page_title: The Lord's my Shepherd
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: The Lord's my Shepherd / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Portrait of Francis Rous (1579-1659)
context_page_description: "The Lord's my Shepherd" is a Christian hymn. It is a metrical psalm commonly attributed to the English Puritan Francis Rous and based on the text of Psalm 23 in the Bible. The hymn first appeared in the Scottish Psalter in 1650.
  It is commonly sung to the tune Crimond, which is generally credited to Jessie Seymour Irvine.
context_section_description: "The Lord's my Shepherd" is based on the words of Psalm 23:
  The LORD is my shepherd; I shall not want.
  He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters.
  — Psalm 23
  During the Protestant Reformation in Scotland, the practice of exclusive psalmody made Psalm singing a central part of public worship. The Book of Common Order, introduced in the Church of Scotland by reformer John Knox in 1564, contained metrical versions of all the Psalms, adapted from John Calvin's Genevan Psalter (1539). Psalms were sung to Genevan tunes and were only permitted to be sung in unison. Many revisions were published, but by the mid-17th century, the Churches of England and Scotland were both in need of a new translation.
  The English lawyer and politician Francis Rous authored a new metrical paraphrase of the Book of Psalms which he published in 1641. Under Oliver Cromwell, Rous had been appointed a member of the Westminster Assembly and was a prominent figure among the English Puritans. Before his Psalms could be approved, they were subjected to scrutiny by the Long Parliament, and a committee of translators was formed to review submissions by Rous and by his rival, William Barton. The committee deliberated for six years and made extensive alterations to the texts.
  Although Rous is now credited as the author of "The Lord's my Shepherd", his text was substantially edited after publication. Rous's original version of Psalm 23 read:
  My Shepherd is the Living Lord And He that doth me feed
  How can I then lack anything whereof I stand in need?
  It is estimated that only 10% of Rous's original text was retained in the final version. In England, Barton's version found favour with the English Parliament but it was the Rous version that won approval in Scotland due to its perceived accuracy in translating source texts, and in 1650, General Assembly of the Church of Scotland, the church's ruling body, approved the Rous version for the Scottish Psalter.
caption: Francis Rous (1579-1659), credited as the author of "The Lord's my Shepherd"
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