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Psalms 16, 40, 41

Psalms
PsalmsSteve Gregg

In this study, Steve Gregg delves into Messianic Psalms, which speak of the coming Messiah. Despite their initial tone of despair, they culminate in optimism and hope in the promise of God. Focusing on Psalms 16, 40, and 41, Gregg asserts that David's pleas for deliverance are ultimately fulfilled in the resurrection of Jesus Christ. The psalms also highlight the importance of reverent worship and trusting in God's provision and guidance.

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Transcript

Today we're going to continue studying Messianic Psalms. Yesterday, or last night, we talked about four Messianic Psalms that had to do with the kingdom of the Messiah. We talked about Psalm 2, Psalm 45, Psalm 72, and Psalm 110.
All of these Psalms had one thing in common, and that is that they depicted the Messiah as a great king over a worldwide kingdom, which we know because the New Testament writers have so interpreted it for us that this kingdom is the church, which is being expanded worldwide more and more all the time through the preaching of the gospel, and Jesus is reigning in this kingdom. We now want to turn to some of the other Messianic prophecies that do not focus on the kingly role of the Messiah quite as much, but some of them will refer to one or another event or feature of his life. There are a number of Psalms that talk about his suffering, either briefly or at length.
The Psalm that we will eventually have to deal with, Psalm 22, is very lengthy and deals with his sufferings at length, but there are other Psalms that have passing references to them, and there are various aspects of his character and his ministry which are brought forward in a number of the Psalms. One of the Psalms that is very clearly a Messianic Psalm is Psalm 16, and I'd like for you to turn there with me. This Psalm is quoted by two apostles, Peter and Paul, and both of them are quite agreed that it speaks of the resurrection of Christ.
Now, the apostle Paul, in 1 Corinthians 15, when he was telling the Corinthians, or restating for them the gospel that they had heard from him, in 1 Corinthians 15, verse 3 and following, he said, I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the Scriptures. Now, Paul said that Jesus' death was according to the Scriptures, and he meant, of course, the Old Testament Scriptures, since that's the only Scriptures Paul had access to, there was no New Testament yet, and he said that Jesus rose again the third day according to the Scriptures. Now, we might say, well, which Old Testament Scriptures was Paul referring to when he spoke of a scriptural fulfillment of Jesus raising from the dead? Well, Psalm 16 is at least one of those Scriptures, we know for certain, because Paul quoted it in Acts chapter 13, verses 35 through 37, and there he applied it to the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
The apostle Peter had done the same thing prior to that, on the day of Pentecost, in Acts chapter 2, when Peter was arguing with the Jews, or preaching to the Jews, for the resurrection of Christ, he quoted this psalm also, and in both cases it was the latter four verses of the psalm that were quoted, it was not the earlier part of the psalm, and both apostles are agreed that this is about the resurrection of Christ. Now, the reason I'm stressing this so much is that if you read the psalm on your own, without that knowledge, you might not see a resurrection passage, because there's not a specific statement saying so-and-so will rise from the dead, but in fact it appears to be a psalm, which is clearly a psalm of David, about David's own suffering, and about his own hope of deliverance out of the power of death. David was frequently in danger.
David was constantly, well not constantly, but frequently in danger.
He often had periods of security and prosperity and all, as a king, but there were times in his life when he was hunted down by one danger or another, either if it wasn't facing Goliath, it was running from Saul, and living in caves and dens of the earth. Once he had become king, he had his son Absalom, who tried to rebel against him, and there were many Gentile peoples that were within the scope of his dominion, who from time to time would rise up against him, the Philistines and others, so that David was frequently in danger, and sometimes betrayed by trusted friends and companions, and so we find a number of his psalms speak of what would seem to be a despairing condition, but when it really gets down to it, most of the psalms are very optimistic.
David, in the midst of his dangers, usually sees deliverance as the final conclusion. He really expects God to come through for him, and this psalm is no exception to that. It ends on a very optimistic note, though it does seem that David wrote it at a time where at least he may have been threatened with death.
We'll read the psalm through, and then we'll talk about parts of it. He said, Preserve me, O God, for in thee do I put my trust. O my soul, thou hast said unto the Lord, Thou art my Lord, my goodness extendeth not to thee, but to the saints that are in the earth, and to the excellent, in whom is all my delight.
Their sorrows shall be multiplied that hasten after another God. Their drink-offerings of blood will I not offer, nor take up their names into my lips. The Lord is my portion, or is the portion of mine inheritance and of my cup.
Thou maintainest my lot. The lions are fallen unto me in pleasant places, yea, I have a goodly heritage. I will bless the Lord who hath given me counsel.
My reigns also instruct me in the night season. I have set the Lord always before me. Because he is at my right hand, I shall not be moved.
Therefore my heart is glad, and my glory rejoiceth. My flesh also shall rest in hope, for thou wilt not leave my soul in hell, neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption. Thou wilt show me the path of life.
In thy presence is fullness of joy. At thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore. Now, the first seven verses are the portion of the psalm that is not referred to Christ in the New Testament.
Now, that doesn't mean there's nothing in it that refers to Christ, but I'm simply saying it's not quoted in the New Testament as being a reference to Christ. And this is the case with much of the psalms that we would call messianic psalms, the ones that portray information about the Messiah. A lot of times the majority of the psalm is not applicable to Christ at all, or does not seem to be, whereas a verse or two or three or a half of the psalm or something like that will actually be the part that is quoted in the New Testament.
And so it would seem that a lot of times the messianic psalms are talking about the psalmist's own experience, and in the midst of his discussion will come a portion of talk in which the Holy Spirit is giving a glimpse of the future sufferings or the future experiences of the coming Messiah, who would be one of David's seed. Well, here we have in the first seven verses, David calling out for preservation. His first plea in the first verse is, Preserve me, O God, for in thee do I put my trust.
A person doesn't usually pray that kind of prayer unless he's in danger. Preserve me, keep me alive, save me. What his danger was is not explained clearly, but he's very sure that he's going to escape it, because he says in verse 10, For you will not leave my soul in hell, neither will you suffer your Holy One to seek corruption.
To David this may have been just a reference to being preserved from death, that is, not permitted to be captured by his enemies and killed. He will not be left to rot, in other words. That's basically what verse 10 could be paraphrased as.
You will not leave me to rot. And David could be saying this in terms of just expecting to be escaping the danger of death, though we know that it has a very literal fulfillment in Jesus coming out of the grave. But some of these verses in the early part are a little difficult to understand.
He says, for instance, O my soul, thou hast said unto the Lord, Thou art my Lord. My goodness extendeth not to thee, but to the saints that are in the earth, and to the excellent, in whom is all my delight. Now, there's various ways of trying to understand this expression, My goodness extendeth not to thee.
There may be some light to be had upon it by turning for a moment to Psalm 73 and verse 25, which could be a statement implying the same thing, though it may not be. Psalm 73, 25 says, Whom have I in heaven but thee? And there is none upon earth that I desire beside thee. Now, there is an alternative translation of the words we have before us in Psalm 16, My goodness extendeth not unto thee.
And it can be translated, My welfare is not in addition to thee. Now, that might seem like a strange wording, but not really much more strange than, My goodness extendeth not to thee. If it is in fact supposed to be translated, My welfare is not in addition to thee, then it would mean that you are my whole welfare.
All my welfare is tied up in you, and there's nothing in addition to you that I look to for my well-being. And that would, of course, correspond with the Psalm 73, 25, Whom have I in heaven but thee? There is none on earth that I desire beside thee. That may be what he's saying, and could well be.
That is one of the alternate translations that are offered by other translators. However, it doesn't explain verse 3, if it means that, But to the saints that are in the earth, and to the excellent in whom is all my delight. I honestly don't know how to tie these two verses together and bring out a flow of thought that's very understandable.
He might be saying in that first of the verses, My goodness extendeth not to thee, basically saying, My personal righteousness does not reach the level of your personal righteousness, but only the level of the other saints of the earth, whom I delight in. That is, I'm comparable in my personal righteousness to other godly people, but not comparable to you. That's another possible rendition of the thought, though it's far from easy to settle.
And then in verse 4, Their sorrows are multiplied that hasten after another god. So he's saying those who are not followers of Jehovah, but worship other gods, will have multiple sorrows. This would seem to imply that his enemies at this time were not Jewish.
There were times later in Jewish history where they worshipped other gods, but in David's time, other gods were not worshipped in Israel. And therefore, when he makes reference to those who worship other gods, who are clearly on his mind at this point, he's thinking of heathens, probably Philistines. They were usually the biggest problem he ever ran into outside of his own people.
So he may be referring to the Philistines who worship Dagon and other false gods, and they are very conceivably his present oppressors or his present afflictors. And so he says concerning them, I know that they worship other gods, therefore God will eventually bring sorrows upon them. Their drink offerings of blood will I not offer, nor take up their names into my lips.
In Exodus 23, in verse 13, it says, Let not the name of other gods be heard in your mouth. You're not supposed to speak the name of other gods, at least not in a reverent or worshipful way. And he says, I won't offer the drink offerings of blood that they offer to their false gods, and I won't take their names on my lips and worship of them.
The Lord is my portion, Jehovah, is the portion of mine inheritance. And of my cup thou maintainest my lot. The lines are fallen unto me in pleasant places.
Yea, I have a goodly heritage. Now the lines are fallen unto me refers to the measuring lines by which the borders of personal property were measured. And when Joshua brought the people into Israel, they each had an allotted apportionment of land, which was their heritage, and it was passed down from generation to generation in the same family.
And he's referring here, at least he's using terms to describe the land that he's inherited. The lines have to do with the borders of the land. The lines have fallen to me in goodly places.
That is, the borders of the territory that I've inherited is goodly or attractive, pleasant. Pleasant places, I have a goodly heritage. But since he has just said the Lord is the portion of my inheritance, he's probably not speaking literally of his land inheritance.
He's speaking of the Lord, and he's speaking figuratively, just like a man would rejoice in a good portion of land that he inherited that is very beautiful and very pleasant. So he has, in a spiritual sense, inherited something very pleasant and very goodly, and that is a relationship with the Lord. Then he says, I will bless the Lord who hath given me counsel.
My reins also instruct me in the night seasons. The word reins there means kidney. And it was believed by the ancients that the kidneys had something to do with your deepest thoughts, with your conscience, and with your emotions and so forth.
It's almost as though, well, like we in our modern English sometimes speak of, I love this person with all my heart. Your heart is actually just a blood pump below the fifth rib. It's not really something that loves or hates.
At least as far as we know, it's not the place from which emotions spring. We would actually believe that they come from the mind somewhere. But symbolically, we speak of that part of our body feeling certain emotions.
Well, the kidneys had a similar meaning to the ancient Jews. And we'll find through the Psalms many times reference to the kidneys in this way, speaking of the inner man, the thought processes and the conscience and the feelings of the inner man. We might even equate it with the spirit of the man within him.
And so he says, God gives me counsel, but also my inner man counsels me, gives me instruction in the night seasons, referring to the fact that at night he is reflective and he meditates on the things of God and just from within him comes insight and wisdom, which is also related to the counsel he gets from the Lord. Now we have the passage that's quoted about Jesus. I've set the Lord, or Jehovah, always before me, because he is at my right hand, I shall not be moved.
Now to say that God is at your right hand seems a reversal of the language found in Psalm 110, for instance, where Jehovah said to Jesus, sit thou at my right hand. Obviously if you're at his right hand, he can't be at your right hand at the same time, because if someone's at your right hand, then you're at their left hand. That's just the way things are set up.
So we're not to take this literally, that Jesus has the Father at his right hand. What it means is that the position of the right hand, or someone being at the right hand, means that he's a helper. He's his closest helper.
And so when God says to Jesus, sit at my right hand, it means I want you to be my closest associate, my closest companion and helper, and a partner, really. It speaks of partnership. And here using the same figure, but not trying to be literally so, he's saying God is my partner.
I've set him at my right hand. He's close by to help me, therefore I know that I'm not going to fall or be moved. And then he says in verse 9, therefore my heart is glad and my glory rejoices.
My flesh also shall rest in hope. Now David probably meant by this that he would be able to sleep well at night in spite of his dangers, because God was near him. If that is true, it would agree with some of the things he said in a few of the earlier psalms, like Psalm 3. Psalm 3 was written also when David was in danger, and in verse 5 he said, I laid me down and slept, I awaked, for the Lord sustained me.
So David implied that he was in danger, but because of his faith in God he slept well nonetheless. In Psalm 4 also he made a similar statement. Psalm 4 in verse 8, again speaking at a time when he's in danger from his enemies, he says, I will both lay me down in peace and sleep, for thou, Lord, only makest me to dwell safely.
So again he's saying I will confidently lay down and sleep peaceably, because God alone is the one that I trust for safety. Now here he says, my flesh shall rest in hope, which again to David probably had the meaning of because I hope in God's salvation, I hope in him to preserve me, therefore I can rest, I can sleep, I can be at ease and peace. But as this is applied to Jesus later, we see that his flesh resting in hope refers to the fact that his body is actually resting in the grave, sleeping in the grave so to speak, in hope though, and that is, though Jesus' body is in the grave, even while he's in the grave there's hope, and that's the hope of resurrection.
And here's what his hope is in verse 10. For thou wilt not leave my soul in hell, neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One, or permit thine Holy One to seek corruption. Now there's a couple of words here which would benefit us to explain.
One is the word hell. The word hell in the Hebrew is sheol. It's used many times in the Old Testament, sheol.
Sometimes the newer translations don't translate it hell, they just leave it in the Hebrew, they just keep it the word sheol. And there's a New Testament equivalent, of course the New Testament was written in Greek, and the Greek word for sheol is Hades. So in the Old Testament you'll find frequently the word sheol, in the New Testament the word Hades.
In both cases, it's not unusual to translate it hell. Sheol and Hades are both translated hell many times. There are other cases where it is translated the grave.
And so it's not always easy to tell in each case which it's intended to be translated as, because both are valid translations. Sheol and Hades, both can be translated equally well, either as hell or the grave. In this case, the translators have chosen to translate it hell.
But it could have been the grave, and so it doesn't really matter. It's either referring to the fact that Jesus' soul went down to hell when he was dead, and spent three days there in hell, and there are some other scriptures that are brought to the support of this position, though none of them are conclusive, I must say. Or else it's simply saying that you will not let me, my soul, of course, is an Old Testament term for just my person.
You will not allow me, in other words, to stay in the grave. Again, looking forward to the resurrection. You will not leave me in the grave, or you will not leave my soul in hell.
One or the other is intended as the meaning. And either one is true of Jesus, of course. If it means that his soul went into hell, and that he there preached to the spirits in prison, as some suggest from various passages, then that's fine.
This verse supports it, and it still speaks to the fact that he won't stay there, that he's going to be resurrected and come out of there. If it's not speaking of that, if it's only saying nothing more than you won't leave me in the grave, then of course that's true also of Jesus. So either one creates no problem, but we're not sure exactly which is intended by David.
It seems to me by David he's probably thinking in terms of you won't drop me off in the grave, you won't abandon me to death. And then the second part, neither wilt thou suffer or permit thine Holy One to seek corruption. Remember the word corruption in Old English doesn't mean like moral corruption.
As we think of corruption in the government, we usually think of cheating and lying and deceit. That's what we think of as corruption often. But corruption, the real English word means decay or rotting.
It says you won't let your Holy One see decay or experience decay. Now, again, David could have meant nothing more by this in his own mind than that he would not be left to rot by God. Even though his enemies would love to leave him to rot, God won't permit this to take place.
And that verse could mean that to David, but realize the Holy Spirit had much more in mind because it has a very literal fulfillment in Jesus who is the only man who's ever died who was not left to rot. You see, David doesn't mention here necessarily that he will go into hell or that he will be in the grave or that he will die. He only mentions that God won't abandon him to that fate.
But we know of Jesus that he did die and that's what the apostles make out of verse 9 where it says, my flesh shall rest in hope. David might not have been speaking of him dying, of himself dying, but the Holy Spirit there was speaking of Jesus' body resting in the grave. But it will not be left there, it will not corrupt there, it will not decay there.
In other words, it must resurrect, it will come back to life or else it will decay. It says, thou wilt show me the path of life, which the apostles, when they quote this, interpret as the way of resurrection, the way of coming back to life. It says, God showed Jesus how to come back to life.
You will show me the path of life. And in thy presence is fullness of joy, at thy right hand there are pleasures forevermore. Certainly a different picture of the presence of God than the average unbeliever has.
Most unbelievers feel that in order to be a Christian, you pretty much have to give up all pleasure, have to give up all joy and live a colorless, joyless, kind of a legalistic, bondage life where you give up all things that are fun and resign yourself to a very boring existence in hopes of some future ecstasy in heaven. But that's not what David viewed it as, nor Jesus, whom this speaks for. In fact, in the presence of God there's fullness of joy and at his right hand are pleasures forevermore.
Some people have believed that pleasure is something the devil made up. But I don't believe the devil made up pleasure at all. I believe God created pleasure, obviously.
He made man, and he made man's capacity to enjoy food, sex, the environment when it's pleasant, and various other things, sleep. Those things are pleasurable, and God made pleasure. The only reason the devil ever offers people pleasure is it's bait to get them to sin.
I'm sure the devil would just love to get people to sin without giving them the pleasure. The pleasure isn't more of a concession he has to give them in order to get them to sin. If there's no pleasure in it, they wouldn't do it.
But pleasure is not something the devil thought up. Pleasure is something that emanates from the presence of God and from his right hand. God is a pleasure-loving God.
Not carnal, evil, sinful pleasures, but pleasure. There's great spiritual delight, and there's great soul pleasure, emotional delight in having a relationship in the presence of God. Coming into his presence is something that we can do, of course, because we should live in his presence, basically.
We should come before him every morning and live our day before his presence consciously. Now, concerning these verses about the resurrection of Jesus, again, a Jew could have read these verses for many centuries, and I'm sure the Jews did read these verses for many centuries without ever dreaming that it had anything to do with the resurrection. But you can see how the apostles understood it, and you can even see their reasons for it.
If we could look at the passages in Acts where it's quoted, just briefly, and get the commentary of the apostles, it would be instructive to us to realize that when Jesus opened the understanding of his disciples that they might understand the Scriptures, they began to see in passages such as this one things that Jewish scribes and rabbis had never seen, though they'd studied this passage probably dozens or hundreds of times over the centuries. But in Acts chapter 2, when Peter quotes it, it's quoted, beginning with verse 25, he says, For David speaketh concerning him, meaning concerning Jesus, and here comes the quote from Psalm 16, 8-11, I foresaw the Lord always before my face, for he is on my right hand, that I should not be moved. Therefore did my heart rejoice, and my tongue was glad.
Moreover also my flesh shall rest in hope, because thou wilt not leave my soul in hell, neither wilt thou suffer thine holy one to see corruption. Thou hast made known to me the ways of life, thou shalt make me full of joy with thy countenance. That expression, thou wilt make me full of joy with thy countenance, is the Septuagint version of that last line in Psalm, which says, in his presence is fullness of joy, and at his right hand pleasure forevermore.
It's somewhat shortened in the Septuagint, which Peter quotes, and this simply says, thou shalt make me full of joy with thy countenance, or with your face, or in your presence. Then he gives his interpretation of it in verse 29, Men and brethren, let me freely speak unto you of the patriarch David, that he is both dead and buried, and his sepulcher is with us to this day, and by implication his body has rotted in that sepulcher, and in that grave you could look and find a rotten body of David. It certainly has not been delivered from corruption.
Therefore being a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him that of the fruit of his own body, according to the flesh, he would raise up Christ to sit on his throne, he seeing this before spake of the resurrection of Christ, that his soul was not left in hell, neither did his flesh see corruption. This Jesus hath God raised up, whereof we are all witnesses. So you can see how Peter takes those two lines particularly, you will not leave my soul in hell, neither permit your holy one to see corruption, and he applies them in a very literal sense.
And says actually the only literal fulfillment of this could have spoken of the resurrection of Christ. He said David was a prophet, he wasn't speaking about himself, he was speaking in foreseeing the resurrection of Christ. We turn now briefly to Acts 13, we see that the apostle Paul also quoted the same scripture.
In rapid succession in this sermon in Acts 13, Paul quotes three Old Testament scriptures, two of them are from Psalms, and one from Isaiah. But to pick up the whole thought, I want to start at verse 33 and read through verse 37. And God hath fulfilled the same unto us, their children, in that he hath raised up Jesus again, as it is also written in the second Psalm, Thou art my son, this day have I begotten thee.
We studied that last night. And as concerning that he raised him up from the dead, now no more to return to corruption, he said on this wise, I will give you the sure mercies of David. Now this scripture, I will give you the sure mercies of David, is from Isaiah 55.3. Then he says, Wherefore he saith also in another Psalm, and this another Psalm, which he doesn't name, is Psalm 16, which we've been studying this morning.
Wherefore he saith also in another Psalm, Thou shalt not suffer thine Holy One to seek corruption. For David, after he had served his own generation by the will of God, fell on sleep. And he was laid unto his fathers, and he saw corruption.
That is, he decayed. But he whom God raised up again saw no corruption. So you can see that the apostles understood this verse must apply to the resurrection of Christ.
Though taken a little less literally, it could perhaps apply to David's own case. Yet if you give the verse and the words their full force of meaning, they can refer to nothing other than Jesus and his resurrection itself. Now we need to turn to some other Psalms.
We're going to skip three Psalms that we'll get back to in our next class. Those Psalms will be 22, 23, and 24, which I believe make up a trilogy of Messianic Psalms. But we'll pass those for the moment because we want to take them together in the next class.
We'll go on up now to Psalm 40. Here we have two Psalms in a row that are Messianic. And by saying that, again, I'm not saying that every verse in them clearly refers to the Messiah.
In both cases, they are Psalms of David. Again, he is speaking from his own experience. In the first case, he's giving thanks to God for certain deliverances.
In the next, in 41, he seems to be in danger again, or at least sick. He seems to be sick and his enemies are glad to see it. But intermixed with David's own testimony in these Psalms, we have statements which can only apply to the Messiah in their full sense.
That is the character of Messianic Psalms. For the most part, the words of the Messianic Psalms refer in a non-literal sense to the speaker. They can be seen as nothing more than poetry, if we wish.
They don't have to... I mean, we can basically say that all this verbiage is simply to talk about how he's in trouble and someone wants to kill him. And he's just being very poetic and flowery in his speech. And that is possible because Hebrew poetry takes those liberties.
We saw that in the book of Job. But we find that the New Testament writers like to go deeper and say, well, what literally this refers to, it has to be referring to Christ. Therefore, David's experience and that of Christ are intermixed and interwoven in these Psalms.
And of course, the passages that refer to the Christ also refer to David in a lesser, less literal sense. Let's read Psalm 40, for example. I waited patiently for the Lord and He inclined unto me and heard my cry.
He brought me up also out of an horrible pit, out of the miry clay and set my feet upon a rock and established my goings. And He hath put a new song in my mouth, even praise unto our God. Many shall see it and fear and shall trust in the Lord.
Blessed is that man that maketh the Lord his trust and respecteth not the proud, nor such as turn aside to lies. Many, O Lord my God, are thy wonderful works which thou hast done and thy thoughts which are to usward or toward us. They cannot be reckoned up in order unto thee.
If I would declare and speak of them, they are more than can be numbered. Sacrifice and offering thou didst not desire. Mine ears thou hast opened.
Burnt offering and sin offering hast thou not required. Then said I, Lo, I come. In the volume of the book it is written of me.
I delight to do thy will, O my God. Yea, thy law is within my heart. I have preached righteousness in the great congregation.
Lo, I have not refrained my lips. O Lord, thou knowest. I have not hid thy righteousness within my heart.
I have declared thy faithfulness and thy salvation. I have not concealed thy lovingkindness and thy truth from the great congregation. Withhold not thou thy tender mercies from me, O Lord.
Let thy lovingkindness and thy truth continually preserve me. For innumerable evils have come past me about. Mine iniquities have taken hold upon me.
That line could never apply to Christ. So that I am not able to look up. They are more than the hairs of mine head.
Therefore, my heart faileth me. Be pleased, O Lord, to deliver me. O Lord, make haste to help me.
Let them be ashamed and confounded together that seek after my soul to destroy it. Let them be driven backward and put to shame that wish me evil. Let them be desolate for a reward of their shame that say unto me, Aha! Aha! Let all those that seek thee rejoice and be glad in thee.
Let such as love thy salvation say continually, The Lord be magnified. But I am poor and needy. Yet the Lord thinketh upon me.
Thou art my help and my deliverer. Make no tarrying, O my God. It would seem that this... It would seem like this passage might have been written by David before he came to his kingly authority because he says he is poor and needy.
And certainly that would be a good description of his physical condition before he came to the kingdom because he was running through the wilderness running from Saul. However, it is possible that he means this spiritually speaking. I'm poor.
I'm of a contrite spirit.
I see myself as in desperate spiritual need even though I'm king. And that could be the case too.
At any rate, it does seem to fit in general. The psalms do fit more in general to the period of David's running from Saul than to his kingly time. He speaks in the first three verses of having waited patiently for the Lord.
And he says, He heard me. He brought me out of a horrible pit and out of the miry clay and set me on a solid rock and gave me a new song to sing and so forth. This could be seen as a possible reference to the resurrection of Jesus also though the New Testament never quotes it as such.
There is a later portion of this psalm that is quoted in the New Testament about Jesus which tips us off that there is a messianic theme interwoven in this psalm. But it is not quoted. These three verses at the beginning are not quoted in the New Testament.
Therefore, we don't know whether they are intended as a messianic portion of the psalm. But since, for instance, verses 6 through 10 are, it's also possible that verses 1 through 3 are which would make this an interesting further reference to the resurrection of the Messiah. Death and resurrection.
He brought me out of a horrible pit. The pit often is considered a synonym for hell or for Sheol or for the grave. And so, basically, it could be referenced to coming out of the grave, resurrection out of the clay which would be the earth.
And he set my feet upon a rock and established my going. Easily could have been quoted. I'm amazed that it wasn't quoted in the New Testament although it may well have been quoted in some of the preaching of the apostles that was not recorded to us.
And as far as putting a new song in my mouth, even praise to our God, that is David's testimony. That is our testimony. That is also Jesus' testimony because the Scripture says that Jesus sings praises in the midst of the congregation.
So, even while we are singing praises, Jesus is in our midst singing praises with us. It says that in Psalm 22, 22 which we'll look at separately in another class. But Psalm 22, 22 mentions that Jesus sings praises in the midst of the congregation.
And we can see that one of the themes that comes back again and again in this psalm has to do with the congregation. He says, for instance, verse 9, I have preached righteousness in the great congregation. Verse 10 says at the very end of it, By loving kindness and by truth from the great congregation I have not withheld them or hidden them.
Now, the great congregation, the word congregation in the Greek Old Testament is ekklesia, which is the same word translated church in the New Testament. So, this word, this psalm has connections to the church and of course to the Messiah. He rants, I shouldn't say rants, but he just goes on and on a bit about the mercies of God and how wonderful His works are and how many thoughts toward us He has, which is good if they reckon them up in order that they can't be numbered and so forth.
Then in verses 6 through 10, we have the clearly Messianic portion. It might not be so clearly Messianic if we didn't have it quoted in the New Testament, but since we do, it is, and we know it to be Messianic. Where he says, Sacrifice an offering thou didst not desire, mine ears hast thou opened for an offering and sin offering hast thou not required.
Then said I, Lo, I come, in the volume of the book it is written of me. I delight to do thy will, O God, O my God, yea, thy law is within my heart. Now, I don't recall that verses 9 and 10 are quoted in the New Testament, but they clearly are part of the same speech and would apply to Jesus just as much.
I have preached righteousness in the great congregation. I have not refrained my lips, O Lord, thou knowest. I have not hid thy righteousness within my heart.
I have declared thy faithfulness and thy salvation. I have not concealed thy loving kindness and thy truth from the great congregation. That is, the speaker, David, is saying, I realize that you want something more than sacrifices and offerings.
This is something he mentions also in the 51st Psalm. When he said, well, let's take a look quickly at the 51st Psalm to see this similar thought in David's mind. David wrote the 51st Psalm, of course, when he was repenting for his sin with Bathsheba.
Psalm 51, verses 16 and 17. David says, For thou desired not sacrifice, else would I give it. Thou delightest not in burnt offerings.
The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise. So, you can see David, when he was repenting for his sin with Bathsheba, realized that sacrifices was not really all that God was looking for. According to the Jewish law, if you did sins, you'd bring a trespass offering to the temple or to the tabernacle before there was a temple.
And it would be offered up by the priest for you and the blood would be sprinkled and so forth. And that would be to cover your sins. And David was saying here, I realize you don't just want that.
Now, that was an insight David had that most Jews did not have. Most Jews were quite content to offer the sacrifices and have no change in their inward man. To just feel like it's a ritual thing, you know, I can sin and then I can offer a sacrifice.
And then, you know, if I sin again, I'll just offer another sacrifice and I'll be accepted by God because I offered these sacrifices. But David realized by inspiration that God wanted something deeper than just a ritual sacrifice of an animal. He wanted something in the heart.
He wanted a man's heart to change. And so he said, if you had desired sacrifice, I'd easily give it. As a king, he could have offered thousands of bulls if he wished to.
But he says he realized that that's not what God's really looking for. He's not concerned with how many bulls I can offer. He's looking for a broken and a repentant heart, a contrite heart.
He says you will not despise that. So, there we see David's insight on that there. Now, getting back to the psalm we're looking at, Psalm 40 in verse 6, he says, Sacrifice an offering thou didst not desire.
Now, that sounds exactly like Psalm 51. Mine ears thou hast opened. Now, the word opened in the Hebrew means digged or possibly pierced.
And so there's two ways of interpreting this. One would be, as we would probably be inclined to interpret it, you've opened my ears, meaning you've given me the ability to hear you, which is a possible interpretation, very much possible. As we also know, we speak of him opening our eyes and opening our ears in order that we might see and hear.
And that could be what he's saying, but since the word is digged there, my ear thou hast digged or pierced, it could be a reference to piercing of the earlobe, which was something that was done to a bond slave. You remember that a slave who was offered his freedom, if he wished to remain a slave for his lifetime out of love to his master because he didn't want his freedom, he could become a bond slave. And that ritual was that they would take him over to the door of the house and put his head up next to it and use an awl and pierce his ear and put an earring in it and forevermore, because his ear was pierced, it would show that he was a slave for life to the man who had pierced his ear.
Now David could be using that figure there, you've pierced my ear. God, you weren't interested in me just offering sacrifices, you were interested in me serving you, in other words, me being your servant, your bond servant, your love servant, not just doing something slavishly because the law says I must do it, but making a choice to be your servant out of love for you. And that could, of course, easily be it too.
Either one is quite possible. Now an interesting thing, when this is quoted in the book of Hebrews about Jesus, it quotes from the Septuagint, which reads a little differently, because in the Septuagint it says, Sacrifice and offerings thou didst not desire, but a body thou hast prepared for me. Now that's a very large change, as you can see, that's a big change from my ear thou hast digged to a body thou hast prepared for me.
Why the Septuagint writers chose that translation, we have no idea, but an interesting thing is that that's the one the New Testament writers quoted, and in Hebrews it's quoted as the better reading for fulfillment in Christ, and we'll talk about that in a moment. We'll get over to Hebrews in a few minutes to talk about how this passage is used. But let's just try to figure out what David thought of it, how David thought of these words, that he didn't understand that the Spirit was actually giving him inspired words about the Messiah.
What would this actually mean to David in his own experience? He's probably saying, God, I've realized that sacrifices and the ritual offerings of the temple are not enough, but you really want people to be your servants, or you want people to listen to you, one way or the other. You open my ears or you pierce my ear, one way or the other, you're looking for people who'll hear you, who'll follow you, who'll serve you, not just people who will fulfill the ritual requirements of the temple. And then he said, Lo, I come, in the volume of the book it's written of me, I delight to do thy will, O God.
In other words, he's saying, just like a servant who's got his ear pierced who is serving because he loves his master, I delight to do your will. I don't do it because it's a slavish kind of a bondage. I do it because I delight to do it.
I come to do your will, and I delight to do it. Now, the statement, in the volume of the book it is written of me, it's not clear what David would have meant here. What book he's speaking of would be written about him, or maybe it's not really written of him, maybe he's just saying essentially that the law speaks to him too, or the law applies to him also.
But these words have a very literal fulfillment in Christ, and so the author of the Hebrews gives them their full force. And we can see how he used them in Hebrews chapter 10. It's a very interesting use of them, and you can see that this psalm became very handy for use in proving that Jesus put an end to the sacrificial system, that Jesus instituted the new covenant, which did not involve sacrifices, and in so doing he put away the old covenant, which did involve sacrifices.
Now, it says in Hebrews 10, the chapter is trying to demonstrate that the sacrifice of Christ is far superior to the sacrifice system of the Old Testament. And in comparing the two, or contrasting them, it says in verse 3, but in those sacrifices, meaning the Old Testament sacrifices, there was a remembrance again made every year for sin. For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sin.
Bulls and goats were the things that the Jews offered in the Old Testament. It wasn't possible for them to take away sin. That's what David even understood in the Old Testament, though many Jews didn't understand that.
Wherefore, when he cometh into the world, he saith, and now it quotes from our passage in Psalm 40, Sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not, but a body hast thou prepared me. That corresponds with my ear you have opened or pierced. In burnt offering and sacrifices for sin thou hast had no pleasure.
Then said I, Lo, I come, in the volume of the book it is written of me, to do thy will, O God. Now, notice the writer here puts in the volume of the book it is written of me as a parenthetical statement, so that verse 7 should read, Then said I, Lo, I come, to do thy will, O God. Now, what the writer of Hebrews is going to argue is this.
Jesus is speaking in these places and Jesus is acknowledging verbally the inadequacy of the Old Testament system of sacrifices. They did not end the sin problem in man. They covered sins temporarily, but they couldn't take away sin.
They couldn't change man. They couldn't make him less a sinner. And that's why they had to be offered year after year because it was not possible for them to take away sins.
So that God didn't have pleasure in that system. That is not enough pleasure to keep it around. It was not adequate forever.
It was a provisional thing that God gave to point forward to the Christ. But it was not something that really did the job that God wanted done. And that is what he says Jesus is saying in quoting him saying, Sacrifice and offering you wouldest not, but a body thou hast prepared me.
In other words, instead of the sacrificial system, God has prepared a body for Jesus. Now whether this would refer in the writer of Hebrews line to the body born of the Virgin Mary, the man Jesus of Nazareth, the human body Jesus lived in, or whether it means the church. Both, of course, would have some application because the church is simply the extension of his physical body.
He's the head. We're the members. And so either way we could see the church has a relationship here to this passage.
But the point is that what the Old Testament could not do, the Old Testament sacrifices could not do, had to be accomplished by Jesus taking on a physical form, a bodily form, because he had to offer himself as a sacrifice. And so he says, Lo, I come to do thy will, O God. Now in the volume of the book it is written of me, is a very understandable reference if it's to Christ.
From the mouth of David it was hard to interpret. From the mouth of Christ it's easy. He's simply saying the whole Old Testament talks about me.
In the volume of the book it is written of me, Jesus says. In other words, the whole Old Testament really has him as its main subject. And so we see it.
We read the Psalms. How many of them really have Jesus as their subject? And not only the Psalms but the whole volume of the book. Now, if you can follow the flow of thought here, in verses six and seven, the quote from the Psalm is used like this.
Jesus recognized the inadequacy of the sacrificial system of the Old Testament. So he said, Lo, I come to do thy will. In other words, to do thy will is in contrast to the sacrificial system.
And the will of God that Jesus came to do is a new covenant that replaces the old sacrificial system. And that's what the writer says in verse eight where he says above, when he said, Sacrifice and offering and burnt offerings and offering for sin, thou wouldst not, neither had pleasure therein, which are offered by the law, he says. Then said he, Lo, I come to do thy will, O God.
He takes away the first that he may establish the second. By which will, quote unquote, we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. So, in verse ten, the word will, we might put it in quotes because he's quoting the word to do thy will from the Scripture.
By which will, that is the will of God for Jesus to fulfill, was to bring sanctification once and for all to all who are sanctified by the offering of his body. So, the argument taken from Psalm 40 in Hebrews is this. The Old Testament sacrifices could cover sins but they couldn't really finish the sin problem.
That could only be finished by Jesus himself taking on a physical body and dying once and for all for us. This was spoken of as I come to do thy will. Remember when Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane was facing the cross and nearly on it really, he was just a few hours away from crucifixion.
He said, not my will but thy will be done. He came to do God's will and that will, the writer of Hebrews says, was the will of God to offer the body of Jesus up to end the sacrificial system and to bring sanctification for all time for us once and for all. So, as we go back to Psalm 40 now, we can see how this is used.
It is saying essentially that whatever David meant by it, the Holy Spirit was speaking the words of Jesus, saying that Jesus would end the sacrificial system by offering his own body to God. Now, by the way, you might still be puzzling over the difference between mine ears thou hast opened in the Psalm in verse 6 and the quotation of it in Hebrews where it says, a body thou hast prepared me. Those two are very different sounding things.
But when you really get down to it, it's not much different. If it's talking about piercing the ear and making one a bond servant, that's essentially what Jesus did when he took on a body. He became the servant of Jehovah, which is a term used for the Messiah frequently in Isaiah.
Isaiah used the term the servant of Jehovah for the Messiah very frequently. And he became God's servant by taking on a body. And so we can see even if we can't understand why the words translated from one to the other, we can see at least that they both bear the same concept with relation to Christ.
And verses 9 and 10 we've already read how that he said, I've preached, I've not concealed the truth from the great congregation, the great church. Jesus showed the truth to the church, but he did conceal the truth from those who were not in the church, didn't he? He told parables so that those who were not believers, who were not appointed to know the mysteries of the kingdom, they would not understand. But that his believers, he explained all things privately to them.
The only other verse in this psalm that really needs a comment, I feel, verse 16, let all those that seek thee rejoice and be glad in thee. Let such as love thy salvation say continually, the Lord be magnified. The Lord be magnified is what we're supposed to continually be saying.
And so I would suggest that we constantly be magnifying the Lord. Now, I want to go on to Psalm 41 because it also is a messianic psalm and has a passage in it that is quoted by Jesus in the New Testament of himself. And that's verse 9, which Jesus quotes, or which is not exactly quoted, but is alluded to in the New Testament about Jesus' betrayal by Judas.
Psalm 41, Blessed is he that considereth the poor. The Lord will deliver him in time of trouble. The Lord will preserve him and keep him alive.
And he shall be blessed upon the earth and thou shalt not deliver him unto the will of his enemies. The Lord will strengthen him upon the bed of languishing. Thou wilt make all his bed in his sickness.
Or could be, thou wilt turn all his bed in his sickness. What that means probably is that you'll heal him from his sickness. He's talking about a blessed man who is good to the poor.
God will be good to him. And when he's sick, he'll be taken care of. As the psalm develops, we find that David writing is sick himself.
And his enemies have taken delight in that fact that he is sick when he's writing this. It says, Mine enemies speak evil of me. No, earlier, verse 4. I said, Lord, be merciful unto me and heal my soul, for I have sinned against thee.
Heal my soul. Of course, soul simply means my person. So, he's speaking in terms of being sick.
For I have sinned against thee. And he saw his sickness as a punishment for sin. Mine enemies speak evil of me.
When shall he die? And his name perish, is what they think. And if he come to see me, he speaketh vanity. His heart gathereth iniquity to itself.
When he goeth abroad, he telleth it. Now, it's saying that secretly his enemies are delighting that he's sick on his sick bed and hoping that he'll die. When will he die? They're saying.
But they come and talk to him deceitfully. That is, they pretend to be concerned. They come and visit him in his sick bed and they act all concerned, but they speak very differently when they leave him, when he goeth abroad.
He talks differently about it. All that hate me whisper together against me. Against me do they devise my hurt.
An evil disease, say they, cleaveth fast to him. And now that he lieth, he shall rise up no more. In other words, they're rejoicing that he's sick and that some disease is in his body and they say, no, I don't think he'll recover from this one.
And then in verse 9 it says, Yea, mine own familiar friend, in whom I trusted, which did eat of my bread, hath lifted up his heel against me. This was a reference to Judas betraying Jesus, but also is true of David, as we'll see in a moment. But thou, O Lord, be merciful unto me and raise me up that I may requite them.
By this I know that thou favorest me because mine enemy does not triumph over me. And as for me, thou upholdest me in thine integrity and settlest in mine integrity and settest me before thy face forever. Blessed be the Lord God of Israel from everlasting and to everlasting.
Amen and amen. The reason for this double amen at the end of verse 13 is that it's the end of the second of the five books of the psalm. And they all end with something like that.
The doxology. Now, one thing to consider here is David, we don't have any reference in the Bible to this disease of his, unless it is the disease which he had. He had a consumption before his death.
We're told in the Bible that before he died, when he was very old, he couldn't retain heat. And they used to pile blankets on top of him to keep him from getting chilled. But even though they put a lot of blankets on him, it says they couldn't keep him warm.
So, they finally brought in a young girl named Abishag to lie in bed with him and to keep him warm. Though the Bible clearly says they didn't have sexual relations. I guess they figured it's better than a dog and it would have looked funnier if a man came to sleep with him.
So, they figured it might as well be a woman. But he was too old to be interested in sexual relations. She was just there to warm him, to warm his bed.
And he never did, as far as we know, recover from that sickness. And it's possible that it's that sickness that he's talking about here. In that case, when he says, my own familiar friend whom I trusted, verse 9, which is, he had eaten my bread and lifted up his heel against me.
It could refer to the fact that while David was on his sickbed when he was dying, that there were a number of his guys, Joab and others, who had been on his side through all his torments as a young man, through all his trials, but then turned over to Adonijah, his son, who tried to get the throne. Adonijah, one of David's sons, decided to declare himself king, even though David had said Solomon would be king. And Adonijah tried to get some of the counselors and the warriors of David's army on his side and did so.
And that could be what's referred to here when he says, those who ate at my table. That is, the king always had certain privilege, people who got to eat of his bread and eat at his table with him. And some of those people had given their allegiance over, possibly, to Adonijah.
That would explain all this. Another possible interpretation is to say that he was not literally sick, but poetically he's using sickness as sort of a symbol of his status as king. Because there was a time when his son Absalom rebelled against him and drove him and a few followers of his out of the kingdom and actually wanted to pursue them to kill them.
And Absalom tried to usurp the throne. Of course, Absalom was killed in the attempt, as you might recall. But during that time, there were certain friends of David's that went over to Absalom's side.
Ahithophel was one of them, the counselor who was supposed to be so wise. He had been David's counselor, but then he defected and went over to Absalom's side, in which case David could be reflecting on that fact. When he talks about some disease from which he won't recover, his enemies say, Ah, the Ziv cleave is fast to him.
He won't recover. He could be speaking figuratively. In other words, this guy, his reign is over.
He's going down fast. His situation is sick and declining. Not physically sick, but that his position and his security and everything is in sickly condition and going down fast.
Either way, we don't know which situation David wrote this in. It could have been one of those two. In both cases, there were people who had been his friends, who had been privileged and favored by him to eat at his table, but who turned away from him.
This was literally fulfilled in Judah's betrayal of Jesus because when Jesus sat at the Last Supper and the disciples said, Lord, which one is it that will betray you? When he said, one of you will betray me, John whispered to him, which one will betray you? He says, it's he that sits at meat with me here. It's he that sits at the table here with me, the one that I'll give the sop to. And then Jesus handed the sop to Judas and Judas left the room to go and betray Jesus.
So, you can see that David's experience foreshadowed the experience of Christ. David was a king. David was God's chosen king, but there were those who sought to overthrow him.
In this seeking to overthrow David, many of David's trusted friends defected and turned against him for his enemies. That happened to Jesus also. Jesus was God's chosen king for Israel, but the authorities in power at the time did not want him to be king.
The scribes and Pharisees, the Sanhedrin, did not want Jesus to be king and they were his enemies and there was at least one of Jesus' friends that defected and went over to the other side and betrayed him. And so, we see in this psalm a picture of the Messiah at the time when he appears to be going down fast. At the time when Judas did betray Jesus, his popularity was waning.
He had once had thousands of people following him, but now he was scurrying around in the dark trying to avoid arrest, living outside the city and sneaking into the city to have a secret meeting with his disciples for the Passover and all. He was losing popularity fast. His enemies had plotted his death.
They had a pretty sure thing, they thought, of getting him. They had Judas on their side. So, the things that were being said about David when his kingdom was threatened and when his friends were defecting also applied symbolically to Jesus so that David is seen here to be a type of Christ again as he is in other places.
We'll take a short break and come back and there are a few other Messianic Psalms I want to cover today in the time that we'll have.

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In Steve Gregg's engaging exploration of the book of Haggai, he highlights its historical context and key themes often overlooked in this prophetic wo
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