Psalms 31:1-22

Psalms 31:1. In thee, O LORD, do I put my trust;

Can we say as much as that? However else this Psalm of David may end, it strikes a grand key-note, that which should be the first indication of our spiritual life, confidence in God. Here is an ancient weather-beaten saint who, in the very midst of the storm, can say, «In thee, O Jehovah, do I put my trust.» There will the anchor of his soul find a sure hold.

Psalms 31:1. Let me never be ashamed:

«How canst thou let me be put to shame after having trusted in thee, O my God? I shall be ashamed, if thou dost forsake me, if thy promises be not kept to me, O my Lord! Therefore, ‘let me never be ashamed.'»

Psalms 31:1. Deliver me in thy righteousness.

David dares to appeal even to the faithfulness, and truth, and justice of Jehovah, that he should keep the promise upon which his servant had placed his trust.

Psalms 31:2. Bow down thine ear to me;

«I am very weak, I am also very unworthy; it will be a great instance of thy divine condescension if thou dost hear me; yet I cry unto thee, ‘Bow down thine ear to me;'»

Psalms 31:2. Deliver me speedily:

We may not set the time for God to answer our petitions, yet may we expect that his sure mercies will be swift mercies when our necessities are very urgent. So the psalmist pleads, «Lord, come not late to me, lest thou come too late to me, for I am in sore distress; my case is urgent, therefore help me now, ‘deliver me speedily.'»

Psalms 31:2. Be thou my strong rock, for an house of defense to save me.

He remembered Adullam and Engedi, and he worked these places into his supplication. A man's prayer should be the index of his life's history. The scenes to which he has been most accustomed should rise up vividly before his spirit when he is at the throne of grace; it was so with David: «My God, be thou an immutable, immovable, impregnable rock to me, and let me dwell in thee. Be not merely a refuge for the moment, but be ‘a house of defense to save me.'»

Psalms 31:3. For thou art my rock and my fortress; therefore for thy name's sake lead me, and guide me.

David is of a logical turn of mind, notice the «therefore» in this verse. What a singular «for» there is here! «Be thou my strong rock,» «for thou art my rock.» What God is already, we may ask him to be. What we believe him to be by faith, we ask him to be in our experience. Observe that David's appeal is not in any degree to his own merit; but «for thy name's sake,»-«because I trust in thy name, and if thou dost not do as thou hast said, thy great name will suffer dishonour. How can I believe in thy veracity if thou dost not do for me according to thy promise and covenant? ‘Therefore, for thy name's sake, lead me.' ‘Guide me,' too, even when I do not think of thy presence. Lead me like a child, and guide me like a traveler.» There are shades of meaning here, so that there is no redundancy of expression in the words, «Lead me, and guide me.» But even if the two words meant the same it would be quite lawful for the psalmist to repeat the prayer, since he felt his need of leading and guiding to be so great. «Lord, I am so foolish, and the way is so difficult, ‘therefore, for thy name's sake, lead me, and guide me.'»

Psalms 31:4. Pull me out of the net that they have laid privily for me: for thou art my strength.

«Lord, my enemies have entangled me; or ever I was aware of it, I was taken in the meshes of their net; wilt thou not pull me out, O Lord? It will need a strong pull, but then, ‘thou art my strength.' ‘Pull me out of the net that they have laid privily for me: for thou art my strength.'» Sometimes our strength is crippled, and we are baffled, by the net in which we are enclosed. We feel ourselves hampered, we cannot use the strength we have; but God's strength is always available. There seems to me to be a very blessed turn in the expression here used: «Pull me out of the net: for thou art my strength.»

Psalms 31:5. Into thine hand I commit my spirit:

You notice that this Psalm is dedicated to the chief musician. I have studied these Psalms, not only by the hour, and by the day, but sometimes by the month together. Some of these Psalms have been the pillow for my head at night; others of them, like wafers made of honey, have lain in my mouth till I have sucked out of them their divine sweetness. I have often noticed that, when one of these sacred songs is dedicated to the chief musician, The Chief Musician generally appears somewhere in the Psalm; he, from whom comes all the music that ever makes bleeding hearts glad, usually shows some traces of himself within the Psalm itself. In this instance, the living word of David was the dying word of David's Lord: «Into thy hands I commend my spirit.» What David did, and what the Lord Jesus Christ did, let us do, and do it every day; let us commit our spirit into the hands of our God.

Psalms 31:5. Thou hast redeemed me, O LORD God of truth, I have hated them that regard lying vanities: but I trust in the LORD.

Men are sure to have some kind of trust or other on which they rely. In David's day, some trusted to false gods, others relied upon their own strength; the psalmist does not speak in soft tones concerning these people, but he says, «I could not bear them. ‘I have hated them that regard lying vanities.' I would not come into their secret, or have any connection with them. I was astonished at them, that they should turn away from God; but as for myself, ‘I trust in Jehovah.'» See how he comes back to the note with which he started: «In thee, O Jehovah, do I put my trust;» and now he repeats it, «I trust in Jehovah.» It is an unfashionable thing, many will not do it yet David says, «I trust in Jehovah,» as if he dared to stand alone, and did not mind how singular he seemed to be.

Psalms 31:7. I will be glad and rejoice in thy mercy:

What a grand faith! Should there not sometimes be the sounding of the cymbals even in the midst of our supplications? Though we must often put on sackcloth, yet we must lift up our song of praise whenever we can: «'I will be glad and rejoice,' there shall be a reduplication of my delight,

‘I will be glad and rejoice in thy mercy.'»

Psalms 31:7. For thou hast considered my trouble;

«Thou didst not send it without due consideration; thou didst weigh it, and now thou lookest upon me and thou dost study my trouble, then knowest all about it.» You know what is meant by human consideration; but how wonderful must divine consideration be! When a single glance suffices for Jehovah to know all that is transpiring in the whole universe what must his consideration be! «Thou hast considered my trouble.»

Psalms 31:7. Thou hast known my soul in adversities;

«When others did not know me, thou didst; thou wast familiar with me, and sympathetic towards me, especially in the day of adversity. ‘Thou hast known my soul.'» God knows his own children, even when they are in rags, and when their faces are stained with tears, and their spirits are depressed almost to despair: «Thou hast known my soul in adversities.»

Psalms 31:8. And hast not shut me up into the hand of the enemy:

«No; I may get into the enemy's prison, but there is no bar to it. ‘Thou hast not shut me up.' I may seem to get into my enemy's hand; but he cannot shut that hand.» Truly, it must be so, because David had already put his soul into the hand of God: «Into thine hand I commit my spirit.» How, then, could he be shut up in the hand of the enemy?

Psalms 31:8. Thou hast set my feet in a large room.

«Stone walls do not a prison make,

Nor iron bars a cage.»

Wherever the child of God is when his faith is in active exercise, his feet are in a large room, by faith he walks at liberty.

Psalms 31:9. Have mercy upon me, O LORD, for I am in trouble:

In this short sentence of four words, «I am in trouble,» David gives the text of which the next few verses are a kind of sermon, with divisions and subdivisions.

Psalms 31:9. Mine eye is consumed with grief,

«My eyes seem burnt up with scalding tears.» The salt of our tears wears out the very strength of our life: «Mine eye is consumed with grief,»

Psalms 31:9. Yea, my soul and my belly.

Or, «'body,' The inward part of my being seems washed away with the deluge of my tears.»

Psalms 31:10. For my life is spent with grief, and my years with sighing:

Better spend them in sighing than in sinning; yet it is a sad case when we seem to measure our days by the bars of our grief.

Psalms 31:10. My strength faileth because of mine iniquity, and my bones are consumed.

Now he sees to the bottom of his sorrow: «My strength faileth because of mine iniquity.» We can bear those sorrows which have no connection with our sins, but, alas! where are they to be found? It may be that David's great sin seemed to him to lie at the very root of all his grief.

Psalms 31:11. I was a reproach among all mine enemies,

They had found something to fling at him, and they were delighted to throw it with all their malicious force: «I was a reproach among all mine enemies,»

Psalms 31:11. But especially among my neighbours,

Those that are nearest can stab the sharpest. Those who knew David the best, endeavored to find some silly tale to use against him.

Psalms 31:11. And a fear to mine acquaintance: they that did see me without fled from me.

This Psalm may have been written after Absalom's rebellion, when Shimei cursed the king, and when everybody seemed to be forsaking him. Then was David brought into a low estate indeed.

Psalms 31:12. I am forgotten as a dead man out of mind: I am like a broken vessel.

This was the same David who slew the Philistine giant; this was the great deliverer of his country; yet the people had forgotten all that. Earthly popularity is the most fleeting thing under heaven. The world is a hard and cruel master; it forgets its servants when they grow old, it has nothing good to say of them when there is nothing further to be got out of them. So David laments, «I am like a broken vessel,»-a potsherd that can hold nothing, and is flung away upon a dunghill.

Psalms 31:13. For I have heard the slander of many:

To have one slanderer attacking your character, is bad enough, but to have many such cruel enemies about you, to have a whole brood of hell's hornets, as it were, stinging you, oh, what misery is this! You who, happily, have never experienced this torture, cannot imagine what agony it causes; I hope you never may know it.

Psalms 31:13. Fear was on every side: while they took counsel together against me, they devised to take away my life. But I trusted in thee, O LORD.

Here he is back on the old rock, and rejoicing as his feet stand once more on this firm foundation: «I trusted in thee, O Jehovah.»

Psalms 31:14 ; Psalms 31:16. I said, Thou art my God. My times are in thy hand:

«My enemies cannot do anything against me without thy permission.» Divine providence is a downy pillow for an aching head, a blessed anodyne for the sharpest pain. He who can feel that his times are in the hand of God, need not tremble at anything that is in the hand of man.

Psalms 31:15. Deliver me from the hand of mine enemies, and from them that persecute me. Make thy face to shine upon thy servant: save me for thy mercies' sake.

«If thy face shines upon me, Lord, they may look as black as they please. If thou wilt but deliver me, I care not how cruelly they persecute me. If thou wilt save me, who can destroy me?» O you who are in trouble at this time, hasten to your God! Whither should the little bird fly, when pursued by the hawk, but to its shelter in the rock? Whither canst thou go, O sheep of Christ's flock, but to thy Shepherd?

Psalms 31:17. Let me not be ashamed, O LORD; for I have called upon thee: let the wicked be ashamed, and let them be silent in the grave.

There is something of the harshness of the old dispensation about that prayer; so we will turn it into a prophecy, and say, «The wicked shall be ashamed; they shall be silent in the grave.»

Psalms 31:18. Let the lying lips be put to silence, which speak grievous things proudly and contemptuously against the righteous. Oh how great is thy goodness which thou hast laid up for them that fear thee;

Is not that a blessed expression to be used by the man who said that his life was spent with grief, and his years with sighing?

Psalms 31:19. Which thou hast wrought for them that trust in thee before the sons of men!

Not only has the Lord abundant goodness stored up for his children, but his goodness is brought out for others to see, and for his people to feed upon even in the presence of their enemies.

Psalms 31:20. Thou shalt hide them in the secret of thy presence from the pride of man: thou shalt keep them secretly in a pavilion from the strife of tongues.

They shall not be wounded by all the malice of their adversaries; they shall be preserved in the King's royal pavilion.

Psalms 31:21. Blessed be the LORD: for he hath shewed me his marvellous kindness in a strong city. For I said in my haste, I am cut off from before thine eyes: nevertheless thou heardest the voice of my supplications when I cried unto thee. O love the LORD, all ye his saints:

See what a fount of happiness there is in the psalmist's heart; he longs for all the saints to love the Lord.

Psalms 31:23. For the LORD preserveth the faithful, and plentifully rewardeth the proud doer. Be of good courage, and he shall strengthen your heart, all ye that hope in the LORD.

In this Psalm, we have heard the wail of the sackbut, and the clashing of the cymbals; but we finish with the blast of the silver trumpets.