Exposition of Psalm
119
?
DALETH
God’s
Word Provides Therapy
Ps.
119:25-32
My
soul cleaveth unto the dust: quicken thou me according
to thy word.
I
have declared my ways, and thou heardest me: teach me
thy statutes.
Make
me to understand the way of thy precepts: so shall I
talk of thy wondrous works.
My
soul melteth for heaviness: strengthen thou me according
unto thy word.
Remove
from me the way of lying: and grant me thy law
graciously.
I
have chosen the way of truth: thy judgments have I laid
before me.
I
have stuck unto thy testimonies: O LORD, put me not to
shame.
I
will run the way of thy commandments, when thou shalt
enlarge my heart.
While the previous
stanza of this Psalm ends with David reveling in
delight, this one opens with him reeling in
despair. Here is a sad scene, indeed—my soul cleaveth unto
the dust, the psalmist cries. How many of us
have ever felt that despondent? Dust is
the Hebrew apar, which
literally, of course, refers to dry, loose dirt or dust
that covers the ground. Figuratively, however, it
pictures “utter defeat (2 Kings 13:7) and humiliation
(Job 16:15).”[i] Such language is
rooted in ancient practice, as mourners would sit in
ashes and pour dust on their
heads.
Satan often attacks
when things are going good, such as right after we’ve
experienced a great blessing or joy. Yes, just when we
think all is well, Satan “lowers the boom.” David was
overwhelmed by fights, fears, and frailties. The word
cleaveth,
as the Hebrew (dabaq)
indicates, gives us the idea that this despair was
sticking to him as though it were glued. As Puritan
Charles Bridges writes:
As the dust of the summer road
blinds the eye . . . how does this earthliness of soul
darken the view of the Saviour [and] dim the eye of
faith![ii]
That reminds us of
the old cattle drives in the American west. The last
place any cowboy wanted to be was “riding drag,” that
is, at the back of the herd. The dust would cover him in
layers from top to toe. That is where David was—blinded
by the dust that was glued to him.
What, then, are we
to do in such situations? We are to pray. As the
Scottish preacher Andrew Bonar wisely observed, “Let us
be as watchful after the victory as before the battle,”
and the only way we can do that is by prayer. We hear a
lot about “therapy” in our day, and there are countless
approaches: psychotherapy, group therapy, hypnosis
therapy, reality therapy, ad
infinitum. But David knew that
the only cure for a troubled heart is God and His Word.
He, therefore, prayed that God would work six realities
in his life. Here is true therapy for our troubled
souls.
I. Quicken Me (v.
25b)
.
. . quicken thou me according to thy
word.
The Hebrew behind
quicken
(hayâ) means to live, be alive, and to sustain life,
which is reflected by some modern translations, such as
“preserve my life” (NIV) or “give me life” (ESV). These
miss the true point, however. This word also speaks of
reviving someone, as in reviving them from sickness or
discouragement, and it is that idea that is in view in
David’s prayer. Only God can revive us from despair. It
will not come from self-determination, will power,
psychological technique, or clever cliché. It will come
only from God’s Word working in our heart and
mind.
The Apostle Paul
faced such situations, but was able to write:
We have this treasure in earthen
vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God,
and not of us. We are troubled on every side, yet not
distressed; we are perplexed, but not in despair;
Persecuted, but not forsaken; cast down, but not
destroyed; Always bearing about in the body the dying of
the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be
made manifest in our body (II Cor. 4:7-10).
As the old adage
goes, he was knocked down, but not knocked
out. But the only way he could get up was with
God’s Word, God’s promises, controlling his thinking.
While most modern “therapy” is driven by
emotion—as in how a person
“feels” about something—what matters is the mind and
what controls that.
We are reminded here
of God’s promise in Hebrews 13:5: “I will never leave
thee, nor forsake thee.” This is a quote of Deuteronomy
31:6: “Be strong and of a good courage, fear not, nor be
afraid of them: for the LORD thy God, he it is that doth
go with thee; he will not fail thee, nor forsake thee.”
We are never alone because not only does the Holy Spirit
dwell in us, but we also always have God’s Word
with us. Whenever we faint in despair,
wither in depression, or collapse in
despondency, the Word of God
is always there to revive
us.
II. Forgive Me (v.
26a)
I
have declared my ways, and thou heardest
me:
Just as a physician
cannot prescribe the correct cure or therapy until we
tell him all our symptoms, we must declare everything
before God and disclose all our sin. The Hebrew word
translated declared
(sapar) literally refers to
general mathematical activity, as in counting. It’s
used, for example, in taking the census of the nation of
Israel in I Chronicles 21:2 and II Chronicles 2:17. The
idea here then is to recount, declare one’s ways to God.
Another word for
this, of course, is to confess. How many
of our emotional, psychological, and even physical
ailments can be traced directly to unconfessed sin?
There is simply no cure or therapy without confession of
sin. While dealing with sin in our day—or even
mentioning it from the pulpit for that matter—is
avoided at all costs, only when we confess it does God
hear and forgive. We know the verse well that declares:
“If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to
forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all
unrighteousness” (I Jn. 1:9). “Confess” is the Greek
homologeo; The root logeo means “to say,”
and the prefix homo means “same,” yielding the
literal meaning “to say the same words.” Therefore, to
confess sin means “to say the same thing about sin that
God says,” or in short, “to call sin,
sin.” Only when we do this
are we prepared for the next step.
III. Teach Me (v.
26b-27)
teach
me thy statutes.
Make
me to understand the way of thy precepts: so shall I
talk of thy wondrous works.
There is a three-fold
request here with teaching at the core.
First, David
prays that God will teach him
His statutes.
As we have noted, the Hebrew behind statutes
(choq) is derived from a verb (chaqaq)
that means “to cut, inscribe, or engrave.” The old
euphemism “set in stone” illustrates it. God’s statutes
(or decrees) are engraved in stone, showing their
permanence. Following that analogy, what a contrast to
modern thought, where things are “written in sand,”
which change with the next wave of human opinion that
rolls in. David, however, did not want what most people
today want—syrupy sentimentality, personal opinion, or
relativistic propositions that change with each
situation. He wanted Truth,
Truth that is set in stone and will never change. Oh,
would that we wanted that today!
Second, he
asks God to help him understand the way of
[His] precepts. Oh, it is one thing to
know, but it is quite another to understand!
The first deals with facts, while the second
deals with practice. Further, the word precepts
(piqqud), as we’ve seen, speaks of injunctions
and moral obligations. Here is the practical side of
knowing. Not only are we to know God’s Truth in the
mind, but we are to practice it in our
living. We know His Word not by theoretical
proposition but by tangible
practice. We shall eaxamine the
verse in more depth, but note what David write in verse
34: “Give me understanding, and I shall keep thy law;
yea, I shall observe it with my whole
heart.”
Third, David
prays that he will then talk of
God’s wondrous
works. Once we know the Truth, and
understand the Truth, the one thing that is left
is to proclaim the Truth. It’s interesting to
note also verse 18 again: “Open thou mine eyes, that I
may behold wondrous things out of thy law.” First David
prays that he would see the wondrous
works of God, but he now wants to
speak of them. That is what
the spiritual Believer does. He or she just can’t stop
talking about the things of God. It is sad, indeed, when
Christians want to talk about all sorts of things—job,
money, sports, politics, entertainment—but don’t want to
talk about spiritual things. What a joy it is to speak
of creation, redemption, providence, grace, the Second
Coming, and so much more.
The story is told of the
discovery of King Tutankhamen’s tomb by the renowned
archeologist Howard Carter in 1922. When he found the
steps leading down into the burial chamber, he summoned
the sponsor of the expedition, Lord Carnarvon, so he too
could be present when the riches were uncovered. As the
chamber was opened and Carter looked into the chamber,
Lord Carnarvon excitedly asked, “Do you see anything?”
Carter’s memorable answer was, “Yes, wonderful
things.”[iii] Indeed, Tut’s
burial chamber contained the most riches ever uncovered
in an ancient tomb, but compared to the
“wondrous
things,” the wondrous
works, of God, Tut’s
riches, all of which he left behind, are no more than
wood, hay, and stubble (I Cor. 3:12).
Oh, how critical it
is for us to recognize that there is no way to
exaggerate the vital importance of teaching in the
Believer’s life! In a day when churches are built on
empty entertainment, shallow sermonettes, and tainted
tradition, we see a church that is anemic and even
septic. The only thing that will cure it is God’s
absolute Truth. Let us pray with David: teach me thy
statutes.
IV.
Strengthen Me (v. 28)
My
soul melteth for heaviness: strengthen thou me according
unto thy word.
The words, My soul melteth for
heaviness, again underscores David’s despair.
The Hebrew for melteth
(dalap) means to pour out or to leak. It’s used,
for example of a leaking roof in Ecclesiastes 10:18. Job
also used it when his friends criticized him, causing
him to “[pour] out tears unto God” (Job 16:20). Added to
this was the heaviness
(tûgâ) David felt; grief,
sorrow, and anguish weighed upon him, which brought
about deep depression and weeping. Spurgeon, who like
other great men of God suffered from depression from
time to time, put it beautifully: “He was dissolving
away in tears.” Are there times when you, too, “leak”
and feel you are dissolving away?
Because true persecution
is virtually non-existent in America at present, it is
difficult for us to identify with Believers who suffer
for their faith, as do those, for example, in communist
and Islamic countries. In this Psalm alone, David
repeatedly mentions that he is suffering for his
commitment to God’s Word (vs. 28, 50,67,71,75, 83, 92,
107, 109, 143, 153).
For what, then, does
David pray? Does he pray that God will destroy his
attackers? Does he pray for their misfortune? Does he
pray that he will be vindicated? No. He was, in fact,
burdened and sorrowful for them, as in verse 136:
“Rivers of waters run down mine eyes, because they keep
not thy law.” As for himself, however, he simply prayed,
strengthen
thou me according unto thy word. Dear Christian Friend, the Word of God is
always the answer. Only it will give you the strength to
meet each day head-on and every attacker
face-to-face.
V. Remind Me
(v. 29-31)
Remove
from me the way of lying: and grant me thy law
graciously.
I
have chosen the way of truth: thy judgments have I laid
before me.
I
have stuck unto thy testimonies: O LORD, put me not to
shame.
David is reminded
here of the underlying principle of faithfulness. We see
here the first of four occurrences of the word truth in
this Psalm (cf. vs. 43, 142, 151). This occurrence,
however, is a different Hebrew word (’emûnâ) than
the other three. This one literally means certainty and
faithfulness. It occurs, for example, in Exodus 17:12,
where as long as Moses held up his arms the Israelites
prevailed in a battle against the Amalekites. As his
arms tired and began to drop, however, the Amalekites
prevailed. Aaron and Hur, therefore, “stayed up
(’emûnâ) his hands, the one
on the one side, and the other on the other side; and
his hands were steady until the going down of the sun.”
It appears several times in speaking of God’s faithful,
one of which is later Psalm 119: “Thy faithfulness is
unto all generations: thou hast established the earth,
and it abideth.”
We all need to be
constantly reminded of faithfulness, because that is
what God blesses. In the context again of lying, as
in our text, this word also appears in Proverbs 12:22:
“Lying lips are abomination to the LORD: but they that
deal truly are his delight.” Oh, how we must be
constantly be reminded about lying! As
Paul tells us, it is the most prevalent sin of human
nature and is the first one he warns Christians about
because he can so easily creep back into their lives:
“Wherefore putting away lying, speak every man truth
with his neighbour: for we are members one of another”
(Eph. 4:25). In a society that is built on lying—from
businessmen, to politicians, to the news media, to
school textbooks, to our next-door neighbor—truth must rule the Believer’s life.
This Hebrew word appears
still again in Proverbs 28:20: “A faithful man shall
abound with blessings.” Indeed, blessing comes only by
faithfulness in every area of our lives.
David also adds,
grant me thy
law graciously. God gives His Word to us as a
blessing, not a burden. Some people look at the Bible and view it as a
burden because it says not to do certain things and
tells us how to live. But we need to realize that that
is precisely why it is therapeutic. It is what keeps us
from disaster, from doing the things that are sinful
and, therefore, destructive to others and ourselves. Is
that not what faithful parents do for their children? Do
we not tell them no to certain things for the purpose of
protecting them? God’s Word, then, is not a burden to be
carried in the arms, rather a blessing to be hidden in
the heart (119:11).
One other beautiful
picture of faithfulness is painted by the word stuck,
which translates the same Hebrew word (dabaq) as
does “cleaveth” back in verse 25, which expresses
David’s depression: “My soul cleaveth unto the dust.”
What a contrast! While at the beginning of the stanza
despair was sticking to him as though it were glued, as
the stanza closes it is now he who is glued to God’s
testimonies,
that is, sober and serious expressions of God’s
standards for human behavior. “While the dust of despair
is glued to me,” David says in effect, “I am ever glued
to God’s standards.” Glue is used in many ways in
construction and repair. A woodworker, for example, uses
glue to join boards together, and so strong is that bond
that the board will break in another spot before it will
break on that joint. That is how we are to be glued to
the Word God. If we do that, there will never be cause
for shame.
VI. Enlarge
Me (v. 32)
I
will run the way of thy commandments, when thou shalt
enlarge my heart.
Oh, what a graphic
verse this in light of our day and some of the prevalent
teachings in the church! The Hebrew behind enlarge
(rahab) means to extend, to
open wide, to gain living space or territory. As one
authority tells us, “The root often occurs in
descriptions of the spaciousness of the land of Canaan
(Genesis 26:22). . . . It is repeated in reaffirmations
of the extent of Israel's promised inheritance both
during and after the conquest of Canaan (Exodus 34:24;
Deut. 12:20; Isaiah 54:2).”[iv]
But is the
increasing of land David’s prayer? Prosperity teachers
read the verse that way, but that is not what David
says. While he uses a word that means the increasing of
land and property, he applies it to something infinitely
deeper. He prays, enlarge my
heart, that is, make my heart
larger and more spacious. Why? So more of God’s Word
will fit into it so that that he might, therefore, be
more fit to run the way of
[God’s] commandments. As
Paul challenges us: “Know ye not that they which run in
a race run all, but one receiveth the prize?” (I Cor.
9:24), and again in Hebrews 12:1: “Wherefore seeing we
also are compassed about with so great a cloud of
witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin
which doth so easily beset us, and let us run with
patience the race that is set before us.” When we do
that, we will then be able to say also with
Paul:
I have fought a good fight, I
have finished my course, I have kept the faith:
Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of
righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge,
shall give me at that day: and not to me only, but unto
all them also that love his appearing. (II Tim.
4:7-8).
Oh, that each of would
pray with David, “Lord, make my heart bigger so I can
fit more of your Word into it that I might be better
equipped to run the race you have laid out for
me.”
Dear Christian
Friend, when you find yourself needing some spiritual
therapy, needing to be revived, return to this stanza of
Psalm 119 for a little heart adjustment.
[i] Baker and Carpenter,
#6085.
[iv] Theological
Wordbook of the Old Testament,
#2143.
