The Book of Psalms

Word Study

"commit," Hebrew afqid (אַפְקִיד) from paqad, to deposit, entrust, place for safekeeping. Here is the heart of the psalm, and one of the great sentences of Scripture: "Into thine hand I commit my spirit." The verb paqad is a banking word: to deposit something precious with a trusted keeper for safekeeping. This is the summit of faith -- not merely asking God for help, but handing over the whole self into His keeping.

"my spirit," ruchi (רוּחִי). David takes his very life, his spirit, and places it as a treasured deposit into the hand of God, confident it is safer there than anywhere else. And these very words became the last words of the Lord Jesus on the cross, so that this verse has comforted the dying of God's people ever since, for the hand into which we commit our spirit is a hand that never fails.

"redeemed," paditah (פָּדִיתָה), ransomed, bought back. He grounds this trust on what God has already done: "thou hast redeemed me." Because God has already ransomed him, David can entrust everything to Him; the past act of redemption is the foundation of the present act of committal.

"God of truth," El emet (אֵל אֱמֶת), the faithful, trustworthy God. "O LORD God of truth." The deposit is safe because the keeper is faithful and true. Whatever the trouble, whatever the outcome, the soul rests in the reliable hand of the God of truth.

Explanation

Notice the order of the two halves of this verse, because it is the whole logic of faith. First, "Into thine hand I commit my spirit", a present act of trust; then, "thou hast redeemed me", a past accomplished fact. David does not entrust himself to an untested God on a hopeful gamble. He commits his spirit because God has already redeemed him; the leap of trust is backed by the memory of a rescue already given. That is how faith works, it reasons from what God has done to what God can be trusted with, staking the unknown future on the proven past. And look at the name he attaches: "O LORD God of truth", El emet, the God whose defining quality is faithfulness, reliability. You deposit what is precious only with a keeper you can trust, and here the keeper is Trustworthiness itself. The next verse sharpens the choice: "I have hated them that regard lying vanities" (v6). There are two kinds of keeper on offer, the "lying vanities" the world commits itself to, and the God of truth; the empty idols that will fail, or the faithful God who never does. David hands his spirit to the one keeper who is, by His very name, incapable of proving false.

Gospel Focus

"Into thine hand I commit my spirit", these were the last words of Jesus Christ on the cross. "When Jesus had cried with a loud voice, he said, Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit: and having said thus, he gave up the ghost" (Luke 23:46). The dying Saviour reached to this psalm and made its confession His own, entrusting His spirit into the Father's hand in the very hour of death. Notice how He completed it: David could say "thou hast redeemed me," looking back on rescue; Christ was Himself accomplishing the redemption as He spoke, so that David's word of trust became the Redeemer's word of triumph. And because Jesus commended His spirit into the Father's hand and was raised again, His people can die with the same words on their lips, as Stephen did, "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit" (Acts 7:59), committing his spirit now to the risen Christ. The hand into which we commit our spirit is the pierced hand of the One who redeemed us, and out of that hand none can pluck us (John 10:28). So the believer may live and die entrusting the whole self to God, for the words Christ breathed out in death He has made safe for us: into His faithful hand we commit our spirit, and He who redeemed us will keep it for ever.

Word Study

"my times," Hebrew ittotai (עִתֹּתָי), my seasons, my appointed times, all the turns and circumstances of my life. Having committed his spirit to God's hand (v5), David now commits his whole life's course to the same hand: "My times are in thy hand." The plural takes in all the varied seasons and circumstances of his life -- its joys and sorrows, its dangers and deliverances, its beginning and its end.

"in thy hand," beyadekha (בְּיָדֶךָ). This is the deep comfort of providence: our lives are not at the mercy of chance, fate, or the schemes of the wicked, but are held moment by moment in the hand of a loving and sovereign God. To say "my times are in thy hand" is to lay down the anxious effort to control our own lives and to rest in the One who orders all our seasons wisely and well.

"deliver," hatzileni (הַצִּילֵנִי). Resting in God's hand does not silence prayer; it shapes it. Certain that his times are held above, David asks plainly to be rescued from what threatens him below.

"the hand of mine enemies," miyyad oyevai (מִיַּד אֹיְבָי). Notice the beautiful contrast in the verse: his "times" are in God's hand, and he asks to be delivered from the hand of his enemies. Because his times rest in God's hand, no enemy's hand can seize them apart from God's will. Nothing can touch us but what passes through that hand; whatever hand seems to threaten us, the decisive hand is God's.

Explanation

Weigh the exact word David uses, for it is plural: not "my time is in thy hand," but "my times." He does not hand God only the one crisis he is in, or only the hour of his death; he hands over the whole calendar, every season of his life at once, the bright ones and the bitter ones alike. That is harder than it sounds. It is easy to believe God holds the good days and to secretly suspect the bad ones have slipped out of His grip; David puts them all, plural, into the same hand, including the very trouble he is presently begging to escape. And there is something more in the word. "Times" (ittot) is about when, about timing, and so this little sentence surrenders the hardest thing of all: not merely that God holds his life, but that God holds the schedule of it, the delays, the long "how long," the hour when rescue will come and the hour when it will not, the timing of his death itself. To say "my times are in thy hand" is to stop pounding on God's timetable, to lay down the demand that He act now, on my clock, and to trust that the One who sets the seasons has set mine rightly. The anxious question is almost never "will God act?" but "why has He not acted yet?", and this verse quietly answers it: even the "yet" is in His hand.

Gospel Focus

"My times are in thy hand", this confidence is made sure for the believer in Jesus Christ, in whose hand our lives are held and from whose hand no one can pluck us. The same providence David trusted is now known in the face of the Saviour who numbers the very hairs of our head and without whom not a sparrow falls (Matthew 10:29-30). Because our times are in God's hand, the believer need not fear the appointed seasons, not the day of trouble, nor the hour of death, for all are held by the One who loves us and gave Himself for us. Jesus lived every moment in this trust, "mine hour is not yet come" (John 2:4), and went to the cross only when His time had fully come, teaching us that our times too are in the Father's hand. And His promise to His sheep secures it forever: "neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand" (John 10:28). So we may face an uncertain future without dread, "I know whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day" (2 Timothy 1:12). Lay down the anxious struggle to control your life; your times, and your very self, are in the nail-pierced hand of Christ, and that hand will never let you go.

Word Study

"how great," Hebrew mah-rav (מָה־רַב), how abundant. The psalm breaks into wonder: "Oh how great is thy goodness." This is not a measured statement but an exclamation; God's goodness toward His people is not meager but abundant, and David can only stand back and marvel at the quantity of it.

"goodness," tuvekha (טוּבְךָ). The thing marvelled at is God's own goodness, and two things are said of it in this verse: it is laid up, and it is wrought openly. It is both hidden treasure and public display, stored up for the future and shown forth in the present.

"laid up," tzafanta (צָפַנְתָּ), stored, treasured, hidden away as a treasure. The word pictures a hidden reserve kept safe. There is far more goodness in store for the believer than he has yet tasted; God keeps a treasury of blessing laid up against the day of need and against eternity.

"them that fear thee," yere'ekha (יְרֵאֶיךָ). The treasure is not laid up at random but reserved for a particular people -- those who fear God. Reverence toward Him is the mark of those for whom the store is kept.

"wrought," pa'alta (פָּעַלְתָּ), done, accomplished. The goodness is also "wrought... before the sons of men." God openly displays it, working deliverances in the sight of the watching world, so that His care for His own becomes a public testimony.

"trust in thee," hachosim bakh (הַחֹסִים בָּךְ). These are the ones before whose eyes and on whose behalf God works. Here is comfort for the trusting soul in trouble: however dark the present hour, there is a vast store of God's goodness laid up, and He will bring it forth in His time, both for our good and for His glory before all the world.

Explanation

Feel how far this outburst has travelled from where the psalm was just standing. A few verses earlier David was as low as a man can go: "I am forgotten as a dead man out of mind: I am like a broken vessel" (v12), a discarded pot, a name no one remembers. And now, suddenly, "Oh how great is thy goodness, which thou hast laid up for them that fear thee!" Put the two together and something wonderful appears. The man who felt utterly forgotten discovers that God had all the while been storing up goodness for him. The word "laid up" (tzafan) is the word for a hidden treasure kept in reserve. So the very silence that felt like neglect was in fact a treasury quietly filling; what looked like being forgotten was actually being provided for, out of sight. God's apparent forgetfulness of His own is very often not absence at all, but a store of goodness being laid up against the day it is needed. And notice the audience: the goodness is "wrought... before the sons of men." Back in verse 11 David was "a reproach... especially among my neighbours", shamed publicly, before men. Now God's goodness will be displayed just as publicly, "before the sons of men." The same watching crowd that saw his humiliation will be made to see his vindication. Public shame is answered by public grace.

Gospel Focus

"Oh how great is thy goodness, which thou hast laid up for them that fear thee", the treasure of God's goodness is stored up for us in Jesus Christ, and displayed to the world at His cross. The greatest goodness God ever laid up He gave in His Son, "God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us" (Romans 5:8), the goodness "wrought... before the sons of men" openly at Calvary. And there is yet more laid up: an inheritance "incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you" (1 Peter 1:4), and glories of which it is written, "Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard... the things which God hath prepared for them that love him" (1 Corinthians 2:9). The believer has tasted only the firstfruits of God's goodness in Christ; the vast treasure is still being kept for us, "laid up" against the day we see Him face to face. All the goodness of God, past, present, and to come, is "yea, and in him Amen" (2 Corinthians 1:20), gathered up and guaranteed in Jesus. So we trust Him in the dark, knowing that the God who did not spare His own Son will "with him also freely give us all things" (Romans 8:32). Oh how great is His goodness, laid up and secured for us in Christ.