Psalms 40:1-17

Psalms 40

DESCRIPTIVE TITLE

Three Stirring Reminiscences of King David's History.

ANALYSIS

Part I., Significant Memorials of David's Coronation. Stanza I., Psalms 40:1-3, A highly Figurative Description of David's Deliverance from being an Outlaw to being King. Stanza II., Psalms 40:4-5, Felicitations to All who Trust in Jehovah, prompted by David's Own Experience, awaken Glad Memories of the Past, and Adoring Anticipations of the Future. Stanzas III. and IV., Psalms 40:6-11, David's Profound Apprehension of his Kingly Calling makes of him a Proclaimer of Jehovah's Righteousness to an ever-Enlarging Assembly.

Part II., A Significant fragmentary Memento of David's Sin, Psalms 40:12.

Part III., King David in Trouble. Stanza I., Psalms 40:13-15, Prayer against his Enemies. Stanza II., Psalms 40:16-17, Prayer in Favour of his Friends. In both stanzas the Note of Urgency is struck.

(Lm.) By DavidPsalm.[422] (Part I.)

[422] Some cod.: PsalmBy DavidGn.

1

I waited intently for Jehovah

and he inclined unto me,[423]

[423] M.T. adds: and heard my cry for help.

2

And brought me up out of the roaring[424] pit

[424] See Intro., Chap. III., Earth. According to a slightly different reading: destroying.

out of the swampy mire;
And set up on a cliff my feet
making firm my steps;

3

And put in my mouth a new song

praise unto our God:
Many will see and revere
and trust in Jehovah.

4

How happy the man

who hath made Jehovah his trust,
And hath not turned aside to vanities[425]

[425] Or: vain idolsreading (w. Br. and O.G.) h b l instead of r h b. M.T.: the proud.

nor to such as are falling away to falsehood!

5

Many things hast thou done

thou Jehovah my God!
Thy wondrous works and thy plans[426]

[426] M.T.: for us; but not in Sep.

there is no setting in order:[427]

[427] M.T.: unto thee; and then render (w. Del. and Dr.): there is none to be compared unto thee. But not in Sep.

I would tell and would speak
they are too numerous to be told.

6

Peace-offering and grain-offering thou didst not delight in

then was there a covenant for me,[428]

[428] So, in substance, Br., endeavouring to get behind, and account for, the divergence between M.T. (ears hast thou digged for me) and Sep. (a body hast thou fitted for me) quoted Hebrews 10:5.

Ascending-sacrifice and sin-bearer thou didst not ask
then didst thou command[429] me:

[429] So Br., by a very slight change from M.T. For such use of -amar, see Psalms 105:31; Psalms 105:34, 2 Chronicles 29:24.

7

Lo! I am come

in the written scroll is it prescribed to me,

8

Thy pleasure I delight in

and thy law is in my deepest affections,[430]

[430] MI.: in the midst of mine inwards.

9

I have heralded the good-tidings of righteousness[431] in a large assembly[432]

[431] Cp. Intro.. Chap. III., righteousness.

[432] Cp. Psalms 22:25, Psalms 35:18, and Psalms 40:10 below.

behold my lips!

10

I will not withhold O Jehovah thou knowest

thy righteousness
I have not covered in the midst of my heart
thy faithfulness and thy salvation;
I sayI have not concealed thy kindness and thy truth
from a large assembly:[433]

[433] Cp. Psalms 40:9 above.

11

Thou Jehovah wilt not withhold thy compassions from me,

Thy kindness and thy truth will continually preserve me.

(Part II.)

12

Surely there closed in upon me misfortunes

till they were without number,

Mine iniquities overtook me
and I could not see,
More numerous were they than the hairs of my head
and my heart failed me.

(Part III.)

13

Be pleased Jehovah to rescue me

Jehovah to help me oh make haste!

14

Put to shame and abashed together be they who are seeking my life[434]

[434] U.: soul. M.T. adds: to snatch it away. Not in Psalms 70:2.

Turned back and confounded be they who are taking pleasure in my hurt,

15

Astounded as a reward of their own shame be they who are saying of meAha! Aha!

16

Glad and joyful in thee be all who are seekers of thee,

Let them say continuallyJehovah be magnified who are lovers of thy salvation.

17

Since I am humbled and needy may my Sovereign Lord[435] devise for me!

[435] Some cod. (w. 7 ear. pr. edns.): may JehovahGn.

Since my help and deliverer thou art my God! do not tarry.

(Lm.) To the Chief Musician.

PARAPHRASE

Psalms 40

1

waited patiently for God to help me; then He listened and heard my cry.

2

He lifted me out of the pit of despair, out from the bog and the mire, and set my feet on a hard, firm path and steadied me as I walked along.

3

He has given me a new song to sing, of praises to our God. Now many will hear of the glorious things He did for me, and stand in awe before the Lord, and put their trust in Him.

4

Many blessings are given to those who trust the Lord, and have no confidence in those who are proud, or who trust in idols.

5

Our Lord my God, many and many a time You have done great miracles for us, and we are ever in Your thoughts. Who else can do such glorious things? No one else can be compared with You. There isn-'t time to tell of all Your wonderful deeds.

6

It isn-'t sacrifices and offerings which You really want from Your people. Burnt animals bring no special joy to Your heart. But You have accepted the offer of my lifelong service.[436]

[436] Literally, My ears You have dug.

7

Then I[437] said, See, I have come, just as all the prophets foretold.

[437] This verse was quoted by Christ as applying to Himself. See John 4:34.

8

And I delight to do Your will, my God; for Your law is written upon My heart!

9

I have told everyone the Good News that You forgive men's sins.[438] I have not been timid about it, as You well know, O Lord.

[438] Literally, Your righteousness.

10

I have not kept this Good News[437] hidden in my heart, but have proclaimed Your lovingkindness and truth to all the congregation.

11

O Lord, don-'t hold back Your tender mercies from me! My only hope is in Your love and faithfulness!

12

Otherwise I perish, for problems far too big for me to solve are piled higher than my head. Meanwhile my sins, too many to count, have all caught up with me and I am ashamed to look up. My heart quails within me.

13

Please, Lord, rescue me! Quick! Come and help me!

14, 15 Confuse them! Turn them around and send them sprawlingall these who are trying to destroy me. Disgrace these scoffers with their utter failure!
16

But may the joy of the Lord be given to everyone who loves Him and His salvation. May they constantly exclaim, How great God is!

17

I am poor and needy, yet the Lord is thinking about me right now! O my God, You are my helper; You are my Savior; come quickly, and save me. Please don-'t delay!

EXPOSITION

Not only is there no sufficient internal evidence to throw doubt upon the Davidic authorship of this psalm; but the assumption of the correctness of the superscription By David probably leads to a clearer insight into the bearing of the different parts, and a firmer grasp of the unity of the whole, than can by any other means be obtained. Who ever waited more intently for anything than David for the kingship of Israel? How could more suitable images be found to picture the trials through which he had to pass on his way to the kingdom, when endlessly harassed by King Saul, than those of the swampy mire and the engulfing pit? How can be better represent the completeness of his deliverance from these trying delays, than to represent him as having his feet at length set high upon a cliff and a new song put into his mouth,his exaltation being seen and known of all men? Moreover the very figures employed strongly remind us of David's great song preserved in Psalms 18. Assuredly David could speak from experience of the happiness of trusting in Jehovahhe never turned aside to the vanities and falsehood of idolatry; and, when once finally delivered, how many things had he to tell of signal mercies in the pastthings already done,and wonderful plans yet to be carried forward into fulfilment! It is, however, when we reach the stanza (III.) regarding sacrifices, that we are most impressed. It was on this rock of sacrifice, that David's predecessor Saul struck his foot to his grievous injury: he could not trust Jehovah's will as prophetically made known to him through Samuel, and so he took the priestly law into his own hand, and brought on himself the severe reprimand of Samuel:

Doth that which is pleasing unto Jehovah consist in

ascending-offerings and sacrifices,

So much as in hearkening unto the voice of Jehovah?
Lo! to hearken is better than sacrifice,
And to give heed, than the fat of rams.

We must surely be short-sighted not to discover in these ringing tones of remonstrance the very motif of the stanza before us: the Which, indeed, sounds like a glorified revulsion from the sin of Saul. For a king after his own heart, Jehovah has other and nobler work to do, than the slaughter of animals in ritual worship. He has to set before priests and people the sublimer example of loving Jehovah's will supremely, and doing it; delighting in it, embedding it in his deepest affections, and heralding the good-tidings of it to such a large assembly as a king could easily command, whether at Hebron or at Jerusalem. This, indeed, had been prescribed to him in the written scroll: how he was to write out the law, that he might have it ever by him, and read therein daily, and revere Jehovah his God, and keep his statutes, and not be lifted up above his brethren (Deuteronomy 17:18-20); and now he solemnly covenants that he will do itthat it will be his delight to do it; yea, moreover, he proclaims his delight in an assembly so large, that those who cannot hear his voice may at least witness the movements of his covenanting lipsBehold my lips! Moreover, the very righteousness which he pledges himself to proclaim is glorified on his covenanting lips; for it is no longer merely the obedience of Israel to the law, but the faithfulness of God to Israel. First and foremost, it is Jehovah's faithfulness to himself, in giving him the kingship at last, after so long keeping him waiting for it. And so law is turned into Gospel: David declares that the righteousness which he will herald, will be good-tidings. And so it will; and therefore his eagerness to proclaim it overflows into another stanza: that he may call Jehovah to witness that he will not conceal such a righteousness as falls nothing short of kindness, faithfulness and salvation. Sure the singer is: That if he withhold not his testimony to Jehovah's law and providence, so neither will Jehovah withhold his compassions, his kindness, his truth, his preservation. And if that does not amount to a Coronation Oath and a Kingly Covenant,we may boldly ask what would. And before a large assembly too!

Thus freely have we woven into our Exposition the word covenant as shrewdly conjectured by Dr. Briggs to have been the word originally employed by the psalmist in the place where now the M.T. and the Sep. unfortunately differ; and, indeed, when the consonants of krth and brth (which are in question in the doubtful place in the text), are compared in Hebrew as coming extremely near to each other, there need be little surprise felt that such a transcriptional error should have crept in. At any rate, the word covenant bids fair to fill so effectively the place here assigned it, that still another covenant strain of thought is now in addition suggested, as extremely pertinent to this very juncture in David's life and this precise place in his writings: then had I a covenant. When David came to the throne, then was granted to him the covenant concerning his seedreaching out to and including the Messiahwhich the prophet Nathan propounded according to 2 Samuel 7. As much as to say: The grand purpose of Jehovah, even in ordaining sacrifices, being to educate Israel to love and practise his will; and then, in providing an approved King, his purpose being still the same; there was vouchsafed to that King the covenant to bring forth out of his family the Messiah, who should still further throw animal sacrifices into the shade, and still further commend and advance the grand principle of doing and delighting in Jehovah's will, as his people's highest satisfaction and blessedness. So much for the first Part of our psalm.

Turning now to the second Part (Psalms 40:12), which we have not hesitated to call a mere fragment,it is obvious to observe what an important fragment it is, and what an essential link it furnishes in any comprehensive survey of David's reign. Misfortunes closed in upon him, even after he had become Israel's king:wherefore? Alas! his iniquities overtook him; and the sad fact was that he had committed them. And they dimmed his spiritual visionhe could not see. It may be, that the larger offences brought to mind the smaller which had opened the door to the larger; and were in turn followed by the smaller though very grievous sins of persistence, impenitence, denial, prevarication, hardness of heart, disparagement of spiritual blessedness; until at length, now that remorse is setting in, they appear more numerous than the hairs of his head. And when to all things else the humbled man adds his confession that his heart failed him, we are probably to understandnot merely that his courage failed him, which may very well have been included, butthat his mental powers failed him, for such is the comprehensiveness of the Hebrew word for heart. And, perhaps, it is precisely to this dimming of spiritual vision, this failure of mental power, that we are to attribute that spiritual vacillationthat failure to hold steadfastly to Messianic hopeswhich at the close of Psalms 39 struck us as so remarkable.

Happily, the humbled and forgiven soul returns to its God; and though troubles abound, and enemies appear, and base souls point the tongue and finger of scorn at the late offending monarch, yet prayer is once more brought into active exercise; and if there are men who rejoice in iniquity, there are also men who sympathisingly rejoice in the truth: the scoffers may, to their shame, cry Aha! Aha!; but the godly and considerate exclaim, to the increase of holy joy, Jehovah be magnified! And so the humbled and needy king is encouraged to seek with new faith and hope for speedy help from the God of his salvation. Satisfactory as it thus appears to trace each successive part of the psalm to David's own composing, it is by no means certain that David himself brought them together into one psalm as they now appear. In fact the selection of the pieces for permanent Temple worship, and the welding them into one, seem naturally to fall to Hezekiah, whose practised judgment would on the one hand suggest that Parts I. and III. required Part II. to unite them; and on the other hand recommend the detachment of Part III. as now Psalms 70 for occasional separate use.

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION

1.

The fortieth psalm above many others lends itself to what should be, and could be the testimony of every Christian. Discuss this possibility.

2.

In what horrible pit had David found himself? There are two outstanding possibilities. Show how God delivered him. The deliverance was not by man's time, nor method.

3.

David had often sung of God's deliverancebut this time it was to be a new song. Discuss the uniqueness of this song. Cf. Psalms 18.

4.

There is no power like that of the personal testimony of deliverance from the power of sin. Men of the world have from the beginning marvelledDoes this have meaning for everyone? How did this especially apply to David?

5.

We can catch a glimpse of the type of man God had in Davidit would have been easy to listen to the promptings of pride that he, David, had done nothing amiss in the pursuit by Sauland therefore the only language Saul could understand was to meet force with forcewhy didn-'t David thus respond? Discuss.

6.

Read John 4:34, as related to this psalmand also Rother-ham's comments as they relate these verses (Psalms 40:6-8) to David. Discuss their possible two-fold application.

7.

The Lord asks not for oblation, but for obedience. Read Hebrews 10:5-9 for an example. Why do we hesitate to obey? Is it too dull to obey and too exciting not to? Will we miss something if we do not disobey? Discuss this: The Devil's biggest and oldest lie.

8.

The words of Scroggie are so good as related to the last section of this psalm(Psalms 40:11-17)If life were but one battle (and how we often wish it were) we could put off our armor when it was won, but as life is a campaign we can never afford to do that; we must be ever watchful, and ever prayerful, and ever hopeful. (Ibid p. 235) Read these verses and discuss how the above comment applies.