Church of Christ Studies

 

Psalm 31.
Rock of Refuge

 

Psalm 31 is longer than most of those immediately preceding it. Only Psalms 18 and 22 are longer. But Psalm 31 has this interesting distinction. As a psalm of trust growing out of an individual lament—"a magnificent psalm of confidence"—it has appealed to many Bible characters.

 

For example, the phrase "terror on every side," from verse 13, seems to have appealed to Jeremiah as a description of the dangers of his day, since he borrowed it no less than six times in his writings, sometimes picking up other echoes of the psalm along with it (Jer. 6:25; 20:3-4, 10; 46:5; 49:29; Lam. 2:22). In his prayer of repentance from inside the great fish, Jonah, the minor prophet, quoted the words "those who cling to worthless idols," from verse 6 (Jonah 2:8). The author of Psalm 71, possibly David himself, quotes the first verses of Psalm 31 as his opening. Most striking of all, verse 5 of the psalm seems to have provided Jesus' words for his last moving utterance from the cross: "Father, into your hands I commit my spirit" (Luke 23:46).

 

In spite of the apparent popularity of this psalm, it is a hard psalm to outline. In fact, no two writers agree on an outline. Some divide the psalm into three parts, some into two. But even among those who agree about how many parts to divide it into, there is no agreement about where the divisions come. Most even disagree about the flow of thought within the sections.

 

In this study it seems best to me to follow the stanza divisions of the New International Version, describing them this way:

 

First, there are two main parts to the psalm: (1) the body of the psalm (vv. 1-20) and (2) a brief concluding application (vv. 21-24). Second, the body or main part of the psalm has five parts: a prayer for help in trouble (vv. 1-5); an expression of trust in God (vv. 6-8); a lament arising from the psalmist's physical sickness or distress (vv. 9-13); a further expression of trust in God (vv. 14-18); and praise to God for his help in trouble (vv. 19-20). As we will see in our study, these five parts move from an emotional peak to an emotional valley and then back to an emotional peak again. It is as if David is riding an emotional roller coaster. Or, as if he is riding a wave from one high crest to a trough and then back to another high crest in closing.

 

Prayer for Help in Trouble

The first five verses of this psalm are a prayer for help in trouble. They are a confident prayer since they, like all the sections of the psalm, express a very strong trust in God.

 

These verses have a theme. It is that God is the psalmist's "rock of refuge." The phrase itself occurs in verse 2, but the two nouns are also repeated separately. Refuge is found in verses 1 and 4. Rock is used again in verse 3. In addition, the nearly synonymous term fortress is used twice (in vv. 2 and 3). This was a popular metaphor with David, being found in Psalms 18, 19, 28, 61, 62, and 71, for example. Unquestionably it comes from the years when he was fleeing from King Saul and so often found safety in the high rocks of the Judean wilderness. On the plain, David's warrior band was no match for the numerically superior and better-equipped troops of his enemy. But he was safe if he fled to the mountains. In the same way, David saw God as his true "rock of refuge" when his later enemies encircled him and set traps for his soul.

 

David says two things about God as his rock that have been described as illogical by some who know little of the life of faith. He says that God is his rock in verse 3 ("since you are my rock and my fortress") and yet asks God to be his rock in verse 2 ("be my rock of refuge"). How, such critics ask, can God be and yet be asked to be a refuge all at the same time?

 

How little such critics know! Charles Haddon Spurgeon understood that this is a logic not of words but of the heart, writing that it teaches us to ask God that we may "enjoy in experience what we grasp by faith." We know by faith that God is many things, because the Bible tells us he is. But this is a very different thing from proving God to be those things in our personal experience. Do you believe that God is all powerful? Of course, you do. Then pray that he will prove himself strong in your weakness. Do you believe that God is wise. Of course! Then ask him to display his wisdom in the ordering of your life. In the same way, you can ask him to be to you loving and gracious and merciful and everything else the Bible says he is.

 

"You are... then be...," should be the prayer of every Christian.

 

Particularly in death. When David spoke the words we find in the first half of verse 5, he was asking God to save his life from enemies. But ever since Jesus used these words on the cross, saints everywhere have echoed him in asking God to receive their souls in death and so bear them safely to his presence. In other words, they have asked God to be to them in death what they have known him to be in life. One of the great commentators on this psalm, J. J. Stewart Perowne, points out that these were the last words of Saint Bernard, John Huss, Jerome of Prague, Martin Luther, Philip Melanchthon, and many others. He quotes Luther as saying, "Blessed are they who die not only for the Lord, as martyrs; not only in the Lord, as all believers; but likewise with the Lord, as breathing forth their lives in these words: 'Into thy hands I commend my spirit.'"

 

When John Huss was condemned to be burned at the stake, the bishop who conducted the ceremony ended with the chilling words: "And now we commit thy soul to the devil." Huss replied calmly, "I commit my spirit into thy hands, Lord Jesus Christ; unto thee I commend my spirit, which thou has redeemed."

 

An Expression of Trust

The second section of the psalm expresses trust in God (vv. 6-8). This trust has been anticipated in part one, but it comes to a fuller expression here, David saying explicitly, "I trust in the Lord" (v. 6).

 

This trust is not something "off the wall," as we say. It is not without reasons, since David gives his reasons in the various phrases of this section. He was in trouble, and the Lord did four things. First, God "knew the anguish of [his] soul." That is, God took note of his trouble and identified with him in it. Second, God "saw [his] affliction." This means more than that God merely took note of it. It means that God did something about it, that he came to David's rescue. Third, God did not hand him "over to [his] enemy." He protected him and kept him from the destruction the enemy wanted to bring upon him. Finally, God "set [his] feet in a spacious place." In other words, God was faithful to deliver David from affliction. Since God did that in the past, David is determined to trust him now.

 

The memory of past deliverance bears fruit in present confidence.

 

A Lament

The emotional heart of the psalm is the lament found in verses 9-13, in which David tells the Lord of his present distress and danger. In studying an earlier psalm I pointed out that language expressing physical affliction sometimes refers to actual sickness and sometimes not. In Psalm 30 it does. There David was so sick he was on the point of dying. In Psalm 31 the problem does not seem to be illness, though the language sounds like it, but rather the danger created by David's enemies. For that reason the language used to describe bodily affliction should be seen primarily as metaphorical or at least as poetically exaggerated.

 

The best way to read the stanza is backwards. David starts with his personal distress and works outward to its cause. We do better if we begin with the cause and work inward to the effect it had on David.

 

The chief problem (v. 13) is that his enemies had surrounded him on all sides and were conspiring together to take his life. This was literally true during much of David's reign. The kingdom was surrounded by hostile neighbors, just as the present nation of Israel is surrounded by hostile Arab neighbors. But David may also be thinking of plots within his kingdom by Jewish enemies or of the days he had to flee from King Saul.

 

Because of the enormity of this danger and of his own apparent weakness, David was scorned by his neighbors and was even deserted by his friends (vv. 11-12). Many people have experienced this. As long as we are successful or influential or rich, everyone wants to know us and be considered our friend. But as soon as we lose these advantages, people desert us. This is the way of the world. We should not be surprised at it. We should only be thankful that God is quite different.

 

Finally, because of his precarious position and of being deserted by his friends, David was affected physically. His strength seemed to fail, his bones and eyes grew weak, and his body filled with grief. These words may be poetic exaggeration, but they describe real affliction. They describe the weakness, sorrow, and grief of many.

 

A Further Expression of Trust

Earlier in this study I said that the body of the psalm moves from the emotional crest of praying to God down into a trough of sorrow and then back upward to a crest of praise again. In the last section we were in the trough. In this section (vv. 14-18) we are starting up the other side.

 

To many people the most striking sentence in these verses is the first sentence in verse 15, which says, "My times are in your hands." What times are these? Well, all times. The times of our youth are in God's hands, times when others make decisions for us. Some of those decisions are good decisions, some are bad. But God holds both the good and bad in his hands and works all things out for the good of those who love him. The times of our maturity are in God's hands, that is, days in which we are (or should be) about our Father's business. In such days we probably have successes, but we also have defeats. Even in spiritual work everything does not always go well. Does that mean that God has abandoned us? Not at all. The times of defeat as well as the times of victory are controlled by God. Finally, the times of our old age are in God's hand, days in which the strength of youth has faded away and the opportunities for starting new work are past. God cares for us also in old age, and he is able to bless those days as much as any others.

 

Even down to old age thy saints shall prove

Thine own inestimable, unchangeable love.

And when hoary hairs shall their temples adorn

Like lambs they shall to thy bosom be borne.

 

In brief this means that God is present in all the circumstances of your life. Nothing ever comes into your life to surprise him. Indeed, nothing can come into your life that has not first of all passed through the filter of his "good, pleasing and perfect will" (Rom. 12:2).

"In all things God works for the good of those who love him," Paul says (Rom. 8:28). Therefore, like Paul, we can also say, "I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances" (Phil. 4:11).

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Praise to God for His Help

In verses 19 and 20 we reach the crest of the wave again. But I want you to notice something interesting. Up to this point the psalm has followed a regular and therefore a nearly predictable pattern. It began with a prayer; that was the first section. It expressed personal trust in God, section two. Section three was the lament. Section four once again expressed trust in God, a section almost identical in tone and meaning to section two. With that pattern established, what should we expect in this last section? The answer is: the same thing we had in section one, a prayer. But here is the interesting thing. Although section five is a kind of prayer, what it is more specifically is an expression of praise to God. In other words, as a result of working through the content of the first four sections of the psalm, the last section is changed from a prayer of petition in which God is asked to do something to a prayer in which he is praised for what he has done and will continue to do.

 

Have you ever experienced that in your times of prayer? You should. It is normal to begin with some great need and to express great requests but then come away from prayer with the assurance that God has heard you and will help you, and so be praising him for it.

 

The theme of the last section of this main body of the psalm is God's goodness. It has appealed to many preachers because of the distinction David makes between the goodness God has "stored up for those who fear [him]" and the goodness he has bestowed "in the sight of men." The one is hidden. The other is manifest. The distinction suggests the following contrasts.

 

The goodness of God to us that other people see and the even greater goodness to us that they cannot see. When God blesses his people with happy and prosperous lives, stable families, and the joy that comes from knowing that what we do has usefulness and meaning, other people can see this whether or not they acknowledge God to be the source.

 

Some years ago George Gallup of the Gallup Poll organization pointed out quite objectively that people who are "highly religiously motivated" are happier than other people, have fewer divorces, are less prejudiced, and are more active in helping others in areas of social need. That is the goodness of God bestowed "in the sight of men." But it is nothing compared to the goodness of God to us that others cannot see at all. They cannot see the comfort that God alone gives. They cannot see those moments of quiet rapture when the soul of the believer is conscious of the very presence of God and rejoices in it. They cannot see the goodness of God revealed in response to believing prayer.

 

The goodness of God that other people see because it has already been given and the goodness that is yet to be given which they will see later. In an objective way, others may consider us blessed now because of God's goodness to us. But present experience of God's goodness is only a sample of greater and more varied goodness yet to come. Therefore, in the future even we will look back on more abundant evidences of God's goodness than we see now. That was David's experience, for in the well-known twenty-third psalm he looked both backward and forward, saying,

 

You prepare a table before me

in the presence of my enemies.

You anoint my head with oil;

my cup overflows.

Surely goodness and love will follow me

all the days of my life,

and I will dwell in the house of the Lord

forever

(vv. 5-6).

 

The goodness that is experienced and at least partially seen in this life and the superlative goodness yet to be experienced in heaven. God's goodness will certainly follow us all the days of our lives. But it will not stop there. It will follow us even into heaven, where it will be disclosed in a measure not even imaginable now.

Alexander Maclaren's commentary has a section on this contrast that is so eloquent it deserves to be quoted at length.

Here we see, sometimes, the messengers coming with the one cluster of grapes on the pole. There we shall live in the vineyard. Here we drink from the river as it flows; there we shall be at the fountain head. Here we are in the vestibule of the King's house; there we shall be in the throne room, and each chamber as we pass through it [will be] richer and fairer than the one preceding.... When God begins to compare his adjectives he does not stop till he gets to the superlative degree.... Good begets better, and the better of earth ensures the best of heaven.

So out of our poor little experience here, we may gather grounds of confidence that will carry our thoughts peacefully even into the great darkness, and we may say, "What thou didst work is much, what thou hast laid up is more." And the contrast will continue for ever and ever; for all through that strange Eternity, that which is wrought will be less than that which is laid up, and we shall never get to the end of God, nor to the end of his goodness.

 

Those who know God know that this is true and so say a hearty "Amen."

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Part Two: The Application

We have already applied what we have seen in the body of Psalm 31 in a variety of ways. But David has his own application, which comes in the last two stanzas, each of two verses. They are a sort of coda to the psalm in which David turns to others (his earlier words had been directed to God) and advises them to praise and love God also.

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The first two verses call for praise. They are much like verses 4 and 5 of the preceding psalm, in which David calls on others to praise God for his goodness since they, as well as he, have learned that "his anger lasts only a moment, but his favor... a lifetime." These verses are not so explicit as those in Psalm 30 in basing the call for praise on an aspect of God's character which these others should also have experienced. That is probably because their experience was one with David's. What I mean is that in Psalm 31 David is praising God because he delivered him when he was in "a besieged city," which is probably to be taken as a literal historical moment. If that is the case, then his deliverance was the deliverance of his friends and followers also. They could praise God for exactly the same thing as David did.

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The second short stanza and the last two verses call upon these same people to love God as well as praise him. It is significant that the psalm should end this way. For although love has not been mentioned before this, it is nevertheless true that love and trust go together. It is true in regard to human relations. It is true in our relationships with God too.

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The very last lines encourage the saints of God to "be strong and take heart," which is a way of saying "keep trusting." The point is that we will do this only as long as we keep close to God and thus continue to grow in our love for him. H. C. Leupold puts it like this: "The practical application... amounts to this: Don't ever lose faith in him." Then he adds, wisely, "Faith will not be lost if love keeps burning." You can never love God too much, and you can never trust God too much. But you will do both well whenever you reflect deeply on the degree to which he has loved you.

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