“The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want”

“The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want” is the opening of Psalm 23:1 and a compact declaration of divine guidance and provision. In the novel, a black-clad man uses it to console a woman, but the circumstances around the line unsettle its promise: George Glenn is dead, the sheep have been left without a shepherd, and their future is tied to an inheritance they cannot control.

The invocation at George’s Place

The man speaks after offering to approach Ham on the woman’s behalf. She refuses, saying that her business with Ham is long over; she is uncertain what belongs to her and mentions George’s will, which she hopes has not left anything to another woman. The man answers with an appeal to courage and the scriptural assurance of a shepherd’s care. The exchange gives the expression a human, pastoral setting, but the woman’s uncertainty about family and inheritance remains unresolved.

As they leave, the man and woman walk across George’s Place and crush fresh shoots. The small act cuts against the image of a shepherd who protects and sustains: the words promise care, while the people speaking them tread on new growth in a pasture associated with George. Othello responds with open distrust of the man’s lord, and Mopple the Whale immediately voices the sheep’s fear that they may be sold to a butcher. Their reactions expose the gap between a comforting assurance and the vulnerable animals’ material circumstances.

A shepherdless world

The line’s pastoral image is sharpened by the novel’s opening situation. George Glenn lies dead in the grass beside the hay barn, with a spade protruding from his body, while the sheep meet near the cliff and try to keep calm. The shepherd whose flock once depended on him can no longer provide for it. The sheep’s first alarm is practical: they wonder who will bring them hay, before Miss Maple reasons that midsummer pasture makes hay unnecessary. The scriptural promise thus sits beside a more immediate question of who will actually care for the flock.

The absence of human oversight first appears to offer freedom. Behind George’s caravan, the sheep break into his fenced vegetable garden and eat its lettuces, peas, radishes, cress, tomatoes, endives, buttercups, and chives. Their feast ends in shame; Othello, who did not join the raid, leads Miss Maple to the place where George’s garden spade usually stood. The episode makes provision concrete and complicated: George’s care had included food and protection, but also a fence and rules.

Care, possession, and destruction

Later, Gabriel takes George’s scythe and cuts grass for his sheep. The flock watches a human graze by mowing, turning a familiar pastoral tool into an image of destruction: the cut grass lies flat, and the sheep find the scene horrifying. Gabriel’s action complicates the idea that a shepherd’s presence necessarily means benevolent care. The flock also hears people discuss George’s land as a source of money and accuse him of obstructing tourism and development. In this pastoral world, the language of care stands beside questions of ownership, profit, and the fate of animals.

The expression is spoken once, but its promise resonates against these recurring contrasts. Later, Rebecca tells the sheep a story about a girl with a secret father and an unsecret father: after a quarrel, the secret father waits so long for his daughter that he dies before they can reconcile. The tale, like the earlier invocation, brings parental care and absence into view, while offering no easy assurance that affection can overcome estrangement. Across these scenes, the shepherd image remains powerful precisely because the novel tests it against abandonment, dependence, and the consequences of human choices.