For Thou hast delivered my soul from death, mine eyes from tears, and my feet from falling.
On recovery from sickness
I. The blessing conferred. Why was the psalmist so transported with joy, on being delivered from death? As if a mariner were to give thanks that he is not arrived in port; a traveller that he has not reached the end of his tedious journey; a banished man that he is not restored to his country; or a man groaning under a heavy burden that he is not relieved from it. Let us not hastily blame this emotion of the psalmist. For although death, through God’s favour, be a benefit to pious and holy persons; yet in itself, abstracted from those considerations, it is fearful and terrible. It is the sentence of our condemnation; the punishment of our rebellion; the bitter fruit of our corruption. But the text suggests to us, on this subject, two particular reflections.
1. David was not a mere private person; for he held two very important public stations. He was a king, and a prophet. As a king, his life was highly important to the state; as a prophet, it was a singular utility to the Church of God. And in each of these distinguished relations David was an extraordinary personage. He was a signally brave, wise and pious king, and he was a prophet of unequalled vigour and comprehension of mind. David, therefore, might wish for life, and be thankful on his deliverance from death, not only for his own sake, or chiefly, but for that of his people; for the good of his subjects, and the service of God’s Church, to which he was so useful and necessary.
2. There are actually occasions on which even good persons may fear death, and feel a most lively joy in being delivered from it. And those are when their sickness and sufferings are the immediate effect of their sins. For although their peace may be made with God, by the blood of the everlasting covenant, yet God may send upon them very sharp corrections, when they have offended Him by criminal acts and provocations. And they may wish and pray not to die in this state; death, presenting itself in such junctures, being more than commonly formidable.
II. The grateful acknowledgment (verse 9). When we read in Scripture of “walking before the Lord,” we often find other expressions joined with this, such as prove that it means piety in general, the whole duty of a religious and godly person. One of the Grecian sages having said, “All things are full of God, and He seeth all our actions,” another great man judged this maxim to be so beautiful and important that he pronounced it to comprehend the whole philosophy of virtue.” And with great reason: for, in truth, the conviction and feeling of having God over present with us is the grand security of all good morals. The promise and vow, therefore, of David in the text is--a pure and holy life: “I will walk before the Lord in the land of the living.” (S. Partridge, M.A.)
Experience, resolve and hope
This is a quotation from an earlier psalm, with variations which are interesting, whether we suppose that the psalmist was quoting from memory and made them unconsciously, or whether, as is more probable, he did so deliberately and for a purpose.
1. The words in the original psalm (56) read, “Thou hast delivered my soul from death; hast Thou not delivered my feet from falling?” The writer of this psalm felt that that did not say all, so he put in another clause--“mine eyes from tears.” It is not enough to keep a man alive and upright. God will wipe away his tears; and will often keep him from shedding them.
2. The original psalm goes on: “Thou hast delivered. .. my feet from falling, that I may walk before God.” But the later psalmist goes a step further than his original. The first singer had seen what it is always a blessing to see--what God meant by all the varieties of His providences, viz. that the recipient might walk as in His presence. But the later poet not only discerns, but accords with, God’s purpose, yields himself to the Divine intention, and instead of simply saying, “That was what God meant,” he says, “That is what I am going to do--I will walk before the Lord.”
3. The original psalm says, “in the light of the living”; the other uses another word, a little more intelligible, perhaps, to an ordinary reader, and says, “in the land of the living.” Now, noting these significant variations, I would draw attention to this expression of the psalmist’s acceptance of the Divine purpose, and the vision that it gave him of his future. It is hard to say whether he means “I will walk,” or “I shall walk”; whether he is expressing a hope or giving utterance to a fixed resolve. I think there is an element of both in the words.
I. A sure anticipation. “Thou hast”--“I will.” The past is for this psalmist a mirror in which he sees reflected the approaching form of the veiled future. God’s past is the guarantee of God’s future. What God has done, He will keep on doing. Our experience yields fuel for our faith. We have been near death many a time; we have never fallen into it. Our eyes have been wet many a time; God has dried them. Our feet have been ready to fall many a time, and if at the moment when we were tottering on the edge of the precipice, we have cried to Him and said, “My feet have well-nigh slipped,” a strong hand has been held out to us. “The Lord upholdeth them that are in the act of failing.” And if we have pushed aside His hand, and gone down, then the next clause of the same verse applies, for He “raiseth up those that have fallen,” and are lying prostrate. As it has been, so it will be. “Thou hast been with me in six troubles,” therefore “in the seventh Thou wilt not forsake me.” We can wear out men; and we cannot argue that because a man has had long patience with some unworthy recipient of his goodness, his patience will never give out. But it is safe to argue thus about God.
II. A firm resolve. “I will walk before the Lord.” What does “walking before the Lord” mean? It means the habitual--I do not say unbroken, but habitual--effort to feel in our conscious hearts that we are in His sight; not only that we are with Him, but that we are “naked and open to the eyes of Him with whom we have to do.” And that is to be the result, says our psalm, as it is the intention, of all that God has been doing with us in His merciful providence, in His quickening, sustaining, and comforting influences in the past. He sent all these varying conditions, kept the man alive, kept him from weeping, or dried his tears, kept him from falling, with the intention that he should be continually blessed in the continuous sunshine of God’s presence, and should open out his heart in it and for it, like a flower when the sunbeams strike it. Oh, how different life would look if we habitually took hold of all its incidents by that handle, and thought about them, not as we are accustomed to do, according to whether they tended to make us glad or sorry, to disappoint or fulfil our hopes and purposes, but looked upon them all as stages in our education, and as intended, if I might so say, to force us, when the tempests blow, close up against God; and, when the sunshine came, to woo us to His side. Would not all life change its aspect if we carried that thought right into it, and did not only keep it for Sundays, or for the crises of our lives, but looked at all the trifles as so many magnest brought into action by Him to attract us to Himself? But there has to be something more. There have to be a firm resolve, and effort without which the firmest resolve will all come to water, and be one more paving stone for the road that is “paved with good intentions.” That firm resolve finds utterance in the not vain vow, “I will”--in spite of all opposition and difficulties--“I will walk before the Lord,” and keep ever bright in my mind the thought, “Thou God seest me.” Aye! and just in the measure in which we do that shall we have joy. If we are right with God, then the gladdest of thoughts is, “Thou knowest me altogether, and Thou hast beset me behind and before.” If we are right with God, “Thou hast laid Thine hand upon me” will mean for us support and blessing. If we are wrong, it will mean a weight that crushes to the earth. And if we are right with Him, that same thought brings with it security and companionship. Ah! we do not need ever to say, “I am alone,” if we are walking before God. It brings with it, of course, an armour against temptation. That thought, of the present God, draws the teeth of all the raging lions, and takes the sting out of all the serpents, and paralyses and reduces to absolute nothingness every temptation. Clasp God’s hand, and we shall not fall.
III. A far-reaching hope. When we read, “I will walk before the Lord in the land of the living,” we cannot but think of the true and perfect deliverance, when it shall be said, with a depth and a fulness of meaning with which it is never said here, “Thou hast delivered my soul from death,” and the black dread that towered so high, and closed the vista of all human expectation of the future, is now away back in the past, hull-down on the horizon, as they say about ships scarcely visible, and no more to be feared. We cannot but think of the perfect deliverance of “mine eyes from tears,” when “God shall wipe away the tears from off all faces, and the rebuke of His people from off all the earth.” We cannot but think of the perfect deliverance of “my feet from falling” when the redeemed of the Lord shall stand firm, and walk at liberty on the golden pavements, and no more dread the stumbling-blocks of earth. We cannot but think of the perfect presence of God, the perfect consciousness that we are near Him, when He shall “present us faultless before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy.” We cannot but think of the perfect activity of that future state when we “shall walk with Him in white,” and “follow the Lamb whithersoever He goeth.” And one guarantee for all that far-reaching hope is the tiny experiences of the present; for He who hath delivered our souls from death, our eyes from tears, and our feet from falling, is not going to expose Himself to the scoff; “This ‘God‘ began to build, and was not able to finish.” But He will complete that which He has begun, and will not stay His hand until all His children are perfectly redeemed and perfectly conscious of His perfect presence. (A. Maclaren, D.D.)
A series of great deliverances
Lo, here a deliverance, not from one, but many dangers--“death,” “tears, falling.” Single deliverances are as threads; but, when multiplied, they become as a cord twisted of many threads, more potent to draw us to God. Any one mercy is as a link, but many favours are as a chain consisting of several links, to bind us the closer to our duty. Frequent droppings of the rain cannot but make an impression even on the stone, and renewed mercies may well prevail with the stony heart. Parisiensis related a story of a man whom (notwithstanding his vicious courses) God was pleased to accumulate favours upon, so that at last he cried out, “Most gracious God, Thy unwearied goodness hath overcome my obstinate wickedness,” and from that time devoted himself to God’s service. No wonder, then, if David, upon deliverance from such numerous and grievous afflictions, maketh this his resolve, “to walk before the Lord in the land of the living.” (N. Hardy.)