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Delicate wildflowers, flourishing on the forest's decay,
a picture of new life from death |
Part of an ongoing series on selected psalms.
It was the last place I wanted to be: beside my mother’s
deathbed. She was only 59 as cancer knocked her down for the last time. My
dad’s call had come that afternoon at my workplace, a three-hour drive
away. “Come as soon as you can,” he
pleaded. When I reached home barely four hours later, a neighbor was waiting to
take me to the hospital in the next city. Sometime during our death-watch that
night, Dad opened a Bible and read to her. I’ve since learned that hearing is
one of the last senses to go, so I believe she did hear his voice, though her
struggle to breathe may have fogged the words. But these were words that I
needed to hear as well:
What shall I render
unto the LORD for all his benefits toward me?
I will take the cup of
salvation, and call upon the name of the LORD.
I will pay my vows
unto the LORD now in the presence of all his people.
Precious in the sight
of the LORD is the death of his saints. (Psalm 116:12-15 KJV)
About 2 a.m. a nurse suggested we go home and get some
sleep. “She could last another day,” the nurse said.
So I drove my exhausted father home. He went
to bed, I settled on the couch so I could hear the phone. The nurse’s call
telling of Mom’s death came about 4 a.m. Though I would have wished to be with
her at the end, I knew that she was truly
not
alone.
Precious
in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints, and surely His
presence was in that hospital room.
To this day, I cannot read Psalm 16 without tears. Yet I have
discovered that it offers a good portion of hope and praise. It is positioned
in the book of Psalms as one of the “Hallel” psalms, which includes Psalms 113
through 118. “Hallel” means “praise,”
and these psalms were intended to sung on holy days. Psalms 113-114 were sung
before the Passover meal, and 115-118 as the meal closed. They were also sung
at major Jewish feasts. Two gospels detail how Jesus led His disciples in the
Passover meal (what we now call “The Last Supper”), and afterwards, “when they had
sung a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives” (Matt. 26:20, Mark 14:26). These psalms,
including Psalm 116, were among the last to come from the Savior’s lips before
His arrest, trials and crucifixion. And
truly, precious in the sight of the Lord was the death of His only Son.
The psalm hinges on two big ideas: deliverance and
thanksgiving.
DELIVERANCE (VV. 1-11)
The opening verse sets the tone of gratitude for
deliverance: “I love the LORD, for he heard my voice; he heard my cry for
mercy” (116:1). He backs this up with descriptive language of a tough, even
life-threatening situation: “cords of death,” “anguish of the grave,” “overcome
by trouble and sorrow.” Some Bible teachers wonder if this might describe the
sickness, perhaps an infected boil, that took King Hezekiah to the brink of
death before the “poultice of figs” was applied (Isaiah 38).
The psalm doesn’t list an author, so that’s
just conjecture. But it could represent any of us who walk in a doctor’s office
to a sobering diagnosis, or have our lives flipped upside down in an accident.
The author spends little time on his ailment, but more on
God’s perspective. “Then I called on the name of the LORD: ‘O LORD, save me!”
In “calling on the name of the Lord,” he describes God’s character: gracious,
righteous, full of compassion, protective of the simple-hearted (vv. 5-6).
Praising God’s character lifts him above “demanding” prayer.
A word on “simple-hearted” (Hebrew: petî)—it refers to silly and gullible people. To say God regards
the “simple-hearted” in their foolish or ignorant ways reminds us that we come
to Him without any merit of our own, except through His Son.
The bottom line is that God hears the prayers of the
helpless. This psalm’s writer found himself “in great need”—a tearful,
stumbling, life-or-death matter. He had a miserable outlook, saying all men are
liars (v. 11). God saw through all that,
and reached down to help him.
THANKSGIVING
As the writer considers what God has done for him, he
responds with thanksgiving:
How can I repay the
LORD for all his goodness to me; I will lift up the cup of salvation and call
on the name of the LORD. (vv. 12-13)
This verse is a rhetorical question.
How can we “repay” God for His goodness? We
can’t. It is impossible. But the psalm writer was compelled to express his
thanks some way, and so he turned to a ritual of his time, described in
Leviticus 7:11ff and Deuteronomy 12:17ff.
He would bring a “thank offering” (an unblemished animal) to the sanctuary
for sacrifice. In part of the ritual, the priest would pour a portion of wine
on the altar, symbolizing the worshipper’s life poured out before the
Lord.
This is the “cup of
salvation.”
The priest also kept back
part of the meat from the slaughtered, sacrificed animal for the worshiper to
share in a special joyful feast with family and friends. During that feast,
he’d express public thanks for God’s mercy and love.
Verse 15, which touched me so deeply at my mother’s
deathbed, has prompted a lot of discussion among Bible teachers:
Precious in the sight
of the LORD is the death of his saints.
“Precious” also means “costly.” The death of a “saint”
reminds us that sin brought death into the world, but Christ’s death brought
eternal life to those who trust in Him.
His death (and resurrection) was costly beyond all understanding. A
saint’s death is “precious” to God because it means that person will come to
enjoy His presence. Like the psalmist, Paul wrestled with the possibility of
dying soon when he wrote his letter to the Philippians. His only desire was
that Christ be exalted either by his life or his death. “I desire to depart and
be with Christ,” he said, “which is better by far” (Philippians 1:23).
It is human to fear death. I will never forget the night a
drinking driver nearly wiped out my family. But it is the privilege of a
believer to trust God for the timing of death. He permits us to stay on earth
until He sees that our work here is finished.
We may die of disease or an accident, but the timing is no surprise to
God. And after that, “to live is Christ, and to die is gain” (Philippians 1:21). That
transition is precious to God.
And so the psalmist ends at this feast in which he praises God.
Apparently it happens in the temple courts (v. 18), where his friends and
family and more will hear his story. The psalm concludes, “Praise the Lord,” which in Hebrew is,
“Hallelu-jah.” The phrase is common to all of the “Hallel” psalms (113-118) and
that is appropriate. For whether we are
making a costly public declaration of faith (like the psalmist’s
sacrifice-feast) or quietly witnessing the transition of earthly life to
eternal rest, the focus of our hearts should be God Almighty, who loves to hear
us lift up His name.
Next: Psalm 118
