Psalm 116: 15 – “Conquered Death”

As always, here’s my fairly literal translation of this verse:

¹⁵Precious in the eyes of the Lord [is] the death of His loved ones.

My, my, my. I love studying the Bible. This verse has caught my eye for years. I’ve always wondered what exactly it meant and then why it occurs at this particular place in this Psalm. Generally speaking, every day, as I begin to study this Psalm, the first thing I do is read through it from beginning to end. And every time I pass verse 15 I wonder what it really means and how it fits. It seemed like a sort of random thought thrown into the text. Finally, I get to study it and find it makes perfect sense -- and not only does it make sense what it means and why it fits in here, but, as always, I learn something cool I haven’t really seen before.

“Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints,” so the old text goes. First of all, the word “precious” is a word you would use to describe a very large and very expensive diamond. The Hebrew contains all the senses of “heavy, highly honored, highly valued,” which we can then translate into English as “precious.” Then the name “saints” or “loved ones” is a Hebrew term for which it seems there simply is no English equivalent. It is the “Hasidim,” the same word used of the “Hasidic” Jews. It is built on the beautiful Hebrew word “hesed” which describes God’s kind of covenant love for us. It is basically a relationship word which then becomes a people, His “hasidim.” Again, it is basically a word for love but because it is about a relationship love, it contains the idea of commitment, of dedication to one another, of “special” status, hence the variety of translations, “loved ones,” “saints,” “favorites,” etc. One could ask, “Those are all different ideas, so, which one is it?” The answer is “all of the above.” The word simply contains all of those ideas. The fact is, although the Lord certainly loves everyone and makes His sun to shine on the evil and the good, yet, there are those whom He uniquely calls His children, His “hasidim”.

For a parent, this is not so hard to understand. We love all children. We particularly love the children of our closest friends and family. But then there are our children. I remember once at church pushing a group of small children on a swing set. One by one I would pick them up as their little cherub faces looked up at me anxious for their turn to be set on the swing and pushed. Every one of them was so precious. Then it was my little Esther’s turn. As I reached down to pick her up and looked into her eyes, all I could think of was “You are altogether lovely.” All those other children were so special and precious in and of themselves … but none could compare to my Esther. You couldn’t help but love all of those children, but Esther was (and is) my “hasid.”

So it is with God. To be found in Christ is to be one of His “hasidim,” one of His “special ones.” And what this verse declares to us is that the Lord particularly notes and holds in very high value the death of any one of His “special ones.” What this means to us is that we will die not one second before or after the exact time when the Sovereign of the Universe has decreed it to be so; and we will die in precisely the way He has planned (not necessarily the way an enemy or malevolent person might have intended). Further, being “special ones” to Him, we can be assured we will, like those who’ve gone before, find His peace and sufficient grace to be our portion when that time has come for us. To our Father, our death is something as precious as a very large and expensive diamond – and that applies to each of us very specifically and very personally.

Satan would have loved to kill Job; but, as he complained, the Lord had “put a hedge around him and his household and everything he has” (Job 1:10). When God allowed, Satan killed Job’s livestock, his servants, and even his children, but he could not take Job’s life. The Lord had said, “Only on the man himself, lay not a finger” (v12). In the end, it says, “After this, Job lived a hundred and forty years; he saw his children and their children to the fourth generation. And so he died, old and full of years” (42:16,17). Job died precisely when and how the Lord decreed and even satan himself is powerless to alter that decree. “Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints.”

In a way, this is precisely where David “lost it.” After years of suffering as a hunted fugitive, David finally succumbed to it all and concluded, “One of these days I will be killed by the hand of Saul. The best thing I can do is to escape to the land of the Philistines” (I Sam 27:1), and so God’s anointed king of the Jewish people went to live with their most bitter enemies. This was one of the lowest days in David’s life. The endless drudgery of his pain finally overwhelmed him and he forgot that “Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints.” He forgot that, though Saul hunted him mercilessly, though people betrayed him, though it seemed there was “but a step between him and death,” yet He lived every second under the watchful eye of his Shepherd. It was not true that there was “but a step between him and death.” There was a God between him and death! If only he could have remembered that one thought, he could have perhaps persevered yet another day; but he forgot it and hope was lost.

This is where verse 15 fits in our Psalm. “The cords of death entangled me,” he said in verse 3. Whether he meant that literally (as if he were perhaps sick and near death) or if he is speaking figuratively (like we do) speaking of the intensity of his suffering, yet in the worst of it all, at the lowest possible moment, at the time when it seemed the suffering had finally completely engulfed him, yet it was still true, “Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints.” Even in death itself, the believer lives in hope. Even when we find ourselves bereaved of anything and everything that ever mattered to us, yet still our Father’s watchful eye stands over us. We will be His “special ones” right up to and through the moment of our very death – whenever and however He decrees that should come.

No wonder George Washington could die saying, “All is well.” So can we.

I guess I’ve never seen this quite so clearly. I hope that having studied this verse and (I think) understood it, I will carry this little jewel near to my thoughts. “Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints.” Is life hard? Am I to the point I’m weary of it all? Does it seem that fear or pain or loss have swept completely over me? Do I feel either literally or figuratively there is “but a step between me and death?” Then let me recall that “Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints.” “Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,” I need not fear any evil, “for Thou art with me.”

As I look back on trials past, the fact is they did not “kill” me. Though I have too, too, too many times literally brushed with death itself, yet still here I sit typing at my keyboard. “Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints.” My times are in His hands.

May these words be written in my mind and may they be one of the tools in the arsenal of my heart to maintain my hope even in those darkest of hours. There will always be but a God between me and death!