NOTES for Psa 138

Printable version

¹I will praise thee with my whole heart: before the gods will I sing praise unto thee.

²I will worship toward thy holy temple, and praise thy name for thy lovingkindness and for thy truth: for thou hast magnified thy word above all thy name.

³In the day when I cried thou answeredst me, and strengthenedst me with strength in my soul.

⁴All the kings of the earth shall praise thee, O LORD, when they hear the words of thy mouth.

⁵Yea, they shall sing in the ways of the LORD: for great is the glory of the LORD.

⁶Though the LORD be high, yet hath he respect unto the lowly: but the proud he knoweth afar off.

⁷Though I walk in the midst of trouble, thou wilt revive me: thou shalt stretch forth thine hand against the wrath of mine enemies, and thy right hand shall save me.

⁸The LORD will perfect that which concerneth me: thy mercy, O LORD, endureth for ever: forsake not the works of thine own hands.

If we read the psalm attentively, the thought expressed here that the Lord has exalted His word above every name of His may at first puzzle us. We have already learned that through His name the Lord reveals Himself to us, while through His word He makes His will known. But if we reason in our usual way, a question arises: how can that through which His will is proclaimed be higher than the One from whom it comes?

Here we have evidence of the psalmist drawing near to an important mystery, already partly revealed, but to be formulated later, when the evangelist begins his account with the words ‘In the beginning was the Word’. Yet long before that, the conclusion already suggested itself that if the Lord created the world by His word, this means that the word is one with Him. And if the word is one with the Speaker, then those who listen to the Lord and do His will enter into union with Him. It is therefore not enough to acknowledge God's existence as a piece of information: we need to follow the Lord and live according to His commandments.

When rereading words written through inspiration from above, it is often difficult to grasp their full meaning at once. Those who received such inspiration touched depths they could not have reached through human reason. What, for instance, is the full meaning even of the words ‘You will revive me’? They can be understood figuratively as an expression of hope for the strength and courage the Lord gives in the face of enemies, or we can see in them the psalmist's confidence that the Lord will not let him perish in battle. But if we take these words literally, they can be understood as an expression of faith in the resurrection.

Other notes

For

¹I will praise thee with my whole heart: before the gods will I sing praise unto thee.

²I will worship toward thy holy temple, and praise thy name for thy lovingkindness and for thy truth: for thou hast magnified thy word above all thy name.

³In the day when I cried thou answeredst me, and strengthenedst me with strength in my soul.

⁴All the kings of the earth shall praise thee, O LORD, when they hear the words of thy mouth.

⁵Yea, they shall sing in the ways of the LORD: for great is the glory of the LORD.

⁶Though the LORD be high, yet hath he respect unto the lowly: but the proud he knoweth afar off.

⁷Though I walk in the midst of trouble, thou wilt revive me: thou shalt stretch forth thine hand against the wrath of mine enemies, and thy right hand shall save me.

⁸The LORD will perfect that which concerneth me: thy mercy, O LORD, endureth for ever: forsake not the works of thine own hands.

The depth of the perception of God expressed here is astonishing. This psalm alone, composed of simple words, is worth a multitude of theological and philosophical treatises... Read more

The depth of the perception of God expressed here is astonishing. This psalm alone, composed of simple words, is worth a multitude of theological and philosophical treatises in which people try to express the deepest concepts in the language of complex terminology.

That the Lord is near and sees everything, that He is omnipresent, was not news by the time the psalm was composed. But here we have a profound insight, still beyond the grasp of many people: the Lord is beside us even in the underworld, and no darkness can obstruct His gaze. If we live in darkness, it is because we ourselves have consented to sink into it through our own sins, while His light shines even in the darkness. This means that C. S. Lewis's intuition that ‘the doors of hell are locked on the inside’ is true. Even when we sink into utter despair, when everything, absolutely everything, seems finally to have collapsed and to be doomed, there is Someone we can reach out to. It turns out that trusting Him is very simple: it follows from His mere presence beside us.

Here, as in other psalms, David asks the Lord for help in the face of his enemies. Hatred of enemies is a natural human response; David says what he has grown accustomed to feeling, compelled as he is to fight his enemies continually. But here we see something else as well: David is not presumptuous. He does not insist on his own opinion as the only right one, but asks the Lord to show him whether he is on a dangerous path. Here is an example of David's humility: he does not replace dialogue with God with a monologue of self-righteousness.

For

⁷Though I walk in the midst of trouble, thou wilt revive me: thou shalt stretch forth thine hand against the wrath of mine enemies, and thy right hand shall save me.

⁸The LORD will perfect that which concerneth me: thy mercy, O LORD, endureth for ever: forsake not the works of thine own hands.

Yes, of course, God is omnipresent. But this is spoken of not only in biblical revelation... Read more

Yes, of course, God is omnipresent. But this is spoken of not only in biblical revelation; pantheistic religions are very ancient. But the God to whom the psalmist turns has astonishing differences from the god of pantheistic religions: He is Spirit, but He has a face turned toward me and a hand with which He leads and holds me. God has personal relationships with me, relationships that are not broken on His side even when I avoid them. And one more thing: to descend into the underworld means to die, to go away from God forever, into nonbeing. But God comes even there, in order to bring even nonbeing into being.

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