Psalm 23 may begin with green pastures and quiet waters, but it’s no walk in the park. By the time we get to verse 4, we’ve left the bright fields for darkness. Most of us are likely familiar with the King James Version:
“Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death.”
This translation is classic and poetic. But you may have noticed something a little different in a more modern translation, such as the 2001 edition of the New International Version:
“Even though I walk through the darkest valley.”
Some translations such as the ESV retain the classic translation while providing a footnote that says “Or the valley of deep darkness.” So which is it? Why do modern bibles revise the translation? Which one has more support? And does it matter either way? Let’s have a look.
Exploring the Valley
The Hebrew word in question is salmavet. It’s literally made up of the Hebrew words for shadow (sel) and death (mavet), from which translators get “shadow of death.” Ancient translators understood it this way. The Old Testament was originally written in Hebrew, and as culture and language changed it needed to be translated into other languages. The Greek translation is called the Septuagint (LXX) and the Aramaic translation is called the Targum. Both of them translated salmavet as “valley of the shadow of death.” So far, so good!
But not so fast. There are some legitimate questions with such a translation. While the word does literally read “shadowdeath,” this doesn’t necessarily mean “death’s shadow.” The meaning of a word is not simply the sum of its parts; it means what the word means. For example, imagine that thousands of years from now archeologists discover evidence of an unknown and antiquated English word “butterfly,” and assume that in 2026 there were flying sticks of butter! That sounds ridiculous to us, but it’s a common exegetical error made in churches. It’s called the “etymological fallacy” or “root word fallacy.”
It could be that to the Ancient Hebrews would of thought “shadow of death” as ridiculous as we find our “flying stick of butter” story. It’s arguable that the Greek and Aramaic versions translate the phrase as they do because they’re not native Hebrew speakers and didn’t understand the language.
Beyond this issue, there are others. First, if the Hebrew wanted to say “shadow of death”, it would have used different grammatical construction. Second, Hebrew doesn’t use compound words the way other languages do. Thirdly, there are 18 other occurrences of the Hebrew word salmavet and they don’t necessarily refer to death. Often, they simply refer to darkness. However, it does appear in association with death in Job 10:22. If you want to look up all of the places where this word occurs, here the references for all 18 occurrences: Isaiah 9:2, Jeremiah 2:6, 13:16, Amos 5:8, Psalm 23:4, 44:19, 107:10, Job 3:5, 10:21, 12:22, 16:16, 24:17, 28:3, 34:22, 18:17. Make sure you compare different translations such as the KJV and the NIV!
For these reasons (among others), many scholars suggest that the word means something like “severe darkness” and translate it accordingly. They might be right.
Even though we’re talking about death’s shadow, the precise translation probably isn’t a life-or-death issue (pun intended). Whether it’s the valley of the shadow of death or valley of deep darkness, we understand it for what it is: a metaphor for bad times of life. Psalm 23 evokes the larger metaphor that “Life is a journey,” and leaves no stones unturned by taking us on a trip through green pastures, beside quiet waters, and dark valleys. Perhaps one of the reasons we love Psalm 23 is because it’s so honest; it acknowledges that there are good days and bad days. But during both, we can trust that the Shepherd is beside us and we have nothing to fear.
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