“... The Lord is called “shepherd”; the metaphor, at this point, draws upon one of the oldest epithets of God in the Hebrew tradition (cf. Gen 49:24), an epithet which has parallels in Near Eastern religions (e.g. it is used of Shamash: ANET, 387). The poet takes the ancient epithet of God as a starting point, but then develops its metaphorical content by drawing out its inherent implications with respect to God’s care for his people. In moving from the epithet to the metaphor, the psalmist is doing nothing distinctive, for the metaphor is employed in various psalms (e.g. 80:2; 77:21; 95:7). The distinctiveness in the opening words of this psalm lies in the use of the pronoun, my shepherd; the shepherd theme, traditionally interpreted communally of the “flock” (or nation), is here given its most personal interpretation in the entire biblical tradition. (Even if the use of “I/my” was intended, or later interpreted, in a communal sense, the implications of a personal association with the shepherd remain.) ...”