The Book of Psalms

Word Study

"parable," Hebrew mashal (מָשָׁל). Asaph names his own method before he uses it -- a mashal is a comparison or proverb. Centuries later, Matthew quotes this very verse to explain why Jesus taught in parables: "I will open my mouth in parables; I will utter things which have been kept secret from the foundation of the world" (Matthew 13:35). Asaph's own words became a prophecy of the Lord's own teaching style.

"dark sayings of old," chidot minni-qedem (חִידוֹת מִנִּי־קֶדֶם). A chidah is a riddle or dark saying meant to make the hearer lean in and think. And these sayings are "of old," drawn out of the far past, the things "which we have heard and known, and our fathers have told us."

"we will not hide," lo nekhached (לֹא נְכַחֵד). The psalm opens with a solemn charge to hand the faith on: "We will not hide them from their children." What one generation has received was never meant to stop with it; to keep the story back would be to rob the young of it.

"generation to come," dor acharon (דּוֹר אַחֲרוֹן). The telling has a destination: "shewing to the generation to come the praises of the LORD." Asaph looks past the children in front of him to "the children which should be born," and aims the story at them.

"set their hope," vayasimu... kislam (וְיָשִׂימוּ... כִּסְלָם). Generation must tell generation, "that they might set their hope in God." This is the goal of all the telling: not that children should merely know about God, but that they should rest their confidence on Him.

"stubborn and rebellious," sorer umoreh (סוֹרֵר וּמֹרֶה). There is a sobering negative aim as well, that the children should not be "a stubborn and rebellious generation" like their fathers. The psalm tells Israel's failures honestly so that those who come after need not repeat them.

Explanation

Trace the chain of purpose in these opening verses, for it lays out God's whole design for passing faith across the generations. The fathers were commanded to "make them known to their children" (v5); so "that the generation to come might know them" (v6); who in turn "should arise and declare them to their children" (v6), a relay race of faith running down the centuries, each generation handing the baton to the next. But notice, crucially, what the goal of all this telling actually is. It is not merely that children would know facts about God; verse 7 names the real aim: "That they might set their hope in God, and not forget the works of God, but keep his commandments." The point of teaching the next generation is not information but hope and obedience, that they would rest their hope on God and walk in His ways. Head-knowledge that never becomes heart-hope has missed the target. And there is a sobering negative aim as well: "that they might not be as their fathers, a stubborn and rebellious generation." This is why the whole psalm goes on to recount Israel's failures so honestly, its unbelief, its forgetting, its rebellions, because history is told not to flatter the fathers but to warn the children. Faith is passed on by telling the truth about both God's faithfulness and man's failure, so that the next generation learns to hope in God and to avoid the sins that ruined those before them. Every generation stands one link from forgetting; the charge is to tell the story, honestly and hopefully, to the children, that they too may set their hope in God.

Gospel Focus

"Shewing to the generation to come the praises of the LORD... That they might set their hope in God", this charge is fulfilled and intensified in the gospel of Jesus Christ, which is passed on from generation to generation until He comes. The Lord Jesus commissioned His people to "teach all nations... teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you" (Matthew 28:19-20), and Paul charged the chain of testimony forward, "the things that thou hast heard of me... the same commit thou to faithful men, who shall be able to teach others also" (2 Timothy 2:2). We have the gospel only because generation after generation refused to "hide it from their children," and we owe the same debt to those who come after us. And the aim is still the same: not mere religious information but that the children would "set their hope in God," a hope now fixed on Christ, "who by him do believe in God... that your faith and hope might be in God" (1 Peter 1:21). Faithful Timothy knew "the holy scriptures" from a child, taught by his mother and grandmother (2 Timothy 1:5; 3:15). So tell the next generation the praises of the Lord, His works, His faithfulness, and the great work of the cross, honestly and hopefully, that they might not forget God, but set their hope in Jesus Christ and pass Him on to the children yet to come.

Word Study

"full of compassion," Hebrew rachum (רַחוּם), tender, merciful. After a long record of rebellion, the psalm turns on a great "But": "But he, being full of compassion..." By every rule of justice the account should have closed in ruin; instead it turns on the tender mercy of God.

"forgave their iniquity," yekhapper avon (יְכַפֵּר עָוֹן), atoned for, covered iniquity. The word does not mean the sin was ignored but that it was covered: "forgave their iniquity, and destroyed them not." Atonement, not indifference, is what stands between Israel and the judgment they had earned.

"destroyed them not," velo yashchit (וְלֹא יַשְׁחִית). From shachat, "to destroy, ruin, corrupt" -- the same verb used of the corruption that provoked the Flood ("the earth was corrupt," Genesis 6:11-12) and of the destroying angel at Passover ("the destroyer," Exodus 12:23). God withholds the very destruction His own justice would have warranted.

"remembered," vayyizkor (וַיִּזְכֹּר). From zakar, "to remember" -- in Hebrew this is never mere mental recall but covenant-remembering that moves God to act, the same verb used when "God remembered Noah" (Genesis 8:1) and "God remembered his covenant" (Exodus 2:24).

"but flesh," ki-basar hemmah (כִּי־בָשָׂר הֵמָּה). Basar, "flesh," is the ordinary word for weak, mortal, perishable humanity, set against God's own imperishable Spirit. It echoes God's word before the Flood: "My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh" (Genesis 6:3).

"wind that passeth away," ruach holekh velo yashuv (רוּחַ הוֹלֵךְ וְלֹא יָשׁוּב). Ruach is the same word that can mean "wind," "breath," or "spirit." Here it pictures a human lifespan as a wind that goes out and never comes back -- the same image Job uses of his own life: "my life is wind... mine eye shall no more see good" (Job 7:7). God's mercy is grounded in this tender knowledge of our frailty: "For he remembered that they were but flesh; a wind that passeth away."

Explanation

The word "But" at the head of verse 38 is one of the most beautiful turns in the psalm. For many verses Asaph has recounted Israel's provocations, how "they sinned yet more against him," "tempted God," "turned back," "flattered him with their mouth," again and again. By every rule of justice, the story should end in destruction. "But he, being full of compassion, forgave their iniquity, and destroyed them not." Against the mountain of their rebellion stands the greater mountain of His mercy. And then comes the reason, and it is astonishing: "For he remembered that they were but flesh." God's compassion takes account of what we are made of. He does not deal with us as though we were strong, stable creatures who ought to know better and have no excuse; He remembers that we are frail, dust, "a wind that passeth away, and cometh not again," here for a breath and gone. And here is the wonder: the very fact of our weakness, which might seem to be grounds for condemnation ("they are so weak and faithless"), God turns into grounds for pity. The same knowledge of our frailty that could disgust a lesser lord moves the Lord to compassion. He is not surprised or disillusioned by our weakness; He knew what He was dealing with all along, "he knoweth our frame; he remembereth that we are dust" (Psalm 103:14), and He pities us as a father pities his children. This is the tender heart of God toward His stumbling people: He remembers we are only flesh, and forgives.

Gospel Focus

"For he remembered that they were but flesh", this tender compassion for our frailty is revealed most fully in Jesus Christ, who not only remembers our flesh but took it. God's pity for our weakness moved Him to come Himself in our nature, "the Word was made flesh" (John 1:14), so that we have a High Priest who is "touched with the feeling of our infirmities" (Hebrews 4:15), who "himself took our infirmities" (Matthew 8:17). He knows our frame from the inside, having been "in all points tempted like as we are," and He "can have compassion on the ignorant, and on them that are out of the way; for that he himself also is compassed with infirmity" (Hebrews 5:2). And the forgiveness the psalm celebrates, "forgave their iniquity", the word means He atoned, He covered it, is accomplished forever at the cross, where Christ made the atonement that covers all our sin, "the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin" (1 John 1:7). So the frail, stumbling believer need not fear that God is done with him. The God who "remembered that they were but flesh" has come in the flesh to save flesh, and He pities and forgives His weak people, "like as a father pitieth his children, so the LORD pitieth them that fear him" (Psalm 103:13). Bring your frailty to the Saviour who took it, and find Him full of compassion.

Word Study

"chose David his servant," Hebrew vayyivchar bedavid avdo (וַיִּבְחַר בְּדָוִד עַבְדּוֹ). The long psalm ends not in judgment but in a gift: God gave His wayward people a shepherd. "He chose David also his servant" -- the choosing is entirely God's, and the title David is given here is not king but servant.

"sheepfolds," mikle'ot tzon (מִכְלְאֹת צֹאן). God "took him from the sheepfolds," from following the ewes great with young. The man who would shepherd a nation was drawn out of an actual sheep pen, formed among real flocks long before he was set over Israel.

"to feed," lir'ot (לִרְעוֹת), to shepherd, tend. The same word covers both callings: God brought him "to feed Jacob his people" just as he had fed his father's sheep. In God's hand, ruling His people is nothing other than shepherding them.

"his inheritance," nachalato (נַחֲלָתוֹ). Israel is named God's own inheritance, His portion and possession. The flock David is handed does not belong to David; he tends what is God's, and answers to the Owner for it.

"integrity of his heart," ketom levavo (כְּתֹם לְבָבוֹ). David "fed them according to the integrity of his heart." The shepherd's first qualification is inward, a whole and undivided heart, before ever it is a matter of ability.

"skilfulness of his hands," bitvunot kappav (בִּתְבוּנוֹת כַּפָּיו). To the honest heart is joined a practised hand: he "guided them by the skilfulness of his hands." Integrity within and skill without together make the shepherd God gives His people.

Explanation

Consider where this long psalm chooses to end, for it is full of meaning. After seventy verses of Israel's rescues and rebellions, its forgetting and rebelling and God's patient mercy, how will the story close? Not, as we might expect, in a final judgment, nor in a summons to try harder. It ends with a gift: "He chose David also his servant, and took him from the sheepfolds... to feed Jacob his people." God's answer to a wayward, ungovernable people is to give them a shepherd. And notice the lovely detail: David was taken "from the sheepfolds," "from following the ewes great with young", he was literally a shepherd of sheep before God made him the shepherd of Israel. The gentleness he had learned carrying newborn lambs and tending pregnant ewes was exactly the tenderness God wanted in the shepherd of His people. And how did David shepherd them? "According to the integrity of his heart; and guided them by the skilfulness of his hands", with a sincere heart and a skilled hand, care and competence together. But mark this: David, for all his integrity, was himself one of the frail flesh the psalm has just described; his heart's integrity was real but imperfect, and his story would include grievous failure. So the shepherd God gave was a signpost, pointing past himself to a Shepherd whose heart would be perfectly whole and whose hand would never slip. The whole psalm has been reaching for this: the answer to rebellious sheep is a shepherd-king, and the true and final answer is the Shepherd yet to come.

Gospel Focus

"He chose David also his servant, and took him from the sheepfolds... to feed Jacob his people", David the shepherd-king is a shadow of the true Shepherd of God's people, the Lord Jesus Christ, great David's greater Son. Where David fed the flock "with the integrity of his heart," yet fell into sin, Christ shepherds His people with a perfect heart and a hand that never fails, for He is "the good shepherd" who "giveth his life for the sheep" (John 10:11), and "that great shepherd of the sheep" (Hebrews 13:20), "the chief Shepherd" who will appear in glory (1 Peter 5:4). God promised through the prophets that He would set over His scattered people "one shepherd... even my servant David" (Ezekiel 34:23), and that promise is fulfilled in Jesus, born in David's city, of David's line, the everlasting King who feeds His flock. So the long story of Israel's rebellion, and the long story of our own, does not end in destruction but in the gift of a Shepherd. To a wayward, wandering people God gave His Son, who seeks the lost sheep, carries the weak, feeds the flock with truth, and lays down His life for them. Come to the Shepherd God has given; His heart is perfect and His hand is skilled, and He will feed and guide His people all the way home.