One of my regular walks takes me across a small bridge, under which flows a stream. This stream can be a pathetic trickle or a rushing torrent, depending on the recent weather. Yesterday we had a good deal of rain, so today I was treated to a lively, chattering stream that flowed and leapt with great enthusiasm.
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.
In the time of the writer of Psalm 23, sheep (and therefore shepherds) must have had quite a different persepective on water. He's clearly praising the still waters (and God for providing them), but when I think of still water, I picture something stale, flat, and unprofitable: fetid ponds, or the unpalatable alternative to mineral water that Swiss restaurants will serve you if you make the mistake of asking for water that's not fizzy instead of for that blessed, delicious Swiss Hahnewasser. (Tap water, that is. Switzerland has wonderful drinking water, and it flows freely in the city fountains, yet restaurants will charge you an arm and a leg for something flat and boring unless you know the secret password. Remember it: Hahnewasser.)
Still water smells of death and decay. Moving, flowing, leaping streams project life, health, freedom. Why was the psalmist so happy with God for leading him to still waters?
I guess I'll have to learn a lot more about a shepherd's life in ancient Israel to be able to answer that.
I read or heard somewhere that sheep don't like moving water. Maybe it scares them. But there are sources of still water that are not stagnant; somehow they are kept fresh without too much movement.
small lakes and ponds can be relatively still and just move more at the in and out points.
And of course I love to see a beautiful, serene lake that reflects the sky and the mountains. But for the most part, it's moving water that looks like living water to me. I much prefer the Atlantic side of Florida, with its waves, to the Gulf, without them. Even a lake looks fresher with a bit of wind disturbing the surface—though maybe that's left over from my sailing days, when I'd eagerly look for the ripples that told us where the wind was.
Well, since this vacation to Lake Erie, I think I personally prefer calmer water. Calmer is safer. Lake Erie can go from hardly a ripple to near-ocean-size waves and back again within a week. (We saw it!)
I understand your point about bubbling, singing streams, and how beautiful moving water, say, waterfalls, can be. But I bet the psalmist's point is that the more the water moves, the more dangerous it can be.
It would be especially dangerous if you're a sheep covered with wool.
But for drinking? Why should it need to be still to drink? I assume that's what the sheep are doing, not swimming in it.
I think they're trying to drink, not swim, but I'm told sheep aren't so bright, so as Heather said, rough water could mean a drink-turned-deadly-swim. I like moving water, but I also find a calm lake beautiful, though I would define a few ripples as calm (or still) as well. We're so well protected from nature most of the time now that I think we've lost much of our healthy fear of the elements. Standing on top of a mountain in the Alps with fresh snow quickly burying my path gave me a glimpse of what uncertainty earlier peoples lived with all the time. "Still" probably could still be applied even to waters we thought were full of movement. But it's all just guesses.
It also just occurred to me that in some places (including Florida), moving water can mean a predator (e.g. alligator) is near.
