Psalm 116: 5-6 – “When Goodness Becomes My Weakness”

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

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.

In my last post, I looked at verse 5 and the importance of truly seeing God. Verse 6 continues with “The Lord is one guarding simple ones.”  The word I’ve translated “simple ones” means “immature ones who are open to all kinds of enticement, not having developed a discriminating judgment as to what is right or wrong. Easily deceived” (TWOT#1853a). The word can actually refer to precisely this kind of people, the “simple” people of Proverbs who seem to have no anchor at all, and who will just as likely follow fools as to follow the wise, whichever one has the louder voice. Certainly people like that need the Lord’s protection.

However, here I think the Psalmist is using the word in a practical sense. Obviously he’s referring to himself and I don’t think, given his understanding of God, that he would likely qualify as a “simple one” from the book of Proverbs. So what does he mean? I think this is a case of “to the pure, all things are pure.” Those who sincerely try to do good, to be loving and kind, to be honest, those people tend to assume everyone else does too. They are quite aware of evil and are in fact wise people, but their own integrity makes it easy for them to overlook the lack of it in others. Good people end up “trusting” people they should not. In effect, they may actually not be discerning. Though they are “discerning” people, yet in practice they can end up being quite “simple.”

I learned a few weeks ago studying Galatians that “confidence” (in others) can actually be a fruit of the Spirit. Our “dark” side is always suspicious and doubtful and jealous of others, but the Spirit moves us to begin to look for the best in people, to choose to trust them, to choose to give them the “benefit of a doubt.” That is a very good thing – except that there will still always be people out there who are just plain crooks and liars and the ill-intentioned. In a way, it just gets harder and harder to see that, or, perhaps, we just get less and less willing to see it. Perhaps we’d rather love and get hurt than go back to the ugly suspicious heart we used to have(?).

I guess I’m suggesting this is a conundrum of goodness – that in a sense it makes us more vulnerable to the wiles and hurts of evil people, it makes us sometimes act like “simple ones.” So, what is the answer? Should we go back to being suspicious and hateful? That seems like the most logical way to protect ourselves. No. The same Lord who calls us to be good is a God who is “one guarding simple ones.” As always, always, always, our God is our Rock and our Fortress. Yes, I need to be “wise as a serpent, and gentle as a dove,” but my real protection will simply be the Lord. He knows my heart. He knows that I trusted someone out of a desire to be loving. And though they may in fact take advantage of me and I somehow “lose,” yet the Lord will somehow take care of me. He is “one guarding simple ones.”

Perhaps that is part of the background of this Psalm. Perhaps the writer has been trying to live a life of love and kindness and yet what the world gave him back was to use him and abuse him. He could be wallowing in bitterness, but instead, he’s rejoicing somehow in the Lord’s “deliverance.” Somehow, the Lord has given him the “upper hand” or recompensed him in some way that evil people simply will never understand. They think they “won” but the believer knows that, in fact, the Lord has somehow intervened and used it for his good.

As he goes on to say, “I was low but He delivered me.” “Low” means exactly that. In Hebrew-picture it is like something hanging down. It can be the idea of physical deprivation and the opposite of fatness, of being needy. It’s just plain low, whatever that may mean in my life today. But, and here is one of those glorious Bible “but’s,” the Lord … Once again, He is my Rock and my fortress. “He delivered me.” Interestingly, the Hebrew word for “delivered” is the same root from which comes the name Jesus. “You shall call His name Jesus, for He shall save His people from their sins.” In essence, His name means Savior or Deliverer. As I have often noted, God does not save us because we need to be saved. He saves us because He is a saving God. His name is Jesus, Savior. He delivers us because He is a delivering God. We can count on Him to deliver us because that simply is who He is.

So, as I head out into another day, as I sincerely try to be loving and kind, I’m almost guaranteed that someone will take advantage of me. So what should I do? For my part, I’ll try to be “wise as a serpent,” but when that fails (and it will) I’ll know that my Redeemer lives. He will be my strength and my deliverer. Though the devil himself would see my love as a weakness and use it against me, yet my great God will take even that and turn it instead to my good. He is “one guarding simple ones.” He has and He will deliver me!