Psalm 31:1 ¶ «To the chief Musician, A Psalm of David.» In thee, O LORD, do I put my trust; let me never be ashamed: deliver me in thy righteousness. 2 Bow down thine ear to me; deliver me speedily: be thou my strong rock, for an house of defence to save me. 3 For thou art my rock and my fortress; therefore for thy name’s sake lead me, and guide me. 4 Pull me out of the net that they have laid privily for me: for thou art my strength. 5 Into thine hand I commit my spirit: thou hast redeemed me, O LORD God of truth. 6 I have hated them that regard lying vanities: but I trust in the LORD. 7 I will be glad and rejoice in thy mercy: for thou hast considered my trouble; thou hast known my soul in adversities; 8 And hast not shut me up into the hand of the enemy: thou hast set my feet in a large room.
For verse 1 here is a comparable passage;
Psalm 71:1 ¶ In thee, O
LORD, do I put my trust: let me never be put to confusion. 2 Deliver me in thy righteousness, and cause me
to escape: incline thine ear unto me, and save me.
Notice the connection in Psalm 31:1 and Psalm 71:1 the connection
between be ashamed and confusion. Do not let my faith in you be
in vain, he says. Here is another phrasing of that sentiment.
Isaiah 49:23 And kings
shall be thy nursing fathers, and their queens thy nursing mothers: they shall
bow down to thee with their face toward the earth, and lick up the dust of thy
feet; and thou shalt know that I am the LORD: for they shall not be ashamed
that wait for me.
Here also in verse 1 is an admission that David can only be
delivered because of God’s righteousness and not David’s own. For us, we are to
trust in Christ’s righteousness to get to Heaven and not our own. Of course,
David often makes a case for his own righteousness so we must be careful in
viewing the difference between what are commonly called dispensations.
Verse 2 suggests these cross-references among others;
Psalm 71:2 Deliver me in
thy righteousness, and cause me to escape: incline thine ear unto me, and save
me.
Psalm 86:1 ¶ «A Prayer of
David.» Bow down thine ear, O LORD, hear me: for I am poor and needy.
Psalm 130:2 Lord, hear my
voice: let thine ears be attentive to the voice of my supplications.
Verses 2 and 3 repeat that God is a rock to David, a fortress, a
house of defense. This is an important typology for us to wrap our minds around
as we are totally dependent upon God for protection and are needful of His
mercy every moment of every day if we are to survive.
David asks God to lead him and guide him for His (God’s) name’s
sake. He has pled with God to pardon David’s iniquities not because they are
not many but because of God’s character.
Psalm 25:11 For thy name’s
sake, O LORD, pardon mine iniquity; for it is great.
For deliverance because of who God is.
Psalm 79:9 Help us, O God
of our salvation, for the glory of thy name: and deliver us, and purge away our
sins, for thy name’s sake.
For His mercy because of who God is.
Psalm 109:21 But do thou
for me, O GOD the Lord, for thy name’s sake: because thy mercy is good, deliver
thou me.
Psalm 143:11 Quicken me, O
LORD, for thy name’s sake: for thy righteousness’ sake bring my soul out of
trouble.
Verse 4 reminds me of the following references to being ensnared
by those who oppose you;
Psalm 25:15 ¶ Mine eyes are
ever toward the LORD; for he shall pluck my feet out of the net.
Psalm 35:7 For without
cause have they hid for me their net in a pit, which without cause they have
digged for my soul.
Psalm 57:6 They have
prepared a net for my steps; my soul is bowed down: they have digged a pit
before me, into the midst whereof they are fallen themselves. Selah.
Psalm 124:7 Our soul is
escaped as a bird out of the snare of the fowlers: the snare is broken, and we
are escaped.
Psalm 140:5 The proud have
hid a snare for me, and cords; they have spread a net by the wayside; they have
set gins for me. Selah.
Then, I think about Paul’s instruction to Timothy;
2Timothy 2:24 And the
servant of the Lord must not strive; but be gentle unto all men, apt to teach,
patient, 25 In meekness instructing
those that oppose themselves; if God peradventure will give them repentance to
the acknowledging of the truth; 26 And
that they may recover themselves out of the snare of the devil, who are taken
captive by him at his will.
Jesus seems to allude to verse 5 from the cross. At least the
similarity points us in that direction.
Luke 23:46 And when Jesus
had cried with a loud voice, he said, Father, into thy hands I commend my
spirit: and having said thus, he gave up the ghost.
David says that God has redeemed him. This is an important thing
to consider as some fundamentalist preachers have insisted that Christ paid a
ransom to Satan for our souls at the Cross, which is a grave error.
The only ransom that can be paid for us is to God Himself.
Exodus 30:12a When thou takest
the sum of the children of Israel after their number, then shall they give
every man a ransom for his soul unto the LORD…
Psalms 49:7 None of them
can by any means redeem his brother, nor give to God a ransom for him:
Christ as God Himself in the flesh was the only one capable of
paying that ransom to Himself.
Matthew 20:28 Even as the
Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his
life a ransom for many.
Mark 10:45 For even the Son
of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a
ransom for many.
1 Timothy 2:5 For there is
one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus; 6 Who gave himself a ransom for all, to be
testified in due time.
Several times in Exodus God redeeming His people is mentioned
meaning to deliver. Here is an example;
Exodus 6:6 Wherefore say
unto the children of Israel, I am the LORD, and I will bring you out from under
the burdens of the Egyptians, and I will rid you out of their bondage, and I
will redeem you with a stretched out arm, and with great judgments:
And God’s saved redeemed by the blood of Christ in Revelation;
Revelation 5:9 And they
sung a new song, saying, Thou art worthy to take the book, and to open the
seals thereof: for thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by thy blood
out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation;
Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law;
Galatians 3:13 Christ hath
redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it is
written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree:
Galatians 4:5 To redeem
them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons.
Verse 6 is a reference to false gods, called lying vanities.
Jonah 2:8 They that observe
lying vanities forsake their own mercy.
Jeremiah 14:22 Are there
any among the vanities of the Gentiles that can cause rain? or can the heavens
give showers? art not thou he, O LORD our God? therefore we will wait upon
thee: for thou hast made all these things.
For verse 7 see cross-references;
Psalm 9:13 Have mercy upon
me, O LORD; consider my trouble which I suffer of them that hate me, thou that
liftest me up from the gates of death:
Psalm 142:3 When my spirit
was overwhelmed within me, then thou knewest my path. In the way wherein I
walked have they privily laid a snare for me.
The prophetic importance of verse 8 is found in the use of the
phrase a large room because this seems, in my mind, to be linked to
other verses about our place in Heaven where the translated church is delivered
from the wrath to come.
Psalm 18:19 He brought me
forth also into a large place; he delivered me, because he delighted in me.
2Samuel 22:20 He brought me
forth also into a large place: he delivered me, because he delighted in me.
Then, there is that magnificent promise in the Gospel According to
John;
John 14:2 In
my Father’s house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you.
I go to prepare a place for you.
If you believe that God is preparing an
eighteen-room majestic home to occupy in your resurrected body I will not argue
with you. I’m just going to give you the literal interpretation and you can do
with it what you will. According to the Early Modern English database at http://leme.library.utoronto.ca/menu/menuSearch.cfm the word mansion
at one time meant a dwelling place, a house, or even a large, luxurious
apartment in a mansion house. Look at some of the cross references to verse 2
of John 14.
2Corinthians
5:1 ¶ For we know that if our earthly
house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house
not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.
In God’s house, the verse says, there are many
mansions. My concern is that we are telling people in our excitement about
Heaven and in their unwillingness to read the Bible that we are all going to
have our own version of Buckingham Palace. Wouldn’t it be more likely, based on
the construction of the sentence, that we will all have our own wonderful,
dwelling place in God’s house rather than our own castle next to the golf
course?
Historical evidence teaches us that, and I
quote Michael L. Satlow’s book entitled, Jewish
Marriage in Antiquity, the bride would be brought to the huppah, a private place prepared by the
groom in his father’s house, where the marriage was consummated.[1]
So, Jesus preparing a magnificent room in His Father’s house for His bride has
parallels in Jewish customs of the time. There is a lot of interesting
information, if you are willing to search it out, about those customs but be
careful of copying anyone who doesn’t, at least, provide you with the sources
of his statements.
Here, Jesus promises to His followers that He
is going to prepare a place in His Father’s house and will return to take them
there. This is an amazing promise apparently in keeping with Jewish custom and
tradition for marriage. When Jesus ascended into heaven;
Acts
1:9 And when he had spoken these things,
while they beheld, he was taken up; and a cloud received him out of their
sight.
He went to prepare a place for His church, His
bride.
2Corinthians
11:2 For I am jealous over you with
godly jealousy: for I have espoused you to one husband, that I may present you
as a chaste virgin to Christ.
He will return to take His bride to His
Father’s house.
1Thessalonians
4:16 For the Lord himself shall descend
from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump
of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: 17 Then we which are alive and remain shall be
caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so
shall we ever be with the Lord.
Where there will be a feast, a marriage
supper, and great rejoicing.
Revelation
19:9 And he saith unto me, Write,
Blessed are they which are called unto the marriage supper of the Lamb. And he
saith unto me, These are the true sayings of God.
We await this greatest of all events in our
lives.
Titus
2:13 Looking for that blessed hope, and
the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ;
Back to the text of Psalms, though, this is
why I am making the connection. David, in his context, is referring to a safe
place.
[1] Michael L. Satlow, Jewish Marriage in Antiquity (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University
Press, 2001), 172.
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