Psalm 31

Updated
2001-05-26; 14:33:25utc

From the middle section of this psalm, the verses 9-18, we conclude that this psalm was written when David was in great distress. Spiritually, emotionally, and physically he was in grave difficulties. There is no reason to suppose that this psalm is a collection of different poems; we do better to take the whole psalm, with its "ups and downs" as one poem. That is why the opening words are so impressive: "In you, O LORD, I have taken refuge." We do not know under what circumstances David wrote this psalm but there are no indications, which enable us to connect it to certain known historical facts. But there is no doubt about it that David's need was real. The psalm as a whole can be construed as a prophetic utterance about "The Man of Sorrows."

The psalm can be divided into four stanzas. Vs. 1-5, confidence; vs. 6-8, deliverance from hostility; vs. 9-18, physical weakness, and vs. 19-24, praise and confidence.

Several of the expressions used in this psalm are found in other psalms also: the concept of taking refuge and of not being put to shame are well-known expressions.^¹ But as far as I know: "deliver me in your righteousness" is a new request. If David appeals to God's righteousness as a basis for his deliverance from trouble, this would indicate from which direction his difficulties had come. Most of our problems are caused by conditions of unrighteousness. Some problems are the immediate result of certain sins, but there is always the whole complex of unrighteousness in which we were born and grew up, and the pollution of the atmosphere of moral decomposition in which we live. As the high priest Joshua, in Zechariah's vision, we are all dressed in filthy clothes.² Satan is always very fast in accusing us. It makes little difference how our clothes became filthy. The fact that iniquity can be found in us makes us vulnerable.

We could ask ourselves where David got the idea that God's righteousness could be of any help to him. The fact that David did not think that he would be condemned by God's righteousness indicates that he must have had some insight into the mystery of atonement. He could hardly have understood what Paul says, that: "God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God."³ In a sense David did not know what he was saying.

Also, the fact that David appeals to God's righteousness indicates that there was demonic opposition. As with Joshua, so with us; Satan never ceases to accuse us. He ignores the fact that he himself is the author of evil. The only escape for us is through the blood of the Lamb; that is through the righteousness of Jesus Christ, through His resurrection life within us. God's righteousness is not a gift to us that can be received apart from the giver. Our escape from the devil's accusations is in our fellowship with Jesus Christ. That is why David says that God will be for him, what He already is. This kind of apparent contradiction is normal in the life of God's children. If David asks God to be his rock of refuge, a strong fortress to save him, and then immediately confesses: "you are my rock and my fortress," he obviously asks that God will give him the experience in his heart of that which his head knows to be true.

Isn't it strange that the experience plays such an important role in our spiritual lives? We are never fully satisfied as long as our faith is only an intellectual acceptance of the facts. We never rest until our emotions have been touched by what we know to be true.

David also confesses that God leads and guides him, for the sake of His name, that is, not for the sake of who, and what David is, but for the sake of who God is. It is not David's reputation but God's reputation that is at stake. This thought runs parallel to the righteousness of God; God saves us because His Name is Savior. The name Jesus, after all, means "YHWH saves." That is what He is; this is what He does because of His very nature. God never does anything else but saving. Those who are lost, are those who do not flee to Him to be saved. The Apostle Paul says: "Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved." Other Scripture portions confirm this. Paul, again, says: "This is good, and pleases God our Savior, who wants all men to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth."⁴ And Peter writes: "He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance."⁵

The words: "Into your hands I commit my spirit" have become famous because Jesus quoted them when He hung on the cross. Luke reports: "Jesus called out with a loud voice, 'Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.' When he had said this, he breathed his last."⁶ Jesus' last words before His death were a quote from God's written Word. In Jesus' mouth these words acquire greater proportions. In the context of this psalm, David does no more than express his confidence that God will protect him. David did not mean that his spirit would leave his body and take his abode with God, thus ending his earthly life. The opposite was true; he wanted to stay alive. The Greek word in Luke's Gospel is paratithemi, which means, in this context "to deposit as a trust or for protection." The Hebrew word used in the psalm is apqiyd, which is defined by Strongs as "appointed, i.e. a mandate (of God; plural only, collectively, for the Law)." It is derived from piqqud, which is translated in the KJV with: "commandment, precept, statute." It is in this authoritative way that Jesus uses the word. He commanded His spirit to leave His body and to take its abode in the hands of the Father. The spirit obeys this command, which is the cause of His death. No mortal has this authority over his own life. Jesus did not die because of His crucifixion; death did not claim Him; He gave Himself into death voluntarily by sending His spirit home. Jesus predicted that He would do this. In John's Gospel we read that He said: "The reason my Father loves me is that I lay down my life-- only to take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again. This command I received from my Father."⁷ Frail human beings we are, we cannot understand such authority. David too, evidently, did not know what he said when he used those words, but Jesus interpreted correctly what the Holy Spirit intended to say. In this light, we have to conclude that the phrase: "redeem me, O LORD, the God of truth," applies to nothing but the resurrection from the dead. God's ultimate redemption is the resurrection of all flesh.

In vs. 6 David condemns idolatry. His hatred of "those who cling to worthless idols" is not as much directed to individuals as to the practice of idolatry, and the lifestyle of those who commit this sin. There is no greater contrast imaginable than between the images of idols and God who "gives life to the dead and calls into being that which does not exist."⁸ The image of an idol is more dead than man who is dead in his sin. We have to think of the satire Isaiah and Jeremiah uttered regarding idols. "As for an idol, a craftsman casts it, and a goldsmith overlays it with gold and fashions silver chains for it. A man too poor to present such an offering selects wood that will not rot. He looks for a skilled craftsman to set up an idol that will not topple. … All who make idols are nothing, and the things they treasure are worthless. Those who would speak up for them are blind; they are ignorant, to their own shame. Who shapes a god and casts an idol, which can profit him nothing? He and his kind will be put to shame; craftsmen are nothing but men. Let them all come together and take their stand; they will be brought down to terror and infamy. The blacksmith takes a tool and works with it in the coals; he shapes an idol with hammers, he forges it with the might of his arm. He gets hungry and loses his strength; he drinks no water and grows faint. The carpenter measures with a line and makes an outline with a marker; he roughs it out with chisels and marks it with compasses. He shapes it in the form of man, of man in all his glory, that it may dwell in a shrine. He cut down cedars, or perhaps took a cypress or oak. He let it grow among the trees of the forest, or planted a pine, and the rain made it grow. It is man's fuel for burning; some of it he takes and warms himself, he kindles a fire and bakes bread. But he also fashions a god and worships it; he makes an idol and bows down to it. Half of the wood he burns in the fire; over it he prepares his meal, he roasts his meat and eats his fill. He also warms himself and says, 'Ah! I am warm; I see the fire.' From the rest he makes a god, his idol; he bows down to it and worships. He prays to it and says, 'Save me; you are my god.' They know nothing, they understand nothing; their eyes are plastered over so they cannot see, and their minds closed so they cannot understand. No one stops to think, no one has the knowledge or understanding to say, 'Half of it I used for fuel; I even baked bread over its coals, I roasted meat and I ate. Shall I make a detestable thing from what is left? Shall I bow down to a block of wood?' He feeds on ashes, a deluded heart misleads him; he cannot save himself, or say, 'Is not this thing in my right hand a lie.' "⁹

And: "Hear what the LORD says to you, O house of Israel. This is what the LORD says: 'Do not learn the ways of the nations or be terrified by signs in the sky, though the nations are terrified by them. For the customs of the peoples are worthless; they cut a tree out of the forest, and a craftsman shapes it with his chisel. They adorn it with silver and gold; they fasten it with hammer and nails so it will not totter. Like a scarecrow in a melon patch, their idols cannot speak; they must be carried because they cannot walk. Do not fear them; they can do no harm nor can they do any good.' No one is like you, O LORD; you are great, and your name is mighty in power. Who should not revere you, O King of the nations? This is your due. Among all the wise men of the nations and in all their kingdoms, there is no one like you. They are all senseless and foolish; they are taught by worthless wooden idols. Hammered silver is brought from Tarshish and gold from Uphaz. What the craftsman and goldsmith have made is then dressed in blue and purple-- all made by skilled workers. But the LORD is the true God; he is the living God, the eternal King. When he is angry, the earth trembles; the nations cannot endure his wrath. 'Tell them this: ' 'These gods, who did not make the heavens and the earth, will perish from the earth and from under the heavens.' ' But God made the earth by his power; he founded the world by his wisdom and stretched out the heavens by his understanding. When he thunders, the waters in the heavens roar; he makes clouds rise from the ends of the earth. He sends lightning with the rain and brings out the wind from his storehouses. Everyone is senseless and without knowledge; every goldsmith is shamed by his idols. His images are a fraud; they have no breath in them. They are worthless, the objects of mockery; when their judgment comes, they will perish. He who is the Portion of Jacob is not like these, for he is the Maker of all things, including Israel, the tribe of his inheritance-- the LORD Almighty is his name."¹⁰

Trust in the living God and the appeasement of idols are as far removed from each other as heaven and hell. A man who bows down before the image of an idol debases himself before a demon, above which God placed him in the order of creation. Man always bears the image of the God or the god he serves. David knows in whom he trusts, and this knowledge becomes a source of gladness and joy to him. God's goodness brings him to ecstasy, but idols and the demonic powers which are behind them are being manipulated and appeased by man. Man serves an idol out of fear. God does not need to be appeased or pacified for His wrath to cool. He is moved with our condition, and He became man in order to take upon Himself our suffering. The writer of the Hebrew epistle says: "For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are-- yet was without sin."¹¹

David said more than he understood with the words: "you … knew the anguish of my soul." There is no experience common to humans that Jesus Himself did not go through in soul and in body. No, God does not hand us over to the enemy! The mere thought that, if we flee to God for protection, He would give us over to the devil and his evil lusts should be inconceivable to us. Our whole being should rebel against such a supposition.

Over against the narrow place in which Satan tries to push us stands the spacious place in which God sets our feet. This "spacious place" is symbolic of the liberty we have in the Holy Spirit.

The verses 9-13 paint a picture that goes well beyond any of David's circumstances. It points to "the Man of Sorrow." On the positive print of the Shroud of Turin we see, what is supposedly the face of Jesus in His death, swollen and mutilated by the beatings that He suffered. Isaiah prophesied about Him: "He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering. Like one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not."¹² David's suffering was, probably, stretched out over a longer period of time, and it was less intense than the eighteen hours of deep pain Jesus went through. David indicates some emotional and spiritual factors that caused his physical pain. He speaks of distress, sorrow, grief, anguish, groaning, and affliction. The KJV renders "affliction" with "iniquity." The Hebrew word used here is `avon, which Strongs defines as "perversity i.e. (moral) evil." There are several instances in David's life, which could be connected to the words of this psalm, but the psalm itself does not make any connection with specific occurrences. It appears though that David is aware of his guilt and that he understands why he undergoes this bodily decay. His surroundings agree with his analysis, and the people consider that David got what was due him; consequently they refrain from pity. They hold him in contempt, and they despise him for what he is. There is no trace in this psalm of forgiveness and healing which comes from a loving fellowship of fellowmen. Man needs the contact with his fellowmen to build him up and make him function normally. Nothing is more detrimental to our emotional well being than to be ignored by others. David was not only ostracized, but there were plans to kill him. This psalm states prophetically everything that was experienced by our Lord Jesus Christ when He took upon Himself, not His own iniquity, but ours. His intimate friends forsook Him and fled when people put Him on a cross to murder Him. We may look back upon this and receive a comfort and blessing from it that David did not receive.