction

There are a lot of great hymns based on Psalm 23! In fact, if you have a favourite version of Psalm 23 that you like to listen to, please pop that in the comments below. But this is one that is really a favourite. It's not the one that I've often sung at funerals here in South Africa - I've often had to sing "The Lord Is My Shepherd, I Shall Not Want". That's the more common one here. But this is the beautiful one: "The King of Love My Shepherd Is".

Do you know the song? And do you have a memory of the song? Does it mean something to you? If you have anything to share, please put it in the comments below. I'd love to hear your thoughts and your reflections.

As always, subscribe to the channel if you haven't already. If you enjoy the hymns, if you enjoy any sort of music that's dedicated to Jesus, join me here on Fridays for these hymns and on Sunday nights as well. I'd love to have you on board.

The Story Behind "The King of Love My Shepherd Is"

This is a hymn from the pen of Sir Henry Williams Baker. He was born in 1821 in London, and his father was a distinguished vice admiral who fought in the famous 1812 war. Baker was ordained into the ministry as a Church of England clergyman in 1844, and despite his family ties which would have given him the inheritance of a baron, he instead opted to become a humble clergyman and give his life to the service of God in the ministry.

He became the minister at the Monklands Priory Church in Herefordshire and spent most of his working life there. It was a small rural church in Wales with less than 200 people. When he arrived, he found the church in a pretty bad condition. Once he'd been there a few years, he commissioned an architect, George Edmund Street, to redesign the church and also to build him a vicarage, which would be his private house. In there was a little chapel and an organ.

Now, Baker is said to have loved music so much that he would hire his staff based on their singing ability! I don't know if you could get away with that today - not in a church context - but he really was a man of music. He wrote, or put together, a hymnal in 1861 called Hymns Ancient and Modern, which was quite innovative at the time. It had the text and the tune printed on the same page, which was quite a revolutionary thing. This hymnal sold 60 million copies. It really revolutionised worship in the Anglican Church at the time, and between 1860 and 1877, Baker was the one who edited these hymnals as they were republished.

It was in the second edition that this particular hymn, "The King of Love", was first seen. It appeared in the appendix as his version of Psalm 23, a beautiful paraphrase of that wonderful Psalm. As the song became popular in the Anglican Church, it started to spread into other churches as well. In fact, more recently it was played at the funeral of Princess Diana, which was a huge event - around the world it was broadcast, and this hymn came back to life a little bit on that occasion.

This is the hymn that Baker is most well known for. In fact, it is said that as he was lying on his deathbed at the young age of 55 in 1877, it was the words of this hymn that came to his lips. His friend John Elton, who was there at the end and witnessed Baker's last words, said that they were verse three of this hymn: "Perverse and foolish oft I strayed, but yet in love He sought me, and on His shoulder gently laid, and home rejoicing brought me." Beautiful. This hymn must have been very special to him for him to have it on his mind right at the end.

What Do the Lyrics of "The King of Love My Shepherd Is" Mean?

Let's take a look at the words that he wrote, and I'd love for you to share below which words really speak to you as we go through them.

Verse one: "The King of love my shepherd is" - what a lovely statement. The King, so powerful, but the King of love. It humbles Him straight away and identifies Him as a shepherd, one who cares. Straight away you're thinking of Psalm 23 and perhaps John chapter 10, where Jesus calls Himself the Good Shepherd. "The King of love my shepherd is, whose goodness faileth never." God's goodness never fails, and we love to sing about this. He is always good to us. I think of the modern song "Goodness of God" - we love to sing that at our church, declaring the same thing. "I nothing lack if I am His." Psalm 23 again: "The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want," or "I lack nothing". With Him in our lives we have all that we need. Complete sufficiency is found in Christ. "And He is mine forever." The Lord is my shepherd - mine. It's a personal relationship, not just a religious affiliation. Beautiful.

Verse two: "Where streams of living water flow, my ransomed soul He leadeth." He leads us where the streams of living water flow. Remember, Jesus Himself is the living water. He said so. And He also spoke about how the Spirit would be the one pouring forth from us as believers. This also makes me think of the end in Revelation 22, where there's that river flowing from the throne of God. That symbolises the Spirit and how healing for all nations comes through the Spirit of God. "My ransomed soul He leadeth." Ransomed - in other words, bought back. My soul was captive, but Jesus paid the price, paid the ransom, so that I could be led out of my captivity.

"And where the verdant pastures grow" - verdant is an unusual word, it means lush or flourishing. These pastures, these green pastures that David writes of in Psalm 23, that's where we are led by God. "With food celestial feedeth." In these pastures He feeds us with celestial or heavenly food. His Word is our food. Our relationship with Him is the thing that feeds our souls. In fact, I love in Psalm 63 where David says, "My soul is satisfied as with the richest of food." You see, in that green pasture we find satisfaction for our souls.

Verse three says, "Perverse and foolish oft I strayed, but yet in love He sought me." This is the verse that Baker had on his mind right as he died. Yes, I've often strayed. And it's common for all of us to go astray. Even when we first come to the Lord, we still find that sin wars against us and sometimes we stray. But yet in love He sought me. If we take this shepherd metaphor here, remember Jesus's parable about the wandering sheep, and the shepherd leaves the 99 and goes and searches for the one? Even if we stray, He comes. We talk about prevenient grace in the Wesleyan world, which is the grace that even if we don't know it, even if we're not aware, He is gracefully reaching out to us and drawing us back.

"And on His shoulder gently laid, and home rejoicing brought me." There again in Luke 15, where Jesus tells the parable of the shepherd going after that one sheep, he carries him on his shoulders and rejoices as he comes home. Jesus says all of heaven rejoices when one sinner comes home into the kingdom of God. What a beautiful thought, and what a beautiful thought to have on your mind as you're taking your last few breaths.

Verse four says, "In death's dark vale I fear no ill." Again, Psalm 23: "Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil." "With Thee, dear Lord, beside me." God is always beside us. We fear no evil. Why? Because He's with us. And that's what Psalm 23 declares.

It goes on: "Thy rod and staff my comfort still." That's straight from Psalm 23, how the shepherd guides us with his rod and his staff. But then he adds here, "Thy cross before to guide me" - which of course doesn't come from Psalm 23 because the cross hadn't happened yet. But the cross is our guide, right? We follow Jesus in a sense to the cross and beyond the cross. The cross is our focus and our guide and everything to us.

Verse five carries on: "And Thou spreadest a table in my sight." Psalm 23, verse 5: "You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies." I always loved that. For me, that represented not only the fact that if I'm in a war I can be at peace and still feast with God, but on the other hand, I also thought about how at the table of God, your enemies might actually be seated, but He calls you to love your enemies and to eat with them. How about that?

"Thy unction grace bestoweth." Now, unction is a strange word, but it's basically anointing. The anointing from God is bestowed on us through His grace. Psalm 23 again says, "You anoint my head with oil." That is the unction, the anointing from God. Everybody who believes in Jesus is anointed and sealed with the Holy Spirit, so it's for all of us - this unction, this anointing from God.

"And O what transport of delight from Thy pure chalice floweth." "My cup overflows" is a beautiful picture in this Psalm about how with God we are so full of delight and we are so blessed we're overflowing. I love this: "transport of delight" - carried away. Think about that. Transported with delight because of our relationship with God. Is this true for you lately? Are you overwhelmed, overflowing, transported away in joy because of your closeness with Jesus? Maybe you need to pursue a deeper walk with Him and feel these things again.

And then the last verse: "And so through all the length of days, Thy goodness faileth never." Again, back to this thing about God's goodness always being there all through the length of days. Again, this makes me think of the end of Psalm 23: "I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever, and goodness and mercy will follow me all my days." As long as you're walking with the Lord, you will know His goodness that never fails.

"Good Shepherd, may I sing Thy praise within Thy house forever." So there's the last verse of Psalm 23 about dwelling in the house of the Lord forever, singing His praise. Think about how Revelation paints a picture of the saints in heaven singing the praise of the Lamb - interestingly, the Shepherd who became the Lamb and gave Himself up on the cross for us. Wonderful.

Conclusion

What do you think of these words? Did one verse particularly bless you today? I really love this song! It's a little bit clunky to the modern ear, I think. Teenagers would listen to this and go, "What are they talking about?" All the phrases are backwards compared to the way we talk in today's English, but nonetheless, it's poetic and it's beautiful, and I hope you've been blessed by it.

I just want to say thank you to those of you who donate towards this work that I do. I really appreciate your donations on PayPal and on Patreon. If you sign up there for any amount per month, all my Friday Classic Hymns are available for you - the performance and the piano part that I play in the background. Thank you for your donations.

Let's sing it now. There are two common tunes for this hymn. The first was written by John Dykes in the 1860s, and this was the popular one until copyright issues came in, and later hymnals paired it with an Irish melody called Saint Columba. That's the one I'm going to sing. If you have a great version of the other one, pop it in the comments below so we can listen. Let's sing this together and give our Shepherd the praise.