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 102 where it is split as an antiphon into a "call" ("Lord, listen to my prayer", or "Hear my prayer, O Lord") and the response ("and let my cry come unto Thee"). This psalm occurs in the Monastic office of St Benedict (480-547) in the Saturday vigils or Matins. It occurs in the same place in the Roman Breviary of St Pius V (1568) and occurs at Saturday Terce in the Roman Breviary of St Pius X (1911). In the revised office of Pope Paul VI (1971) the Psalm occurs on Tuesday Week 4 Vigils The second verse is set in