Psalms 40:2

He brought me up also out of an horrible pit, out of the miry clay.

Out of the pit

I. His condition.

1. He was sunk in deep and dark depression. He was what we describe as “down,” brought very low, plunged into great despondency and despair. We very well know what brings men into the pit. Grief can do it, and failure, and a multiplicity of tasks. But, above all, sin takes the “lift” and buoyancy out of life, and makes it the victim of an appalling gravitation which sucks it into abysmal depths of helplessness and darkness and despair. This is the horrible pit in which we have all been sunk.

2. A second element in the condition of the psalmist is interpreted by the descriptive word “horrible,” “the horrible pit,” or, as the margin gives it, “the pit of noise.” And is not this the modern experience? When a man is in the pit he is addressed by confused and confusing voices. One man calls to us and tells us that our depression is purely imaginary, we are the victims of our own thoughts and dreams. Another declares that we are a little “out of sorts,” and that the doctor will put us right in a week. A third avers that “more need we the Divine than the physician.” It is a “pit of noise” and confusion.

3. A third element in the suppliant’s depression is described in the phrase, “the miry clay.” Surely we know the experience in our own life! The ground slips from under our feet. We have no foothold. There is nothing solid, nothing dependable.

II. His resources. “I waited patiently.” His being was collected, and all fixed in intense expectancy on God.

1. “He inclined unto me.” The figure is exquisitely helpful. “He stretched right out and down to me.” His arm was long enough to reach me, even when I was in the deepest pit.

2. “And beard my cry.” Just as the mother, when the house is filled with company, hears the cry of her babe in the chamber above. Or just as a shepherd hears the faint lone cry of the lost lamb in some ravine on the open moor.

III. His deliverance. “He brought me out.” That is to say, He lifts me out of my captivity. We cannot struggle out. Struggling will only aggravate our bondage. When we are in the Slough of Despond One comes to us called “Help.” “He set my feet upon a rock.” Hitherto I have been in the miry clay, the victim of uncertainties, despondencies and doubts. But now He has “enlarged my steps under me,” and I find myself upon the highway of the Lord. “And He hath established my goings.” Thus He not only lifts and confirms me, but He vitalizes my soul. We all know the ease that comes to the feet when we have been trudging through heavy mire and we find ourselves upon a well-made turnpike road. As soon as we come to the good road we say to one another, “Now we shall be able to step out.” That is the suggestion in the psalmist’s phrase, “and hath established my goings.” We are able to step out, nay, to go as those who are “marching to Zion”! (J. H. Jowett, M. A.)

The supreme change

I. What the grace of God delivers from.

1. A position of degradation--“A pit.”

2. A position of misery--“A horrible pit.”

3. A position of danger--“The miry clay.”

(1) Insecurity.

(2) Helplessness.

(3) Death (Jeremiah 38:9).

II. What the grace of God brings men to.

1. A condition of spiritual elevation--“up.”

2. A condition of spiritual stability--“And set my feet upon a rock.”

3. A condition of spiritual advancement--“And established my goings.”

4. A condition of religious happiness--“And He hath put a new song,” etc.

III. In effecting this change the divine being and the sinner have their distinct provinces to occupy.

1. The sinner prays--evidencing--

(1) Deep sense of need.

(2) Deep consciousness of helplessness.

(3) Trust in “the mercy and power of God.

2. The sinner waits--

(1) In earnest expectation.

(2) In the assurance of help being granted.

3. The Lord inclines His ear and hears the cry.

4. The Lord puts forth His saving power--“He brought me up.”

IV. Lessons.

1. To believers.

(1) Spiritual elevation no cause for boasting.

(2) Spiritual stability no cause for self-confidence.

(3) Spiritual advancement to be carefully maintained.

(4) Religious happiness to be continued and increased.

2. To unbelievers.

(1) Yours a position of degradation, misery and danger.

(2) This position gradually becoming worse.

(3) Escape is possible by penitential application to God (Hosea 13:9). What a future sinners must have if they remain in the pit! What a future sinners may have if they turn to Christi (Julius Brigg.)

Brought up from the horrible pit

This passage has been very frequently, and rightly, used as telling the experience of God’s people. Yet I am not certain that the first verse could be rightly uttered by all of us. Could we say, “I waited patiently for the Lord”? Might it not be more truthfully said of us, “I waited impatiently for the Lord”? Alas, patience is still a scarce virtue upon the earth. Therefore, though we may regard the psalm as in a secondary sense belonging to David, in the first instance a greater than David is here. For the first person who uttered these words was the Messiah. Our text, therefore, belongs primarily to Him. Note, then--

I. Our Lord’s behaviour as here set forth.

1. He waited upon the Lord. He did so all His life, but this waiting became more conspicuous in His passion and death.

2. And patiently. His atonement had not been complete had it been otherwise. No expiation could have been made by an impatient Saviour.

3. And prayerfully. Let Gethsemane tell. Jabbok is outdone by Kidron. See, then, our pattern. Have we waited, and waited thus?

II. Our Lord’s deliverance.

1. It is represented as a bringing up out of a horrible pit. I have been in the dungeon at Rome in which, according to tradition, Peter and Paul were confined. It was, indeed, a horrible pit, for originally it had no entrance but a round hole in the rock above; and when that was blocked neither light nor fresh air could enter. No being has ever been so cruel to man as man. Man is the worst of monsters to his kind, and his cruel inventions are many. Now, our Lord was like a man put into a pit. Hence he was quite alone. Thus it happened to our Saviour. All His disciples forsook Him and fled. And in total darkness. Midnight brooded over His spirit. And full of distress. The grief and sorrow which He felt can never be described. He felt care upon care, night blackening night. But He was brought up out of all this; at that moment when He said, “It is finished”; and at the resurrection and by His ascension to the right hand of God. Now His sorrow is ended.

2. A second figure is used to tell of His grief. “Out of the miry clay.” In such horrible pits the imprisoned wretch often found himself sinking in the mire. And our blessed Lord found when He was suffering for us that everything appeared to give way beneath Him. But He was brought up like Jonah was from the deeps. And He was set “on a rock.” He stands on a firm foundation in all that He does for us. Judgment and truth confirm His ways. When He saves He has a right to save. And His goings are established for continuance, certainty, victory. Best of all, there is a new song in His mouth, “In the midst of the church will I sing praise unto Thee.” The song of heaven is “the song of Moses and the Lamb.”

III. The Lord’s reward. “Many”--not all, but many--“shall see it and fear,” etc. They shall, for He hath the key of all hearts. They shall see; see Him as their Saviour, and shall fear. It makes men fear to see a bleeding Christ. And best of all, they “shall trust in the Lord.”

IV. The Lord’s likeness in his people. All this may be repeated in them. Like sorrow, but let there be like waiting, and there shall be like deliverance. Sinner sinking in guilt, He can deliver you. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

History of the soul’s salvation

I. The believer’s safety.

1. The author of it. “The Lord” (Psalms 25:5).

2. The nature of it. “On a rock” (Psalms 27:5).

3. The individual realization of it. “My feet” (Psalms 31:8; 2 Timothy 1:12).

II. The believer’s walk.

1. A firm footing. Feet on a rock. “Wherein we stand” (Romans 5:2).

2. Steady progress (Psalms 37:23; Psalms 16:11). “Established my goings.”

3. Safe keeping (1 Samuel 2:9; Jude 1:24).

III. The believer’s sons.

1. The song of reconciliation (Isaiah 12:1).

2. The song of deliverance (Exodus 15:1).

3. The song of victory (2 Chronicles 20:17).

IV. The believer’s influence.

1. “Many shall see it” (Matthew 5:16).

2. “Many shall fear” (Acts 2:37; Acts 2:43).

3. “Many shall trust in the Lord” (Acts 2:41). (E. H. Hopkins)

The pit of destruction

It is possible that the reference may be to a mode of hunting, anciently practised in the East, and still practised in some parts of the East, in the interior of Africa, and in some of the Polynesian Islands. When a dangerous wild animal was to be captured, a largo hole was dug in the ground. At the bottom of the pit thus dug a goat was placed as bait, and the opening of the pit was covered with light branches and foliage. The wild animal, attracted by the bleating of the goat, made a spring in the dark for the goat, fell through the branches, and was securely trapped. From this point of view David had fallen, or been tempted into, a pit of sin; and had been plucked by the mercy of God from the clinging mire of its bottom and the slippery clay of its sides, and placed upon the sure foothold of a rock.

And set my feet upon a rock and established my goings.--

Fixity and progress

What a strange contradiction--rest and movement, fixedness and pliability, stedfastness and variation. How can a man be made to run by his fixedness? How can his power of motion be increased by that which is supposed to rivet him to the spot? In all things of the spirit, is it not ever so? Is not the rapidity of my movement always in proportion to the rootedness of my conviction? The firmer is my rock, the more established are my goings. It is the resting soul which flies. I have no wings until I have a fixed heart. The dove that descends upon the Jordan must first light upon the Son of Man. Is it not written (Isaiah 40:31)? What is that but to say that the rock makes the outgoing? I never do such work as when I am at rest. It is the calm within makes the power without. The soul whose works have followed it is the spirit of the man who has rested from his labours. (G. Matheson, D. D.)