Your Rod comforts me

Get a true idea of this word translated "rod" and at once this beautiful meaning of defense comes out. The word means literally, club or mace or bludgeon. It is a great, stout bludgeon, a most formidable weapon of defense. It was made usually of the tough wood of the oak. Swelling out from the handle was a great, thick, rounded head. This head was often further armed by the driving into it of heavy iron nails. Grasped by a strong hand and wielded by a strong arm, the bludgeon or mace, as you can see, would be a quite appalling weapon with which the shepherd could beat off assailants of the flock. Thus, our comfort is not a chastising rod, but rather a defending rod.

So David, in Psalm 23 takes up this figure of the rod and sings of a strong, glad comfort in his heart, notwithstanding he must walk in the valley of the shadow of death, because the Jehovah-Shepherd's bludgeon is his defense.

And now what source of inward comfort here! The Shepherd-Lord defends. He defends by the mighty and masterful bludgeon of His ATONEMENT. Dangers are continually threatening—the relentless, prowling, predatory world, flesh, and devil. But between God's saints and the dangers crowding round them is the bludgeon of our Lord's Atonement. What comfort for us in the fact that that the glory of Christ's All-Satisfying Atonement simultaneously comforts, defends and renews us. All Glory to our wonderful Savior!