Psalm 30

A Psalm of David. A song at the dedication of the temple.

1 I will extol you, O LORD, for you have drawn me up and have not let my foes rejoice over me.

This opening verse is a summary of the entire psalm. This is a personal testimony of God’s raising David up from the grave to sing once more. He’ll describe his condition as near-death, perhaps from an injury or illness, but he is miraculously and surprisingly restored to health, much to the consternation of his enemies who were prepared to throw a party upon his death. This is the nature of the God that we worship. This doesn’t mean that no one ever dies and that every time you get sick you will recover. Clearly everyone dies and every day many faithful suffer from the effects of disease. It just means that in this case, David experienced a second chance, a new lease on life. And when that is given to you, you should sing. Near-death experiences have ways of clarifying things for us. Fifteen years ago I was diagnosed with thyroid cancer. It’s one of the more benign types of cancer, but at the age of 40 it sent me into a period of self-evaluation and wondering if this was the end for me. What of my wife, my children, my legacy? What difference had I made in the world? I learned to appreciate each day as a gift and to take opportunities that were before me because I might not get another chance. Time really mattered to me. The LORD has given me another fifteen years and he has given me this day to make the most of it for his glory and reputation. Praise the God of second chances. David had enemies that would have celebrated at his demise. I can’t identify with that in a literal sense, but I do have an enemy that celebrates when I fall. There is a personal enemy who wants nothing more than the destruction of my soul. Be vigilant today because he wants to do more than just take your life. Lead me not into temptation, but deliver me from evil. 

2 O LORD my God, I cried to you for help, and you have healed me.

3 O LORD, you have brought up my soul from Sheol; you restored me to life from among those who go down to the pit. [to life, that I should not go down to the pit]

David was seriously ill. With poetic license he says that he was as good as dead, already in Sheol, the realm of the dead. He was already hanging out with the dead in fact, that’s how bad it was. He essentially states this fact three times - you healed me, you brought up my soul from Sheol, you restored me to life from death. Anyone who’s truly had a critical illness or injury knows the joy of this prayer. To have been facing certain death and then to half health restored is cause for celebration. Even now my mind is scrolling through faces of people I’ve known who’ve come back from the brink of death. Advanced medical care has something to do with it, but the psalmist says in 31:15, “My times are in your hands” and Psalm 139:16, “all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.” The LORD holds life and death in his hands. Every day thousands of people die in hospitals and nursing homes where they are given every opportunity that technology affords to keep themselves alive, but eternal life is beyond us. It can only be granted by God who holds the keys of death and life. Sometimes God will extend a life, and sometimes He will cut it short. May the name of the LORD be praised. Sometimes my soul will boast in the life-saving power of God when he miraculously restores someone to life, but my soul can always boast in the soul-saving power of God who restores life to the faithful after they enter Sheol. I am going to enter Sheol one day and join my companions there. But I believe that the LORD will also lift me up out of Sheol and into his eternal presence. This is my testimony of resurrection. 

4 Sing praises to the LORD, O you his saints, and give thanks to his holy name. [Hebrew to the memorial of his holiness (see Exodus 3:15)]

5 For his anger is but for a moment, and his favor is for a lifetime. [and in his favor is life] Weeping may tarry for the night, but joy comes with the morning.

David invites everyone to sing with him. That’s the thing that happens when God turns your life around, you want everyone to have the same experience. (You want to pass it on!). David identifies fellow believers as saints, holy ones, devoted ones. We share in that company as David calls us, 3,000 years later to sing and give thanks to the same God who raises us from the dead. The thanks is directed to his holy name or literally, “to the memorial of his holiness”. This phrase is drawn from Exodus 3:15 where the Israelites are told to remember the LORD by his name, YHWH, I AM. This is his essential nature. The name equals the person. The immediate reason to sing praises and give thanks is that God’s anger is short but his favor is long. He disciplines those that he loves and in the scope of life and certainly of eternity, that discipline is brief. But his favor lasts a lifetime and stretches on into eternity. The Hebrew literally says that his favor is life. God is delighted to give and bless life. Look around this world that He has made and you will see that God loves life. It is everywhere, and when it flourishes, we all take delight in it. When God creates the world he blesses it and calls it good. Life is good and should be a cause for daily celebration in itself. David was at the brink of death, and now he is restored by God’s favor. Just as God’s anger is brief relative to his favor, weeping is brief relative to joyous celebration. The joys of life far outweigh its sorrows. The Jewish day began at sundown so this suggests that while life may begin with sorrows it will end with joy. Sadness and grief seems to settle in during the evening when there is less activity to distract us. And the darkness itself can lend us a sense of fear and doubt about the unknown. But the first light of dawn is a ray of hope that the darkness will pass and the grief will end as a new day brings a new hope for better things. A new day means that life will go on. Of course this text also points us to that great morning when the women went to visit the tomb of Jesus and found it empty. They wept through the night, but joy came in the morning. And so it will for each of us, the holy ones who trust in the One whose name doesn’t change, who blesses us with a lifetime of favor. 

6 As for me, I said in my prosperity, “I shall never be moved.”

7 By your favor, O LORD,  you made my mountain stand strong; you hid your face; I was dismayed.

David looks back to the time before this turn of events. He was prosperous and secure. He was blessed by God who had made him king and secured him as king. He was on top of the world, his mountain stood strong. But then God hid his face and it was as if he fell from his pedestal. God’s favor was withdrawn and David experienced this as an illness. Without knowing the exact circumstance of the psalm it’s difficult to state what happened here. Did David become arrogant and forget God, and then God humbled him with an illness? David seemed to think so. The cause of illness in David’s day was always assumed to be the hand of God. Thus, David forgot for a moment who the real king was. David thought he was the king and it was if God’s favor was withdrawn -- after all, David had everything he needed in his prosperity, sitting on his mountain. He didn’t need God anymore. This is a pretty fair description of western Christianity. We have everything we need -- an abundance of goods, an ease of life, plenty of time for recreation. Our prosperous mountain stands strong until we look around and realize that God is no longer needed or with us. We are on our own, and suddenly bad things happen. And while we may say that God has turned his back on us, the reality is that we had already left him to trust in our own wealth, health, and position. This is another one of those reversals in the psalm, only this time it is a turn for the worse. God’s favor lasts a lifetime we’re told, but for this moment it seemed that His favor had been withdrawn. It is a moment for our repentance. 

8 To you, O Lord, I cry, and to the Lord I plead for mercy:

9 “What profit is there in my death, [lit. in my blood] if I go down to the pit? [to corruption] Will the dust praise you? Will it tell of your faithfulness?

10 Hear, O LORD, and be merciful to me! O Lord, be my helper!”

David reaches a point where there is nowhere else to look but up. His mountain was standing firm, and then God looked away for a moment and everything crumbled. He bargains with God in using the element of lament known as “motivation”. In order to motivate God to act, David makes his case that if he is dead, he will no longer be able to praise God on earth. This is not a statement that David believes that death is the end of everything. Elsewhere he speaks of eternal life (Psalm 16 - “you will not let your holy one see decay, eternal pleasures at your right hand.”and 23 -- “I will dwell in the house of the LORD forever” for example). No David is saying that if he dies, his ability to testify about God to others will die with him. If he returns to dust, the dust will not praise God. If he goes down to the pit and to corruption, his tongue will be silenced. What does God have to gain in David’s death? It’s all loss from David’s perspective. Bargaining with God is something that we do all the time. “Get me out of this situation, and I’ll serve you all of my life.” “Heal my child, and I’ll give all of my wealth to the church.” “Let me sin just this once and I’ll repent and come back afterwards.”  It takes many forms, but it is no different than what David is attempting here. The thing is, David doesn’t know anything for certain, but God does. When we pray, it must be to place our lives completely in God’s hands, totally at his mercy, trusting in the one who knows the future and what is best for all. David didn’t die on this occasion, but he did eventually. Has his praise died? Has the dust of his body ceased to praise and testify to God’s faithfulness? Of course not. His praise lives on in the words of the psalms that he wrote, in the example of the life that he lived, in the generations of men and women whom he influenced. The dead do praise, the dust does testify -- those who die in the LORD that is. David prays from his limited perspective, and in his situation I would do the same thing. No one wants to die. Better to live and leave a legacy. That’s what I want to do so that when my time to exit this earth comes, I will welcome it, knowing that my dust will go on testifying of God’s faithfulness. 

11 You have turned for me my mourning into dancing; you have loosed my sackcloth and clothed me with gladness,

12 that my glory may sing your praise and not be silent. O LORD my God, I will give thanks to you forever!

David’s prayer for help immediately turns into an answered prayer of hope. Whether this change in circumstance had actually happened or whether he is just believing it by faith, envisioning the result of God’s favor returning, his mood changes immediately to celebration. Stated in the past tense as if it had already happened, David declares that the LORD has turned his depression into dancing, his clothes of grief into garments of gladness, his silence into songs of praise. God’s anger was but a moment, his favor a lifetime. And so David’s gratitude will be forever. This is the unshakable joy that is ours as believers in Jesus Christ. He is risen from the grave and no matter what happens in this life, no matter how bad it gets, even death itself is actually an entrance into the presence of God. The New Testament is clear on this. It’s better to be absent from the body and present with the Lord. David experiences a physical healing that brings him back from the brink of death, but we experience the ultimate healing, a new body, the mortal clothed with immortality, death swallowed up in victory. This doesn’t mean that we don’t grieve on this side. It doesn’t mean that tragedy and sudden loss won’t punch us in the face and knock us down from time to time. But it does mean that even in our worst moments, we have the certainty of singing to come, the guarantee that grief will give way to gladness. David couldn’t have known this ultimate healing of even death itself, but he points us to it. One of his own descendants, Jesus Christ, the son of David, the messiah would secure the way for us to turn our mourning to dancing, our grave clothes to wedding clothes. We have proof of this that David did not, positioned as we are on this side of an empty tomb.