The Book of Psalms

Word Study

"light," Hebrew ori (אוֹרִי). The psalm opens with a triple confession that leaves no room for fear. "The LORD is my light", the one who dispels the darkness of ignorance, danger, and despair, and shows the way. Notice that David does not say the LORD gives him light, but that the LORD is his light; God Himself, not merely His gifts, is the ground of confidence.

"salvation," yish'i (יִשְׁעִי), from the root of the name Jesus. "The LORD is my salvation", the one who delivers and saves. The same root will one day supply the name of the Saviour Himself, so that what David confesses here in a word is what the gospel later announces in a Person.

"strength," ma'oz (מָעוֹז), stronghold, fortress. "The LORD is the strength of my life", literally the stronghold, the fortress of my life. Where God is present as light, salvation, and stronghold, fear has no ground left to stand on.

"of my life," chayyai (חַיָּי). The fortress is thrown up not around David's possessions or his throne but around his life itself. Fear is finally the sense that we face our troubles alone and unprotected; but the one who can say "the LORD is my light and my salvation" knows he never faces anything alone.

"afraid," efchad (אֶפְחָד), dread, be in terror. From each confession springs a fearless question: "whom shall I fear?... of whom shall I be afraid?" These are not questions seeking an answer but declarations that there is no one and nothing left to dread. If the LORD Himself is my light, my salvation, and my fortress, then every source of terror is swallowed up in His greatness.

Explanation

The three confessions are not a random heap of praise; they fall in a deliberate order, and the order is the argument. First "light," then "salvation," then "the strength of my life", the fortress. Think about why light must come first. You cannot be rescued from a danger you cannot see; before God delivers, He gives light to show the threat for what it truly is, stripping away the exaggerations of fear and the deceptions of the dark. Then comes "salvation", once the danger is seen truly, God delivers out of it. And then "strength," the stronghold, God keeps you secure through and after it. See the danger, be delivered from it, be held safe through it: light, salvation, fortress, in that sequence. And notice the shape of the two questions that answer each confession, "whom shall I fear? ... of whom shall I be afraid?" Both ask "whom", a person. Every real fear finally has a face; we are afraid of someone who might harm us (and verses 2-3 will name them, the enemies who encamp against him). David meets that "whom can hurt me?" with a greater "whom": the LORD Himself is with him. Fear counts the persons ranged against us; faith counts the Person who is for us, and the count is settled before the battle begins.

Gospel Focus

"The LORD is my light and my salvation", and the LORD who is our light came in flesh as Jesus Christ, who said, "I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life" (John 8:12). The light David rejoiced in has a face, and it is the face of Jesus; the salvation he trusted has a name, for yeshu'ah, salvation, is the root of the name Jesus, "the LORD is salvation." In Christ, God is our light and our salvation in the fullest sense: He drives back the darkness of sin and death, "the people which sat in darkness saw great light" (Matthew 4:16), and He saves to the uttermost all who come to Him. This is why the believer need not fear: "if God be for us, who can be against us?" (Romans 8:31). The One who is our light and salvation is also "the strength of our life," our stronghold, and neither death nor life nor any created thing can separate us from His love (Romans 8:38-39). When fear rises, look to the Light of the world; when danger presses, hide in the stronghold who is Christ. With Jesus as our light and our salvation, we may face any darkness and any foe and ask, without a tremor, "whom shall I fear?"

Word Study

"one thing," Hebrew achat (אַחַת). Amid the many things a man in danger might ask for, David reduces his whole desire to one: "One thing have I desired of the LORD, that will I seek after." A single, focused longing rules his heart, and it is not for safety, wealth, or victory, but for God Himself. Jesus commended the same singleness to Martha: "one thing is needful: and Mary hath chosen that good part" (Luke 10:42).

"desired," sha'alti (שָׁאַלְתִּי), asked, requested. This is the language of a petition actually laid before God, not a wish quietly entertained. David has asked for this one thing, and having asked it, he holds to it.

"seek after," avaqqesh (אֲבַקֵּשׁ). The asking becomes a pursuit: "that will I seek after." This is the mark of a heart that has found its true treasure; it is no longer scattered across a hundred wants but gathered into one.

"dwell," shivti (שִׁבְתִּי). What he asks and seeks is spelled out: "that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life." He wants above all to be where God is, and to be there not as a visitor but as a resident, all his days.

"beauty," no'am (נֹעַם), the delightfulness, pleasantness, loveliness. He longs "to behold the beauty of the LORD" -- His no'am, His delightful loveliness. He has seen enough of God to want nothing more than to see more.

"enquire," levaqqer (לְבַקֵּר), to seek, contemplate, gaze upon. The last of his desires is "to enquire in his temple", to seek God continually and gaze upon Him. Amid all our anxieties and desires, the soul is steadied and satisfied when it narrows to this one thing: to dwell with God and behold His beauty. Seek this one thing, and everything else finds its place.

Explanation

Remember where the man saying this actually stands. He is not a monk at leisure in a quiet cloister; he is a soldier with "an host" encamped against him, "war" rising up around him (v3), a hunted man. And this is the man who says his whole heart has narrowed to "one thing": to "dwell in the house of the LORD." The single desire is not an escape from the war but an orientation held in the middle of it. And watch what he actually longs to do in that house, for it is two things held together: "to behold the beauty of the LORD, and to enquire in his temple", to gaze and to ask, adoration and seeking counsel. He wants both to worship God for His loveliness and to consult Him for his life. Then read on one verse, and something quietly profound appears: the very house he longs to dwell in for its beauty is also his hiding place, "for in the time of trouble he shall hide me in his pavilion" (v5). So the "one thing" fuses what we always keep in separate rooms, the most beautiful place and the safest place turn out to be the same place. The world sends us to one address for delight and a different one for security; David has found that God's presence is at once the loveliest sight and the strongest refuge, and so his hundred wants collapse happily into one.

Gospel Focus

"To behold the beauty of the LORD", the beauty David longed to see is unveiled in Jesus Christ, in whose face the glory of God shines. God "hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ" (2 Corinthians 4:6); to behold the beauty of the LORD is, in the end, to behold Christ. In Him the "one thing" David sought becomes ours, for through Christ we may dwell in God's presence now and forever, and the great promise of the gospel is that "we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory" (2 Corinthians 3:18). The vision is not yet complete, for now we see through a glass darkly; but the day is coming when "we shall see him as he is" (1 John 3:2) and gaze on His beauty unveiled, dwelling in the house of the LORD for ever. This is the believer's true and final desire, greater than any other good: to be where Christ is and to behold His loveliness. Let your many wants be gathered into this one, and set your heart on beholding the beauty of the Lord Jesus, for those who seek this one thing shall not be disappointed; they shall see His face.

Word Study

"wait," Hebrew qavveh (קַוֵּה) from qavah, to wait, hope, look eagerly for, like a taut cord stretched in expectation. The psalm closes with a word David speaks to his own soul, and to ours: "Wait on the LORD... wait, I say, on the LORD." The repetition is deliberate and emphatic; waiting is so hard, and so necessary, that it must be urged twice. To wait on the LORD in this sense is not passive idleness but active, hopeful expectation, the soul stretched toward God like a taut cord, looking for Him to act in His time.

"be of good courage," chazaq (חֲזַק), be strong. Just before this, David had confessed how near he came to breaking: "I had fainted, unless I had believed to see the goodness of the LORD in the land of the living" (v13). Faith kept him from fainting, and now faith issues its charge -- be strong -- to the man who must go on waiting.

"strengthen," ya'ametz (יַאֲמֵץ), make firm, embolden. The promise set in the middle of the verse is precious: "he shall strengthen thine heart." God does not always at once remove the trouble, but He makes firm and emboldens the one who endures it. This is often God's way: not the immediate deliverance we crave, but the strengthened heart that can wait for it.

"thine heart," libbekha (לִבֶּךָ). The strengthening goes to the very place where courage fails first. Be of good courage, and wait; the God who is your light and salvation will not fail the heart that waits for Him.

Explanation

Notice who David is talking to in this last verse, because it changes through the psalm. For thirteen verses he has spoken to God or about God, "The LORD is my light... hear, O LORD... hide not thy face." Now, at the very end, he turns and speaks to himself: "Wait on the LORD: be of good courage... wait, I say, on the LORD." He takes his own trembling heart in hand and preaches to it. This is a skill the faithful must learn, to stop merely listening to a fearful heart and start talking to it, commanding it toward God. And see how honestly the psalm ends. It does not close with the enemy defeated or the trouble lifted; the "host" of verse 3 and the "false witnesses" of verse 12 are still out there. Nothing in the circumstances has changed. What the psalm resolves is not the crisis but the soul, a heart charged to wait and be strong while the trouble stands unresolved. And hear the last word of the whole song: "the LORD." It is the exact word the psalm opened with, "The LORD is my light" (v1). All the fear, all the armies, all the pleading, are bracketed between the Name at the beginning and the Name at the end. Whatever fills the middle, the LORD is the first word and the last, and that is enough to wait on.

Gospel Focus

"Wait on the LORD: be of good courage, and he shall strengthen thine heart", this waiting finds its rest and its reward in Jesus Christ, who strengthens the hearts of His people and who is Himself the goal of their hope. Those who wait on the LORD are never put to shame, "they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles" (Isaiah 40:31), and that renewing strength is ministered by Christ, who says, "my grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness" (2 Corinthians 12:9). The Christian life is largely a life of waiting, "waiting for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ" (1 Corinthians 1:7), and in the waiting He strengthens the inner man "with might by his Spirit" (Ephesians 3:16). The One for whom we ultimately wait is Christ Himself, who will surely come, "he that shall come will come, and will not tarry" (Hebrews 10:37). So we take up David's charge, spoken now in the light of the risen and returning Saviour: be of good courage, for the goodness of the LORD in the land of the living is nothing less than the face of Jesus, and the God who kept David from fainting will strengthen your heart too. Wait, I say, on the LORD; His strength is pledged to the waiting soul, and His coming is sure.