FOR THE DIRECTOR of music. A psalm of David.
1In you, O LORD, I have taken refuge;
let me never be put to shame;
deliver me in your righteousness.
2Turn your ear to me,
come quickly to my rescue;
be my rock of refuge,
a strong fortress to save me.
3Since you are my rock and my fortress,
for the sake of your name lead and guide me.
4Free me from the trap that is set for me,
for you are my refuge.
5Into your hands I commit my spirit;
redeem me, O LORD, the God of truth.
6I hate those who cling to worthless idols;
I trust in the LORD.
7I will be glad and rejoice in your love,
for you saw my affliction
and knew the anguish of my soul.
8You have not handed me over to the enemy
but have set my feet in a spacious place.
9Be merciful to me, O LORD, for I am in distress;
my eyes grow weak with sorrow,
my soul and my body with grief.
10My life is consumed by anguish
and my years by groaning;
my strength fails because of my affliction,
and my bones grow weak.
11Because of all my enemies,
I am the utter contempt of my neighbors;
I am a dread to my friends—
those who see me on the street flee from me.
12I am forgotten by them as though I were dead;
I have become like broken pottery.
13For I hear the slander of many;
there is terror on every side;
they conspire against me
and plot to take my life.
14But I trust in you, O LORD;
I say, “You are my God.”
15My times are in your hands;
deliver me from my enemies
and from those who pursue me.
16Let your face shine on your servant;
save me in your unfailing love.
17Let me not be put to shame, O LORD,
for I have cried out to you;
but let the wicked be put to shame
and lie silent in the grave.
18Let their lying lips be silenced,
for with pride and contempt
they speak arrogantly against the righteous.
19How great is your goodness,
which you have stored up for those who fear you,
which you bestow in the sight of men
on those who take refuge in you.
20In the shelter of your presence you hide them
from the intrigues of men;
in your dwelling you keep them safe
from accusing tongues.
21Praise be to the LORD,
for he showed his wonderful love to me
when I was in a besieged city.
22In my alarm I said,
“I am cut off from your sight!”
Yet you heard my cry for mercy
when I called to you for help.
23Love the LORD, all his saints!
The LORD preserves the faithful,
but the proud he pays back in full.
24Be strong and take heart,
all you who hope in the LORD.
THIS PSALM IS a plea for deliverance from the intrigues, plots, and conspiracies of an enemy (31:13, 20). The psalmist appeals to the “God of truth” (31:5) for protection from the “lying lips” (31:18), arrogant speech (31:18), and “accusing tongues” (31:20) of his opponents. Yahweh is envisioned once again as the “strong fortress” and “refuge” (31:1–4), by which the beleaguered psalmist is protected from attack and preserved from the personal shame (31:1, 17) that results from being publicly slandered (31:13).
The psalm moves between the experience of extreme anguish (31:9–13) and the realization of great confidence and trust in the power of Yahweh to save and protect (31:6–8, 14–15, 21–22). The first three verses are similar to 71:1–3, where almost identical words appear, although expanded at points by additional phrases.1 This confirms the psalmists’ practice of drawing on a treasury of psalmic resources and reworking them to serve in new contexts and for new purposes.
The psalm divides into six sections: a plea for deliverance from a trap set by the enemies and Yahweh is seen as refuge (31:1–5), a statement of commitment and confidence (31:6–8), the primary plea for mercy with a description of the psalmist’s weakness and anguish (31:9–13), a statement of trust and anticipation of deliverance from enemies (31:14–18), a proclamation of God’s goodness (31:19–20), and a call to praise Yahweh (31:21–24).
The Heading (31:0)
NO NEW TERMS appear in the heading to Psalm 31. The composition is described simply as a psalm (mizmor) of David and referred to “the director of music.”2
Plea for Deliverance (31:1–5)
THIS FIRST SECTION is dominated by the psalmist’s concern to find refuge in Yahweh. The related terms pile up in these verses (“refuge” in 31:1, 2, 4; “rock” in 31:2, 3; “fortress” in 31:2, 3), emphasizing this theme of reliance and trust that underlies the whole psalm (see comments on the refuge theme in 2:12; 5:11; 7:1; 9:9). Once again it is clear that to “take refuge in the LORD” constitutes a step of faith and trust in the face of a reality of threat, oppression, and suffering. To take refuge in Yahweh is to trust that Yahweh affirms the righteousness of the faithful and to hope confidently that he will indeed act to establish that essential righteousness publicly.
That those who put their trust in Yahweh continue to suffer is the whole point of the lament psalms. The righteous cannot hope to avoid suffering and oppression from the hand of the wicked, but they face such suffering in full dependence that Yahweh’s righteousness (31:1) mirrors and affirms their own, and in trust that divine righteousness will ultimately fill the earth, revealing wickedness for what it is and affirming the righteous who endure faithfully. This does not represent hope for a “quick fix” or “pain avoidance” but is an example of aligning oneself with what is true and right regardless of the painful consequences.
Deliver me in your righteousness. The narrator wants Yahweh to demonstrate divine righteousness by bringing him into safety and security. There are a number of words translated “deliver” or “save” in the Old Testament. The one used here (plṭ) has the meaning “help someone to escape, bring into security.” Besieged by the arrogant, lying words of the wicked, the psalmist feels insecure and threatened, and he petitions Yahweh for the sense of security and safety that the divine refuge offers. At the same time, the narrator can hope for divine response because Yahweh is righteous (31:1) and will determine the truth (31:5) of the circumstances surrounding the psalmist, revealing the prevarication of the enemy.
Let me never be put to shame. Most often we think—at least I know I do—of shame as a feeling, an emotion. As such, shame can be denied or submerged in the inner person so that those outside never know what we are feeling. In the Hebrew context of Psalm 31, however, shame is not so much a feeling (although feelings must have been involved) as it is an outward, visible circumstance of public disgrace. The kind of attack the narrator experiences is not just an attempt to make him feel bad, but the enemy tries to discredit him in the public arena.
To seek (as the psalmist does) “never [to] be put to shame” cannot mean complete escape for a lifetime from any public reproach. Our psalm makes it clear that the psalmist already experiences the contempt of the neighborhood (31:11) and physical infirmities that lead to avoidance by friends and slander by many (31:11–13), who use the common association of sickness with sin to raise questions about his righteousness. What the psalmist desires, then, is not avoidance of such shame but an ultimate clearing of the slate and a public vindication of truth and righteousness. In such a circumstance, there is no longer any possibility of public misperception; all things will be made transparently clear.
As a result, the tables will be turned on those who lead the attack on the psalmist. He wants their twisting, distorting manipulation of truth to be made known so that they will be put to shame—not by feeling bad but by public disgrace (31:17). Thus, his plea that the enemy “be put to shame” is not simply a cry for vengeance—to “pay them back” for a personal offense; rather, it is a desire that Yahweh’s righteousness be unavoidably and undeniably mirrored in the realm of human affairs, with consequent affirmation of the righteous and condemnation of the wicked.
Turn your ear to me. I am reminded of the small child sitting on her mother’s lap while her mother is in conversation with a friend. After several attempts to interrupt the conversation to gain her mother’s attention, the child reaches out a hand, pulls the mother’s face close to her own, and says in a most plaintive voice, “Mommy, you’re not listening to me!” The psalmist’s plea similarly demands God’s full, undivided attention to a desperate situation that requires immediate action (meherah in 31:2 [“come quickly, hurry”]).
Be my rock . . . a strong fortress. Having proclaimed from the first line a willingness to take refuge in Yahweh, the psalmist now calls on Yahweh to be what the psalmist has trusted him to be: the place of security and protection from the enemy. He desires to experience in reality, in the present, the sense of a secure place from which to face the attacks of the wicked. The picture is of a remote rocky crag or a well-protected military outpost in rugged mountain terrain. From behind such removed and impregnable defenses the psalmist is content to watch the futile plots and machinations of the enemy played out.
Since you are my rock and my fortress. In an odd progression, the psalmist goes on to admit that the “refuge” hoped for is in reality already present. This tension between desperate desire for and confident experience of divine deliverance and protection is characteristic of many (if not most) of the laments. The psalmists constantly float back and forth between confident reliance on Yahweh’s care and protection and desperate pleading that hoped-for deliverance will quickly materialize. I think this affirms that their chief desire was for an abiding sense of spiritual and emotional protection by God rather than for complete escape from all hurt and attack. The psalmists were far too astute observers of human affairs to anticipate such unlikely results. What this psalm seems to seek is enduring courage and a sense of divine presence in the face of ongoing struggle and strife.
For the sake of your name. Having already labeled God as righteous (31:1) and preparing to link Yahweh with the epithet “God of truth” (31:5), the psalmist now grounds his plea for deliverance on the essential characteristics of God that constitute his public reputation, so to speak: “If you, God, wish to live up to your reputation of righteousness and truth, you will not allow falsehood to bring down the righteous!”
Lead and guide me. The psalmist employs the imagery of the hunted animal pushed by pursuing hunters toward a hidden trap that will capture him. Surrounded by enemies, he feels the need of divine guidance to avoid rushing headlong into those hidden pitfalls. On the way to the secure stronghold, the pursued warrior may have to thread his way through a minefield laid by his enemies, who hope to destroy him before he can reach the safety of refuge.
Into your hands I commit my spirit. The psalmist makes an act of commitment into the hand of the God of truth, whom he trusts to redeem the faithful. It is notable that it is the “spirit” (ruaḥ) that the psalmist surrenders to Yahweh, not the “soul” (nepeš). The nepeš describes the animated physical being that constitutes a living person. At creation God breathed his own “breath of life” (nišmat ḥayyim) into the inanimate body of the first human, so that the being became a nepeš ḥayyah (“a living being,” Gen. 2:7). Elsewhere this animating “breath” (nešama/nišmat) that emanates from God is identified with the spirit of God (ruaḥ) that sustains humans during their lives and returns to God upon their death.3
To commit one’s “spirit” to God is not simply to trust for physical deliverance of the physical being or nepeš, but it is to make the ultimate surrender of the very animating force of life into the care of the God from whom it comes and who may sustain or remove it as he pleases. The psalmist’s act of commitment, coming as it does at the end of the opening plea, reflects complete surrender of self-control and submission to God’s will.4
Commitment and Confidence (31:6–8)
THIS NEXT SECTION flows out of the statement of commitment expressed in 31:5. Verse 6 contrasts the futility of trusting in gods other than Yahweh (“cling to worthless idols”) with the psalmist’s own confident reliance on Yahweh (“I trust in the LORD”). The phrase “worthless idols” (hable šawʾ ) is instructive. The Hebrew combines two words—“nothingness, void” and “worthless, in vain, false”—to refer rather obliquely but pointedly to the ineffective emptiness of idols on which the wicked rely. The remaining verses celebrate the psalmist’s assurance of Yahweh’s love (31:7) and deliverance (“you have not handed me over to the enemy,” 31:8).
In this context, the psalmist’s confidence seems to be derived from past experiences of deliverance that offer new hope for the present. The anticipation of glad rejoicing is the result of Yahweh’s previous attention to the affliction and anguish of the psalmist and the resulting deliverance from the enemy. Consequently, Yahweh’s effective presence and action contrasts favorably to the empty void represented by the false gods. Yahweh “saw . . . and knew” (31:7) and has already acted in ways to free and liberate the oppressed narrator (31:8).
Hand. The psalmist sets up a nice contrast using the phrase “in/into the hand of. . . .” In verse 5, he surrenders to the protective care and control of Yahweh with the phrase “into your hand I commit my spirit.” This section describes Yahweh as providing protective care for the psalmist by not surrendering him “into the hand” of the enemy. The phrase occurs again in 31:15, where he acknowledges once more that hope for deliverance is “in your hands.” The striking phrase with which verse 8 concludes (“[you] have set my feet in a spacious place”) offers an effective response to the hemmed-in feeling that dominates the darker moments of the psalm.
Plea for Mercy (31:9–13)
THE PSALMIST RETURNS briefly in 31:9 to the plea for deliverance with which the psalm began (cf. vv. 1–4). But here the plea introduces an extended narrative of suffering that serves as the motivation for divine deliverance. The description uses images of drastic physical deterioration, which might be associated with symptoms of extreme illness as analogies to the painful waning of life force as the result of constant attack from without.
My eyes grow weak with sorrow. The deterioration of eyesight may be the result of old age or sickness, or (as here) irritation and anger (see comments on 6:7). It is not so much sickness or sorrow that has brought the psalmist so low but anger and irritation over false accusations and a negative public perception that saps his will to live. The NIV expands the second phrase (“my soul and my body”) by adding a synonym “grief” that does not appear in the Hebrew; the term kaʿas (“irritation, anger”) in the second line does double duty for both phrases.
The psalmist’s desperate sense of extremity is revealed in verse 10: “My life is consumed [better, ‘finished, completed, brought to an end’] by anguish and my years [are brought to an end] by groaning.” “Strength fails” and bones “grow weak.”
Because of all my enemies. The reason for the rapid deterioration of physical health and the waning of the will to live now becomes clear. It is the attacks of enemies and the “utter contempt of . . . neighbors” that weigh the psalmist down. Even those who claim to be friends avoid him in the street so that he feels forgotten—cast off like a broken piece of pottery.
For I hear the slander of many. The reason for all this treatment of the psalmist is the slanderous reports being made by many. The disgraceful public shame the psalmist experiences is falsely induced, but it produces a context of contempt in which the psalmist feels terrified, under attack, and threatened.
Trust and Anticipation of Deliverance (31:14–18)
WHAT A DIFFERENCE a conjunction and emphatic word position can make. Following the intense description of the demoralizing situation the psalmist faces, verse 14 begins with the common conjunction waw and the first-person singular pronoun: waʾani (“and I”). The placement of the pronoun at the beginning is an emphatic move and indicates a strong response to what has preceded. It is appropriately rendered by the NIV’s “But I,” although it is difficult to render the emphasis intended here. It is as if he says: “Contrary to what one might expect under the circumstances, I do not despair, but I surrender in trust to the hand of God” (31:14–15), naming Yahweh as the only source of hope.
My times are in your hands. The use of “time/times” in this sense is more than a remark on the passage of time. Underlying the psalmist’s surrender is an understanding of life as made up of a series of decisive moments in which a person can take either appropriate or inappropriate direction, depending on how he or she responds to the circumstances. One response is to seek to control and manipulate the situation to one’s advantage. That is clearly what the psalmist’s opponents are doing. The other way is to surrender one’s personal will to the power and authority of God, as the psalmist seeks to do in 31:15.
This is no simplistic fatalism in which the psalmist, confronted by life-threatening circumstances, simply shrugs and says, “Whatever!” Rather, it is a call to the righteous to become people who “understand the times” (cf. 1 Chron. 12:32; Est. 1:13)—to be perceptive observers of life and sensitive to the character and purpose of God, and to respond appropriately in each “time.” The psalmist’s confidence that Yahweh remains powerful over all the discordant activities of the enemies permits him to eschew frantic attempts to shore up personal interest, and instead to take up residence in the secure stronghold Yahweh provides.
Let your face shine. The presence of God is a radiant glory that stamps its impress on those who perceive it. After spending forty days and nights in the presence of Yahweh, Moses’ face glowed in a haunting reminder of his divine encounter (Ex. 34:29–35). The treasured Hebrew benediction (Num. 6:24–26)5 uses the phrase “[May] the LORD make his face shine upon you” as a graphic image of divine blessing and grace. Elsewhere we learn that to see the divine face is to risk death (Ex. 33:18–23). To anticipate coming into the glorious presence of Yahweh without harm is the ultimate hope of grace and divine favor (cf. Isa. 6:1–9).
Let me not be put to shame. The psalmist returns to the theme of the opening verses—the desire not to remain publicly disgraced. Like Job, the psalmist hopes to experience ultimate vindication when God appears to set all things right. Job did receive a sort of vindication in the final chapters of that book, but our psalmist is still waiting divine action.
Desire for a righteous public settlement of affairs, where truth is known and parties judged according to their relation to it, leads the psalmist to plead that the lying enemies receive “the shame” they have falsely heaped on the psalmist’s head (31:17). As he feels brought low to the point of death by the enemies’ vicious plotting, so he envisions their strident voices as silenced once and for all in death (31:17–18).6
Along with the reference in 31:13 to slanderous plots directed toward the psalmist, the notice about the “lying lips” of his enemies makes it clear that their offense is false and arrogant speech, by which they seek to undermine the reputation of the righteous. The personal experience of the psalmist is broadened in 31:18 to include the righteous in general, preparing the ground for the shift to communal perspective that takes place in 31:19–20, 23–24.
Proclamation of God’s Goodness (31:19–20)
THE POEM SHIFTS at this point into the mode of praise. These two verses have the effect of generalizing the circumstances of the psalmist to incorporate the whole community of the faithful. His experiences are seen not as isolated personal events but as part of the great tapestry of dealing between God and his faithful people. As God has stored up goodness for those who fear him, so goodness is in store for the suffering psalmist.
In the sight of men. The psalmist has hope of public vindication and restitution to counter the destructive slander that has led to public condemnation and disgrace. Those who take refuge in Yahweh, as the psalmist has from verse 1, can anticipate that God’s stored-up goodness will be bestowed “in the sight of men,” not simply kept secretly in escrow. It is important for communal well-being and wholeness that righteousness be recognized and praised while falsehood is recognized and condemned.
In the shelter of your presence . . . in your dwelling. Again the idea of refuge returns with the introduction of the new image of “shelter” or secret hiding place. Yahweh hides the faithful in the place of his own transcendent presence. The NIV’s “shelter” is a bit weak. The sentence employs both the verb str (“hide, conceal”) and the noun seter (“hiding place”) to describe not just a shelter but a place of concealment from the psalmist’s besieging troubles.7 The human experience of God is that while he comes graciously to humans, he is not at their beck and call but comes on his own terms and in his own time. God often seems inaccessible and removed—transcendently “other.” When hidden with God in the divine “hiding place,” the faithful need not fear the scheming attacks of the wicked. Not only are they protected by God, but they are also removed and distanced from the fray.
The term translated “dwelling” (sukkah) is most often used to describe a temporary “lean-to” or “booth.” As such, the sukkah (plural sukkot) has lent its name to the Feast of Booths (Succoth), which remembered the Israelites’ nomadic journey from Egypt to the Promised Land.8 In God’s dwelling, he protectively gathers the faithful as a treasure to be preserved from robbers and thieves. The verb used for this protective act (ṣpn, NIV “keep safe”) is the same one used in 31:19 to celebrate the goodness Yahweh has “stored up for those who fear” him. As Yahweh amasses a vast treasure of goodness from which he graciously blesses the faithful, so the faithful are drawn together in his presence, safe from the schemes and plans of the wicked.
IN THIS SECTION praise of Yahweh remains the psalmist’s aim (as in the preceding verses). Here, however, the focus returns to his more specific context, as evidenced by the use of first-person singular pronouns “I” and “me” throughout. If in the former passage the psalmist was generalizing to include a larger group of believers in praise, now the object is to give testimony to this larger group from his own experience. We see in passages like these some hints of normal practice in temple worship. The individual worshiper brought personal concerns to worship but interacted frequently with the larger gathered community through calls to join in praise or moments of personal testimony directed to the congregation.
It is interesting that the NIV chooses to render the Hebrew passive participle as “Praise be. . . .” A more natural translation—especially if humans are in view—is “Blessed be. . . .” Perhaps the NIV translators were somewhat wary of suggesting that Yahweh—envisioned as complete within himself—can be additionally blessed by humans. This misses the point of the psalmist’s statement, however, which is looking at this exchange of blessing, if you will, from the human side. The psalmist desires to pour out abundant blessing on Yahweh, who has shown such grace to the psalmist. It is not a question of theology (i.e., can humans actually bless God?), but of anthropology (i.e., the grateful being turns wholeheartedly to the creator in a desire to return the blessing received).
He showed his wonderful love. The Hebrew underlying the rather simple English translation “showed” is full of meaning. The Hiphil verb form is used in this case to capture the sense “reveal, make known.” Moreover, the root of the verb plʾ has the basic sense “to be too hard or difficult; to be extraordinary, astounding.” Together, Hiphil verb form and verbal root combine to provide a meaning far beyond “show.” God has shown his faithfulness (Heb. ḥesed) in an astonishingly unexpected way, which is almost impossible for the recipient to believe.
The psalmist goes on to describe this astounding demonstration of divine faithfulness. Surrounded—as if in a besieged city—by the false accusations and distorted perceptions of friend and foe alike, he felt beyond divine help. “I am cut off from your sight!” he cried.9 He was so far gone that God could not even see him, let alone help. “Yet”—such a powerful little word, which reveals that human perceptions are often mistaken and that the psalmist’s feeling of defeat is not yet the final word—when all seemed lost and beyond the redemptive power of Yahweh, Yahweh heard the cry for help. The psalmist has no need to carry the narrative further to describe God’s saving intervention. It is enough to know that he heard, for, having heard the cry of the faithful, divine action cannot be doubted.
In the final verses, the narrator once again addresses the congregation of the faithful, drawing them into the experience of deliverance and praise (31:23–24). Those addressed are variously called “saints” (ḥasidim), “the faithful” (ʾemunim), and “you who hope in the LORD” (meyaḥalim is better translated “wait for, endure”). The psalmist counsels these people to “love the LORD” and to “be strong and take heart.”
These are characteristics to possess in the face of difficulty and attack—the same words Joshua used to prepare the people of Israel for their campaign against the inhabitants of the Promised Land (Josh. 1:6, 9). The readers of this psalm would likely have recalled those circumstances as one example of the way Yahweh has shown his faithfulness in an astonishingly unexpected way (Ps. 31:21). Likely they would have remembered the concluding exhortations of Joshua 1:9: “Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be terrified; do not be discouraged, for the LORD your God will be with you wherever you go.” With this allusion to Joshua, the psalmist drives home the message of personal experience by relating it to a classic example taken from Israel’s formative historical traditions. As Yahweh acted for Joshua, he has acted for me, and we can trust him to act again.
Bridging Contexts
THE FEAR OF SHAME. As I said earlier, we often think of shame as a feeling of wrongness or disgrace. Psychologists today attempt to distinguish between shame—an undeserved sense of wrongness often put upon us by other people or situations beyond our control—and guilt—an appropriate sense of wrongness resulting from our own wrong actions. While this may be a helpful distinction in the progressive outworking of a counseling process, it is usually difficult to make in common practice. The Hebrew words that stand behind the Old Testament concept of shame similarly make no attempt to distinguish undeserved shame from justified guilt.
The Hebrew concept of shame is also less an emotion or feeling than a situation of public condemnation and approbation. At the core, what is involved in our passage (and in the many other places where shame is considered in the psalms)10 is a tension between public perception and what the psalmist knows to be reality. The community may think he has sinned, been defeated, and been forgotten or rejected by God. They may even reject God altogether and think the exercise of power by the wicked is more effective than the righteous person’s enduring dependence on Yahweh. Thus, the psalmist may experience the reproach, ridicule, rejection, condemnation, and oppression of the community while remaining in reality faithfully dependent on Yahweh and feeling personally righteous.
Once again significant links between the lament psalms and Job are clearly drawn. Job is convinced of his own righteousness and seeks above all to have that righteousness vindicated in public by God himself. If God would only come to answer Job’s questions, God would have to declare him in the right, leaving no public doubt of his faithfulness (Job 23:1–7; 31:6). Similarly, our psalmist is falsely accused and publicly condemned although in reality innocent of these misperceptions.
While law courts are charged with determining the true state of affairs and rendering judgment to contending parties according to their relationship to that truth, justice is too easily perverted by falsehood and bribes or by the inability of humans—judges and general public alike—to look beyond the outward appearances to perceive the inward reality. God, however, looks on the heart and passes judgment based on a person’s true inward being. Thus the innocent psalmist, like Job, wants God to come in judgment, knowing that then the righteous will be vindicated and the wicked condemned.
Alignment with the essential righteousness of Yahweh. The psalmist teaches the reader an important but difficult lesson. It is necessary to align oneself with the essential righteousness that characterizes Yahweh even if it does not pay off in benefit. That is another way of saying that commitment to the way of Yahweh is costly.
There was a tendency in Israel to assume that commitment to relationship with Yahweh meant immediate reward and benefit in the temporal world. The Deuteronomic law code seems to imply this with statements like: “If you fully obey the LORD your God and carefully follow all his commands I give you today, the LORD your God will set you high above all the nations on earth. All these blessings will come upon you and accompany you if you obey the LORD your God” (Deut. 28:1–2). There follows in the text a whole series of immediate, physical benefits promised to the obedient Israelites: fruitfulness of humans, animals, and crops; defeat of enemies; abundant prosperity (Deut. 28:3–14).
Much of the biblical wisdom literature—especially Proverbs—takes the same tact. The wise/righteous prosper while fools/wicked perish. It is this assumed cause-effect relationship between righteous obedience and divine blessing that underlies the community’s critical scorn for the psalmist’s circumstance. If the righteous prosper, then the corollary must also be true that those who do not prosper must not be righteous. Thus, the psalmist’s claims of innocent suffering fall on deaf ears; the circumstance of suffering have already established the case—guilty!
The testimony of this psalm, however, puts the lie to this common misperception that obedience leads unquestionably to benefit and prosperity. The psalmist (like Job) knows the inward reality of innocence and yet experiences suffering and public ridicule. The lesson is twofold: that the righteous can and often do suffer, and that the blessing of righteousness must be understood as different from the physical benefit and prosperity commonly anticipated.
Even some of the Proverbs (although only a few) understand this. “Better a poor man whose walk is blameless than a rich man whose ways are perverse” (Prov. 28:6). “Better a little with the fear of the LORD than great wealth with turmoil” (Prov. 15:16).11 Sometimes public reputation is considered more important as a sign of divine blessing than wealth. “A good name is more desirable than great riches; to be esteemed is better than silver or gold” (Prov. 22:1).12 When one’s reputation is wrongly endangered (as in our psalm), that is the ultimate cause of shame and disgrace. One might be willing to suffer poverty, oppression, sickness, and even death if only one is publicly recognized as a righteous woman or man. To have this last shred of human dignity destroyed as well is the ultimate human defeat. That is why the psalmist hopes for divine vindication.
Contemporary Significance
THE POWER OF CONTEXT. The contemporary cry is “Location! Location! Location!” In sales—especially real estate—location is considered “everything.” The context in which a house is located determines value, desirability, and ultimately makes or breaks the sale. So, at least the real estate salespersons would have us believe.
Context is also considered important for understanding the value of our lives. What do you do? How much do you make? Where do you live? Do you have a vacation home? What kind of car do you drive? How many vehicles do you own? Where do your children go to school? Where do you buy your clothes? Whom do you count among your friends? Often these criteria drive our perception of our value and worth. They are the ways we have come to understand and identify ourselves and others. And if our context should change—a job lost, a spouse dead or divorced, a moral failure tarnishing a reputation—then our value is tarnished as well.
The flip side of the fear of shame that is at the center of our psalm is the pursuit of status, image, and reputation. We seek success, often measured by public approval. When that carefully constructed image is shattered by any number of unexpected reversals, it can feel suspiciously like life is no longer worth living.
He was a respected and successful Christian with an international reputation. He was well liked at work, in the community, and among his friends. He was “moving up” into areas of authority and responsibility. But when his private moral demons became public, it became devastatingly painful for his wife, children, family, and friends. As new revelations became known day after day and the circle of awareness grew, a lifetime of defense mechanisms began to fail—denial, excuses, anger, minimizing, rationalizing, compartmentalizing.
In private he huddled in a near fetal position in the grips of an almost uncontrollable tremor and shake. In public, by some incredible exercise of will over body, he was able to master the tremor and appear almost normal, except, perhaps, to a careful observer. But inside his hollow eyes, his mind was consumed with a single thought: how a high-speed automobile collision could relieve his wife, family, and, most important, of course, himself from the near lethal agony of the consequences of his own sin and public humiliation.
In moments like these, our perception of our circumstances seem to say there is no way out; all is hopeless. This is particularly true in the out-of-control times of public disgrace and shame. It is understandable that we allow our circumstances to determine our perception of reality and hope, since our whole identity is so often based on visible externalities and how others view us. When our outer world collapses and the world and our friends turn the cold shoulder of disapproval, it is easy to buy the majority view that we are not worth knowing or saving. Like the man I described above, we can see no hope and may contemplate, or even act on, a desperate need to escape from uncontrollable pain.
The psalmist expresses just such desperation. Surrounded like a besieged city, the psalmist cries out, “In my alarm I said, ‘I am cut off from your sight!’ ” (31:22). The context of ridicule, approbation, and disgrace led the psalmist to believe he was beyond the caring of God, alone and helpless. But human perspectives are distinctly limited, and our context is always a slippery foundation for personal identity, value, and hope. The psalmist’s experience in immediate response to the desperate cry is that Yahweh unexpectedly hears and responds in mercy. In what appeared to be hopeless circumstances, God arrives to provide refuge and hope.
How do we catch on to this hard, new perspective—one that evaluates personal value and hope not on public opinion or circumstance (both of which are beyond our ability to control)? Our psalmist discovered a way to dwell in the shelter of the divine presence even when all hell had broken loose in his circumstance and his personal context offered no reasonable hope for escape. In what follows, I will offer two suggestions for how the psalmist was able to do this: (1) He discovered a foundation of personal identity, value, and hope that was independent of any context or circumstance; (2) he learned the lesson of surrender that the newfound identity made possible.
Clinging to the God of truth. The psalmist learned that human perception is a dangerous basis on which to ground one’s understanding of the present context or one’s hope for the future. The very human perspective of his antagonists, even though grounded on common traditional understanding affirmed by society at large, was confounded by his own intimate knowledge of the truth—the psalmist was righteous. Similarly, however, his own very human interpretation of the immediate context—an interpretation that led to despair—while based on a clear evidence of the contemporary realities, was equally erroneous in the end because Yahweh was present and was providing a secure dwelling for the psalmist in his presence.
The man I described above, who in despair at his public disgrace and steadily deteriorating circumstances saw no way out, was thankfully wrong! A loving friend recognized the signs of despair and got the sufferer into counseling. Another gracious and caring friend supplied the funds to make extended treatment possible. A gracious Christian community received the wounded man and his family with redemptive love and restoration.
Our own interpretation of our context can be dangerously wrong. Where we see no God, God nevertheless hovers lovingly just outside our peripheral vision. Within a despairing context we need to discover a perspective of truth that exceeds our own limited understanding of reality. We need to see ourselves and our circumstances through the eyes of “the God of truth” (31:5), who looks beyond the temporary externals to see the eternal verities that work for redemption. Only with this true vision as our foundation can we discover what has been waiting for us all along—the secure dwelling of God, the rock and refuge in the midst of trouble.
Sometimes it is possible to gain this true perspective from the wisdom and encouragement of others in the community of faith. Sometimes it comes by reading the Scriptures and taking to heart the visions of God’s sovereign authority over the universe. Always, however, it is the convincing work of the Spirit that opens our eyes and hearts to the divine refuge that stands waiting for us to enter in. If you would give the Spirit occasion to speak thus to you, if you would be challenged to see through God’s eyes in the midst of personal pain and an impossible present, I would invite you to read again and again through the psalms—which by their history of composition, collection, and canonization offer personal, communal, and spiritual testimony to the refuge of God.
Into your hand I commit my spirit. Out of this new perspective of truth that derives only from the God of truth comes a newfound ability to surrender—not to despair and hopelessness, but to a secure trust in God.
When our circumstances seem troublesome or even hopeless, often we feel driven to take control to find our own way out of the mess. Our inward mechanism says something like: “I cannot trust anyone else to take care of my needs. If my need is to be met in this circumstance, I must find a way to do it myself. If I cannot find a way to do it myself, then it is hopeless.”
The psalmist, in spite of the aggressively negative attacks of the enemy and in spite of equally pessimistic personal doubts, was ultimately able to see the situation through the eyes of the God of truth and surrendered in commitment to the refuge of God. The author of the Gospel of Luke records these words from Psalm 31:5 as Jesus’ last utterance from the cross (Luke 23:46).
It seems clear that it is not merely these few words that Jesus and the Gospel writer wished to bring to the reader’s attention, but the whole context of Psalm 31 in which they originally stood. In a position of public condemnation and shame, perceived by the surrounding community to have been a criminal, a charlatan, and a failure, Jesus made his last speech the words of this psalm. At the very point of death, when no immediate or future worldly restitution could have set things right, Jesus committed himself to the redemptive care of the “God of truth,” who saw through all the twisted and distorted human words and perceptions to the reality of the world and the heart of the dying man hanging on the cross.13
Luke’s Christ, surrounded by taunting enemies and fearful, doubting disciples, enters into death as an act of commitment to the righteous God of truth, who alone can be trusted to vindicate the enduring faith of the righteous. With these words Christ slipped, not down from the cross to avoid death (as his sneering detractors tempted him to do), or to assume without further suffering his rightful role as messianic king, but into the secure refuge of God that even death could not shake or overthrow.
Like Jesus, we cannot assume that committing our spirits into the hand of the God of truth will result in deliverance from suffering and death. Indeed, to commit one’s spirit in this way is to give up any control or expectation over the outcome of life and to trust in the redemptive love of God, come what may. It is this giving up that makes it possible in the final analysis to enter the refuge of God. The taunts and ridicule do not disappear. They simply pass by without harm because we have passed beyond caring. The one who gives up life finds it. And in surrendering our claim to what we had thought to be life, we discover the true nature of living in the power of God alone and in his presence.