Psalms 116

Psalms 116:1-19

The God of resurrection, and the recall of Israel’s heart to Him. This does not, however, complete the story; and the 116th psalm comes in here to show how nearly Israel had been in those terrible jaws of death, -ingulfed, but for the mercy of God, to utter perdition. It is the sense of this deliverance that brings their hearts to God, and makes them His servants for ever.

1. The opening of the psalm is simple enough: a story which every one brought to God will recognize as his own. Israel, in the realization of the grace that has answered her, takes her place of confession of Jehovah her God, henceforth to own Him alone.
2. The deliverance is then recounted from the toils of death and the straits of sheol. They calling on Jehovah in distress, He manifested Himself in loving mercy and salvation.
3. The soul can now return to its rest. Delivered from death, Israel walks before God in the land of the living.
4. The fourth section; though only of two verses, is as important as it is emphatic. Experience has shown absolutely what the psalmist believes as a most certain truth, that all confidence in man is vain. “I said in my haste to escape” -not that it was, as we say, a mere hasty speech, for it is this in which he is so confident that he speaks it out -“all men are liars.” This realized in the soul, with honest self-application; sweeps it clean of the last remnant of self-righteousness and self-dependence. Out of a wreck so absolute nothing is saved, except what was never in it. God remains, and there is nothing else. The ground is clear for faith to build its temple for Him alone.
5. He turns, therefore, to ask, “What shall I render to Jehovah for all His benefits toward me?” What is right and suitable when all that is of value is what I find in Him? Well, I can receive and own His grace: “take the cup of salvation; and call upon Jehovah’s Name.” But there is more than this. There are vows now to be performed to Jehovah: and this is repeated in the same words before the close of the psalm. Israel’s legal vow she has, as we know, utterly failed in, and is still suffering the consequences of her failure; but there are thanksgiving vows that in the day of coming blessing shall be fulfilled. (Psalms 56:12; Isaiah 19:21.) They imply no legality, but the consciousness of what grace has done, and the praise with which the heart is filled and empowered. Praise is now easy, -necessary: it is, indeed, but what His vow implies who will be in that day the Leader of His people’s praises (Ps. 22: 22, 33); and who will be silent then? Thus these vows are evangelic only. They are connected with the “cup of salvation,” and Another’s work, -the joyful assurance of what that work means for them. The 15th verse is a kind of enigma, in the connection in which it stands. It is, in fact, however, the solution of an enigma, and one most important for the soul at all times. For the law, death, as we have elsewhere seen abundantly, and as we see in the earlier part of this very psalm, was necessarily a shadow. The blessings declared by law are so thoroughly blessings to be enjoyed on earth, the dead thus losing part in them; those of the prophets themselves being so much of this character -Israel’s blessings in the land in coming times -that of necessity this would be so until, with the New Testament, the full revelation of the heavenly things should come. Going through the sufferings and trials of the latter days, in which the question of their title to national blessing was pressing upon them; death would again have for the remnant of Israel all its significance. Were they to die or live would seem to involve fully the question of the wrath or favor of God; and under the bitter persecution of that time many, in fact, will die.

Resurrection might explain this: for the orthodox in Israel have, as we know, always believed in resurrection; but here again there might be a question: Was not the resurrection already passed? For Christians, and along with these the whole of the saints of former times, it will in fact have taken place when Israel’s travail-pangs come upon her; and can they be ignorant of this who are under the teaching of Christ, specially addressed to those in view of that time of unequaled tribulation (Matthew 24:1-51)? His word there, moreover, is that “he that endureth to the end, the same shall be saved.” What, then; as to the saints of that period does death mean? Most confirming it is to find in the book of Revelation,which so clearly brings before us the trials and sufferings of these very Israelitish saints, the same question anticipated and provided for. In the 14th chapter, which has to do with those who are seen anticipatively in the commencement of it as standing upon Mount Zion with the victorious “Lamb,” after Babylon is fallen (ver. 8), and when the time of the antichristian “beast” and his followers is in contemplation; it is suddenly announced, as if in contrast with the woe upon the beast-worshipers, “Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth. Yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labors; and their works do follow them.” (ver. 13.) The words “from henceforth” show the special application of what must seem otherwise a general truth; and the connection shows that the application must be, pre-eminently at least, to the latter-day remnant of Israel. And here is again the assurance so needful, just to those of this class, of death being no loss to these, but rather gain. How perfectly has the tenderness of the Lord provided for the peculiar need of these peculiarly tried and needy sufferers! The New Testament clasps hands, as it were, with the Old about them; to give them an assurance specially needed, as is plain, in their case: while the comfort abides, of course, for all of every time. Such are the “oracles” of God’s living word; and so sweet a testimony have we of the heart behind them! In the psalm, where it reaches prophetically in the history of the nation; Israel’s salvation has come, and the blessedness of the dead saints has come into open light, and is a matter of experience. And so the numerical structure declares it. But, as already said, by this anticipative expression of it, it has been made the property of believers of every time; and lightens the shadows of the Old Testament with its emphatic assurance, “Precious in the sight of Jehovah is the death of His pious ones.” It is not “holy ones” here, but those whose heart toward Himself the Lord realizes and acknowledges. 6. The closing section beautifully expresses in the number of it the triumph of His ways in bringing thus the heart of Israel back to Himself. We have, first of all, and as the foundation of all else, the spirit of obedience which is the fruit of His grace. They serve in liberty, in the constraining sense of His love who has loosed them from their bonds. They confess His Name with sacrifices of thanksgiving, and thus perform their vows. The circumstances are now added which assure us in what a scene the vision ends for us: “in the courts of Jehovah’s house, in the midst of thee, Jerusalem.” Jehovah has taken His place once more in the midst of His gathered people; and that is the sign which shows the day has now come for the earth; and for the “gathering of the peoples” so long foretold, at last to Shiloh. (Genesis 49:10.)