Psalms 116:1 - Meaning and Application

In this part of the psalm, David gives a general account of his own experience and his resolve to live for God. These opening verses serve almost like a summary of the whole psalm. He had known God’s kindness in answer to prayer: “He has heard my voice and my supplications.” In trouble, David had humbly and earnestly asked for mercy, and God had heard him. That means God accepted his prayer, noticed his need, and gave him a peaceful answer.

He also says, “He has inclined his ear to me.” This picture shows God’s readiness to hear prayer. It is as if he bends down to listen, even when prayer comes in whispers and groans too deep for words. God listens and hears (Jeremiah 8:6). At the same time, this is a reminder of his great mercy, because it is amazing that God would stoop to hear human prayer at all.

Because of that kindness, David resolved to give himself fully to God and to God’s honor. He begins the psalm with a sudden, heartfelt confession: “I love the Lord” (Psalm 18:1). That fits the first and great commandment, and it fits God’s purpose in all his gifts to us. David means that he loves God above all else, and loves anything else only for God’s sake. God’s loving care for us rightly calls for our loving trust and delight in him.

David also says he will keep praying. “Therefore I will call upon him.” Past answers to prayer give strong reason to keep praying. If God has already shown mercy to us, even with our weakness and unworthiness, why would we stop coming to him? God answers prayer in order to make us love prayer more, and he expects our thankful return. “I will call upon him as long as I live” means that prayer must last as long as life lasts. We must keep breathing this breath of prayer until our last breath ends, because while we live, we always have need of it.

David then gives a more detailed account of God’s dealings with him, and of the effect they had on him. God showed himself to be good, and David publicly bears witness to that: “Gracious is the Lord, and righteous” (Psalm 116:5). God was righteous, so he did David no wrong in afflicting him. He was gracious, so he was very kind in supporting and delivering him. We should speak of God as we have found him. Has he ever proved anything other than just and good? No, he is merciful, and it is by his mercies that we are not consumed.

David first recalls how great his distress was. “The sorrows of death compassed me” (Psalm 116:3). These were pains like those that come near death itself, perhaps severe bodily pain or deep trouble of mind. The phrase may also point to the torment of conscience that comes from guilt. Such sorrows are truly great, and the pains of hell are great pains. They surrounded him on every side and seemed to trap him so he could not escape. He was pressed hard both from outside and from within, with fighting around him and fear inside him. He says, “I found trouble and sorrow,” meaning that trouble did not only find him, he also found it. Those who are prone to sadness can make their own suffering worse by feeding imagination and strong feelings. Even good people have sometimes had this weakness. When God’s providence makes our condition hard, we must not make it worse by our own carelessness.

In that trouble, David turned to God in faithful and earnest prayer (Psalm 116:4). He tells us plainly that he prayed: “Then called I upon the name of the Lord.” When he came to the end of himself, he did not treat prayer as a last desperate trick, but as the old and only help he had ever known. His prayer was short, but it went straight to the need: “O Lord, I beseech you, deliver my soul.” He asked to be saved from death, and also from sin, because sin is what kills the soul. The humble and urgent tone of his words shows how he came before God, like a beggar asking for daily bread. The words, “Gracious is the Lord” (Psalm 116:5), may also be taken as part of his prayer, as a reason to trust God’s mercy. In effect, he says, “Lord, deliver my soul, because you are gracious and merciful, and I am relying on that alone.”

God answered him with timely and effective help. David learned by experience that God is gracious and merciful, and that he preserves the simple (Psalm 116:6). The “simple” are those who are sincere, upright, and without deceit. They may also be weak, helpless, and unable to manage on their own. God preserves them because they commit themselves to him and do not trust their own strength. Those who place themselves under God’s care by faith will be kept safe.

David then speaks from his own experience. God supported him under his troubles. “I was brought low, and he helped me.” God helped him bear the worst of it, helped him keep hoping for better, helped him pray when desire might have failed, and helped him wait when faith might have failed. He was one of those simple people whom God preserves, like the poor man who cried out and the Lord heard him (Psalm 34:6). God’s people are never brought so low that his everlasting arms are not under them. They cannot sink when he supports them. In fact, God often chooses to help precisely at the point of greatest need, when all human help has failed (Deuteronomy 32:36).

God also saved him out of his troubles (Psalm 116:8). This could mean either that God kept him from falling into the trouble he was close to, or that God brought him out of trouble once he was already in it. God graciously delivered, first, his soul from death. It is a great mercy that we are alive at all, and that mercy becomes even clearer when we have been near death and yet were spared. A life that has been so often in danger and so often exposed, and yet is still continued, is a miracle of mercy. Most of all, believers should praise God for delivering the soul from spiritual and eternal death, especially those who are now made holy and will soon be glorified. Secondly, God delivered his eyes from tears, that is, his heart from crushing grief.

It is a great mercy to be kept, either from the causes of sorrow, the evil that brings grief, or at least from being overwhelmed by too much sorrow. When God comforts those who are cast down, takes off the mourner’s sackcloth, and gives them gladness instead, he delivers their eyes from tears. That work will not be complete until we come to the world where God will wipe away every tear from our eyes.

It is also a great mercy when our feet are kept from slipping, from falling into sin and so into misery. When our feet are almost gone, it is a kindness when God holds us by the right hand (Psalm 72:23), so that even if we enter temptation, we are not defeated by it. Or, as the words may mean, “You have kept my feet from falling into the grave, when I was already almost there.”

David showed himself to be a good man in the way he returned thanks to God. God had done all this for him, and so he resolves to live a life of joy in God (Psalm 116:7). “Return to your rest, O my soul!” he says. That means, “Be calm and at ease. Do not trouble yourself with distrustful fears, as you have sometimes done. Quiet yourself, and then enjoy yourself. God has dealt kindly with you, so you need not fear that he will now deal harshly with you.”

He also means, “Rest in God. Come back to him as your rest, and do not look for in the creature what can be found only in him.” God is the soul’s rest. Only in him can the soul live in peace, so to him it must return and in him rejoice. He has dealt generously with us. He has made full provision for our comfort and refreshment, and he has encouraged us to come to him for it at all times, on every occasion. So let us be content with that. Come back to the rest that Christ gives to the weary and burdened (Matthew 11:28).

He then says, “I will walk before the Lord in the land of the living” (Psalm 116:9). That is, I will live this way as long as I remain in this world. It is our great duty to walk before the Lord, to do everything as those who live in his presence and under his eye. We should show ourselves to him as a holy God by matching our lives to his will, and as an all-sufficient God by trusting him with cheer.

The fact that we are still in the land of the living should push us to do this. We are spared and kept alive by God’s power, patience, and tender mercy, and therefore we must take our duty to him seriously. The land of the living is a land of mercy, so we should be thankful for it. It is also a land of opportunity, so we should use it well. Since God has delivered our soul from death, we must walk before him. A new life must truly be a new life.