Psalm 40
The opening verses describe in a wonderful way the testimony of one who was found by the Lord. The first words are "I waited patiently." The Hebrew reads literally "Waiting, I waited": Qawoh qiywitiy, which are two different forms of the same Hebrew word qavah, defined by Strongs as: "bind together (perhaps by twisting), i.e. collect; (figuratively) to expect." All English versions I checked render the verb with "patiently I waited." Whether this is patiently waiting, or impatiently depends on which shade of meaning we want to give to this idiom. And this may depend on our subjective approach to the text, whether we are patient or impatient by nature. One Dutch translation renders the verb with "passionately I waited for the Lord." It may be difficult to argue for a touch of passion in these words, but they strike me with more vigor than patience. We could at least suppose that David waited expectantly, which is different from waiting resignedly.
It is good to wait for the Lord expectantly, with ardent desire to receive. Blessings often escape us, because we do not long for them with our whole being. God's desire to bless us is immense, but it is often hindered by our indifference. Once we are delivered for apathy, there is little to obstruct the flow of God's blessing and the fullness of His presence in our lives. Only God Himself can kindle such passionate desire in our hearts. Jesus says: "No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him."1 It is the pull of the Holy Spirit that will change our indifference into a passionate desire.
Continuous undernourishment will make a man lose his desire for food; so will sin make us lose our desire for God. A passionate desire for God is proof of a healthy spiritual condition. If such a desire is present, all else will fall in place.
Of course, God will hear our cry and turn to us! As human beings, we even pay attention to cries for help by strangers, and who would ignore the cry of his own child? How much more will God listen, when the Bible says: "For the eyes of the LORD range throughout the earth to strengthen those whose hearts are fully committed to him."2
The NIV reads: "I waited patiently for the LORD; he turned to me and heard my cry." Other verses say: "He inclined to me…" as if God would cup His ear to listen. This, of course, is anthropomorphism. The omniscient God does not have to turn to us and listen up in order to know. But if we wait for Him fervently, and if our hearts are fully committed to Him, we will become aware of the fact that God knows us and acts in our behalf.
In verses 2 and 3 David tells us in a nutshell what God does for us when He saves us. The first thing is that we are saved from sin, which is pictured as being lifted out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire. Then there is rehabilitation, under the image of our feet being placed on a rock and being given a firm place to stand. Then follows praise, and finally, the witness of what happened. Those four points are closely related to each other, they all pertain to the life of a child of God.
There is, probably, no clearer picture of falling into sin than that of falling in a pit we cannot climb out of. The image of sinking in mud brings to mind situations in Irian Jaya, Indonesia, where I trekked in the swampy Kamu Valley, with its dangerous, slimy sinkholes. For a hygienically disposed person, mud is a repulsive substance. In the same way, sin should be repugnant to a child of God. Most of the bacteria that live in mud are bad for our health. If we cry out to God, He will save us from the power of sin that pulls us down, and that will, eventually, kill us. Most of our problems stem from the fact that we refuse to recognize our condition. We tend to live in our pit, as if that is a normal condition. We have to come to the point that we call mud mud, and confess our sin as sin.
A person who sinks in the mud has no control over himself; he is being sucked down, and fighting only speeds up the process. Help from the outside is needed, divine intervention, in order for us to be lifted out of the pit. We know that our salvation cost Jesus His life. He took our "mud" upon Himself, because the mud is also within us. Being lifted out of the pit, not only saves our life, but it also grants us forgiveness. Most of the mud is our own guilt.
"He set my feet on a rock and gave me a firm place to stand." This means renewal. The foundation upon which our feet are placed is Jesus Christ, our risen Lord. Paul says: "For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ."3 It often takes time before we realize that the resurrection of Christ is the foundation of our life. If our being lifted out of the pit was only possible through the death of Christ on the cross, then our being placed on a rock is the result of His resurrection. Through man's fall into sin the whole of God's creation sunk down in a slimy pit of measureless mud and mire. This fall was stopped when Jesus broke the bonds of death. The fact that we have a firm place to stand on is part of a cosmic process of renewal. We need this basis to be able to function normally. Physically we are created in such a way that we can function only if our feet are placed on a firm place. A falling or sinking person is a helpless person. We can, therefore, say that the Christian life is a normal life.
The problem, however, is not only the basis on which we stand but also how we move around when we stand on solid rock. If our limbs are weak, we fall, even if we stand on a rock. We need inner strength as well as a good foundation. Jesus not only rose from the dead in order to place our feet on a rock, He also put His resurrection life in us. This will "strengthen [our] feeble arms and weak knees, as the writer to the Hebrews puts it.4 This process is of vital importance for our human dignity. We will only be real men, and we will only live with dignity if Christ is in us.
The NIV renders the last part of vs. 2 with "And gave me a firm place to stand." The Interlinear Hebrew Bible gives the translation: "and established my goings." As such it is also translated in the KJV. The RSV has: "making my steps secure," and TLB says: "and steadied me as I walked along."
Also our songs of praise are the work of God within us. David says about his singing: "He put a new song in my mouth, a hymn of praise to our God." Singing praises and exalting God is a natural result of our salvation. But our reactions are not always normal. God will have to help us in this also. We need the help of the Holy Spirit in order to praise God as we should. And the Spirit is very willing to give us this help. It is embarrassing to us that we need help in order to be able to say such elementary things as "Thank You!"
Speaking in tongues does not have to be excluded at this point, but it certainly is not the only interpretation of the new song, God put on our mouths. A new song stands for an original composition; it is a hymn that evolves from our own personality and that fits our character. It is in the act of bowing before God, and in the praising of His Name that we discover who and what we are. We begin to understand that this is the purpose for which we were made.
The phrase "a new song" is found repeatedly in the Book of Psalms .5 The elders and the living creatures in the book of Revelation sing a new song, and so do the 144.000 redeemed who stand before the throne.6 We do not sing solos in heaven. We are part of God's new creation, which praises God and glorifies Him. It is "a hymn of praise to our God." Praising God makes us realize that we are part of the body, which is the result of our baptism with the Holy Spirit. Paul says: "For we were all baptized by one Spirit into one body-- whether Jews or Greeks, slave or free-- and we were all given the one Spirit to drink."7
The last truth in these verses is the testimony of our lives, which will bring others to put their trust in the Lord, YHWH. Part of this testimony is, undoubtedly, oral, that is that we tell others about it; but the essence is the supernatural element, God's intervention in our lives. It should become clear to others that what happened to us can only be explained by the fact that a miracle has taken place; that what we have become could never have been achieved by human means. Only then "will many see and fear and put their trust in the LORD." The fear of those many stands for the recognition that God is an awesome God, and that He is to be trusted. The crux of our testimony should always be what God has done; we may never place ourselves in the center.
Verses 4 and 5 further elaborate this truth. If a man comes to the point where he makes God his trust, he is blessed. The most simple definition of blessedness is trust in God. When the Jews tried to kill the Apostle Paul, he appealed to the emperor of Rome. We read in Acts: "Paul answered: 'I am now standing before Caesar's court, where I ought to be tried. I have not done any wrong to the Jews, as you yourself know very well. If, however, I am guilty of doing anything deserving death, I do not refuse to die. But if the charges brought against me by these Jews are not true, no one has the right to hand me over to them. I appeal to Caesar!' After Festus had conferred with his council, he declared: 'You have appealed to Caesar. To Caesar you will go!' "8 Paul's confidence in Caesar turned out to be misplaced. Paul's hope was a false hope. Yet, God was glorified in Paul's appeal to Caesar. But if we appeal to God in Jesus Christ, we will never be put to shame. Vs. 4 could almost be a condemning comment on Paul's appeal to Caesar. Paul's appeal, of course, was not merely an effort to save his own neck. God sent his servant to Rome to be a witness for Him in Caesar's court.
David states the general rule that a man should put his trust in God, and not in his fellow human beings. This means that the trust we owe God should never be given to men. It does not mean that we ought to distrust every one in life, but we have to understand that our salvation comes from God and not from men. God usually uses men to help us; but this does in no way annul the fact that the source of all help is God Himself. And we should never come to the point that we expect supernatural help from mortal men, especially not from those who have openly turned away from God.
Realizing what God has done for us is an experience just as awesome as when we look up into the night sky and try to imagine in what kind of a universe we live. Once we fix our eyes upon God, we see how His relationship with us is expressed in an endless series of supernatural interventions.
David, not only, marvels at the things God has done for us, but also at the thoughts He has toward us. The NIV says: "The things you planned for us no one can recount to you." Other translations render this phrase with: "Your thoughts toward us cannot be recounted to You in order."9 It is sometimes hard for us to understand that God would really love us. Yet, all of God's dealings with us are based upon His eternal love for us. God does not accept sin in our lives as an unalterable condition. This does not mean that He would not take our sins into account, but He does not accept the claims of the devil upon those who are created in His image, as legal. This is hard for us to grasp, because our heart condemns us constantly. The Apostle John says: "For if our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart, and knows all things."10 Paul quotes the prophet Isaiah by saying: "No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him."11
God's wonders and God's thoughts are synonymous; they overwhelm us. Not anyone, or anything can come close to God in His character, thoughts, and actions. He is, therefore, the measure and standard against which everything in the universe is measured. Paul defines sin as falling short of God's glory. He writes: "For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God."12 Since this is the case, then salvation means receiving the full measure of God's glory. In the short time we spend on earth, our limited capacity to comprehend will make it impossible for us to worship God in all fullness, as we ought to do. We can only stammer in our adoration. The four living creatures, which John describes in Revelation, who because of their great number of eyes, possess a multi-dimensional consciousness, worship God endlessly. We read: "Day and night they never stop saying: 'Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was, and is, and is to come.' "13 How could we, who live in a three dimensional world, in which we are distracted by all kind of non-essentials, ever do justice to God's wonders and thoughts? We are often too thickheaded to be overwhelmed by the reality of God's being. David's perplexity is one of his best moments. Blessed is the man who puts his trust in this God!
Whether wittingly, or unwittingly, David penetrates to the core of God's secret in the verses 6-8. I suppose these verses must have become a key for Jesus, as a young man, to become conscious of His messianic call. David knew that the sacrificial rituals prescribed in Leviticus, in which animal blood had to be shed in order to make fellowship with God possible, could never be the last word. He understood the paradox that God demanded this, but that this was not what He ultimately had in mind. But David could not have known what God did have in mind. We may certainly apply here Peter's words, regarding the dilemma of the Old Testament prophets: "Concerning this salvation, the prophets, who spoke of the grace that was to come to you, searched intently and with the greatest care, trying to find out the time and circumstances to which the Spirit of Christ in them was pointing when he predicted the sufferings of Christ and the glories that would follow. It was revealed to them that they were not serving themselves but you, when they spoke of the things that have now been told you by those who have preached the gospel to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven. Even angels long to look into these things."14 Yet, the Holy Spirit makes David say exactly why the Word of God became flesh, and died on the cross. The substitution of animal blood was a temporary measure. God does not want man to die in his sin, but He also loves the animals He created.
First of all, we should pause, and try to think what these verses must have meant for David himself. He knew that the sacrificial animal took his place. What happened to the animal should have happened to him. He ought to have died, but the animal died in his stead. He understood that what happened on the altar gave God a legal basis to come to his aid, to lift him out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire, and to set his feet on a rock and give him a firm place to stand, as stated in vs. 2. He understood that, in principle, God did not desire either the death of man or of an animal. Evil spirits would find satisfaction in cruelty, and in the slaughter of an animal, but not God. God is not bloodthirsty. He created the blood that was shed. We cannot fully comprehend this divine dilemma, but we can understand some of it.
The sacrifice of an animal in man's place would be completely senseless if he did not draw certain consequences from it. If a person, for whom the sacrifice is brought, continues in his sin, then all shedding of blood is in vain. The essence of a conversion is the discovery that, if Jesus died for me, I can no longer keep on living for myself. Without an act of unconditional surrender to the will of God, the sacrifice is senseless. That is the meaning of the phrase: "my ears you have pierced." The words refer to the law, given in Exodus regarding the Hebrew slave. We read: "If you buy a Hebrew servant, he is to serve you for six years. But in the seventh year, he shall go free, without paying anything. If he comes alone, he is to go free alone; but if he has a wife when he comes, she is to go with him. If his master gives him a wife and she bears him sons or daughters, the woman and her children shall belong to her master, and only the man shall go free. But if the servant declares, 'I love my master and my wife and children and do not want to go free,' then his master must take him before the judges. He shall take him to the door or the doorpost and pierce his ear with an awl. Then he will be his servant for life."15 The slave who declared: "I love my master and my wife and children and do not want to go free," had his ear pierced as a token that he had promised obedience for life. David says that God's provision in the atonement for his sin means that he has to obey God and serve Him for the rest of his life.
As David puts it, God, as the master of His slave, has pierced his ear. In other words, the love for God in David's heart, originates in God. God Himself creates within us the desire to obey. This agrees with the words of the Apostle John: "We love because he first loved us."16 David also acknowledges that love and obedience are inseparable. Jesus says: "If you love me, you will obey what I command," and "Whoever has my commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves me."17 And John adds to this: "This is love for God: to obey his commands."18
God showed His love for David in the atonement of his sin by the blood of a lamb, and to us He proves His love in the same way through the death of Jesus Christ for our sins. Paul says: "God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us."19
We ought to draw from this the same conclusion that David drew, that is, that if God has done such things for us, the least we can do is to surrender ourselves, spirit, soul, and body, to Him in unconditional obedience. We have to state clearly, as the slave did, when he said: "I love my master and my wife and children and do not want to go free." The "pierced ear" should be visible as God's "scar" on our body.
But David goes deeper. God's provisions were temporal. Sacrifice and offering, burnt offerings and sin offerings were not the things God required. God wants ourselves, not our sacrifices. Unconditional surrender means ultimately the loss of our lives. Victory consists in the willingness to give up our lives. This is what John says in Revelation about the defeat of Satan by the saints: "And they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they loved not their lives even unto death."20 There are yet things that are more difficult than the surrender of ourselves. Would it not have been easier for Abraham if God had asked for his life, instead of that of Isaac?
David's emphasis in these verses is on unconditional surrender. He states clearly that what God wants is not the sacrifice of animals but of ourselves. The Holy Spirit says even more. These verses must have been for Jesus, the Son of God, the key the Holy Spirit gave Him to understand the mystery of His coming into this world. It would be naïve to suppose that, from the moment of His birth as a human being, Jesus had a complete understanding of the aim of His life. As with every child, there must have been in Him, as He developed from infancy to childhood into maturity, a growing awareness of the world in which He lived, and of His own identity. It is obvious that the omniscience He possessed as the Second Person of the Trinity, did not play any role in this growing awakening of his human soul. It is a great comfort to me to see that Christ, as a man, did not have any other means to know the revelation of the Father than we do. He must have heard at some point in His childhood about the angels that had appeared the night of His birth, and He must have discovered that He differed from other sinful human beings in that He did not possess the sinful nature they demonstrated. These things must have brought Him to ponder the meaning of His existence. But the main factor in His growing messianic consciousness must have been the inspired, written Word of God. The discovery "it is written about me in the scroll," must have been a major breakthrough for Him. Jesus' strong emphasis upon Scripture in His preaching confirms this. He, repeatedly, told the people of His time that the Scriptures bore witness about Him. We read: "You diligently study the Scriptures because you think that by them you possess eternal life. These are the Scriptures that testify about me." And: "If you believed Moses, you would believe me, for he wrote about me."21 To His disciples He said: " 'How foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Did not the Christ have to suffer these things and then enter his glory?' And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself."22 More than in any other feature of His life on earth, Jesus' relationship to the Scriptures has become for me the main way in which we have to follow His footsteps. We seldom hear this point in the arguments for the Inspiration of Scripture.23
The writer to the Hebrews quotes these verses to explain why, at the death of Christ on the cross, the ceremonial part of the law ceased to function as a means of fellowship with God.24 We will return to this topic later on. What concerns us at present is the fact that Jesus knew that God had sent Him into the world to do His will, and that the prophecy of Psalm 40 played an important part in this growing awareness. Whether He immediately understood that this obedience would lead Him to death on the cross, we do not know. Those details may have become clearer as the time approached. Jesus must have understood early, though, that obedience would mean death for Him. After all, the sacrificial victims were killed without mercy.
Of the five sacrifices mentioned in Leviticus25, only three are named in this psalm: offering, burnt offerings, and sin offerings. The Hebrew for "offering" is minchah which is the word used in Leviticus for the grain offering.26 The "sacrifice" does not designate a special category; it comprised probably the whole of all the offerings brought. The burnt offering was the first mentioned in Leviticus and the sin offering was fourth in order. The burnt offering expresses the divine love, which is called agape in Greek. The sin offering accentuates man's sinful nature. The minchah stands for the surrender of man, as a creature, to God his Creator. All this is included in the obedience to the will of God. Jesus understood that all these sacrifices pointed to His coming in the world, and eventually to His death on the cross.
For us, as New Testament Christians, the meaning of all this is clear. We have a hard time understanding how people in the Old Testament could have missed the point that the animal sacrifices could not have been God's last word. It is even difficult for us to imagine that there must have been a time in Jesus' early life when He did not see the whole picture, and He groped for the meaning of His coming in the world and His ministry. Consequently, we miss much of the ecstasy the young Jesus must have felt when He heard David's words for the first time, and began to recognize Himself in the Scriptures. This discovery must have caused a ravenous appetite for the Word of God, which forced Him to stay behind in the temple in Jerusalem at the age of twelve. It is natural that He wanted to know everything there was to know about the law and the prophets. It was as if He could read His own biography at the beginning of His life: "Here I am, I have come-- it is written about me in the scroll. I desire to do your will, O my God; your law is within my heart." Image any man reading the story of his own life while he is still a youngster. We cannot conceive of such an anachronism, but we could understand the sensational impact this would have, if it were true. For Jesus the whole Old Testament was a guide to understanding His own identity. On a different level, the whole Bible should be this kind of a guide to us also. If our names have been written in the book of life belonging to the Lamb that was slain from the creation of the world,27 then we ought to be able to find ourselves on the pages of the Old and New Testament.
In spite of the above, the testimony of Scripture regarding Jesus' coming was not fulfilled automatically. It did not mean that Jesus was forced to take the task upon Him, whether He wanted to or not. His obedience was based on a voluntary choice, even though His obedience was foretold in Scripture. Before the foundation of the world, there must have been a promise that the Son gave to the Father, upon which the Holy Spirit could base this prophecy. The writer to the Hebrews refers to this agreement when he says: "May the God of peace, who through the blood of the eternal covenant brought back from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great Shepherd of the sheep…."28 But within the framework of space and time of His life on earth, Jesus had to choose whether He wanted to obey or not. God's eternal decree, or Biblical prophecy does not exclude human disobedience. It is against the background of this determination to obey that we should see Jesus' baptism by John. He requested to be baptized in order to give outward expression to the inner decision He had made to obey the call of God.
This psalm also prophesies about an obedience the people of the Old Testament did not know experimentally. "Your law is within my heart" is the result of the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in a man's heart. Jeremiah prophesied about this, when he wrote: " 'This is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after that time,' declares the LORD. 'I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people.' "29 And Ezekiel said: "I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you; I will remove from you your heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. And I will put my Spirit in you and move you to follow my decrees and be careful to keep my laws."30 True obedience comes naturally to the regenerated man; it evolves from the tendencies and desires of a renewed heart. For a Christian it is easier to obey than to disobey.
At this point we should look at the apparent discrepancy between the text of the psalm and the quote of the same in the epistle to the Hebrews. David writes: "My ears you have pierced," and the text in Hebrews reads: "A body you prepared for me."31 It is obvious that the writer of Hebrews quoted from the Greek text of the Septuagint. Adam Clarke's Commentary asks the question: "But how is it possible that the Septuagint and the apostle should take a meaning so totally different from the sense of the Hebrew? Dr. Kennicott has a very ingenious conjecture here: he supposes that the Septuagint and apostle express the meaning of the words as they stood in the copy from which the Greek translation was made; and that the present Hebrew text is corrupted in the word 'aznayim, …ears, which has been written through carelessness for 'az … gewah, …THEN, a BODY. The first syllable, 'az, THEN, is the same in both; and the latter, niym, which, joined to 'az makes 'aznayim, might have been easily mistaken for gewah, BODY; the Hebrew letter nun (n) being very much like the Hebrew letter gimel (g), and the Hebrew letter yodh (y) like the Hebrew letter waw (w); and the Hebrew letter he (h) like the Hebrew letter mem (m) in final position; especially if the line on which the letters were written in the manuscript happened to be blacker than ordinary, which has often been a cause of mistake, it might then have been easily taken for the under-stroke of the mem, and thus give rise to a corrupt reading; add to this, the root kaarah … signifies as well to prepare, as to open, bore, etc. On this supposition the ancient copy translated by the Septuagint, and followed by the apostle, must have read the text thus: gewah … kaariy … liy… Soma de katertiso moi. Then a body thou hast prepared me: thus the Hebrew text, the version of the Septuagint, and the apostle, will agree in what is known to be an indisputable fact in Christianity, namely that Christ was incarnated for the sin of the world."
It is difficult for us to enter into the discussion, as Clarke presents it above. The Hebrew word karah, which is translated with "pierced" can mean, according to Strongs Definitions: "to dig; figuratively, to plot; generally, to bore or open." There is one instance in the Old Testament where the word is given a wider meaning. When king Asa died, we read: "And they buried him in his own sepulchres, which he had made for himself in the city of David."32 But the NIV reads here: "They buried him in the tomb that he had cut out for himself in the City of David." Whether the translators of the Septuagint had manuscripts that predated the Masorete texts, we do not know. We could conceive that the Hebrew wanted to express the thought that God had cut out, or sculpted man's body. It is possible that the original text conveyed a wider meaning, which would then be expressed by the Septuagint, and that the scribes in the time after the Babylonian Captivity saw in the word "prepared" a preparation for slavery. We should not forget that, between David and the scribes of the Post-Babylonian Captivity there were centuries that created, undoubtedly, a gap of culture, and even of language. The Holy Spirit, however, in sanctioning the rendering by the Septuagint, and by bridging whatever gaps may have existed, gives us a wide range of truth in this one sentence. After all, in the truest sense of the word, there is no fundamental difference between the obedience, born out of love, which David speaks about, and the Incarnation of the Son, which brought to an end all animal sacrifices. David said more than he could have understood himself, but then, he is not the actual author of this psalm.
The testimony of verses 9 and 10: "I proclaim righteousness in the great assembly…" corresponds to other portions in the Book of Psalms , such as: "I will declare your name to my brothers; in the congregation I will praise you,"33 and: I will give you thanks in the great assembly; among throngs of people I will praise you."34 In all these instances there is a suggestion of the resurrection from the dead. The verses 6-8 of this psalm speak of Jesus' death on the cross; so to speak of His resurrection is the logical next step. Jesus' resurrection was God's answer to Jesus' obedience. The writer of the Hebrew epistle puts this in these matchless words: "May the God of peace, who through the blood of the eternal covenant brought back from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great Shepherd of the sheep…"35 The pouring out of blood and the resurrection from the dead are linked inseparably.
The shouts of joy of the resurrection are heard throughout the whole of Scripture. Christ's resurrection is the rock, the firm place upon which God sets the feet of those He lifts out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire. It is the foundation of our justification, as the Apostle Paul says: "He was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification."36 This is the normal Christian life; it is the reason for our praise, and the content of our testimony. We may repeat the words the Lord Jesus spoke to John: "I am the Living One; I was dead, and behold I am alive for ever and ever!"37 The church of Jesus Christ is the great assembly in which people shout those words to one another.
In order to describe the content of this testimony, David uses words such as: "righteousness," "faithfulness," "salvation," "love," and "truth." The words "I proclaim" are the translation of the Hebrew bisartiy, which is a form of the verb basar. Strongs Definitions defines this as: "to be fresh, i.e. full (rosy, (figuratively) cheerful); to announce (glad news): -messenger, preach, publish, shew forth, (bear, bring, carry, preach, good, tell good) tidings." For some reason the NIV leaves the cheerful part out. Other translations read: "I have proclaimed the good news…"38, or "I have told the glad news…"39 This "Good News" is the Gospel of God's righteousness. Paul's letter to the Romans is an extended commentary on this theme. He writes: "For in the gospel a righteousness from God is revealed."40 God's righteousness is revealed in His solution of the problem of sin through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. This truth had become David's personal experience, as is evinced from the first three verses of this psalm.
God's righteousness demonstrates itself in our salvation and rehabilitation. The more we understand of the price God paid for this, the harder it will be for us to keep quiet about it. God's wrath toward sin, and His love for man whom He created is expressed in the words: "righteousness," "faithfulness," "salvation," "love," and "truth." These words are descriptive of God's character. There is no contradiction between what God is and what God does. That is the reason that all God does for us brings us to the worship of His character. So we find in the verses 9 and 10 the essence of what the Church of Jesus Christ is, that is, "the great assembly." The church consists of people who have experienced God's righteousness in their lives through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, who testify about this to each other, and who worship God in fellowship with one another.
It seems as if, in the last stanza of this psalm, from verses 11-17, David plunged back to a lower level than he was at the beginning of the psalm. It sounds as if those tremendous things he prophesied about so convincingly in the preceding verses, evade him in the practice of his everyday life. There is, of course, no question about whether God would withhold His mercy from David for one moment, but for man, who lives in time and space in a fallen creation, the reality of God's love and truth is not always tangible. In C. S. Lewis' book The Silver Chair, Aslan warns the girl Jill that the atmosphere down below in Narnia is not as clear and pure as on the top of the mountain where she stands. For that reason, the two children will have to commit to memory the five signs he gives them, and to repeat those signs for themselves twice a day, lest they would forget why they had come to Narnia. They forget to do this; this forgetting leads them into all kinds of difficulties.
There is often quite a gap between that which we know to be true and our daily experience. No one on earth always lives fully in the light of God's revelation. We live in a hostile world, and our circumstances are always against us. Unless we are aware of this, we will never understand clearly what God is doing for us.
David speaks about troubles without number, which surround him: sins that have overtaken him, and those that make him blind to reality. The enemy is on both the outside and the inside. It is very difficult for man to live on the basis of forgiveness. Even after God has forgiven us, we often have a hard time forgiving ourselves. David's guilt feelings block out the horizon. The objective fact of the atonement for our sins has to be practically applied to the areas of hurt in our lives. The coal from the altar has to touch our lips.41
In vs. 11 David prays for protection by God's truth. This prayer shows a spirit of realism. He perceives the danger of being deceived by the false appearance of the things that surround him. He will only be able to keep his course straight by God's mercy, love, and truth.
The Hebrew word translated by "mercy" is racham. Strongs defines this as: "compassion (in the plural); by extension, the womb (as cherishing the fetus)." The KJV translates this word, variously, with: "compassion," "tender love," "mercy," or "pity." The word embraces both love and forgiveness. The word translated by "love" is the Hebrew word checed, which is the word used to tippify God's covenant love for His people. It is that which puts God's relationship with us on a legal basis. It is occasionally translated "favour," or "loving-kindness." The Hebrew word for "truth" is 'emeth, which in Strongs Definitions is defined as: "stability; (figuratively) certainty, truth, trustworthiness."
Since earlier David had prophesied about the juridical basis of forgiveness, we may assume that here he speaks about the subjective experience of it all. David asks that God will grant him a continuous awareness of being forgiven. He also does not want to lose track of God's loving-kindness. He wants always to be able to remember that this is part of God's character. The eternal God cannot commit evil. James puts it: "Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows."42 This insight is absolutely necessary to counter the propaganda campaign of the enemy, who tries to twist the truth. The concept of truth is closely connected to the above. God is the God of truth, and the devil is the father of lies.43 God cannot lie; He is truthful and genuine in all He does. God has no ulterior motives or hidden agendas. This knowledge of God's character will protect us against the enemy who is around us and inside us.
The importance of our emotions in our relationship with God is expressed in the words: "My heart fails within me." Our emotions are both important and unimportant. How we feel about something does not change the object, but it does influence our reactions. God knows this, and He will not abandon us is this respect either.
In verses 14-16 David comes back to a theme that is found many times in the Book of Psalms: the being put to shame of the enemies. We maintain that, here also, David does not primarily speak about human opponents, but about demonic powers. We find the same expressions almost literally elsewhere in the psalms. "May those who seek my life be disgraced and put to shame; may those who plot my ruin be turned back in dismay."44 "Aha! Aha!" is the utterance of mockery and derision of an enemy who takes delight in our pain and suffering. This is the sharpest weapon that can be used against us. God can silence him. Or better, as the New Testament puts it: "The God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet."45 We have the victory "by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of [our] testimony, if we do not love [our] lives so much as to shrink from death.46 We do not have to take that "Aha! Aha!" passively. Ultimately, those who insult us, insult God. Jesus takes the insults that are heaped upon us very seriously.
David uses the words "may those," or "may all" four times in these verses. This implies that he considers the situation to be a spiritual reality, which finds its expression in life on earth. Victory over the devil is a reality in heaven, and this victory has to be claimed by us on earth. This is the reason for our rejoicing, and gladness, and for our saying: "The LORD be exalted!"
It may sound strange that David asks God to make the people on earth exalt Him, but a closer look will reveal that this is less odd than it sounds. Our sense of reality is thrown off by the pollution of sin. Unless God reveals Himself to us, we will never come to the place where we rejoice in Him and exalt Him. We will not even begin to seek and love God, unless He initiates the longing in us. This does not make us into robots; worship and praise are our responsibility and we have to take the initiative.
The psalm ends with a comparison between the present and the future. David calls himself "poor and needy." We do not know when this psalm was written, but there is a strong suggestion that it dates from the time David was a fugitive. The millionaire who lived in a palace in Jerusalem could hardly call himself "poor and needy." It is true, though, that a man can possess much on a material level, and be spiritually poor. David sees his life in the right perspective. He knows that his present condition is not permanent. He believes that he lives in "an open system," to use a modern expression. God can intervene at any moment. He knows the details of our existence, and He is continuously concerned about us. At any moment He can send complete deliverance.
At first sight, the end of the psalm seems to be in contrast with the beginning. At the opening of the psalm, salvation was an accomplished fact, and here it seems as if David still awaits deliverance. Yet, we know that we are in the same position; we know that we have been redeemed by the sacrifice of Christ, and by the power of His resurrection, but this does not keep us from praying: "Amen. Come, Lord Jesus!"47
1
John 6:442
II Chr. 16:9
3
I Cor. 3:11
4
See Heb. 12:12
5
See Ps 33:3; 40:3; 96:1; 98:1; 144:9; and 149:1.
6
See Rev 5:9; 14:3
7
I Cor. 12:13
8
Acts 25:10-12
9
(NKJ)
10
I John 3:20 (NKJ)
11
I Cor. 2:9 (See Isa. 64:4)
12
Rom. 3:23
13
Rev. 4:8
14
I Pet. 1:10-12
15
Ex. 21:2-6
16
I John 4:19
17
John 14:15, 21
18
I John 5:3
19
Rom. 5:8
20
Rev. 12:11 (RSV)
21
John 5:39,46
22
Luke 24:25-27
23
An exception is Christ in His Suffering, by Prof. K. Schilder
24
See Heb. 1:1-10
25
See Lev. Ch. 1-7
26
See Lev. 2:3
27
See Rev. 13:8
28
Heb. 13:20
29
Jer. 31:33
30
Ezek. 36:26,27
31
Heb. 10:5b
32
II Chr. 16:14 (KJV)
33
Ps. 22:22
34
Ps. 35:18
35
Heb. 13:20
36
Rom. 4:25
37
Rev. 1:18
38
(NKJ)
39
(RSV)
40
Rom. 1:17
41
See Isa. 6:6,7
42
James 1:17
43
See John 8:44
44
Ps. 35:4
45
Rom. 16:20
46
See Rev. 12:11
47
Rev. 22:20
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