The Book of Psalms

Word Study

"cry," Hebrew eqra (אֶקְרָא), call aloud. David comes to God in urgent need, and everything hangs on whether God will answer. "Unto thee will I cry, O LORD my rock." Notice his confidence even in his fear: he still calls, "unto thee will I cry"; he does not stop praying because God seems silent, but prays all the harder.

"my rock," tzuri (צוּרִי). He calls God his "rock", his immovable refuge, the one thing under him that cannot shift. But it is not enough to have a Rock; the Rock must speak, must hear, must answer.

"be not silent," al-techerash (אַל־תֶּחֱרַשׁ), do not be deaf, do not keep silence. He pleads that this Rock would not remain silent to him. The terror he dreads is not primarily his enemies but God's silence. Here we see how much the believer's whole life depends on communion with God: the worst thing that could befall the soul is not trouble, but a God who will not respond.

"pit," bor (בּוֹר), the grave, the place of the dead. "Lest, if thou be silent to me, I become like them that go down into the pit." To have God refuse to answer would be, for David, as good as death; a prayer met only with silence would leave him among the hopeless dead. So the dread of God's silence drives him not away from God but toward Him, crying until the Rock answers.

Explanation

There is a quiet paradox in the way David addresses God here, and it is the key to the verse. A rock is the most silent thing in all the world; it sits, immovable, and says nothing. Yet David cries, "O LORD my rock; be not silent to me." He wants his Rock to speak. That tells us he needs God to be two things at once, and stability alone is not enough. A rock that merely stands there, however solid, cannot comfort a drowning man; David needs a Rock that is also a voice, unshakable and responsive, firm under his feet and speaking to his ear. And notice how exactly he names the terror of God's silence: "lest... I become like them that go down into the pit." The pit, the grave, is above all the realm of silence, the place where no one speaks and no one answers. So a God who would not answer him would already have numbered him among the silent dead; unanswered prayer would be a kind of pre-burial. That is why he lifts his hands "toward thy holy oracle" (v2), toward the very place God speaks from. He is not content with a monument; he is reaching for the mouth of God, and will keep reaching until the Rock replies.

Gospel Focus

"Be not silent to me... lest I become like them that go down into the pit", the silence David dreaded fell in full upon Jesus Christ, so that God would never be finally silent to us. On the cross the Son cried out and, for that dreadful hour, heaven was silent: "O my God, I cry in the daytime, but thou hearest not" (Psalm 22:2). Christ endured the silence of God, the very abandonment David feared, and went down into the pit of death in our place, that we might always be heard. And because He rose, God's silence toward His people is forever broken; in Christ, "God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son" (Hebrews 1:1-2). The Rock has spoken, and His name is Jesus, the Word made flesh. Now the believer never cries into an empty sky, for we have a great High Priest who ever lives to intercede, and a Father who hears us for His sake: "if we ask any thing according to his will, he heareth us" (1 John 5:14). Christ took the silence and the pit so that our every cry is heard. Cry to the Rock; He is no longer silent, for He has spoken finally and fully in His Son.

Word Study

"strength," Hebrew uzzi (עֻזִּי). At verse 6 the whole psalm turns: "Blessed be the LORD, because he hath heard the voice of my supplications." The dreaded silence is broken, and the answered cry overflows into praise: "The LORD is my strength and my shield." God is his strength, the inward power that upholds him.

"shield," maginni (מָגִנִּי). God is also his shield, the outward protection that covers him. Between the two words David is defended within and without.

"trusted," batach (בָּטַח), leaned on, relied. "My heart trusted in him, and I am helped." The word pictures the whole weight of a man leaning on something to hold him up. Faith leaned its whole weight on God first, in the dark, before any help had arrived.

"helped," ne'ezarti (נֶעֱזָרְתִּי). Notice the beautiful chain: he trusted, and he was helped. The order matters -- faith leaned, and then help came. Faith that leans on God is never finally disappointed.

"greatly rejoiceth," vaya'aloz (וַיַּעֲלֹז), exults, leaps for joy. The help, once received, produces its first response: "therefore my heart greatly rejoiceth." The heart exults, leaping for joy. This is the pattern of the life of faith: we come with trembling cries, we trust God in the dark, we are helped, and the help turns to joy.

"song," shir (שִׁיר). The second response is on the lips: "with my song will I praise him." The trusting heart that once cried "be not silent" now sings. Sooner or later, faith turns to a song.

Explanation

Look carefully at exactly when the song begins, because it is earlier than we expect. The turn comes at verse 6: "Blessed be the LORD, because he hath heard the voice of my supplications." Notice, it does not say "because he hath delivered me" or "because my enemies are destroyed", it says because He heard. And on the strength of that alone, verse 7 erupts: "my heart greatly rejoiceth; and with my song will I praise him." The song does not wait for the rescue to be visible; it starts the instant David knows he has been heard. Faith sings at the sound of God listening, not only at the sight of the problem solved, because to be heard by God is already to be as good as helped. And watch the word "heart" carry the whole journey. Back in the fear it was "my heart" that dreaded the silence; here it is "my heart trusted... my heart greatly rejoiceth." It is the very same heart, the one that leaned its weight on God in the dark is the one that now leaps for joy. Trust and gladness are not two different organs; they are one heart at two moments, and the first ripens into the second as surely as a seed into fruit. The heart that trusts is on its way to becoming the heart that sings.

Gospel Focus

"The LORD is my strength and my shield; my heart trusted in him, and I am helped", this trusting help is ours in fullness in Jesus Christ, our strength, our shield, and our great help. He is the strength of the weak, "I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me" (Philippians 4:13), and His grace is our shield against every fiery dart, for we take "the shield of faith" (Ephesians 6:16), which is faith in Him. The gospel is God's help come down to the helpless: "God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble" (Psalm 46:1), and that present help is Christ, "Emmanuel... God with us" (Matthew 1:23). Those who trust in Him are helped and never ashamed, "he that believeth on him shall not be confounded" (1 Peter 2:6). And the fruit of that help, as with David, is joy and song, the believer's heart made glad in salvation, "rejoice in the Lord alway: and again I say, Rejoice" (Philippians 4:4), and lifted in praise, "singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord" (Colossians 3:16). So when the answered prayer of a trusting soul overflows into a song, it is Christ our strength and shield who has helped us, and to Him the song rises. Lean your whole weight on Jesus; you will be helped, and your cry will become a song.

Word Study

"save," Hebrew hoshi'ah (הוֹשִׁיעָה), from yasha, the root of the name Jesus. The psalm closes with a beautiful widening of heart. Having been heard and helped himself, David does not end with his own concerns; he turns to pray for all God's people: "Save thy people, and bless thine inheritance."

"thy people," ammekha (עַמֶּךָ). As king, David sees himself bound up with the whole flock; his private deliverance makes him long for theirs. This is the mark of a heart that has truly tasted God's mercy: it cannot rest in private blessing but reaches out for the good of God's whole people.

"bless," barekh (בָּרֵךְ). Salvation is not the whole of his request. Having asked God to rescue them, he asks God to do them good besides -- to bless the people He has saved.

"inheritance," nachalatekha (נַחֲלָתֶךָ). Israel is not only God's "people" but His "inheritance", His treasured possession. David's plea rests on the fact that they already belong to God, and God does not abandon what is His own.

"feed them," re'em (רְעֵם), shepherd them, tend them as a flock. Here the language turns to that of a shepherd. He asks God to shepherd and tend His people, which is exactly what David himself had been called from the sheepfold to do for them.

"lift them up," venasse'em (וְנַשְּׂאֵם), carry them, bear them up. The shepherd image goes further still: to carry them as a shepherd carries a weak lamb. The one who has been helped prays that all the flock may be helped; the one lifted up longs for all to be lifted up.

"for ever," ad-ha'olam (עַד־הָעוֹלָם). David asks that this saving, blessing, shepherding, and carrying go on without end. Personal grace should always widen into intercession for the church, and here it widens into intercession that never runs out.

Explanation

Two things quietly reverse in this last verse, and together they turn the whole psalm around. The first is the direction of the pronouns. From verse 1 to verse 8 the psalm is intensely singular, "I cry... my rock... my heart... my strength", one man alone with God. Then the final verse breaks that "I" completely and turns wholly outward: "Save thy people, and bless thine inheritance: feed them... lift them up." Not a single "my" remains. That pronoun-break is the signature of a healed heart; a soul truly helped does not stay curved in on itself but opens toward others. The second reversal is the direction of travel. The psalm began in dread of going down, "like them that go down into the pit" (v1); it ends with a prayer to be lifted up, "lift them up for ever" (v9). Down toward death at the start, up for ever at the close, the whole arc bends from the grave toward glory. And note who David asks to do the shepherding. He is the king, the shepherd of Israel, yet he does not say "I will feed them"; he prays, "feed them... lift them up", asking God to be the Shepherd. Having just been carried himself, the under-shepherd hands the whole flock up to the Chief Shepherd, and will not try to bear them in his own strength.

Gospel Focus

"Save thy people... feed them also, and lift them up for ever", this shepherd's prayer is answered in Jesus Christ, who saves, feeds, and carries His people for ever. His very name is this prayer fulfilled: "thou shalt call his name JESUS: for he shall save his people from their sins" (Matthew 1:21), the word "save," yasha, being the root of His name. He is the Good Shepherd who feeds the flock, "he shall feed his flock like a shepherd: he shall gather the lambs with his arm, and carry them in his bosom" (Isaiah 40:11), the very "feeding" and "lifting up" this verse asks for. The church is His "inheritance," the people He purchased "with his own blood" (Acts 20:28), blessed in Him with "all spiritual blessings" (Ephesians 1:3). And He lifts them up "for ever," for He loses none, but raises them up at the last day (John 6:39) to dwell with Him eternally. David's prayer for the whole flock is Christ's own heart, who prayed for all His people, "Holy Father, keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me" (John 17:11). So we join this intercession, praying that the Good Shepherd would save, bless, feed, and carry all His people, confident that the One who bought the flock with His blood will surely lift them up for ever.