Psalm 116: 10,11 – “Speaking”

As always, here’s my fairly literal translation of these verses:

¹⁰I believed, so I said, “I am greatly afflicted.” ¹¹I said in being alarmed, “The all of humanity [is] a lying one!”

I am so glad I finally got to study these two verses. I have enjoyed verse 10 for years but never knew quite what to do with v11. I think now the two together make a lot more sense to me.

Verse 10 is a cool verse. I noticed it years ago from this perspective: I asked myself, if I were to complete the sentence, what would I write – “I believed, therefore I said …” Said what? Well, certainly it would be something like, “I believed therefore I said,” … “God is good,” or “I know all things will work together for good,” or “I know the Lord never gives us more than we can bear,” etc., etc. But how does the sentence actually read? “I believed, therefore I said, ‘I am greatly afflicted!’” “Greatly afflicted!” That certainly doesn’t sound like any expression of faith! Sounds more like faithless whining, doesn’t it? “I am greatly afflicted!” Faith doesn’t talk like that, does it?

Here is a place where I found the Psalms to be an enormous encouragement to my heart. The fact is they are full of this kind of “whining,” are they not? Just open your Bible to Psalms anywhere and start reading the first few lines of the Psalms your eyes fall on. Many of the Psalms are cries from afflicted and troubled hearts, are they not? This is what it taught me: It is not a lack of faith to feel the pain of our troubles, to cry bitter tears, to call out to God. It might be. Certainly there is a faithless whining of which we are all quite capable. But this passage (and the whole book of Psalms) teaches us that there is also a whining of faith. To feel very deeply the pain of our troubles is not (necessarily) somehow failing to see the hand of God in them. “I believed, therefore I said, ‘I am greatly afflicted!’”

I feel like the Psalms have freed me to be human. I think early in my Christian walk, I developed the misguided notion that faith should raise me above my human emotions, that it should enable me to simply bear patiently and joyfully whatever circumstances I met. I should be able to simply “count it all joy when I fell into various temptations” and stoically go on through life without any extremes of any emotion at all. That sounds like “All things work together for good,” and seemed to make sense. Faith should just make me this completely stable, contented person, I surmised. But somehow I sensed that view turns us into something unhuman. Then I began to notice the Psalms. Emotions? The Psalms are full of them!

The Psalms teach us that, rather than suppressing emotions, faith actually liberates them! Yes it is possible to be sinfully angry, sinfully happy, sinfully whatever. But the Psalms teach us that it is equally possible to be living faith as we feel deeply the full range of our human emotions. I think this particular verse, Psalm 116:10, probably pulled it all together for me. That probably happened when I was studying through II Corinthians and came to 4:13, where Paul quotes this very verse and says, “It is written, ‘I believed, therefore I have spoken.’ With that same spirit of faith, we also believe and therefore speak.” In his particular case, what he was speaking was the Gospel, but that was the point I realized, that the truth of Psalm 116:10 is that faith speaks and it may say a lot of things! … But it is faith that is speaking! Again, back in the Psalms faith may speak and praise the Lord, or it may speak and express the very depths of doubt and discouragement. It may speak and express great joy or just as likely speak and express deep fear or disappointment.

I don’t know if it makes sense to anyone else, but it is enormously liberating to me to realize that I am free to feel the full range of human emotions and to take those very emotions, good or bad, into the very Throne-room of God. He invites me to come not as “Mr. Got-it-all-together” but as a human being, created in His image, realizing that that very image is one of an emotional being. He wants me to come to Him real.

In the Psalmist’s case, on this particular day, he was feeling very deeply some pain or trouble, and so, because he had faith, because he believed, he was free to cry out, “I am greatly afflicted!”

But then there is verse 11, “I said in my alarm, ‘All men are liars!’” Here’s some more liberating reality: Even as we speak in faith, in the ebb and flow of our emotions, we may say things that are not true or things that, in cooler moments, we simply wouldn’t. Now, of course, we could get all theological here and say that this statement is quite true. It is true that, as fallen sinners, we are all easily false in a million different godless ways. One might think he could use this text as a proof for the doctrine of Total Depravity. But I don’t think the Psalmist is being theological here. He’s being practical, even emotional. He is in the midst of suffering something very acutely, and what he is expressing is this fact that there is a sense in which we all suffer alone. We enjoy having our friends and loved ones and certainly enjoy their support and encouragement and help of whatever kind. But, especially when we suffer deeply, we are likely to feel abandoned, misunderstood, made light of, whatever. It is at those times when we may, in the throes of our suffering, darkly conclude that everyone has failed us, all are false to us. But while there is an element of truth to it, on the other hand, it simply isn’t true. I like what Albert Barnes said:

“This is not an unnatural feeling in affliction. The mind is then sensitive. We need friends then. We expect our friends to show their friendship then. If they do not do this, it seems to us that the entire world is false. It is evident from the whole course of remark here that the psalmist on reflection felt that he had said this without due thought, under the influence of excitement - and that he was disposed, when his mind was restored to calmness, to think better of mankind than he did in the day of affliction and trouble. This also is not uncommon. The world is much better than we think it is when our own minds are morbid and our nerves are unstrung; and bad as the world is, our opinion of it is not unfrequently the result rather of our own wrong feeling than of just reflection on the real character of mankind.”

I like to what Spurgeon said:

In the sense in which he spoke his language was unjustifiable. He had no right to distrust all men, for many of them are honest, truthful, and conscientious; there are faithful friends and loyal adherents yet alive; and if sometimes they disappoint us, we ought not to call them liars for failing when the failure arises entirely from want of power, and not from lack of will. Under great affliction our temptation will be to form hasty judgments of our fellow men, and knowing this to be the case we ought carefully to watch our spirit, and to keep the door of our lips. The Psalmist had believed, and therefore he spoke; he had doubted, and therefore he spoke in haste. He believed, and therefore he rightly prayed to God; he disbelieved, and therefore he wrongfully accused mankind. Speaking is as ill in some cases as it is good in others. Speaking in haste is generally followed by bitter repentance. It is much better to be quiet when our spirit is disturbed and hasty, for it is so much easier to say than to unsay; we may repent of our words, but we cannot so recall them as to undo the mischief they have done. If even David had to eat his own words, when he spoke in a hurry, none of us can trust our tongue without a bridle.

Lots of good thoughts from these two good men!

On an exegetical note, before I move on, these two verses also have some grammatical oddities. In both verses, the pronoun “I” is actually included in the “I am greatly afflicted” of verse 10 and the “I said” of verse 11. In my translation above, I have noted the presence of the pronouns by underlining them. This is odd as in Hebrew the pronominal substantives are invariably included in the verb. As with Greek, it only took one word to say both the subject and the verb. Whenever an ancient writer actually includes both, it is for a reason. Usually it is emphasis. Probably that’s what it is here. I suppose he is expressing the intensity of his emotions by actually including the “I” with the verbs.

Also, just for whatever it’s worth, the expression “All men” is somewhat unusual in the Hebrew. It literally reads something like, “The all of the man a lying one.” I think that is just a Hebrew way of saying “all of mankind” or “all of humanity.”

Anyway, lessons learned: Even in the depths of sorrow, we should never hesitate to express our hearts (good or bad) to God. On the other hand, at times like those, let us be careful what we say to (and of) people, knowing our own frame of mind is so unstable.

A blessed assurance on the one hand and a wise caution on the other!

Psalm 116: 8,9 – “Walking Resting”

As always, here’s my fairly literal translation of these verses:

⁸Because You have delivered my soul from death, my eye from tears, my foot from stumbling, ⁹I will walk before the Lord in the lands of the living.

These two verses are interesting to me in that they are so obviously practical, one would hardly see any need to carefully consider the Hebrew text behind them. And, in fact, there would be truth to that approach. But, on the other hand, for me personally that can never be true. No matter how obvious and simple the words may be, yet these are the very words of God! Every Hebrew (or Greek or Aramaic) letter to me is a priceless treasure that bears careful consideration. And … having scratched at the text, I see numerous “peculiarities” which I wish I could explain.

For instance, even the logical structure of the passage is susceptible to debate. Verse 8 begins with the Hebrew word for “because.” This could be referring back to verse 7, in effect saying, “… the Lord has dealt bountifully with you, because He has delivered your soul from death …” However, it can also be anticipating verse 9 (which is how I’ve translated it), saying, “I will walk before the Lord … because He has delivered …” I think my approach is a more natural understanding. The NIV chose the former, but to make it happen has to add words which simply are not in the text (which I grant is sometimes necessary but always dangerous and not to be preferred without good cause).

Then there is an interesting twist in that the Hebrew verb in verse 8 is the first second person verb in this Psalm to this point. It wouldn’t surprise me if it’s the middle word of the whole Psalm. I’ll try to remember to check that. But what the change of person means is after speaking of the Lord for seven verses in the third person (He… He… He), the writer abruptly turns to the second person, “You …” and addresses the Lord personally. This grammatical dexterity, though uncommon in English, is very common in Hebrew. Especially in the Psalms, the writers seem to swing freely from first to second to third person with no explanation. Us English-speaking Psalm readers probably don’t notice it but only because it is so familiar. We just “don’t do that” in English. But they did in Hebrew. I think it is always worth noticing.

Then there are several nouns which are either singular or plural in Hebrew, where we would expect them to be the opposite in English. It literally says “Because You have saved … my eye from a tear, my foot from stumbling, I will walk before the Lord in the lands of the living. I notice the NIV does exactly what we would want to make it say in English: “my eyes from tears, my feet from stumbling … in the land of the living. But that is not literally how it reads. Obviously there is something going on in the Hebrew. I did happen to read one old commentator who observed that the word “tear” in Hebrew could serve as a collective singular, like our word ‘fruit.” That would explain in that particular case why there is a singular where we would expect a plural. However, I didn’t read any such comments on the others, and perusing through the OT, I definitely don’t get the impression any of the other words have peculiarities like that. For instance, other occurrences of “land of the living” definitely have land in the singular. And eye, foot, and tear all appear in both singular and plural form.

Hmmmmm. This is one of those places where I wish I knew of a good commentary that observed and addressed the details of the Hebrew text. For now I’ll just have to observe these things and move on and hope along the way I learn something to explain this. I’m sure someone reading this will think I’m being overly tedious, but I do not. “Not one jot or tittle shall pass away …” The tiniest details of the text were put there deliberately. To not know why is in some (even small) way to miss something the author was communicating. That would be bad enough were it a merely human author; but when these are the words of the living God, as Steve Tyler sang, “I don’t wanna miss a thing.” I’m sure if I live long enough, it will someday make sense. If I don’t, the Lord has certainly given me plenty of other truth to enjoy.

One other note of exegetical worth – the phrase “land of the living” – it seems from the commentaries that I read that a few people have found the phrase enigmatic, suggesting even that it refers to Heaven. For myself, I think it patently obvious it is referring to life here on earth. We use the phrase that way when someone has been very sick. When they recover we note they’ve returned to “the land of the living.” Sometimes after a particularly deep and glorious nap, I return to “the land of the living”(!). Of course our usage in 2013 in English is irrelevant to its usage 3000 years ago in the Hebrew language in the Middle East, but that acknowledged, I just think the most natural understanding of the words is to refer to this world. David, in Psalm 27:13 said, “I am still confident of this: I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.” In Psalm 142 he said to the Lord, “You are my refuge, my portion in the land of the living.” Seems obvious to me he’s talking about this world in all three of these passages.

I guess a few practical thoughts, before I move on: Back to the fact that the “You have delivered” is a sudden change from third person to second – I love that about the Psalms. I suppose it is because they are actually prayers, but it is so awesome that we can be thinking about the Lord in the third person, “He does this, He does that, He’s like this, He’s like that …” then, without skipping a beat, we can look Him straight in the eyes and say, “You …” That, of course, is the very nature of any personal relationship, but with the Lord, the difference is that He’s always present. I can talk about my wife (3^rd person) but I can only turn and address her as “you” (2^nd person) if she happens to be present. The Lord always is. I’m sure we take His presence for granted, but what a blessing that we can have a personal relationship with Him, and that personal relationship, unlike any other, is a constant, never interrupted companionship. Obviously we can interrupt the fellowship with our sins or our simple neglect, but the problem is on our side of the ledger, not His. He never leaves us nor forsakes us. The Lord told Moses, “My Presence will go with you.” I love Moses’ response: “If You go not with us, then send us not up!” (Ex 33:14,15).Yup. Moses had it right. I don’t want to live one second without His wonderful presence!

Another thought: In verse 8, he notes that “the Lord has delivered his soul from death.” Matthew Henry said, “That a life so often forfeited, and so often exposed, should yet be lengthened out, is a miracle of mercy.” Amen and yikes! I suspect it is true of all of us, but it is certainly true of me, that it is only, and I underscore only, because of the Lord’s mercy that I’m even alive to type these words. Sometimes it has been utter stupidity, sometimes brash arrogance, and sometimes just this malevolent world, but apart from grace there simply is no explanation for why I’m alive today. Thank the Lord.

Then, also in verse 8, the Psalmist rejoices that the Lord has delivered his eyes from tears. That He has done, but, isn’t it a blessing to know that in the next life, “He will wipe every tear from our eyes!” (Rev 7:17; 21:4).

Then he notes how the Lord keeps his feet from stumbling. I love how the Bible pictures us as toddlers held by the hand of our Heavenly Father: as in Isaiah 41:13, “For I the Lord thy God will hold thy right hand, saying unto thee, ‘Fear not; I will help thee.’” It is any parents’ pleasant memory of holding their child’s hand in times and places of perceived danger, knowing that as long as we keep them by our side, they’ll be safe. Now it is a marvel to realize the Lord does exactly that for us, even as adults.

Finally, back in verse 7, the Psalmist called his soul to return to its rest. Then here in verse 9 he says, because of the Lord’s goodness, he will walk before the Lord in the land of the living. Interesting. The soul at rest walks before the Lord. Some might find that oxymoronic but, for those who know the Lord, such is certainly not the case. To walk before the Lord is to rest. This is soul business but we know it is true. Augustine said, “O God, our hearts are restless until they find rest in Thee.” Thank the Lord that, in His presence, we can rest as we walk. We can even rest walking with Him in the storms of life. We don’t always do it so well, but, again, the problem is on our side of the ledger, not His. We need only have faith, keep our gazed fixed upon Jesus, and the very walk of this life becomes rest. Even in the storms, I’m walking with this One who already delivered my soul from death, my eyes from tears, and my feet from stumbling.

He’s certainly earned my trust. I just need to have the faith to walk it (resting).

Psalm 116: 7 – “Haven of Rest”

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

 ⁷Return, my soul, to your rest, because the Lord has dealt bountifully with you.

In my last post, I looked at this verse and the wonder that our God is not a slave-driver, that He actually calls us to the freedom of rest. “Come unto Me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest.”

It is all seriously a wonder of faith, amazing grace.

I am reminded of a very old, but seemingly forgotten hymn, “Haven of Rest.” I particularly know it because my father once informed me it was my great-grandmother’s (his paternal grandmother, Hattie Bixby’s) favorite hymn. I don't know when I learned that. After all these years, all I know now is that I don’t remember a time when I didn’t know it. The song beautifully expresses the thought of Psalm 116:7:

Haven of Rest

1. My soul in sad exile was out on life's sea,

So burdened with sin, and distressed,

Till I heard a sweet voice saying,

 "Make me your choice!"

And I entered the Haven of Rest.

Chorus:

I've anchored my soul in the Haven of Rest,

I'll sail the wide seas no more;

The tempest may sweep o'er the wild, stormy deep,

In Jesus I'm safe ever more.

2. I yielded myself to His tender embrace,

And faith taking hold of the Word,

My fetters fell off, and I anchored my soul

The "Haven of Rest" is my Lord.

3. The song of my soul, since the Lord made me whole,

Has been the old story so blest

Of Jesus, who'll save whosoever will have

A home in the Haven of Rest!

4. O come to the Savior He patiently waits

To save by His power divine;

Come, anchor your soul in the Haven of Rest,

And say, "My Beloved is mine."

Psalm 116: 7 – “Rest”

As always, here’s my fairly literal translation of these verses:

¹I love the Lord, because He heard my voice [and] my prayers. ²Because He turned His ear to me, also in my days I will call.

 ³The cords of death encompassed me and the terrors of Sheol found me. I found distress and sorrow. ⁴Then I called in the name of the Lord, “I beg, O Lord, deliver my soul!”

 ⁵Gracious [is] the Lord and just and our God [is] compassionate. ⁶The Lord is one guarding simple ones. I was low but He delivered me.

 ⁷Return, my soul, to your rest, because the Lord has dealt bountifully with you.

Here I am again. Psalm 116:7 is one of those verses I memorized years (and years) ago. It has been a sweet cordial I’ve carried in my heart for all these years and now, finally, I get a chance to actually study it, to actually look closely at the Hebrew words behind my familiar old KJV translation. Makes me want to take off my shoes and just sit and stare at it.

Matthew Henry said, “I know no word more proper to close our eyes with at night, when we go to sleep, nor to close them with at death, than this, ‘Return unto thy rest, O my soul!’”

Amen to our good friend. I’m reminded of George Washington, of whom it is reported that upon his death bed he looked around at his family and said, “All is well,” then lay back, closed his eyes with his own hand, folded his arms and died.

“All is well.”

“Return unto thy rest, O my soul!”

“The Lord hath dealt bountifully with thee!”

Brings tears to my eyes. The Lord is gracious and just and compassionate. How often have I cried to Him and He answered by setting me free? How often has He delivered my soul from death, my eyes from tears, and my feet from falling? George Washington was right, “All is well.” Matthew Henry was right, what better word to close our eyes at night than, “Return unto thy rest, O my soul; the Lord hath dealt bountifully with thee,” then one day to close our eyes in death?

Robert Leighton, pondering his own demise, said: "Oh, how welcome will that day be, that day of deliverance! To be out of this woeful prison, I regard not at what door I go out, being at once freed from so many deaths, and let in to enjoy Him who is my life."

It is an interesting thing to note how much the Bible speaks of rest. It opens, of course, with the Lord Himself taking a Sabbath after the six days of creation. Jesus called us to Himself with the familiar words, “Come unto Me all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Learn of Me, for I am meek and lowly of heart, and ye shall find rest unto your souls” (Matt 11:28-30). The Lord called through Jeremiah, “Stand in the way and see and ask for the old paths, wherein lieth righteousness, and walk ye in it, and ye shall find rest unto your souls” (Jer 6:16).

In my study I found that there are actually a number of Hebrew words for rest. Here’s a list with at least the basic idea of the various synonyms:

Shabat (Sabbath) – absence of activity

Shaqat – absence of disturbance from external sources

Shalom – wholeness, well-being

Raphah – to drop, let drop, let go

Dami – quietness

Raga – to be in repose

If you stop and think, you’ll quickly realize the Bible is literally full of references to rest. “There remaineth a rest for the people of God.” “There is no peace (shabat), saith my God, to the wicked.” “Be still (raphah) and know that I am God.” “Rest (dami) in the Lord and wait patiently for Him.”

Years ago I was studying the creation account and what jumped off the page at me was the fact that God is not a slave-driver. He doesn’t need to rest, and yet, as a part of the very creation itself, He chose to cease from His creation in order to set for us a pattern that it’s okay to rest! I early realized that there is no end to work. No matter how hard you work, no matter how much you accomplish, when you get up tomorrow, there will still be more to do than you can possibly get done. In a world without God, that very fact can drive us all to be work-aholics. Yet, in that world of endless work, God announces (from the very beginning) that it is totally okay if you just chill out one day out of every seven. The crops will get planted. The homework will get done. There will be (just) enough money to pay the bills. “Go ahead,” He says, “Take it easy. I’ve got your back. It will all work out.”

My Dad once told me that when he was young (Depression and WWII years) life was so unceasingly hard, they would have all gone crazy except that they always took Sunday off. That was the day they spent together as a family having picnics, going mountain climbing, and just pausing to actually enjoy the world they worked so hard to possess. When I was in seminary, going to school full-time and working to support my wife and three children, it was an enormous relief to be able to just shut down every Sunday. At the time, I felt like my workload was so far beyond me it was impossible that I even could make it all happen. There wouldn’t have been enough time if I had 36-hour days. Yet, in the middle of that utter impossibility, since I had already observed that God is not a slave-driver, I knew it was okay to shut down that one day a week and somehow it would all get done. So, on Sundays, I never once so much as cracked a book. Like my father’s family, that was our day for going to the park, for playing with the kids (whatever that meant to them!), and just enjoying life. In fact it did all get done. I graduated Magna Cum Laude, we all lived, the bills did (barely) get paid. And now that was all 25 years ago.

God is not a slave-driver. “Come unto Me, all ye that labor and are heavy-laden, and I will give you rest.” I say all of this in part because it is unfortunately the opposite of what we seem to naturally think. We of course wouldn’t say it, but it is too easy to think and live like God is in fact a slave-driver. Our evil heart tells us, “He is impossible to please. No matter how much you do, He always expects more. He doesn’t allow you a second’s rest!” But is that really God? I will assert quite emphatically it is not. It is none other than the devil himself and our own evil hearts that drive us mercilessly to the grave. Our God says, “Be still and know that I am God.”

In our troubled, tossed world, in this endless storm of howling wind and waves, we can say in faith to ourselves, “Return unto thy rest, O my soul, for the Lord hath dealt bountifully with thee.”

Behold the Lamb of God. He stands there on the very waves themselves and calls to us through the wind, “Come unto Me. Join me in the storm and I will give you rest.” In faith we can actually step out of the boat, into the storm, and join Him – as long as we never lose sight of His beautiful face.

And this is the very point, you see, where we lose the battle. If we feel deep down in our heart that in fact God is a slave-driver, then the face we see through the storm is not that gentle, kind, inviting face, but rather one that is harsh and foreboding. We cannot walk in the storm, because we cannot see that beautiful face that is our strength – and not because it isn’t there, but because our evil hearts have painted over it with our own (and the devil’s) distorted, faithless misperceptions. Self, behold your God! His name is Jesus and He is meek and lowly of heart, and you shall find rest unto your soul! He is altogether lovely. He is gracious and just and compassionate – even in the storms. He is not a slave-driver.

He has proven it again and again. “The Lord hath dealt bountifully with thee.”

Yes, He has. I need to trust Him more. As He told Moses, “My presence will go with you, and I will give you rest.”

Return unto thy rest, O my soul. All is well.