‘From want to dwelling’: A stylistic analysis of Psalm 23

Jonathan Essuman ORCID iD & Prince Nterful Acquah ORCID iD 

Issue: Vol. 7 No.7 2026 Article 15 pp. 1960 – 1970
DOI: https://doi.org/10.38159/ehass.20267715 Published online 21st September 2026

© 2026 The Author(s). This is an open access article under the CCBY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).

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Psalm 23 is frequently approached as a short devotional text whose meaning is self-evident, yet its reassuring effect depends on carefully patterned language. This study offers an integrated stylistic reading of the psalm as a movement from lack to settled dwelling, showing how reassurance is built clause by clause rather than asserted in general terms. Using the King James Version as the textual base, the analysis segments the psalm into labelled clauses and codes each unit for lexis, syntax, evaluation, figuration, and cohesion. The discussion draws on foregrounding theory to account for parallelism and deviation, on critical stylistics to track naming and agency through transitivity, on cognitive metaphor to explain how pastoral, journey, and household frames structure inference, and on appraisal theory to trace stance and intensity. Findings show that a compact lexicon clustered around shepherding and hospitality turns belief into concrete scenes; repeated clause frames portray divine agency as steady provision; and a strategic pronoun shift at the valley reconfigures distance by moving from third-person report to second-person address at the moment of threat. Evaluation is sparse but climactic, with fear denied, comfort asserted, and abundance scaled toward the closing promise, while cohesive reference chains and spatial prepositions stage a coherent passage from pasture to table to house. The paper clarifies how a small set of linguistic choices produces the distinctive calm rhythm and durable consolatory force of the psalm. It offers a compact stance trajectory model that can support teaching and close reading in stylistics classrooms.

Keywords: Cognitive Metaphor, Foregrounding, Psalm 23, Stance, Stylistics

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Jonathan Essuman, Senior Lecturer at the Department of Languages Education, University of Skills Training and Entrepreneurial Development (USTED), Kumasi, holds a PhD in English from Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), Kumasi. He has attended and presented papers at a number of international and local conferences. He is a member of the African Literature Association (ALA), and doubles as the PRO and Organising Secretary of the Literature Association of Ghana (LITAG). His research interests are within the scope of postcolonial literature, emerging discourses on Literature and the Environment, Migration and African Migrants, and contemporary perspectives on Africana Womanism.

Prince Nterful Acquah is a Master of Philosophy candidate in English at the University of Education, Winneba, where he also obtained his Bachelor of Arts in English Language (Education). He teaches English Language at T.I. Ahmadiyya Senior High School, Kumasi, Ghana, where he coordinates the Professional Learning Community, and he previously taught at Adamanso M/A Junior High School in the Western Region. His research interests lie in sociolinguistics, phonetics and phonology, and stylistics, alongside language development and learner-centred pedagogy.

Essuman, Jonathan, and Prince Nterful Acquah. “‘From want to dwelling’: A stylistic analysis of Psalm 23.” E-Journal of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences 7, no.7 (2026): 1960 -1970. https://doi.org/10.38159/ehass.20267715

© 2026 The Author(s). Published and Maintained by Noyam Journals. This is an open access article under the CCBY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).

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