Themes from the Psalm of Psalms

(Loving the God of Psalm 119)

Stanza Twenty

RESH: Pleading for redemption from the God of truth…and tender mercies

153 Consider my affliction and deliver me, / For I do not forget Your law.

154 Plead my cause and redeem me; / Revive me according to Your word.

155 Salvation is far from the wicked, / For they do not seek Your statutes.

156 Great are Your tender mercies, O Lord; / Revive me according to Your judgments.

157 Many are my persecutors and my enemies, / Yet I do not turn from Your testimonies.

158 I see the treacherous, and am disgusted, / Because they do not keep Your word.

159 Consider how I love Your precepts; / Revive me, O Lord, according to Your lovingkindness.

160 The entirety of Your word is truth, / And every one of Your righteous judgments endures forever.

King David could look back on many episodes of his life when treacherous, wicked persecutors and enemies tried to pursue, oppose, or even destroy him. And surely there were times when he was tempted to take revenge on these evil people.

Take the time when David and his band of outlaws protected the fields and flocks of Nabal the Calebite, then requested that Nabal furnish them with some fresh supplies in return. Nabal, whose very name means “a fool,” ridiculed David and his men and sent them away scornfully. In a rage, David told his men to strap on their swords and they went to take revenge on Nabal’s entire household. God used Nabal’s wise wife Abigail to plead with the future king NOT to take vengeance into his own hands, and David agreed. Later, God punished Nabal, who died from fright, and Abigail became David’s wife.

In this 20th stanza of the Psalm of Psalms, we encounter another situation where King David is beset with enemies. In the 19th stanza, he spoke of those who “draw near who follow after wickedness.” But he also wrote of his God, Yahweh, drawing near: “You near, O LORD, and all Your commandments are truth.” Well, in this stanza, everyone, it seems, has arrived and is standing there with David, both his loving God… and his bitter foes who mean to judge him guilty and afflict him and persecute him.

In the previous 8 verses, he CRIED OUT to the Lord as if He were far off and needed to be awakened. He was awake through the night watches hoping for God to respond. Now, in the 8 verses that each begin with the Hebrew letter RESH, David speaks to the Lord who is nearby, standing next to him like a defense attorney, the only one in the King’s corner, the only hope David has of deliverance!

This stanza is clearly broken into two-verse couplets, both verses following a similar theme. The first couplet, verses 153 & 154, echo one another as the plea of the one being wrongfully accused by the prosecution: “Consider my affliction and deliver me, / For I do not forget Your law. / Plead my cause and redeem me; / Revive me according to Your word.”

The case of the accused believer is to be based on the law…the word…of Yahweh. Some might suggest that an admitted sinner such as David should not plead the righteous law of God as his own defense. But even though the King sees himself as a law-breaker—far from perfect in his obedience, he also sees himself as living by the merciful love and the rock-solid promises of the Lord. King David was a believer in salvation by grace ALONE. “Blessed is the man to whom sin is not imputed,” Psalm 32:2. He knew that the promise of the coming Messiah was his assurance that the guilt of his own sin would be forgiven, for those sins would be imputed to another—One who would obey God perfectly!

“Deliver me…Redeem me…Revive me,” are David’s requests. He realizes that his cries have proved successful. His trust is in a trustworthy Advocate who is never deaf to those cries, One who always is considering our afflictions. Yahweh assured the deliverer Moses: “I have surely seen the affliction of my people which are in Egypt, and have heard their cry by reason of their taskmasters; for I know their sorrows” (Exodus 3:7). One who pleads the cause of those he loves, against the devil and his followers who preach lies and discouragement and seek to rob Christians of their hope in God’s promises.

Trusting in God to balance the scales of justice when evil folks are seeking to harm us: this is not always easy. David was encouraged by his men to take revenge on King Saul when they were hiding in the wilderness and Saul was hunting the future king to kill him. Twice it was that Saul was at David’s mercy, once in the cave relieving himself, and once asleep in his camp. Both times, David left the scales of justice in God’s hands. 1 Samuel 24:12— “Let the LORD judge between you and me, and let the LORD avenge me on you. But my hand shall not be against you.”

“Vengeance is Mine; I will repay, says the Lord” (Romans 12:19). We are commanded by our Master to pray for those who harm us, and do good to those who sin against us, in the hopes of our enemies one day turning to Christ. At one time, the Apostle Paul was a bitter enemy of the church, seeking to destroy it and approving when Jesus’ followers were executed. But even the murderous Saul of Tarsus was not beyond hope—beyond the saving power of the risen Christ and the Holy Spirit of God.

The second couplet, verses 155 & 156, tell two truths about God’s salvation that are linked together: “Salvation is far from the wicked, / For they do not seek Your statutes. / Great are Your tender mercies, O Lord; / Revive me according to Your judgments.” People who neglect the established rules of God are flirting with eternal destruction. God is “angry with the wicked every day” (Psalm 7:11). Divine wrath hangs over their heads like Damocles’ mythical sword. But this is true for even the most “righteous” of sinners, unless they come to trust in the “tender mercies” of the Lord. Salvation is far from all of us, until and unless God judges us graciously and extends His merciful hand.

The Hebrew word for “revive” is simply the word for LIFE. “LIFE me according to Your judgments” David is saying, and again, God’s salvation/new life is only available to you and me because His justice fell upon the person of His only begotten Son who died in our place, bearing the guilt of our sins. We think of “wickedness” as a trait of only the most extreme sinners. But the reason Jesus became a human being was that “salvation is far from” everyone descended from Adam, who wickedly disobeyed the Creator. Yet, now that Christ has come, salvation is close and available to all who “call upon the name of the Lord” (Romans 10:13).

Verses 157 & 158 go together, describing both the number and the character of David’s opponents. Like this ancient king, you and I face “many…persecutors and…enemies.” Paul told the Ephesian believers that our struggle is not against flesh and blood people, at least, not mainly. Yes, there have been people in government, in our jobs and schools, even in our churches and families, who have ridiculed and opposed our faith in Jesus Christ. But the power and influence behind those people is a spiritual force of wickedness: Satan and his host of demons with their evil ideas and their lies.

David shares the Lord’s own attitude toward the “treacherous” ones such as Judas Iscariot who perhaps have heard God’s word from the lips of Jesus…even seen the wonders he performs, and yet they “do not keep [His] word.” It is repugnant, disgusting, to the Lord for people to treat Him and His testimonies like they mean nothing! David refused to align himself with this majority. Rather, he determined not to “turn from Your testimonies.” No matter how many lined up in opposition to the truth of Yahweh, they couldn’t turn him from taking his stand for the One who IS the Truth.

“I see the treacherous,” he tells the Lord. God has given him the eyes required to discern the false from the true. How many people around us lack that kind of insight and are led astray by the deceptive ideas of this present world! Liberal churches that deny the deity and miracles of Christ…government and corporate movements that support evolution and trans-genderism…business people and relatives who are relying on their good works to make up for their sins and get them into heaven… All such people have been blinded, Paul writes, “by the god of this age”---Satan (2 Corinthians 4:4).

David ends this powerful stanza, this plea for redemption, by extolling the Source of light that allows him to see clearly and discern rightly.

“Consider how I love Your precepts; / Revive me, O Lord, according to Your lovingkindness. / The entirety of Your word is truth, / And every one of Your righteous judgments endures forever.”

Love, truth and righteousness. They all come together perfectly in the written and living Word of God. David’s plea in the courtroom of Yahweh, when faced with a multitude of treacherous accusers, is a request for the Judge to “consider” the psalmist’s LOVE of God’s precepts. David has heard them taught. He has read, memorized, perhaps even written down the instructions and revelations of God. They are his food and drink, they are his waking thoughts and they fill his mind in the watches of the night. They have come to characterize his daily walk. They are his means of defense against Satan.

But even these qualities in David are not what qualify him for LIFE. It is God’s “lovingkindness,” His unfailing love and covenant mercy, the psalmist depends on for renewal, revival, redemption. Salvation is of the Lord, not the result of even our finest and best acts of obedience. Our love for God and His precepts only become realities “because [God] first loved us” (1 John 4:19). Chosen from the foundation of the world, believers were beloved of God before creation even began. 

Both His truth and His righteous judgments are eternal, meaning that they have always been in the Father’s mind even before time began. We little creatures mean so much to this great God…and who can tell WHY that is? Our sins against this God of love are worthy of eternal torments—punishment beyond measure. And His perfect justice will be carried out to the letter of His law. His warnings and His curses are just as binding as His promises…

And yet, also before time began, the eternal Son of God was determined to pay the price for the sins of those the Father set His love upon. Mercy for a multitude of rebellious creatures entered into the plans of God in the form of a Roman cross and an empty tomb, with a triumphant Savior rising again, having paid the total price of our redemption.

Are you and I living by “the entirety of [God’s] word [which] is truth”? Have we been judged NOT GUILTY in the courtroom of heaven, because we have trusted in Jesus, the Way, the Truth, and the Life? If so, that righteous judgment can never be overturned by any higher court. For, “every one of [God’s] righteous judgments endures FOREVER!

Amen