Psalms 40

Psalms 40:1

Psalm 40: Rescued!The well-known words “Sacrifice and offering You did not desire” (vv. 6-8) identify this as a Psalm of the Messiah; the words are applied to the Lord Jesus in Heb_10:5. But the Psalm poses a difficulty in that the first part deals with His Resurrection while the last part seems to revert to His agony on the cross. To explain this introversion is not easy. Some suggest that in the early verses the Savior is looking forward to His Resurrection and speaking of it as if it had already taken place. Others apply the anguished prayer at the close of the Psalm to the Jewish remnant during the Great Tribulation. In our study we will apply the entire Psalm to the Lord Jesusfirst to His Resurrection and then to His sufferings on the cross. If this violation of the chronological order offends our western minds, we may take comfort in the fact that people from the East do not always consider time order to be supremely important. 40:1 The speaker is Messiah Jesus. He waited patiently for the LORD to hear His prayer and to deliver Him out of death. Even our blessed Lord did not always receive instant answers to prayer. But He realized that delays do not necessarily mean denials. God answers prayer at the time that is best suited to the accomplishment of His purposes in our lives. God’s help comes, not too soon, lest we should not know the blessedness of trusting in the dark, and not too late, lest we should know the misery of trusting in vain. 40:2 The Savior likens His glorious deliverance out of death to being rescued out of a horrible pit and from a miry bog. Who can imagine what it meant to the Giver of life to step forth from the tomb as the Victor over sin, Satan, death, and the gravealive forevermore! Though Christ’s deliverance was unique, in a lesser sense we can all experience the power of God in saving us out of the pits and bogs of life. As we all know, life is full of these deep holes. The unconverted person who is being convicted of his sins by the Holy Spirit is in a particularly horrible pit. The backslidden believer also finds himself in a treacherous quagmire. There are the bogs of sickness, suffering and sorrow. Often when we are seeking guidance, we seem to be in a dark dungeon.

And of course we sometimes founder in the morass of bereavement, loneliness, or discouragement. These are unforgettable experiences, times when we pray and cry and groan but nothing seems to happen. We need to learn from our Savior’s example to wait patiently for the LORD. In God’s own time and way He will come to our side, pulling us up out of the pit, setting our feet upon a rock and making our steps secure. 40:3 Notice that God is the source of our praise as well as its object. He puts the new song in our mouthand it is a song of praise to our God.Our deliverance results not only in praise to God but in testimony to others: “Many will see it and fear, and will trust in the LORD.” This was never more true than in connection with the Resurrection of the Lord Jesus. Think of the endless line of faith’s pilgrims who have been won to the Living God through the miracle of the empty tomb! 40:4 As He thinks of those who have tasted and seen that the Lord is good, the Risen Redeemer utters one of the greatest, most basic truths in all spiritual life: “Blessed is that man who makes the LORD his trust. . . .” True happiness and fulfillment in life come only through faith in God. It could not be otherwise. We have been created in such a way that we can realize our destiny only when we acknowledge God as our Lord and Master. Pascal said it well: “There is a God-shaped vacuum in the human heart!” And Augustine put it this way: “Thou has made us, O Lord, for Thyself, and our heart shall find no rest till it rest in Thee!” The blessed man not only turns to God but he turns away from proud men and followers of false gods. He is not tricked by two of the greatest delusions of lifethe idea that the honor of proud men is important and the concept that the false gods of materialism, pleasure, and sexual indulgence can satisfy the human heart. The blessed man is more concerned with God’s approval than with man’s, realizing that fullness of joy is found only in God’s presencenot in the company of those who worship at idol shrines. 40:5 This leads the Messiah to think of how numberless are the mercies of God. His works and His thoughts of grace toward His people are beyond computation. Who can fully describe the infinite details of His natural creation? Who can exhaust the remarkable interventions of His providence? Who can comprehend the magnitude of His spiritual blessingselection, predestination, justification, redemption, propitiation, pardon, forgiveness, salvation, the new birth, the indwelling Spirit, the seal of the Spirit, the earnest of the Spirit, the anointing, sanctification, sonship, heirship, glorification"if I would declare and speak of them, they are more than can be numbered.“When all Thy mercies, O my God, My rising soul surveys, Transported with the view, I’m lost In wonder, love and praise! Joseph Addison40:6 As was mentioned, verses 6-8 identify the Psalm as being distinctly Messianic. In Heb_10:5-9 we learn that these words were the language of the Son of God when He came into the world. He was saying, in effect, that although God had instituted sacrifice and offering for the nation of Israel, they never represented His ultimate intention. They were designed as types and shadows of something better to come. As temporary stop-gaps, they had their place. But God was never really satisfied with them; to Him they were less than ideal because they did not provide a final solution to the sin problem.

Recognizing the inherent weakness of burnt offerings and sin offerings, God instead opened the ears of His Beloved Son. This simply means that the Savior’s ears were open to hear and to obey the will of His Father. It was with this attitude of willing and ready obedience that Christ came into the world. In the margin of the ERV, the expression “My ears You have opened” is rendered “Ears thou hast digged (or pierced) for me.” Some interpreters think this refers to the Hebrew slave of Exo_21:5-6. If a slave did not desire to be freed in the seventh year, his ear was pierced with an awl at the doorpost and he became indentured to his master forever. Christ, the Antitype, became a willing bondslave in His Incarnation (Phi_2:7) and will continue to serve His people when He comes again (Luk_12:37). When the clause “My ears You have opened” is quoted in Heb_10:5, it is changed to “a body You have prepared for Me.” As to the authority for making such a change, the same Holy Spirit who first inspired the words in Psalms 40 certainly has the right to clarify them when He quotes it in the NT. The literal rendering of the Hebrew expression “to dig an ear” is probably a figure of speech in which a part (here, the ear) is given for the whole (here, the body). (This is called synecdoche.) The NT expands and explains the meaning as a reference to the Incarnation. 40:7, 8 When Christ became Man, it was not with meek resignation but with wholehearted delight. He said at this time, “Behold, I come; in the scroll of the book it is written of me. I delight to do Your will, O my God, and Your Law is within my heart.” From cover to cover of the OT it was foretold not only that Christ would come into the world but that He would come with an eager, ready spirit to do the will of God. The will of God was not just in His headit was inscribed in His very heart. 40:9, 10 These verses describe His earthly ministry. He had proclaimed the good news of deliverance in the great congregation, that is, to the house of Israel. He had not held back anything that God had given Him to declare. He had not hoarded the great truths of God’s saving help, enduring faithfulness, or steadfast love. 40:11 The remaining verses of the Psalm (11-17) seem to carry us back to the cross. We hear the Savior issuing a most compelling and poignant distress call. There is a close link with what He had just said in verse 10. The connection is this: “I have told the people of Your salvation, Your faithfulness and Your steadfast love. Now do not negate My testimony by withholding these tender mercies from me. Let them continually preserve me!” 40:12 The immediate occasion of His desperate plea was that the calamitous tortures of Calvary were crashing down upon Him. These innumerable evils were linked with innumerable sins, as effect is linked with cause. But when He says, “My iniquities . . .” we must be sure to remember that they were actually our iniquitiesthose sins for which He had contracted to pay the awful penalty. So intense were His sufferings that His heart was failing. Who of us can ever imagine the depths of agony which He endured that we might be pardoned and forgiven! 40:13 In His extremity, Christ stormed the gates of heaven for helpfor immediate help. It is as if He pled, “Please deliver me and please do it now!” That is the kind of prayer that wins. Divine Omnipotence is moved into action by it. 40:14, 15 As for His enemies, He asks that their punishment be suited to their crimes. For their attempts on His life He wishes them disgrace and confusion. For wishing Him evil He hopes they will be repelled and shamed. For gloating over His misfortune He would like to see them shocked by the depth of their own humiliation. If someone objects that these sentiments are incompatible with a God of love, I would only remind him that in refusing love, man deliberately chooses his own punishment. 40:16 As for the friends of God, Christ prays that they might always find their enjoyment in the Lord. He hopes that all those who seek God will rejoice and be glad in Him, and that such as love His salvation will say continually, “The LORD be magnified!“40:17 As for Himself, His strength is small and His need is desperate. But He takes comfort in the fact that the Lord takes thought for Him. As someone has said, “Poverty and need are not barriers to the thoughts of God.” As for God Himself, He is the help and deliverer of His beloved Son. And so in a final salvo of supplication the Lord Jesus prays, “Do not delay, O my God.” The answer is not long in coming. On the third day the Father reaches down and delivers Him from the desolate pit, as we saw in the first part of the Psalm. It seems, then, that in this Psalm we have first the answer to prayer and then the prayer itself. This vividly suggests the promise, “Before they call, I will answer; and while they are still speaking, I will hear” (Isa_65:24).