Palestinian fields were covered with narrow criss-cross paths over which the shepherd would have to lead his flock in seeking new pasture. Some of these paths led to a precipice or deep ravine over which a stupid sheep might easily fall to its death. From such dangers the shepherd had to guard his flock. Some sheep, however, being wayward by nature would take one of these criss-cross paths leading to danger and fall headlong into thickets or down ravines, where they would lie wounded, bleeding and dying. What does a stupid sheep know of ravines, precipices or haunts of wild beasts? That hill or valley seems to offer fair prospects and good pasture--but death lurks there. The sheep knows not. The shepherd would have to seek the lost, wounded sheep, and, finding it, bind up its wounds, reset broken limbs and restore its health. It is said that if a sheep wandered into a stranger's pasture the finder could cut its throat and keep the carcass, providing the shepherd did not come in time to save the sheep. Many times the shepherd arrived just after the sheep had been mutilated, and by care saved its life and restored it to health again. The sheep was again his own--it was "restored." =_The Wandering Sheep_= David is spiritually soliloquizing. He thinks of the tendency of human nature to err and stray like a sheep. "All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way." Man, too, has a genius for going wrong. "There is a way that seemeth right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death." No man is clever enough to guide himself through the devious ways of life. He needs God as a guide. David recalls how tenderly God had dealt with him after his backslidings and how graciously and completely He had restored him to fellowship.