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Scottish Psalter
The Lord's My Shepherd, I'll Not Want," written by the Westminster Assembly and published in the Scottish Psalter of 1650, combines at least four metrical versions of Psalm 23 into one beautiful hymn.
Zachary Boyd, born in Kilmarnock in 1585, was a graduate of St. Andrews University. He pastored the Barony Church in Glasgow and became vice-chancellor of Glasgo University as well. Boyd wrote his metrical version of Psalm 23 in 1646 and the first line of the Westminster version comes from his poetry.
Born in 1579, Francis Rous wrote the poetry from which the second line was taken. He became an adherent of Oliver Cromwell and served as a Member of Parliament for Truro and Speaker in the Barebones Parliament. He also presided as provost of Eton College.
Other hymn lines came from Sir William Mure of Rowallan. He was born in 1594 and eventually became an Ayrshire soldier in Cromwell's forces.
Finally, some hymn lines were taken from a revised version of the 1564 Psalter, compiled by the Westminster Assembly in 1646. The only two original phrases provided by the Assembly were "He leadeth me the quiet waters by" and the word "furnished" in the fourth verse.
Proud of its diligent efforts to bring all these sources together and to provide a concise book of psalmody, the Scottish Psalter of 1650 stated:
It remained the only authorized version of the Psalms in the Scottish Presbyterian Church until the revision of 1929.