Psalm 9:13-20 “God has been here!”
Translation By NAW
1. For
the concert-master, Alamoth for the son, a Psalm
belonging to David.
I will respond to Yahweh with all
my heart;
I will recount all of Your wonders.
2. I will be happy and exuberant in
You.
I will play music about Your preeminent Name -
3. While my enemies turn back.
They will stumble and perish before Your
face,
4. For You
effected my justice and my adjudication;
You sat on
the bench, judging righteously.
5. You repulsed nations;
You destroyed the wicked – You obliterated their name
forever and ever!
6. As for the enemy, [his] swords were finished off
indefinitely;
You even uprooted [his] cities.
The memory of them perished noisily,
7. But as
for Yahweh, He will be in office forever; He has prepared His bench for the
judgment.
8. And He
Himself will judge the world with righteousness;
He will
adjudicate for peoples with things that are right.
9. And
Yahweh will be a stronghold for the one who is beaten down, a stronghold for
times that include trouble.
10. Then those who know Your name will trust in You,
for You did not
forsake those who were seeking You, Yahweh!
11. Y’all,
play music for Yahweh (the One who inhabits Zion).
Declare among the peoples His
exploits,
12. For
the One who is out for blood has remembered them;
He did not
forget a [single] cry of lowly ones.
13. “Yahweh, see my misery [caused by] those who hate me.
Be gracious to me by raising me up away from the gates of
death,
14. In order that
I may
recount all Your praises within the gates of the
daughter of Zion,
[and] rejoice in Your salvation.”
15.
Nations have sunk into a pit they made;
their foot has been
caught in a net which they hid!
16. Yahweh is known; He did
justice, snaring a wicked man by work of his hands.
Meditative
Selah.
17. Wicked men will turn in the
direction of the grave – all nations which forget God,
18. For it will not be that the
needy is forgotten indefinitely
[or that] the hope of lowly ones will perish for ever.
19. Arise, Yahweh, don’t let mortal
man be strongest;
let the nations be
judged before Your face.
20. Pin
rebellion on them, Yahweh;
let the nations know that they are mortal men.
Selah.
Introduction
- During
World War Two, drawings of a little man’s face started showing up
everywhere with the curious slogan, “Kilroy Was
here.” It showed up scribbled on walls and signs throughout Europe, Africa
and Japan.
The Germans thought it must represent some great military plan that the
Allies had concocted. Stalin allegedly emerged from the bathroom at the Potsdam conference
asking, “So, who is Kilroy, anyway?” To some
extent, it was a joke, but it nevertheless had a very real meaning. It
meant that an Allied soldier had already been that way and had begun to
secure freedom. It was an encouragement to every solder who
came behind that the enemy was already being conquered there. God doesn’t
leave graffiti like that, but he does leave signs of His presence, and
when we see rebels against God humbled and humble Christians delivered
from danger, we can say, “God was here! The enemy is already being
conquered!”
- Last week, we looked at the
first half of Psalm 9, which seems to have been written on the heels of
one of David’s military victories.
- We noted in v.1 the whole-hearted
and unabridged nature of David’s praise in song.
- We
noted the ties to historical events where God did marvelous things,
from creation to childbearing to delivering his people from slavery in Egypt to crossing the Jordan
into the Promised Land to the triumph over the Canaanite nations and over
Goliath,
- and we saw the value of remembering God’s great
acts throughout history. God indeed is a “stronghold for the oppressed… in
times of trouble.” (v.9)
- And
God is a judge who intervenes in the affairs of mankind, and verses 7-8
remind us that there is coming a day when Jesus will appear and judge the
entire world in righteousness.
- Is
there still corruption and oppression? Yes – like the secret waiting lists
at the Veteran’s Administration hospitals, and the women and men murdered
by the governments of Saudi Arabia
and North Korea and Sudan and Pakistan for converting to
Christianity. The injustices we face may or may not be immediately set to
rights, but whatever injustice is not dealt with now will certainly be
dealt with when Jesus returns.
- We
also saw in v.11 how should we respond to such a great God who punishes
the wicked while not forsaking those who seek Him: Through worshipping Him
in song and through the proclamation of His salvation in world missions!
- We
left off last week at v.12 where David says that God did not forget a
single cry from the lowly. Later on in Psalm 56:8, there is a powerful
word picture of God storing all of our tears in a bottle.
- This
introduces what I think is a quote from one of these poor, oppressed
persons bowed low with griefs, crying out to God
in verses 13-14. The things contained in this prayer are already spoken of
as fulfilled before and after vs.13-14, so this may well be a look
backward at what they prayed before their deliverance (Del.):
13. “Yahweh, see my misery [caused by] those who hate me.
Be gracious to me by raising me up away from the gates of death, 14. In order
that I may recount all Your praises within the gates
of the daughter of Zion,
[and] rejoice in Your salvation.”
- Psalm
4:1-3 God of my righteousness, answer me while I am calling. During this
stress You opened up margin for me. Be gracious
to me and heed my prayer! Sons of man, how long – will my glory be turned
to shame? will you love vanity? will you seek falsehood? Selah. But y’all should
know that Yahweh caused to separate a godly man for Himself.
Yahweh will heed when I call to Him.”
- It was
apparently Leah, Jacob’s first wife, who was unloved and neglected who
first prayed to God, “see my affliction/consider my trouble” (Gen 29:32), then Jacob himself said that God had seen all the
trouble that his dishonest father-in-law Laban
had caused him (Gen. 31:42). Later, Hannah would use it in her famous
prayer at the beginning of 1 Samuel, and then David would pray “consider
my trouble,” while Shemei was calling down
curses on him (2 Sam. 16:12).
- When
we are experiencing problems, we should not forget about God, and
we should not lash out at God; instead, we should invite Him into
the situation: “Lord, look at my misery and have mercy on me!”
- Although
the NIV mixes up the object of the verb with the object of the preposition,
I do think that their rendering of the participle for “lift” is a better
translation than that of the other English versions which render it as a
name for God. Although it is legitimate to translate Hebrew participles as
“the one who does such-and-such,” in this
case, I think that the participle “lifting” explains the manner in
which David wants mercy shown to him, namely, “by lifting me up” and away
from the gates of death.
- The
gates of the city were where God told the Jews to execute criminals
(Deut. 17:5, 22:24), but this may be more of a picture of death being
like a castle, where those who have died are inside the gates of the
castle, and David is feeling like he is about to die and thus is getting
frighteningly close to entering the gates of that castle of death (cf. Ps.
107:18). Maybe the occasion of this Psalm was when David was looking up
at that giant Goliath and thinking, “What am I doing? One thrust of his
spear and I’m a goner!”
- Have
you ever felt that way? Charles Spurgeon wrote, “In sickness, in
sin, in despair, in temptation, we have been brought very low, and the
gloomy portal has seemed as if it would open to imprison us, but,
underneath us were the everlasting arms, and, therefore, we have been
uplifted even to the gates of heaven.”
- “The
gates of the daughter of Zion”
in v.14 are set in contrast to “the gates of death” from v.13.
- “The
Daughter of Zion” is a description of Jerusalem and its inhabitants,
especially those who were born there.
- Inside
the gates is safety from outside enemies.
- This
reminds me of how the Apostle Paul put it in Coloss.
1:13-14 “[God the Father] … rescued us from the domain of darkness, and
transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son, in whom we have
redemption, the forgiveness of sins.”
- Now why
does David want to be delivered? What does David promise he will do inside
the gates of the daughter of Zion
when his prayer is answered? Verse 14 says, lema’an
– “In order that” I may shew
forth/tell/recount/declare Your praises and that
I may rejoice in Your salvation!
- This
Hebrew word for “rejoice” (Geel) has to
do with things that are round (You can hear the same letter sequence of “g”
+ vowel + “l” in words like Gilgal, which had rounded
hills and Golgotha, which was shaped round like a skull), so some
scholars think that this verb geel means
being so ecstatic that you’re dancing around in circles! Do you want
to be that happy about God saving you? Ask for it!
- David
is asking that the debacle of a public execution within the gates be
transformed to a celebration of victory in the public forum of the gates
in order that everybody in his hometown can hear about how great God is
for saving him!
- And
David made good on his promise to recount God’s mercy toward him by
writing this Psalm – verse 1 opens with this same Hebrew verb that opens
verse 14, “I will shew forth/tell/recount your
marvelous/wonderful deeds!”
- David
does this not only among the nations, but also among his own people
inside the gates of Jerusalem.
We likewise need to evangelize not only the nations, but also the
next generation of churchgoers through modeling praise to God and
telling our testimonies to our children and grandchildren!
- “[M]an’s chief end is not to enjoy this life or even to
escape the punishment due us for our many sins,” wrote James Boice in his commentary on the Psalms, “but to praise
God… To glorify God is to enjoy Him, and the enjoyment of God always
results in the praise of His people. We never come closer to our true and
ultimate destiny as redeemed persons than when we do that… So… praise the
Lord always and with your whole heart!”
- Now we
come to verses 15 and 16, where we see the answer to the prayer:
15. Nations have sunk into a pit they made; their foot
has been caught in a net which they hid! 16. Yahweh is known; He did justice,
snaring a wicked man by work of his hands.
- This
is like Psalm 7: 15.” He dug out a hole and scoured it, but he fell into a
pit he worked on.” It actually comes from Bildad’s
speech in the book of Job: “Indeed, the light of the wicked goes out… His
vigorous stride is shortened, And his own scheme
brings him down. For he is thrown into the net by his own feet, And he steps on the webbing. A snare seizes him by the
heel, And a trap snaps shut on him. A noose for
him is hidden in the ground, And a trap for him
on the path. All around terrors frighten him, And
harry him at every step. His strength is famished, And
calamity is ready at his side… Brimstone is scattered on his habitation…
Memory of him perishes from the earth… He is driven from light into
darkness… Surely such are the dwellings of the wicked, And
this is the place of him who does not know God." (Job 18:5-21, NASB,
cf. Job. 5:13)
- I
think it is no accident that David chose the verb (tab’u)
“sunk down” here in v.15, because that is the very verb used by Moses to
describe the Egyptian army sinking under the Red Sea in its failed attempt
to destroy and re-enslave the nation of Israel (Ex. 15:4). “The nations
have sunk into the pit they made!”
- How
does the LORD become known? Verse
10 said that His name became known to those who took refuge in Him. What
does He do to make Himself known? He
executes justice! When you see righteousness and justice in the earth, you
can say, “Hey, God has been here! Here’s a sign that the enemy has already
begun to be conquered!”
- Take
Haman, for instance, in the book of Esther, hanged on the very gallows he
had constructed for Mordecai, while Mordecai took his place as prime
minister of Persia!
- By the
way, do you know what a snare is? It’s basically a sturdy string with one
end tied in a slip-knot and the other end tied to something firm. The loop
at the end with the slip knot is left open in a circle and laid on the
ground and covered up with dust or leaves, and the other end of the string
is tied to a tree branch which has been bent down and held in place by a
prop of some kind. When an unsuspecting animal (or person) walks by and
steps into the loop on the ground, the string gets caught around the
victim’s foot, and, as they continue to walk forward, the slip-knot pulls
tight like a noose around their ankle. This movement causes the prop to
fall away from the tree limb that’s been bent down, and the tree limb
springs back up to its normal position, pulling the victim up into the
air, so that he is dangling by a leg, and his own
weight keeps the slip knot tight around his ankle so that he can’t get
loose.
- I have
puzzled over the fact that almost every English translation and
commentary renders the verb “snaring” as a passive verb
(except for that of Franz Delitzsch, which should give any good scholar
pause for thought), when it could just as legitimately be translated as an
active verb.
- Furthermore,
the Hebrew words do not distinguish whether the “work of his hands”
refers to work done by God’s hands or work done by the wicked
man’s hands.
- The
only explanation I can come up with is that it is unsettling to think of
God’s intervention in our world to bring down the wicked being that
direct,
- but it would be a mistake to think God is not active
in curbing evil. God is immenently working in
our world, even though it’s easy to forget that He is.
- Now,
this verse ends with the Hebrew words, Higgaion-Selah.
Lots of ink has been spilled over what these words mean. Although Higgaion is not used anywhere else in the Bible
as a musical notation, it does appear to be related to the Hebrew
word for “meditate,”
which we already encountered in Psalms 1 & 2.
- What
kind of meditating is this telling us to do?
- In
Psalm 19:14, this meditating is done within a person’s “heart,”
- but
in Lamentations 3:62, it is done out loud with the “lips,”
- and then again, in Psalm 92:3, this meditating is done
on the “harp.”
- As I
suggested when we first encountered the word “Selah” in Psalm 3, I think
the “Selah” is referring to a musical interlude in which we are to think
about the words of the Psalm. The Higgaion,
then, appears to give extra emphasis on the importance of “meditating”
during this Selah – meditating on the past works of God in which He
punished evil and delivered His people.
- Now,
vs. 17-18 introduce a change in verb tense, from the past tense to
the future tense:
17. Wicked men will turn in the direction of the grave [Sheol/Hades/Hell] – all nations which forget God, 18. For
it will not
be that the needy is forgotten indefinitely [or that] the hope [expectation] of
lowly ones will perish for ever.
- This
is a good example to us of faith in God. The LORD
has already executed justice in the past, and we can confidently say with
David that God will continue to execute justice into the future! Are
you willing to transform past tense victories into future tense? Are you
willing to assert that the injustices you are witnessing now will be
punished by Jesus in the future and that your future is glory, not shame,
because Jesus suffered your shame for you on the cross?
- In
verses 17-18, we also see contrasts:
- The wicked
who are on that broad path which leads to destruction (Matthew
7:13)
are contrasted with the poor and needy who will
not perish.
- The wicked
are finished off forever (lenatsach),
but the needy will not be forgotten forever (lenatsach)! (cf. vs. 12 & 18)
(In fact, as Jesus informs us in Matthew 5:5, “the meek… will inherit the
earth”!)
- Then
there’s the contrast of the nations that forget God
compared to the God who does not forget His people.
- Paul
picks up in the book of Romans where David left off: Rom. 1:21&28 “For
even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks,
but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was
darkened… And just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God any longer,
God gave them over to a depraved mind, to do those things which are not proper…”
(NASB)
- Forgetting
God may be the order of the day now, but it is still horrifyingly deadly.
- “The
moral who are not devout, the honest who are not
prayerful, the benevolent who are not believing, the amiable who are not
converted, these must all have their portion with the openly wicked...
Forgetfulness seems a small sin, but it brings eternal wrath upon the man
who lives and dies in it.” ~Charles Spurgeon
- So one
application from these verses is that we must remember God – keep thinking
about Jesus. But another application is that we should never allow
ourselves to believe that He has utterly forsaken us. To give up hope
is an abandonment of the Christian faith and a step into hell.
- Now
David closes with a prayer – five requests he lays before God:
19. Arise, Yahweh, don’t let mortal man
[prevail/triumph/lit. be strong]; let the nations be judged before Your face. 20. Pin rebellion on them, Yahweh; let the
nations know that they are mortal men.
- Back
in Psalm 7, we saw David calling upon God to rise as prosecuting attorney,
then sit as a judge over the wicked. He adds two
or three more requests here, saying in effect, “show them that You, LORD are the boss – and that they are not
the boss!”
- Darwin indicated
that world history is about the “survival of the fittest,” but the Bible
says that God’s will for history is not survival of the fittest but
rather divine salvation for those who acknowledge their weakness before
God and call upon Him to save them.
- God
does not want us to feel so self-sufficient that we don’t need His help.
He busted up the coalition of man’s strength at the tower of Babel.
He sent Jesus into Jerusalem
“humble and riding on a donkey” to teach us that “it is "the meek
who will inherit the earth,” and it is the
“weak” through whom God demonstrates strength (1 Cor. 1:27, 2 Cor. 12:9,
cf. Judges 6:2, Ps. 68:28).
- There
are some differences of opinion in how to translate the prayer request
which opens verse 20. The participle morah
could be derived from one of two Hebrew root words:
- Either
it comes from the root “marah” which
means to be “bitter” and figuratively “sharp,” as in a “razor” (Judges
13:5, 16:17, and 1 Sam. 1:11) or figuratively bitter as in a “rebellious”
attitude.
- Or
it could come from the Hebrew root word yarah,
which means to “shoot forth” – whether physically shooting an arrow (1
Sam 20:36) or sending forth rain (Psalm 84:6 and Joel 2:23), or verbally
sending forth information, as in “teaching” (2 Ki
17:28, 2 Ch. 15:3, Job 36:22, Isa 9:15, Hab. 2:18).
- There
is no other place in the Bible where this participle is used to mean
“fear/terror,” but a couple of Greek manuscripts from the first three
centuries AD render it that way anyway (Theodotion,
Chrysostom) , and that seems to be the consensus of modern Jewish
scholarship (Cohen, Delitzsch), and most English, French, and Spanish
translations: “Put them in fear.”
- However,
most of the ancient Greek (LXX, Aquill, Symm.) and Chaldee
translations of this Psalm, as well as the Latin Vulgate and Luther’s
German translation favor the meaning of teaching – “put a teacher over
them.” Wycliffe’s English translation (as well as Young’s and
Douay-Rheims) went with that meaning of “teacher.”
- But,
the meaning that makes the most sense to me is one that this participle
is used for a couple of other times in the Bible, and that is “rebellion”
(Deut 12:18, Jer. 5:23). In other words, I think David is asking God to
“pin the label of ‘rebel’ on his enemies so that they realize they can’t
act like they’re the boss but that they are accountable to God. They are
rebels because God is already legitimately in authority over them and
they are not cooperating with His laws.
- However,
any way you interpret this word, the same result comes out:
- If
God can “teach” them something they don’t know,
- If
God can “strike terror” in their hearts, or
- If
God can make the charge of “insurrection” against Him stick,
- Then
man is not supreme; God is, and, if God is the boss, then we can safely
put out trust in God to deliver us when humans gang up against us.
- I
like the way Spurgeon put it: “Prayers are the believer's weapons of
war. When the battle is too hard for us, we call in our great ally, who,
as it were, lies in ambush until faith gives the signal by crying out,
‘Arise, O Lord.’”
- I want
to close with a story from our country’s history which illustrates this
point powerfully. In October 1746, the mighty French Navy mobilized to
“lay [Boston] in ashes and destroy [the
coast of America].”
The people of Boston
heard about it and were afraid. They gathered in the Old South
Congregational Church, and there Rev. Thomas Prince began to pray. He
prayed the imprecations of Psalm 83 against the French Navy, and as he
prayed, the sky turned black and a terrific wind began to blow so strongly
that it caused the big church bell to start clanging! That day the mighty
French navy was scattered so badly that they couldn’t attack. Thousands of
French sailors died on the seas, but the Bostonians were left completely
unharmed. The proud French Admiral and Vice Admiral were so ashamed that
they committed suicide.
That day the lowly Christians of Boston experienced God’s mercy and
salvation while the unbelieving French soldiers came to know they were but
men. They could say with Rev. Prince, “God
has been here! The wicked have felt their mortality while the humble have
been delivered! This is the fingerprint of God!”