The Lord is My Shepherd (Eastman Johnson) The Lord is My Shepherd (Eastman Johnson) The Lord is My Shepherd is an 1863 oil on wood painting by American artist Eastman Johnson. The painting measures 16 5/8 x 13 1/8 in. (42.3 x 33.2 cm.) and is on display at the Smithsonian American Art Museum. The title of the painting comes from Psalm 23, which begins with the line: "The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want." Johnson painted it just after the Emancipation Proclamation was announced in 1863. Its imagery includes an African-American man reading the first part of a Bible, possibly the Book of Exodus.
Psalm 110 specifically refers to Jesus as the Messiah. Spurgeon concurs that while David composed the psalm, the psalm is solely about Jesus. The difference in interpretation between Jewish and Christian sources pivots on the translation of the Hebrew word אדני ("Adonai") in verse 1. This is usually translated as "my master" or "my lord", thus rendering the verse as "The Lord spoke to my master". While "Adonai" is one of the names of God, thoughout the Tanakh it refers to a human "master" or "lord". Since David wrote this psalm in the third person, to be sung by the Levites in