Chapter Thirty-Nine

The entire content of the psalm can be divided into three parts. In the first (2-9) David recalls the dangers he has experienced, from which the Lord delivered him; in the second (10-11) he speaks of the revelation that came to him from God, which he proclaimed before all the people, and in the third (12-18) he prays to God for deliverance from the newly-experienced misfortunes, and he points to his sinfulness before Him (13). By the former misfortunes, as already past, we must understand the persecutions from Saul, to which there is an indirect indication in Ps 39:7, and by the newly-experienced misfortunes we must understand the persecutions from Absalom. The entire psalm, thus, was written because of the latter persecutions.

Psalm 39:2. I waited patiently for the Lord, and He inclined to me and heard my cry; Psalm 39:3. He drew me out of the horrible pit, out of the muddy bog, and set my feet on a rock and made my steps firm; Psalm 39:4. And He put a new song in my mouth—praise to our God. Many will see and fear and will trust in the Lord. “I waited patiently for the Lord,” David says, I suffered much, but these sufferings did not weaken my faith in Him, I endured much, but remained faithful to the Lord and the Lord heard my “cry” for help: He freed me from misfortunes. “Horrible pit”—a pit of suffering, deep, grievous misfortunes; “muddy bog”—that is, unstable, wavering ground found in marshes, means a troubled and full of dangers life for David. The Lord brought him out of this pit and mire, gave him firm and safe existence. As the situation changed, so David’s songs changed: instead of former, prayerful-supplicatory ones, he began to compose new ones—thankful-laudatory. By these misfortunes David understands the persecutions from Saul. The miraculous help, frequently shown to David by God at this time, and his extraordinary fate, which raised him to the throne, were so striking as to inspire reverence before God and faith only in Him, and not in one’s own strength, in all people who knew the history of his life.

Psalm 39:5. Blessed is the man who makes the Lord his trust and does not look to the proud, nor to those who turn aside to falsehood. Therefore blessed is he for whom the Lord is the only hope and who does not turn his attention “to the proud and to those who turn aside to falsehood.” By the latter are understood the wicked, possessed, however, of means valuable in the eyes of men for protection, whether in the form of wealth or their high position. Hope in them, according to David, is deceptive.

Psalm 39:6. Many things You have done, Lord, my God: Your wonders and Your thoughts toward us—who is like You!—I would proclaim and speak of them, but they are beyond number. The Lord manifests His mercies over people in a multitude of wonderful deeds. He has created and creates them both in the life of David and among the Hebrews in such a quantity that it is impossible to count them. God’s deeds are inexplicable by human reason, they surpass his limited understanding, and no one of men is able in thought, in reason, to imagine the degree of love and the quantity of mercy which He pours out upon man.

Psalm 39:7. Sacrifice and offering You did not desire; You have opened my ears; Burnt offerings and sin offerings You did not require. Psalm 39:8. Then I said: Behold, I come; in the scroll of the book it is written of me: Psalm 39:9. I desire to do Your will, my God, and Your law is within my heart. It is also incomprehensible to man that God did not require of David the observance of the ceremonial Mosaic law; He did not require of him either sacrifice (bloody) and offerings (bloodless), nor burnt offerings (peaceful), nor sin offerings, but instead “opened my ears.” This refers to the custom of the Hebrews of piercing the ears of that Hebrew slave who, upon the completion of the Sabbatical year, wished to remain with his former master. The mentioned expression points to the voluntary dedication of oneself entirely to the service of God, which dedication is higher than ceremonial sacrifice. In the LXX: “You have prepared me a body” (σῶμα), that is, You made for me a body, demanded of David not service to Yourself in the ceremonies of the law, but service with all his body, all his being—with thoughts, feelings and deeds. The word σῶμα means man with soul and body. Both expressions—the Hebrew and the Greek—thus mean one and the same thing. The time when God did not count it as sin against David for his not offering sacrifices was the time of his flight from Saul to Ziklag (cf. Ps 15). To this call of God to serve Him with his whole being David responded with joy: “Then I said: Behold, I come.” About this obedience “it is written in the scroll of the book,” in the scroll of the book of the law, by which this obedience was prescribed to man by God as an external requirement and command. For David, however, this obedience was not only an external requirement of the law, but also an internal inclination of his spirit, (“I desire to do Your will”); in his activity and life he was always guided by this obedience—“Your law is within my heart,” it constitutes his inseparable inner possession, which cannot fail to be expressed outwardly. The replacement of sacrifices with respect to David by service to God in thoughts and deeds pointed out that for God are valued not the objects of offering themselves, but for man is beneficial not the process of performing the ceremony itself, but the elevated, inner disposition of the one offering, which should be aroused by understanding the meaning of the ideological side of the external action. By this fact of God not counting it as sin against David for his non-observance of the ceremonial side of the law and the replacement of the latter by another kind of service to God, it was already foreshadowed that the law itself has not an inviolable, eternal significance, but a temporal one, which should be replaced by a higher kind of divine worship than ceremonies. With the coming of the Messiah this came to pass: the Mosaic law lost its obligatory significance and was replaced by service to God “in spirit and in truth” (John 4:23). As an indication of the abrogation of the Old Testament law this place is also explained in the Letter of Apostle Paul to the Hebrews (Heb 10:5-10). In the very content of the psalm there is a clear indication of its messianic meaning. In verse 8 David says that “in the scroll of the book it is written of me.” If we understand here only David, then in no place of the sacred books is there any such prophecy about him. Meanwhile, already in the Book of Genesis it was said of the Seed of the woman, so strong and pure that It will crush the head of the serpent, will destroy his power over the world. In subsequent revelations this Seed of the woman was described more fully: He is a prophet like Moses, a great Descendant of David, God incarnate. And only to the latter can the words be applied with literal exactness that He always carried the law “in His heart,” was always faithful to God. The person of David in this case was prefigurative: his sincere striving toward God, his yearning for dedication to complete service to Him and his constant endeavor for unwavering following of His law, all this found its full and exact realization in the service of the Messiah—Christ, the seed of David according to the flesh.

Psalm 39:10. I have proclaimed the good news of righteousness in the great assembly; I did not restrain my lips; You, Lord, know this. Psalm 39:11. I have not hidden Your righteousness in my heart; I have proclaimed Your faithfulness and Your salvation; I have not concealed Your mercy and Your truth from the great assembly. By “righteousness,” “mercy” and “truth” here can be understood both David’s glorification in his songs, which had church-public use, of the Lord for the mercies shown to him in unjust persecutions by his enemies, and also the promise which he received from God about the birth from him of the promised Descendant, that is, the Messiah.

Psalm 39:12. Do not withhold, Lord, Your compassions from me; let Your mercy and Your truth continually guard me, Psalm 39:13. For innumerable evils have surrounded me; my iniquities have overtaken me, so that I cannot look up; they are more than the hairs on my head; my heart has failed me. Psalm 39:14. Be pleased, Lord, to deliver me; Lord! Hasten to help me. Psalm 39:15. Let all those seeking my soul be ashamed and dishonored! Let those desiring evil for me be turned back and scorned! Psalm 39:16. Let those saying to me, “Good! Good!” be dismayed at their shame. Psalm 39:17. Let all those seeking You rejoice and be glad in You, and let those loving Your salvation continually say: “The Lord is great! Psalm 39:18. But I am poor and needy; yet the Lord cares for me. You are my help and my deliverer, my God! Do not delay. All the remaining content of the psalm represents David’s prayer for salvation from the dangers he was experiencing during the persecutions from Absalom. “Let Your mercy and Your truth continually guard me.” As we have pointed out above, the persecutions of Absalom and the sympathy of the people for him were fed by slander against David by his enemies, and therefore were undeserved, they were not “true.” God—as the bearer and defender of truth—is the only defender to whom David can boldly turn with prayer, that He would not allow his enemies to trample on truth and triumph. “My iniquities have overtaken me as well as the hairs on my head.” David here understands not the number of various crimes committed by him, for then he could not be God’s chosen one, moreover, such crimes are not known to and not indicated in the historical books, but the degree of his awareness of the weight of his sin with Bathsheba (see Ps 37). The stronger were David’s misfortunes, the more hopeless his position seemed, the greater jubilation was aroused in his enemies (16 verse). Therefore David prays to God to protect him and not allow the falsehood of his enemies to triumph over truth, and by this protection to fill the righteous with joy, who, like David, will see that the only source of salvation, “helper and deliverer” is the Lord. According to verses 7-9 this psalm is of a prefigurative messianic character. * * * According to the translation of the Seventy: You have prepared me a body.