To you, my strength, I will sing praises. For God is my high tower, the God of my mercy.
Parallel Translations
-
To you, my strength, I will sing praises. For God is my high tower, the God of my mercy.
-
Unto thee, O my strength, will I sing: for God is my defence, and the God of my mercy.
-
(59-18) O my strength, unto Thee will I sing praises; for God is my high tower, the God of my mercy.
Cross-references (3)
Passages linked to Psalms 59:17 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, ordered by reader-vote popularity; verse text shown in World English Bible.
- Psalms 46:1 God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.
- Psalms 59:9-10 Oh, my Strength, I watch for you, for God is my high tower. My God will go before me with his loving kindness. God will let me look at my enemies in triumph.
- Psalms 18:1 I love you, Yahweh, my strength.
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
Explain this verse (10 sources)
Historical commentary, presented as a primary source — not an endorsement.
Private notes
Saved on this device only — never synced or sent anywhere.
John Calvin 1540 · Public Domain 17 My strength is with thee, I will sing…
17 My strength is with thee, I will sing psalms He expresses still more explicitly the truth, that he owed his safety entirely to God. Formerly he had said that the strength of his enemy was with God, and now he asserts the same thing of his own. The expression, however, which admits of two meanings, he elegantly applies to himself in a different sense. God has the strength of the wicked in his hands, to curb and to restrain it, and to show that any power of which they boast is vain and fallacious. His own people, on the other hand, he supports and secures, against the possibility of falling, by supplies of strength from himself. In the preceding part of the psalm, David had congratulated himself upon his safety, by reflecting that Saul was so completely under the secret restraint of God’s providence as to be unable to move a finger without his permission. Now, weak as he was in himself, he maintains that he had strength sufficient in the Lord; and accordingly adds, that he had good reason to engage in praise, as James the inspired apostle exhorts those who are merry to sing psalms, (James 5:13.) As to the reading which some have adopted, I will ascribe my strength with praises unto thee, the reader cannot fail to see that it is forced. It is clear that the two clauses must be taken separately, as I have already observed.
John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain Confessing himself to be void of all virtue and…
Confessing himself to be void of all virtue and strength, he attributeth the whole to God.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain Psa 59:17 Unto thee, O my strength, will I…
Psa 59:17 Unto thee, O my strength, will I sing: for God [is] my defence, [and] the God of my mercy.
Ver. 17. O my strength] All David’s strength was derivative; in himself he was weak as water.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain Unto thee, i.e. to thy honour; or rather, of…
Unto thee, i.e. to thy honour; or rather, of or concerning thee, as that particle is sometimes used.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain Verse 17. Unto thee, O my strength] A similar…
Verse 17. Unto thee, O my strength] A similar sentiment to that expressed, Ps 59:9. But the words are very emphatic: God is my strength; God is my elevation. My God is my mercy. I have nothing good but what I have from God. And all springs from his dwelling in me. God, therefore, shall have all the glory, both now and for ever.
As many persons may still think that the inscription to this Psalm is correct, the following analysis may be applied in that way; or considered as containing a general resolution of the Psalm, without referring it to any particular occasion.
Read full note →
ANALYSIS OF THE FIFTY-NINTH PSALM
The contents of this Psalm are: -
I. The psalmist's prayer for deliverance, Ps 59:1-2, and against his foes, Ps 59:5.
II. He complains of and expresses his enemies' cruelty and improbity, Ps 59:3-8.
III. He comforts himself, being confident of his own preservation, Ps 59:8-10.
1. And of their punishment, for which he prays, Ps 59:14.
2. And of their vain endeavours, for which he insults over them, Ps 59:14-15.
IV. He concludes with thanks, Ps 59:16-17.
I. He begins with a petition for deliverance, defence, salvation; and urges it from the qualities of his enemies.
1. "Deliver me, defend me from mine enemies:" 1. "Them that rise up against me." 2. "From the workers of iniquity." 3. "From bloody men." These considerations make him pray, "O my God, deliver," c.
2. And yet, more particularly, he expresses their cruelty and treachery to aggravate which he pleads his innocence towards them.
II. 1. Their cruelty: "Lo, they lie in wait for my soul."
2. Their treachery: "The mighty are gathered against me." They run and prepare themselves.
3. 1. They are diligent about it: "They return at evening." 2. Mad, and set to do it: "They make a noise like a dog," and threaten boldly. 3. Unwearied and obdurate in their purpose: "They go round about the city." 4. Impudent, and brag what they will do to me: "Behold, they belch out with their mouth." 5. And their words are bloody: "Swords are in their lips."
4. And the cause of this is, that they are proud and atheistical. Who, say they, doth hear? They think themselves secure, supposing they may contemn God and man; neither regarding what is done or becomes of poor David.
5. In the midst of which aggravations he asserts his own innocence: "They gather themselves together, not for my transgression, nor for my sin, O Lord."
Then he renews his petition: -
1. Awake to help me, and behold: "Thou, therefore, the Lord God of hosts, the God of Israel." 1. The Lord God of hosts; therefore, powerful. 2. The God of Israel; therefore, merciful.
2. "Awake to visit all the heathen," i.e., punish the heathen; and the Israelites, in this no better.
3. And be not merciful to any wicked transgressors, i.e., obstinate nations.
III. To this rage and implacable hatred of his enemies he now begins to oppose the comfort he had in God's promises. This I know, -
1. "Thou, O Lord, shalt laugh at them." As it were in sport, destroy them, be their power never so great; "Thou wilt laugh them to scorn."
2. Them and all that are like them: "Thou shalt have all the heathen in derision."
3. I confess that Saul's strength is great; but my Protector is greater: "Because of his strength will I wait upon thee, for God is my defence."
4. This I am assured also, "that the God of my mercy," that hath hitherto showed me mercy, "shall prevent me," come in season to my help. "And God shall let me see my desire upon mine enemies."
And to the 16th verse he expresses what his desires were: -
1. Negatively; he would not have them slain and eradicated; and he gives his reason for it: "Slay them not, lest my people forget;" for a dead man is quickly out of mind, and his punishment also, and few the better for it.
2. Positively; the first degree of which is dispersion, vagrancy, banishment. Scatter them, which however severe a judgment, let the Jews witness.
2. Humiliation: "Bring them down, O Lord, our shield." Bring them from their power, command, honour, to a low degree, which is no small heart -breaking to a great spirit. Fuimus Troes, is never remembered without a groan.
And now he assigns the cause why he would have them scattered, and brought low; that their blasphemies and lies may never be forgotten, but stand as a terror to all liars and blasphemers.
1. "For the sin of their mouth, and the words of their lips, let them even be taken in their pride;" the Jews cried Beelzebub, nolumus hunc; and they were taken.
2. "And for cursing and lying which they speak." They cursed themselves: "His blood be upon us;" and upon them, indeed, it was.
3. He goes on in his desires. "Consume them, O Lord," emphatically, "consume them in wrath, that they may not be;" which, at first sight, appears contrary to the first desire, "Slay them not:" but he speaks not of their life as if he would have it consumed; but he desires only a consumption of their power, royalty, command. And so these words are a farther explication of his second desire, "Bring them down." He would have them brought down in their strength, dignity, command, wealth, riches, which made them proud; that they might never be able to oppose God any more, hurt his people, trample upon religion and his Church; but he would have them live.
4. And shows the end why he would have them live, and still remain - that they might know by their calamities and miseries, that "it is God that ruleth in Jacob, and unto the ends of the earth;" that he doth wonderfully govern and preserve his Church that is scattered over all the earth.
5. And now by a bitter epitrope, or rather synchoresis, he insults over them. In the sixth verse he showed their double diligence to do mischief.
1. "They return at evening." Well, esto; be it so; "At evening let them return."
2. "They make a noise like a dog." Well; "let them make a noise like a dog."
3. "And go round about the city." Well; "let them go round about the city."
They know that they shall be in a miserable poor mean condition: -
1. "Let them wander up and down for meat." Let them find no settled habitation, but seek necessary food in a strange nation.
2. "And grudge if they be not satisfied." Let them be always grudging, if they have not content. If they be not satisfied, they will stay all night; be importunate and unmannerly beggars.
IV. The conclusion is a doxology, and contains David's thanks that God is his defence, his refuge, his strength. Of him, therefore, he makes his song.
1. "I will sing of thy power."
2. "I will sing of thy mercy." 1. "Aloud." 2. "In the morning."
3. The reason he gives: "For thou hast been my refuge and defence in the day of my trouble."
Both he repeats again: -
1. "Unto thee, O my strength, will I sing."
2. The reason: "For God is my defence, and the God of my mercy."
And he joins these two attributes, strength and mercy. Take away strength from him, and he cannot, remove mercy, and he will not, protect. Both must go together; power that he can, mercy that he will; otherwise it is in vain that we hope for help from him. David found God to be both, and for both he extols him.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain Unto thee, O my strength, will I sing -…
Unto thee, O my strength, will I sing - The source of strength to me; the real strength by which I have obtained deliverance is in thee. See the notes at Psa 18:1.
For God is my defense - See the notes at Psa 59:9.
Read full note →
And the God of my mercy - The God who has showed mercy to me; he from whom all these favors have sprung. Whatever means might be used to secure his own safety (compare 1Sa 19:12 ff) still he felt that his deliverance was to be traced wholly to God. He had interposed and had saved him; and it was proper, therefore, that praise should be ascribed to him. The experience of David in the case referred to in this psalm should be an inducement to all who are in danger to put their trust in God; his anticipated feelings of gratitude, and his purpose to praise God when he should be delivered, should awaken in us the resolution to ascribe to God all the praise when we are delivered from impending troubles, and when our lives are lengthened out where we have been in imminent danger. Whatever may have been the means of our rescue, it is to be traced to the interposition of God.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain 17. God is my defence—A repetition of the refrain…
17. God is my defence—A repetition of the refrain of Psa_59:9. The first double refrain (Psa_59:6; Psa_59:14) sets forth the vileness and impotence of his enemies; the second, (Psa_59:9; Psa_59:17,) the majesty, power, and mercy of God.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain Unto thee, O my Strength, will I sing: for…
Unto thee, O my Strength, will I sing: for God is my Defense; or, Strong Tower (comp. ver. 9, which, if we read yZ for wOz, is so far, excepting in the verb, identical). And the God of my mercy; i.e. "the God who showeth mercy upon me" (comp. ver. 10).
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Charles H. Spurgeon 1885 · Public Domain Ver. 17. Unto thee, O my strength, will I…
Ver. 17. Unto thee, O my strength, will I sing. What transport is here! What a monopolising of all his emotions for the one object of praising God! Strength has been overcome by strength; not by the hero's own prowess, but by the might of God alone. See how the singer girds himself with the almightiness of God, and calls it all his own by faith. Sweet is the music of experience, but it is all for God; there is not even a stray note for man, for self, or for human helpers.
For God is my defence, and the God of my mercy. With full assurance he claims possession of the Infinite as his protection and security. He sees God in all, and all his own. Mercy rises before him, undisturbed and manifold, for he feels he is undeserving, and security is with him, undisturbed and impregnable, for he knows that he is safe in divine keeping. Oh, choice song! My soul would sing it now in defiance of all the dogs of hell. Away, away, ye adversaries of my soul, the God of my mercy will keep ye all at bay--
Read full note →
"Nor shall the infernal lion rend
Whom he designs to keep."
Ver. 17. Unto thee, O my strength, will I sing. Formerly he had said that the strength of his enemy was with God, and now he asserts the same thing of his own. The expression, however, which admits of two meanings, he elegantly applies to himself in a different sense. God has the strength of the wicked in his hands, to curb and to restrain it, and to show that any power of which they boast is vain and fallacious. His own people, on the other hand, he supports and secures against the possibility of falling, by supplies of strength from himself. John Calvin.
Ver. 17. Unto thee, O my strength. In opposition to the enemy's strength, Ps 59:9. Thy power, or strength -- the Hebrew word is the same (Ps 59:16) --is my strength. There is an elegant play on similar sounds in the Hebrew for I will wait upon thee, hrmva (Ps 59:9), and "I will sing, "hrmza A. R. Faussett.
Ver. 17. (first clause). As on account of Saul's strength my watching was directed to thee; so now, no account of thy strength vouchsafed to me, my singing of praises also shall be directed to thee alone. Martin Geier.
Ver. 17. Strength--Mercy. He joins these two attributes, "strength" and "mercy", very well; for take away strength from him, and he cannot; remove mercy, and he will not, protect; both must go together in any one that will defend; power, that he can, mercy, that he will; otherwise it is but in vain to hope for help from him David found God to be both, and for both he extols him. William Nicholson.
Ver. 17.
I. A doctrine --God is his people's strength.
II. An appropriation --"my strength."
III. A resolution. The song of gratitude for the
past, faith for the present, hope for the future, of
bliss for eternity.
Charles H. Spurgeon's The Treasury of David (1869–1885) — public domain. Psalms only. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Alexander MacLaren 1905 · Public Domain Psa 59:9, Psa 59:17.
Psalms
WAITING AND SINGING
Read full note →
Psa 59:9, Psa 59:17.
There is an obvious correspondence between these two verses even as they stand in our translation, and still more obviously in the Hebrew. You observe that in the former verse the words ‘because of’ are a supplement inserted by our translators, because they did not exactly know what to make of the bare words as they stood. ‘His strength, I will wait upon Thee,’ is, of course, nonsense; but a very slight alteration of a single letter, which has the sanction of several good authorities, both in manuscripts and translations, gives an appropriate and beautiful meaning, and brings the two verses into complete verbal correspondence. Suppose we read, ‘My strength,’ instead of ‘His strength.’ The change is only making the limb of one letter a little shorter, and as you will perceive, we thereby get the same expressions in both verses.
We may then read our two texts thus: ‘Upon Thee, O my Strength! I will wait. . . . Unto Thee, O my Strength, I will sing!’ They are, word for word, parallel, with the significant difference that the waiting in the one passes into song, in the other, the silent expectation breaks into music of praise. And these two words-wait and sing-are in the Hebrew the same in every letter but one, thus strengthening the impression of likeness as well as emphasising, with poetic art, that of difference. The parallel, too, obviously extends to the second half of each verse, where the reason for both the waiting and the praise is the same-’For God is my defence’-with the further eloquent variation that the song is built not only on the thought that ‘God is my defence,’ but also on this, that He is ‘the God of my mercy.’
These two parallel verses, then, are a kind of refrain, coming in at the close of each division of the psalm; and if you examine its structure and general course of thought, you will see that the first stands at the end of a picture of the Psalmist’s trouble and danger, and makes the transition to the second part, which is mainly a prayer for deliverance, and finishes with the refrain altered and enlarged, as I have pointed out.
The heading of the psalm tells us that its date is the very beginning of Saul’s persecution, when ‘they watched the house to kill’ David, and he fled by night from the city. There is a certain correspondence between the circumstances and some part of the picture of his foes here which makes the date probable. If so, this is one of David’s oldest psalms, and is interesting as showing his faith and courage, even in the first burst of danger. But whether that be so or not, we have here, at any rate, the voice of a devout soul in sore sorrow, and we may well learn the lesson of its twofold utterance. The man, overwhelmed by calamity, betakes himself to God. ‘Upon Thee, O my Strength! will I wait, for God is my defence.’ Then, by dint of waiting, although the outward circumstances keep just the same, his temper and feelings change. He began with, ‘Deliver me from my enemies, O Lord! for they lie in wait for my soul.’ He passes through ‘My Strength! I will wait upon Thee,’ and so ends with ‘My Strength! I will sing unto Thee.’ We may then throw our remarks into two groups, and deal for a few moments with these two points-the waiting on God, and the change of waiting into praise.
Now, with regard to the first of these-the waiting on God-I must notice that the expression here, ‘I will wait,’ is a somewhat remarkable one. It means accurately, ‘I will watch Thee,’ and it is the word that is generally employed, not about our looking up to Him, but about His looking down to us. It would describe the action of a shepherd guarding his flock; of a sentry keeping a city; of the watchers that watch for the morning, and the like. By using it, the Psalmist seems as if he would say-There are two kinds of watching. There is God’s watching over me, and there is my watching for God. I look up to Him that He may bless; He looks down upon me that He may take care of me. As He guards me, so I stand expectant before Him, as one in a besieged town, upon the ramparts there, looks eagerly out across the plain to see the coming of the long-expected succours. God ‘waits to be gracious’-wonderful words, painting for us His watchfulness of fitting times and ways to bless us, and His patient attendance on our unwilling, careless spirits. We may well take a lesson from His attitude in bestowing, and on our parts, wait on Him to be helped. For these two things-vigilance and patience-are the main elements in the scriptural idea of waiting on God. Let me enforce each of them in a word or two.
There is no waiting on God for help, and there is no help from God, without watchful expectation on our parts. If ever we fail to receive strength and defence from Him, it is because we are not on the outlook for it. Many a proffered succour from heaven goes past us, because we are not standing on our watch-tower to catch the far-off indications of its approach, and to fling open the gates of our heart for its entrance. He who expects no help will get none; he whose expectation does not lead him to be on the alert for its coming will get but little. How the beleaguered garrison, that knows a relieving force is on the march, strain their eyes to catch the first glint of the sunshine on their spears as they top the pass! But how unlike such tension of watchfulness is the languid anticipation and fitful look, with more of distrust than hope in it, which we turn to heaven in our need! No wonder we have so little living experience that God is our ‘strength’ and our ‘defence,’ when we so partially believe that He is, and so little expect that He will be either. The homely old proverb says, ‘They that watch for providences will never want a providence to watch for,’ and you may turn it the other way and say, ‘They that do not watch for providence will never have a providence to watch for.’ Unless you put out your water-jars when it rains you will catch no water; if you do not watch for God coming to help you, God’s watching to be gracious will be of no good at all to you. His waiting is not a substitute for ours, but because He watches therefore we should watch. We say, we expect Him to comfort and help us-well, are we standing, as it were, on tiptoe, with empty hands upraised to bring them a little nearer the gifts we look for? Are our ‘eyes ever towards the Lord’? Do we pore over His gifts, scrutinising them as eagerly as a gold-seeker does the quartz in his pan, to detect every shining speck of the precious metal? Do we go to our work and our daily battle with the confident expectation that He will surely come when our need is the sorest and scatter our enemies? Is there any clear outlook kept by us for the help which we know must come, lest it should pass us unobserved, and like the dove from the ark, finding no footing in our hearts drowned in a flood of troubles, be fain to return to the calm refuge from which it came on its vain errand? Alas, how many gentle messengers of God flutter homeless about our hearts, unrecognised and unwelcomed, because we have not been watching for them! Of what avail is it that a strong hand from the beach should fling the safety-line with true aim to the wreck, if no eye on the deck is watching for it? It hangs there, useless and unseen, and then it drops into the sea, and every soul on board is drowned. It is our own fault-and very largely the fault of our want of watchfulness for the coming of God’s help-if we are ever overwhelmed by the tasks, or difficulties, or sorrows of life. We wonder that we are left to fight out the battle ourselves. But are we? Is it not rather, that while God’s succours are hastening to our side we will not open our eyes to see, nor our hearts to receive them? If we go through the world with our hands hanging listlessly down instead of lifted to heaven, or full of the trifles and toys of this present, as so many of us do, what wonder is it if heavenly gifts of strength do not come into our grasp?
That attitude of watchful expectation is vividly described for us in the graphic words of another psalm, ‘My soul waiteth for the Lord more than they that watch for the morning: I say, more than they that watch for the morning.’ What a picture that is! Think of a wakeful, sick man, tossing restless all the night on his tumbled bed, racked with pain made harder to bear by the darkness. How often his heavy eye is lifted to the window-pane, to see if the dawn has not yet begun to tint it with a grey glimmer! How he groans, ‘Would God it were morning!’ Or think of some unarmed and solitary man, benighted in the forest, and hearing the wild beasts growl and scream and bark all round, while his fire dies down, and he knows that his life depends on the morning breaking soon. With yet more eager expectation are we to look for God, whose coming is a better morning for our sick and defenceless spirits. If we are not so looking for His help, we need never be surprised that we do not get it. There is no promise and no probability that it will come to men in their sleep, who neither desire it nor wait for it. And such vigilant expectation will be accompanied with patience. There is no impatience in it, but the very opposite. ‘If we hope for that we see not, then do we with patience wait for it.’ If we know that He will surely come, then if He tarry we can wait for Him. The measure of our confidence is ever the measure of our patience. Being sure that He is always ‘in the midst of’ Zion, we may be sure that at the right time He will flame out into delivering might, helping her, and that right early. So waiting means watchfulness and patience, both of which have their roots in trust.
Further, we have here set forth not only the nature, but also the object of this waiting. ‘Upon Thee, O my Strength! will I wait, for God is my Defence.’
The object to which faith is directed, and the ground on which it is based, are both set forth in these two names here applied to God. The name of the Lord is Strength, therefore I wait on Him in the confident expectation of receiving of His power. The Lord is ‘my Defence,’ therefore I wait on Him in the confident expectation of safety. The one name has respect to our condition of feebleness and inadequacy for our tasks, and points to God as infusing strength into us. The other points to our exposedness to danger and to enemies, and points to God as casting His shelter around us. The word translated ‘defence’ is literally ‘a high fortress,’ and is the same as closes the rapturous accumulation of the names of his delivering God, which the Psalmist gives us when he vows to love Jehovah, who has been his Rock, and Fortress, and Deliverer; his God in whom he will trust, his Buckler, and the Horn of his salvation, and his High Tower. The first name speaks of God dwelling in us, and His strength made perfect in our weakness; the second speaks of our dwelling in God, and our defencelessness sheltered in Him. ‘The name of the Lord is a strong tower; the righteous runneth into it, and is safe.’ As some outnumbered army, unable to make head against its enemies in the open, flees to the shelter of some hill fortress, perched upon a crag, and taking up the drawbridge, cannot be reached by anything that has not wings, so this man, hard pressed by his foes, flees into God to hide him, and feels secure behind these strong walls.
That is the God on whom we wait. The recognition of His character as thus mighty and ready to help is the only thing that will evoke our expectant confidence, and His character thus discerned is the only object which our confidence can grasp aright. Trust Him as what He is, and trust Him because of what He is, and see to it that your faith lays hold on the living God Himself, and on nothing beside.
But waiting on God is not only the recognition of His character as revealed, but it involves, too, the act of laying hold on all the power and blessing of that character for myself. ‘My strength, my defence,’ says the Psalmist. Think of what He is, and believe that He is that for you, else there is no true waiting on Him. Make God thy very own by claiming thine own portion in His might, by betaking thyself to that strong habitation. We cannot wait on God in crowds, but one by one, must say, ‘My strength and my defence.’
And now turn to the second verse of our two texts: ‘Unto Thee, O my Strength! will I sing, for God is my defence and the God of my mercy.’
Here we catch, as it were, waiting expectation and watchfulness in the very act of passing over into possession and praise. For remember the aspect of things has not changed a bit between the first verse of our text and the last. The enemies are all round about David just as they were, ‘making a noise like a dog,’ as he says, and ‘going round about the city.’ The evil that was threatening him and making him sad remains entirely unlightened. What has altered? He has altered. And how has he altered? Because his waiting on God has begun to work an inward change, and he has climbed, as it were, out of the depths of his sorrow up into the sunlight. And so it ever is, my friends! There is deliverance in spirit before there is deliverance in outward fact. If our patient waiting bring, as it certainly will bring, at the right time, an answer in the removal of danger, and the lightening of sorrow, it will bring first the better answer, ‘the peace of God, which passeth all understanding,’ to keep your hearts and minds. That is the highest blessing we have to seek for in our waiting on God, and that is the blessing which we get as soon as we wait on Him. The outward deliverance may tarry, but ever there come before it, as heralds of its approach, the sense of a lightened burden and the calmness of a strengthened heart. It may be long before the morning breaks, but even while the darkness lasts, a faint air begins to stir among the sleeping leaves, the promise of the dawn, and the first notes of half-awakened birds prelude the full chorus that will hail the sunrise.
It is beautiful, I think, to see how in the compass of this one little psalm the singer has, as it were, wrought himself clear, and sung himself out of his fears. The stream of his thought, like some mountain torrent, turbid at first, has run itself bright and sparkling. How all the tremor and agitation have gone away, just because he has kept his mind for a few minutes in the presence of the calm thought of God and His love. The first courses of his psalm, like those of some great building, are laid deep down in the darkness, but the shining summit is away up there in the sunlight, and God’s glittering glory is sparklingly reflected from the highest point. Whoever begins with, ‘Deliver me-I will wait upon Thee,’ will pass very quickly, even before the outward deliverance comes, into-’O my Strength! unto Thee will I sing!’ Every song of true trust, though it may begin with a minor, will end in a burst of jubilant gladness. No prayer ought ever to deal with complaints, as we know, without starting with thanksgiving, and, blessed be God, no prayer need to deal with complaints without ending with thanksgiving. So, all our cries of sorrow, and all our acknowledgments of weakness and need, and all our plaintive beseechings, should be inlaid, as it were, between two layers of brighter and gladder thought, like dull rock between two veins of gold. The prayer that begins with thankfulness, and passes on into waiting, even while in sorrow and sore need, will always end in thankfulness, and triumph, and praise.
If we regard this second verse of our text as the expression of the Psalmist’s emotion at the moment of its utterance, then we see in it a beautiful illustration of the effect of faithful waiting to turn complaining into praise. If we regard it rather as an expression of his confidence, that ‘I shall yet praise Him for the help of His countenance,’ we see in it an illustration of the power of patient waiting to brighten the sure hope of deliverance, and to bring summer into the heart of winter. As resolve, or as prophecy, it is equally a witness of the large reward of quiet waiting for the salvation of the Lord.
In either application of the words their almost precise correspondence with those of the previous verse is far more than a mere poetic ornament, or part of the artistic form of the psalm. It teaches us this happy lesson-that the song of accomplished deliverance, whether on earth, or in the final joy of heaven, will be but a sweeter, fuller repetition of the cry that went up in trouble from our waiting hearts. The object to which we shall turn with our thankfulness is He to whom we betook ourselves with our prayers. There will be the same turning of the soul to Him; only instead of wistful waiting in the longing look, joy will light her lamps in our eyes, and thankfulness beam in our faces as we turn to His light. We shall look to Him as of old, and name Him what we used to name Him when we were in weakness and warfare,-our ‘Strength’ and our ‘Defence.’ But how different the feelings with which the delivered soul calls Him so, from those with which the sorrowful heart tried to grasp the comfort of the names. Then their reality was a matter of faith, often hard to hold fast. Now it is a matter of memory and experience. ‘I called Thee my strength when I was full of weakness; I tried to believe Thou wast my defence when I was full of fear; I thought of Thee as my fortress when I was ringed about with foes; I know Thee now for that which I then trusted that Thou wast. As I waited upon Thee that Thou mightest be gracious, I praise Thee now that Thou hast been more gracious than my hopes.’ Blessed are they whose loftiest expectations were less than their grateful memories and their rich experience, and who can take up in their song of praise the names by which they called on God, and feel that they knew not half their depth, their sweetness, or their power!
But the praise is not merely the waiting transformed. Experience has not only deepened the conception of the meaning of God’s name; it has added a new name. The cry of the suppliant was to God, his strength and defence; the song of the saved is to the God who is also the God of his mercy. The experiences of life have brought out more fully the love and tender pity of God. While the troubles lasted it was hard to believe that God was strong enough to brace us against them, and to keep us safe in them; it was harder still to think of them as coming from Him at all; it was hardest to feel that they came from His love. But when they are past, and their meaning is plainer, and we possess their results in the weight of glory which they have wrought out for us, we shall be able to look back on them all as the mercies of the God of our mercy, even as when a man looks down from the mountain-top upon the mists and the clouds through which he passed, and sees them all smitten by the sunshine that gleams upon them from above. That which was thick and damp as he was struggling through it, is irradiated into rosy beauty; the retrospective and downward glance confirms and surpasses all that faith dimly discerned, and found it hard to believe. Whilst we are fighting here, brethren! let us say, ‘I will wait for Thee,’ and then yonder we shall, with deeper knowledge of the love that was in all our sorrows, sing unto Him who was our strength in earth’s weakness, our defence in earth’s dangers, and is for ever more the ‘God of our mercy,’ amidst the large and undeserved favours of heaven.
Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.