Keith Simons teaches on Psalm 62, emphasizing David's unwavering trust in God during his trials, particularly when faced with the rebellion of his son Absalom. David expresses a calm reliance on God as his rock and salvation, encouraging others to pour out their hearts to God and trust Him at all times. The psalm contrasts the fleeting nature of human power and riches with the enduring strength and mercy of God, reminding believers that true safety and hope come from Him alone. Simons highlights the importance of waiting on God and recognizing His ultimate authority over all situations.

Welcome. David went through some extremely difficult experiences as King of Israel and it's good for us that he recorded those experiences, not by means of mere history or of complaints, but in the Psalms. One of those Psalms is the Psalm we're looking at today, Psalm 62. My name is Keith Symons, I'm a Bible teacher from England and would welcome you to this podcast. So Psalm 62, looking at it verse by verse and word by word, it begins in the King James Bible with the heading, to the chief musician, to Jedethon, a Psalm of David. Jedethon was the name of one of the leaders of the music in the temple, the house of God, and it seems that David wrote this Psalm for him to lead his choir in singing. When was it written? Well, when we look at the history of David's life, a lot of the facts in this Psalm seem to match the time when Absalom, David's son, made himself into king in place of David. He tried to kill David, he drove David out of Jerusalem and David was in a truly desperate situation, but in that situation David turned to God. Verse one, truly my soul waiteth upon God, from him cometh my salvation. Truly. That's the same word which we see in verse two and verse four and verse six in the Hebrew language and there it's translated only, but in verse one it's translated truly. In all of those verses, six times in all in this Psalm, it is the first word in the verse. It's a word that emphasises what comes afterwards, so the translation only and the translation truly are both correct, but it could be my soul waiteth only upon God. However, our translators have gone with truly my soul waiteth upon God. This is describing quiet waiting, calm waiting. David is saying that his soul, his inner life in this great situation of trouble and danger is calm, it's quiet, it's not disturbed trying to work out political schemes, he's not struggling or angry in his soul. No, he's depending on God and depending on God he rests quietly and calmly because from him cometh my salvation. Salvation means rescue. David believes that from God is going to come his rescue, even in this difficult, this impossible situation, because he is trusting God absolutely to deal with this problem. Verse two, he, that's God, he only is my rock and my salvation, he is my defence, I shall not be greatly moved. Jesus told a story of a man who built a house upon a rock and when the wind and the rain and the storm came, that house stood firm because it was built on the rock. And in the same way, David declares that God is his rock, in other words, his life, his inner life, all he is depends on God, but he's not depending on someone who will disappoint him, he's not depending on someone weak or unstable, no, like a rock, God is firm, God is safe and therefore God is David's salvation, God's rescue. Also he is my defence, I shall not be greatly moved. So God is defending me, says David, God is looking after me, even in this situation of great trouble, when it would seem that I must be destroyed, I must be in great trouble, I must be shaken and broken down, David declares, I shall not be greatly moved, I'm not going to be disturbed because, like the house that's built on the rock, I'm in a safe and strong situation, not because of myself, but because God is my rock, God is my defence, God is my salvation. Verse three, David speaks as if he's speaking to his enemies now, he says, how long will you imagine mischief against a man? In other words, how long will you make plans to do mischief, to do evil things against me? Are you going to continue doing this forever? No, you won't, because you shall be slain, you will be killed, all of you, God's judgment will be against those evil people who've risen up against David. David's sure of that, because unless they turn back to God, unless they turn away from their evil deeds, God will be the judge of their evil deeds. The verse ends, as a bowing wall shall ye be, and as a tottering fence. The King James Bible translators help us often by telling us when they've inserted words to try to make the meaning clearer, and they do that by showing the words that they've inserted in italics or slanted type. What they mean by that is that those words are not in the Hebrew, and if you examine the words I've just read closely, you'll see that the words shall ye be and as are in italics. So, what this says in the Hebrew is, as a bowing wall, a tottering fence. So, there are two possibilities. One is that this is the evil which these people imagine against David, and the other is that David is saying that their punishment will be like the wall or like the fence. Let's see what's happening to the wall and the fence in this word picture then. The bowing wall, a wall that is leaning. If you've got a brick wall that is leaning over, it's sure to fall over, isn't it? Or a fence that totters, that shakes back and forward. We had a fence like that a few weeks ago. It's no longer there. It started to fall down and we removed it quickly. And if this is about David, then these evil men are looking at him and saying, David is like a bowing wall, like a tottering fence. We just need to push a little further and he's utterly destroyed. But if we go with what the King James Bible translators thought, and the wall and the fence are a word picture for the people, who are opposing David, then the idea is that they think themselves stable and they think themselves strong, but their lives are not like David, firm and built upon the rock, verse 2. They're not depending on God as David did. So they are in a very weak position. They're like a wall which is leaning over, which is bowing, like a fence that is shaking back and forth, that is tottering. So their destruction, their punishment, God's action against them, will be as sudden as that fence falls down or that wall falls down. And then their evil schemes and their evil plans will end. Verse 4, they only consult to cast him down from his excellency. The him and the his in that sentence is David himself. These enemies of David are consulting, they're making plans together, they're discussing how they can do it, what they want to do, to cast him down, to throw him down, to throw him to the ground from his excellency. Excellency means a high place, a place of importance. David was the king of Israel and these evil people were trying to destroy his power, they were trying to remove him from power and to kill David. They were not just evil people, they were deceptive people too. End of verse 4, they delight in lies. They bless with their mouth but they curse inwardly. These are evil people who speak lies. You can never trust what they say. You know once they said about David that they respected him, that they honoured him, that they considered him to be a great and important king and they respected him for his holy attitude and it seemed that they were good people because they spoke good things. But in their hearts, inwardly, they were making plans against David. Inwardly, they were thinking evil things against David. David pauses with the word selah which could mean a pause in the music as the psalm continues or it could be a word of praise to God but it's a good point just to pause a moment as you read a psalm, just think about what you're reading. Verse 5, David now speaks to his soul, his inner life and he encourages himself to trust in God. My soul, wait thou only upon God, for my expectation is from him. He says to himself, to his inner life, to his soul, yes it's right that you should, as we said in verse 1, wait quietly, trusting in God, not be disturbed and upset by all these enemies and all these troubles. Why? Because David says my expectation is from him. Expectation is what you expect. David expected something good so we could say my hope is from him. His hope depends on God. He's expecting God to do good things even in this terrible situation. Verse 6, he, God, only is my rock and my salvation. He is my defense. I shall not be moved. So he's repeating this thought which we've seen previously in verse 2. He's telling his soul, don't be disturbed. God is the one who I'm relying on. God is the one who's rescuing me. God is the one who's defending me and then in verse 7, he builds on that thought. In God is my salvation and my glory, my honour. My rock of my strength and my refuge is in God. So he looks to God not just to rescue him but to give him honour. It's him who makes him strong. It's him who's his refuge, his hiding place, his place of safety. No, David is depending wholly upon God. In verse 8, David seems to turn to the people who are supporting him. Most of Israel's people at the time of Absalom supported Absalom, David's son who wanted to kill him. But a small group of people, few thousand loyal soldiers, remained with David and David urges them, trust in him at all times ye people. Pour out your heart before him. In other words, we may have been driven from our homes, we may be far away from Jerusalem where we live, we may have lost control over the country, all these things happened at that time in David's life. But David says trust in God at all times, even when all seems wrong, even when everything you've hoped for and worked for has been utterly destroyed, that's no reason not to trust God. Instead, you should pour out your heart before God. Pour out your heart is a way to express the idea of desperate prayer. Place your request before God, ask him to help you, seek him, because God is a refuge for us. Refuge, as we said earlier, a safe place. In God we have safety. Our safety doesn't depend on this world, it doesn't depend on politics, it doesn't depend on people respecting David's rule or not respecting David's rule. No, it's God who provides us with safety. And with that David pauses with another cellar, an opportunity to think about what he's just said. On to verse 9. It's rather curious to compare the King James Bible or indeed any other translation with the Hebrew here. It begins, surely men of low degree are vanity and men of high degree are a lie. Now if I were translating that from the Hebrew I would have written, surely the son of Adam is Abel and the son of man is a lie. Okay, that men of low degree is literally the son of Adam and that men of high degree is literally just the son of man. And that vanity is the same word as Abel's name. So there's a bit of a play on words here because Abel was indeed the son of Adam, the first man. But why does it translate it men of low degree and men of high degree? Well if you look at Psalm 49 and verse 2 you'll see the sort of passage which influenced this translation. It's a translation not only followed in the King James Bible, I had to look at a couple of modern translations and a couple of very ancient translations before the King James Bible and they both had this approach to it. But the idea is that son of Adam is just describing an ordinary person and son of man is describing someone of more importance. And the author of the psalm says that they're vanity, which is the same as the Hebrew name of Abel. Vanity or Abel really means a breath. In other words, people are like a breath. They've got no substance at all to them and they're a lie. All the importance they have is like nothing. It's like untruth that they're so important. They're claiming to be something that they're not. These enemies who've come against me, they may be important or they may be unimportant but really they're nothing. They're nothing compared with God. They're nothing compared to one who truly fills heaven and earth. So David looks at them and he says about them, to be laid in the balance, they are altogether lighter than vanity. Or if we took a literal translation, we might translate it, tested in the balance. Together they are but a breath. In other words, if you weigh food, you remember people used to weigh food in a pair of scales. They put a weight on one side and then they put in whatever they were weighing on the other side and the heavier side went down and the lighter side went up. Well, David is saying if you test people like that, then you find that they've got nothing of value in them at all. The men who trust themselves, the men who act proudly, the men who prepare their evil schemes to destroy what God has done. No, they have nothing that's of value. What they're offering, all their evil schemes amount to nothing because God is our strength. It's God we must put our trust in. Moving on to verse 10. Trust not in oppression and become not vain in robbery. If riches increase, set not your heart upon them. I suppose David might still be speaking to those people who were loyal to him and he says to them, you know, you've been driven out of your country and out of your important jobs and out of your homes. You might become tempted to get your money by robbery or by oppression, by cruelty. Don't do that. Whatever you do, you ought to be relying and trusting on God and even if you do well and you make good profits from honest dealings, if riches increase, set not your heart upon them. If you become wealthy men, don't depend on that. Look to God, put your trust in God and depend on him in whatever situation you may be in, in poverty or in riches, in trouble or in a comfortable life. And on to verse 11. God hath spoken once, twice have I heard this, that power belongeth unto God. Now if God's spoken once, then you can rely on it. Every word that God speaks is the truth. Everything that God says is to be believed and to be trusted but if God has spoken it once, well if I've heard it twice, well that emphasizes even more that I should believe these two principles which he's about to explain at the end of verse 11 and at the beginning of verse 12. First principle, that power belongeth unto God. Maybe this is the power with which God supports and strengthens his people or maybe this is the power with which God defeats his enemies. And the second principle, verse 12. Also unto thee, O Lord, belongeth mercy. So we've got power belongs to God and now we've got mercy belongs to God and that mercy is God's kindness, his loving kindness we sometimes translate it as. The kindness he shows in love to his people, supporting them and helping them and looking after them, forgiving their sins and bringing them into a right relationship with him. And then verse 12 finishes. For thou renderest to every man according to his work. Thou renderest, you repay, you return to every person according to his doings, the things he's done. The last verse of Ecclesiastes reads, for God shall bring every work into judgment with every secret thing, whether it be good or whether it be evil. God sees. God sees these men of low degree and men of high degree in verse 9 who are vanity and who are a lie, laid in the balance altogether light and vanity. God sees that and God's judgment is against them. But to those who, verse 8, trust in him at all times ye people and pour out your heart before him, to those who turn to God for forgiveness, who trust in his mercy, who don't depend on themselves and upon their own power and their own greatness, but who depend on God, who surrender themselves to God and wait for his salvation and wait for his help, well to them God shows his mercy. To them God forgives them their evil deeds. God gives them the right relationship with himself. In a moment I'm going to read through the whole psalm but first let me give you my email address 333kjv at gmail.com. It would be good to hear from you. 333kjv at gmail.com. And now here's the whole psalm. Psalm 62. To the chief musician, to Jedethon, a psalm of David. Truly my soul waiteth upon God. From him cometh my salvation. He only is my rock and my salvation. He is my defense. I shall not be greatly moved. How long will you imagine mischief against a man? You shall be slain all of you. As a bowing wall shall ye be and as a tottering fence. They only consult to cast him down from his excellency. They delight in lies. They bless with their mouth but they curse inwardly. Selah. My soul wait thou only upon God. For my expectation is from him. He only is my rock and my salvation. He is my defense. I shall not be moved. In God is my salvation and my glory. The rock of my strength and my refuge is in God. Trust in him at all times ye people. Pour out your heart before him. God is a refuge for us. Selah. Surely men of low degree of vanity and men of high degree are a lie. To be laid in the balance they are altogether lighter than vanity. Trust not in oppression and become not vain in robbery. If riches increase set not your heart upon them. God hath spoken once. Twice have I heard this that power belongeth unto God. Also unto thee O Lord belongeth mercy. For thou renderest to every man according to his work.