Psalm 12

Updated
2001-05-26; 14:32:55utc

George Knight in his Commentary on The Psalms says the following about this twelfth psalm: "The basic mark of human disloyalty to the covenant is not so much the way in which people respond to God as how they behave to their neighbor." The truth could not have been formulated more correctly! Superficially, it sounds as if it does not matter what our relationship with God is like, as long as we treat our neighbor decently. But unless we love God with all our heart and with all our soul and with all our strength, we cannot possibly love our neighbor as ourselves. It is easy to deceive ourselves in our relationship with God. John says: " If anyone says, 'I love God,' yet hates his brother, he is a liar. For anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen."^¹

So much in way of introduction to this psalm in which David commences with the complaint: "The godly are no more." The Hebrew word for "godly" is hasid, which means a member of the covenant people. Godly people are always rare; the crowd always follows evil. This becomes obvious in the deterioration of human relations. God lives where there is love among brethren.

By uttering this complaint, David places himself with the godly. His complaint is also an indication of his feeling of loneliness. Being a social creature, man needs the company of his fellowmen. Fellowship with God is, of course, the most important and fundamental thing in life. But, even if a man has intimate fellowship with God, he needs intercourse with other people in order to live a healthy and well balanced life. God intends it to be so that we are reached by God's love through the lives of other people and that others learn to experience His love through us. David suffers from the fact that he is alone. The devil, also, knows that loneliness is not good for our mental health. Solitary confinement in a prison is one of the most severe and cruel punishments that can be meted out to a person.

We cannot say for sure how much David's feeling of loneliness is an illusion, or whether he was really the only godly one left. When Elijah thought that he was the only prophet left, God said to him: "I reserve seven thousand in Israel-- all whose knees have not bowed down to Baal and all whose mouths have not kissed him."² But, even if David suffered from an illusion, it was no easier for him to bear than if it were reality. The most healthful atmosphere for a person to live in is a fellowship of people who love one another.

The faithful are the ones who are part of God's covenant with men. The term "covenant" may have become discredited because of its use in Calvinistic circles, where it is sometimes used to cover a multitude of sins, when the point is stressed that the covenant is hereditary. But this does not take away anything from the fact that God and man can enter into a covenant that is more binding than human marriage vows. William of Orange I declared that he had made a covenant with "the Potentate of potentates." It is good and healthy for a man to have this kind of relationship with God and to keep the terms of the contract.

The people in David's psalm, either never entered into this covenant relation with God, or they did not keep the terms of it. They were, probably, Israelites to whom the Word of God had come, but who did not consider themselves to be bound by it. This is evident from their relationship with their fellowmen.

David mentions the tongue, or the lips, as the main vehicle of their sin. "Everyone lies to his neighbor; their flattering lips speak with deception." TLB says: "Everyone deceives and flatters and lies. There is no sincerity left." Other translations use the expression "a double heart." The meaning of the image is that these people misuse the word. They do not say what they mean. Their words do not express what is in their hearts. In contrast with the Word of God, their word cannot be relied on. If man's words are no longer in tandem to the Word of God, they have become corrupted. One of the characteristics of the German Nazi regime was the corruption of the word, both in the promises that were given as in its use as a demagogic weapon. Chamberlain thought that Hitler was a man of his word. To this misconception we owe the beginning of the Second World War. In a sense, though, the spoken word translates exactly what lives in man's heart. An insincere heart utters falsehood, and an honest man speaks honest words. It is up to the hearer to discern the difference.

The words David uses to describe the godless are lying, flattering, and boastful. The KJV translates them with "vanity," "flattering," and "a double heart." Vanity is used here in the sense of emptiness. The words these people speak have no content. The flag does not cover the cargo of the ship. A double heart is a divided heart; it describes a man who has no allegiance. The Bible teaches that we should love the Lord with all our heart and soul and strength. God's command to Israel was: "Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength."³ Double heartedness is the condition of a man who has never made a choice and who wants to continue to live in this condition. Flattering describes the technique of deceit. These people are smooth talkers who have developed their ability to perfection to use words that have no meaning. There is a process of decomposition when man detaches himself from God who is the content and meaning of his life, and so the Word that has meaning detaches itself from man. When man's heart is empty, his words are empty also. Empty people are dangerous people because they are not connected to the source and they cause destruction. Since man is the bearer of God's image, his word ought to bear the character of the Word of God.

Not only has man's word become meaningless, it has become a weapon in his rebellion against God. They say: "We will triumph with our tongues; we own our lips-- who is our master?" This is a revolutionary slogan which man uses to make himself god. David recognizes the danger of the situation. That is why he asks for help and prays that God will rise up and mete out punishment.

If we turn the negatives of this psalm around, there appears before our eyes the image of the godly. The man who observes the terms of the covenant God made with him is reliable in his speaking. His strength is in God, not in his own words. One of the characteristics of the Antichrist will be his demagogy. Describing the Antichrist, John says: "The beast was given a mouth to utter proud words and blasphemies and to exercise his authority for forty-two months."⁴ In sharp contrast to eloquent oratory one hears the reality of the oppression of the weak and the groaning of the needy. Without the love of God there is no social justice. During World War II the Nazis organized a program of "Help in Winter"⁵ which cost the lives of more than six million Jews and of members of other races.

In this psalm God promises His protection to those who are maligned. The Bible gives us this assurance over and over again. David testifies: "I was young and now I am old, yet I have never seen the righteous forsaken or their children begging bread."⁶ And Jesus says so beautifully in the Sermon on the Mount: "Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life? And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? So do not worry, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own." The writer to the Hebrews admonishes us: "Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said, 'Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.' So we say with confidence, 'The Lord is my helper; I will not be afraid. What can man do to me?' "⁷

Worry about our sustenance is a sin that chokes the Word of God in our hearts. God knows that we need some form of security in order to be able to lead a balanced life. Both "the worries of this life and the deceitfulness of wealth," which Jesus mentions in the parable of the sower,⁸ can be traced back to a lack of security in life. Our only real security, however, is in God. God offers Himself to us in this psalm as such a security. It is a sad and discouraging thing when our health suffers from the fact that we worry about our finances.

Although financial security, or the lack of it, is one of the most visible elements, it is a symptom of a deeper emotional and spiritual insecurity. As the above verse quoted from Hebrews suggests, it is our relationship to God that gives us the sense of security in the depth of our heart which we all need so badly. The devil leaves man in a condition of uncertainty. Adam and Eve discovered immediately that the protection provided by the fig leaf was inadequate; therefore God offered Himself to them as their security. The guarantee for this security for us is the Word of God. The contrast between the unreliable word of man and the reliability of the Word of God is the main theme of this psalm. God's Word is more to be relied on than any Social Security check. David compares it to refined silver that is flawless, without any foreign elements. I am not familiar with the process of refining silver, but I presume that the image of "silver refined in a furnace of clay, purified seven times," in vs. 6 is symbolically meant to express the perfect purity of the Word of God. God's promises are free of ulterior motives. The KJV renders vs. 6 as: "The words of the LORD are pure words: as silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times." George Knight, in his Commentary on the Psalms, interprets the word "tried" as God's promises being tried by man. Such trying, of course, has no effect upon the purity of the Word of God, but it does purify the heart of the person who does the trying.