The Bible Study Hour

Dr. James Boice: There are times we are to remain silent, lest we cast our pearls among the swine. But there are also times we're to rejoice with others and sing the praises of our God.

In Psalm 138, David praises the Lord for his promise to establish the throne of David forever.

Dr. James Boice: Welcome to The Bible Study Hour. A radio and internet broadcast with Dr. James Boice, preparing you to think and act biblically.

In Psalm 138, David's not just praising God for the assurance that his throne will endure. David's also looking forward to the promise of the one who is to come in the day when Jesus himself will sit on David's throne forever.

Join Dr. Boice as he studies this Psalm of David's great zeal for his Lord and his desire to make God known among the nations.

Dr. James Boice: There's an interesting contrast between Psalm 137 that we were looking at last week and Psalm 138 that we come to now. In the previous Psalm, Psalm 137, the Jewish people are in Babylon, and they say that they're unable to sing praises to God in that foreign land.

Now we come to Psalm 138 and we find that not only are praises sung, but the people singing are actually looking forward to a day when the praises of God will be sung by non-Jewish people, even by their kings.

I suppose that conjunction of the two Psalms is intentional and is there to make this contrast striking. There are times when we should be silent lest we cast our pearls before swine. Other times we need to be singing and rejoice with those that sing the praises of God too.

Now, Psalm 138 introduces us to a group of Psalms that are identified as being by David. There are eight of them. This is the last little collection of Davidic Psalms in the Psalter. About half of the Psalms are by David if you go by the titles, about 73 of the 150 Psalms. And here we have the last ones.

Now, one thing that strikes us is that this Psalm introduces the enemies of the writer again. And that's something that we found in virtually every one of David's Psalms. And there's also this interesting combination of zeal for God on the one hand and humility before God on the other. That is so striking in the Psalms of David that it's almost a signature.

Now, I only go into that to say that if Psalm 138 is by David, then it encourages us to look for a setting in his life from which it might come. And when we do that, we find something that, in my judgment, throws a great deal of light on the Psalm. It probably is David's grateful response to the promise of God given to him in 2 Samuel chapter 7.

That's the chapter in which the prophet came to him to announce that the throne of David would endure forever because God would send in his line one who would be a Messianic King. One of the commentators whose name is Lu suggested that that's exactly what the Psalm is about because the promise that is alluded to in verse 8, The Lord will fulfill his purpose for me, has to require something significant in the author's life.

And if the author is David, then the most significant thing is this great promise of a king that would sit upon his throne. Now, that means that the Psalm is basically thanks to God for that great promise and that great blessing. As a matter of fact, the word that is translated in verses 1, 2 and 4 as I will praise you, more precisely means I will give thanks.

Well, let's think about that a little bit. Since this is a praise Psalm and fits in this section of the Psalter where we're learning what it really means to worship God, and since it is also chiefly a Psalm of thanksgiving, one of the things this teaches us up front is that thanksgiving ought to be part of our worship. We've been thinking about the definition of worship, and we've seen that it has to do with acknowledging who God is, praising him for his attributes, all of those things about God that are revealed to us so clearly in the pages of the Bible in the Old Testament and the New Testament. It's recognizing that, glorying in that, praising him for that. But now here we find it also involves thanksgiving.

Because how could it be otherwise? When we begin to think of who God is, what flows from that is what God has done. Many of the things that God has done are blessings that come into our lives. And so the natural response in such times of worship is to thank God for those blessings.

Now, the Psalm does have a number of puzzling parts to it, and we need to take just a moment to examine them before we begin to go on and see what it says about God and what it says to us. The first problem is the meaning of that phrase "before the gods." You find it right at the beginning. The Hebrew word is Elohim, which is a plural word and is naturally translated "gods."

And yet, it is also a word that is used for God himself, as in the very first verse of the Bible. In the beginning, God, the word is Elohim, created the heavens and the earth. So, it may be that that's what it means here. Some people say it's just talking about God. The problem is it makes for sort of a strange beginning because what the writer would be saying then is, I praise you, O God, before God.

That sounds a little bit odd. And so people look around for another meaning of the word. Let me suggest some of the possibilities. One idea is that the words "before God" mean before the Ark of God. That is in the sanctuary. But that's unusual also. Martin Luther and John Calvin thought the word refers to angels because that is the way the word is used in some places, as in Job, for example. When the angels, it actually says sons of God, the Elohim, present themselves before God, it's understood that that's talking about the angels, in this case also including even the fallen angels.

So, Luther and Calvin thought that's what it means here. Some of the older versions of the Bible, as well as some of the newer interpreters, suggest that it refers to kings or judges. And we have good biblical grounds for thinking that it might mean that, because Jesus quoted a verse from the Old Testament on one occasion, understanding it that way.

One extension of that might be that it refers to the great of the earth, before whom David, as a king himself, would naturally want to praise God. That's the view of one great old commentator, Franz Delich, a very fine German commentator. Or then the finer possibility, the last one, is that perhaps it refers to false gods, the idols, before whom David would be declaring the greatness of the one true God, and some of the other commentators say that.

Now, any of those is possible. And I suppose there's not a great deal that hinges on the outcome, but it strikes me that two facts point in the direction of this actually being the great of the earth, the judges, the rulers, and perhaps the kings. And here they are. First, if the background of the Psalm really is God's promise of a lasting dynasty for David, which is what we find in 2 Samuel 7. Then when we go back and read that chapter carefully, we find a verse that does explain the reference to the gods in Psalm 138.

God said back there, I will make your name great like the names of the greatest men of the earth. Now, that explains what we have in the Psalm. David would be saying here is that he wants to praise God before other great men, that is, before his peers. And by extension, the verse would teach us that we should be praising God before our peers. We may not know the great of the earth, we may never have met a king or a president or a congressman or a mayor or a councilman or anything like that, but we should be praising God with those that we know and with whom we associate.

And then the second fact is that David mentions these kings explicitly in verse 4. He says, May all the kings of the earth praise you. In other words, he wants to praise God before the great of the earth, so that they might learn to praise God too by following his example. Now, to my mind, that gives the best meaning to that phrase in the context of the Psalm.

Now, how about this second problem? God's word being exalted above his name. That seems a strange thing to say in the minds of many people because God's name is a way of talking about all that God is. God's name is the highest thing that you can possibly think of because God is the highest thing you can possibly think of. So, how can you say that God's word is to be exalted above that which is supremely exalted?

Now, seeing that difficulty, some of the commentators and scholars suggest emendations. That means they think the text must be wrong. And we actually have an example of that in the New International Version. If you have that in front of you, you'll see it. They have assumed that a letter has been dropped out of the text. It's a very small letter, the letter W, it means "and." And they assume that that's been left out. And if you put it back in, which they do, then you can get the translation like you have it there in the New International Version. You have exalted above all things your name and your word.

Now, Derek Kidner is a fine scholar, and he takes that as being the right answer because he says scripture doesn't encourage bibliolatry. We're not encouraged to worship the Bible. And then there are other emendations. Some say, well, as long as you're changing it, you might as well change it even more, and they come up with translations like you have magnified your name in your word. Now, the problem is that the text doesn't say that.

The text literally says, You exalted your word above your name. And I think when you begin to reflect on that, it's really not all that difficult to understand what it means. It's not all that impossible. It would be simply a case of God saying, I value my integrity above everything else. Above everything else, I want to be believed.

I remember R.C. Sproul saying on one occasion, The big question is not whether people believe in God, but whether people believe God. You see, God has spoken, and God says, What I want most of all is that you believe what I say.

Now, if what's driving David in his thanksgiving is gratitude for the great promise that God had given him through the prophet that there would be a Messiah that would reign and sit upon his throne forever, then the verse becomes very appropriate because what David is doing here is expressing his confidence in God's word. There's nothing in human life to suggest that what God had promised him would be true.

And so if God is promising a kingdom that will never pass away, David is saying, The only reason I can have any confidence in that kind of a promise is that it's your promise. And God, you never break your word.

Now, the reference to God's supremely exalted word may even refer to something that is said explicitly in 2 Samuel 7 because what we read there in verses 20 and 21 is this. David is responding, "What more can David say to you?" he says. "For you know your servant, O Sovereign Lord, for the sake of your word and for your will, you have done this great thing and have made it known to your servant."

And so we begin to get a feeling for what is actually going on in the Psalm. Now, enough of the problems. Sometimes problems are worth dealing with and sometimes they're not. In this case, they're necessary because they help us to understand the Psalm, but what we really want to do now is see what David praises God for. And the answer to that is two things. He praises God for his covenant love. It's the meaning of the word that is translated "love," hesed in Hebrew, and he praises God for his faithfulness. He does both in verse 2.

And there are certainly no greater qualities of God where the people of God are concerned. Now, strikingly, these two attributes, the love of God and the faithfulness of God, or the truth of God, faithfulness to his word, are things that are under attack today. And for that matter, they have always been under attack. People don't want to believe in the love of God because it has to do with the unmerited love of God, and the mercy of God. And somehow we want to stand before God and say that we deserve better or we deserve everything we get. And as far as the faithfulness of God is concerned, people don't want to believe that either because it has to do with his promises and his word. And we want to set our word over against the word of God.

That was the very first attack that took place back in the Garden of Eden when the serpent began to tempt the woman. He first tempted her in terms of doubting the love of God. When Satan said, "Did God really say you mustn't eat of any of the trees of the garden?" He was suggesting that if God forbid the eating of even a single tree, if there's even a single thing in your life or my life that we're not allowed to do, well then God can't really love us because if he did, he'd give us absolute autonomy, freedom to do everything we want.

And so he began to attack the love of God. And then after the woman responded, explaining what it was that God had actually done, Satan attacked the word of God, and he did it explicitly and directly. God had said, The day you eat of it, you'll die. And Satan said, You will not surely die.

Now David had learned better than that. He had learned that God does not lie, that all his thoughts, all his actions toward us flow from his love. And not only that, they persist because of his faithfulness. God is good, and God is always good. Therefore, David wanted to thank God for his goodness and praise him for his covenant love and his faithfulness before everyone.

And there's one thing more. David was a practical soul. He didn't just sort of praise God for his love because, well, love is a nice sentimental idea, and we want to believe that God is love. Or for his faithfulness because, well, it's a nice idea to think about. No, no. He's very practical. And what he says here is that God has expressed that love toward him and proved his faithfulness by answering his prayers. He needed things, and when he needed them, God provided it.

And moreover, he did it immediately. He records that he called on God and that God answered him right away. Moreover, when God answered him, he made him bold and stouthearted, no doubt in the face of the attacks that are being made by his enemies, which he mentions a little further on in verse 7.

Now, this Psalm, because it talks about the one who is going to sit on David's throne forever, is indirectly, if not explicitly, Messianic because it's looking forward to that one who should come. And it comes in here in the way David envisions the kings of the earth worshiping God in some future day. He hadn't seen it in his day. We don't really see it in our day, but that day is coming.

Because David, as a king himself, he was concerned for kings. And even though he didn't see the kings of his day bowing before Jehovah, he took the promise of God at face value, and he looked forward believing to a day that would come. Now that day will come. We find it in the New Testament as well. I think of that very well-known passage in Philippians 2, sort of a hymn that probably was sung by the early church as a hymn. It's why it's printed in verse in our Bibles.

That tells us that God has given to Jesus the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow and every tongue confess in heaven and on earth that Jesus is the Lord to the glory of God the Father. Now, David's thinking along the same lines in the Psalm because he's looking forward to that day when all knees will bow and God will be glorified.

And his desire even then is that the kings of the earth might learn to sing God's praises. Now, notice one other thing about this. We ask, how is this to happen? And the answer to that is, well, when God sends his Messiah, of course, by the grace of God and by the power of God. And that's absolutely true, but that's not what David says. We find something else here. David says that the kings of the earth will praise God when they hear the words of his mouth, verse 4.

Now, that might mean when they hear God himself on the day when he thunders forth from Zion, setting his king upon his holy mount, saying, Bow down before him, it might mean that. But it might also mean, and I would argue that it probably means, when those who do know God declare his words to them. In other words, at this point, the Psalm becomes a missionary Psalm, and it encourages the people of God to be missionaries.

This fits the context of the Psalm in which David is making a bold confession of God's love and faithfulness himself, and yet it is at the same time what makes the Psalm so relevant to us. It is true that God has exalted Jesus. He has already given him a name that is above every name. And then one day every knee will bow before him. But in the meantime, you and I have the opportunity of declaring that before the nations. That's what we're called to do on the authority of Jesus Christ, to go everywhere and teach all men and women everywhere everything he has commanded.

And as by the grace of God, they respond and bow before him, bring them into the fellowship of the church and continue to teach them, knowing that Jesus is with us always as we do that even unto the very end of the age.

Now, in the last stanza, the writer comes back to his own needs. David knows that God is great. He knows that he has compassion on the lowly and disdains those who exalt themselves instead. He knows that God preserves his life, that he stretches out his hand in anger against his foes, that he saves him by the power of his strong right hand, verse 7.

But nevertheless, David still is walking in the midst of trouble, and he knows he can't survive unless God preserves his life and stands by him. And so he prays, Do not abandon the work of your hands in verse 8.

That important line is translated very well in the King James Bible. Part of verse 8 there, it says, The Lord will perfect that which concerns me. He'll carry it on to completion. It's an Old Testament version of what Paul, I suppose, possibly reflecting on it, says in the first chapter of Philippians. You recall that? He says, "He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Jesus Christ."

In the context of the Psalm, what is David thinking of? Well, he's thinking of God's promise. God's purpose for David is to establish his throne forever and to send the Messiah. And he says, You are certainly going to do that. You are going to accomplish your purpose concerning me. We look at that, and we say, well, yes, but what is God's purpose concerning us?

And then we turn to the New Testament, and we read in Romans, "For we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, those who have been called according to his purpose. For those God foreknew, he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers. And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; and those he justified, he also glorified."

In other words, God's purpose for you, if you're a Christian, is to make you like Jesus Christ, and he is certainly going to do it. Why? Because his love endures forever. And because his faithfulness embraces and expresses his love toward his people. When David says your love endures forever, he's picking up on Psalm 136. Where that phrase occurred again and again. Remember? 22 times.

Those who know God, like David and people today, are not confident in themselves. How could we possibly be confident in ourselves? We only are sinners saved by grace. Apart from the persevering grace of God, we are all certain to fall away and perish. And our confidence is not in ourselves. It's in the one who loved us and who gave himself for us. And so we remind ourselves, as David does, The Lord will fulfill his purpose for me. And we say, Your love, O Lord, endures forever. And we pray, Do not abandon the work of your hands, knowing that God will not abandon his work.

Here are a few quotations. Herbert Lockyer wrote, "Our hope of final perseverance is the final perseverance of the God we love and serve." "Because his mercy endures forever, his work in us and for us will continue until we are perfected when we see him in all his perfection."

Martin Luther was very strong in perseverance, but he knew that he should also pray that God will continue his work. And so he often prayed, "Confirm, O God, in us that which thou hast wrought and perfect the work that thou hast begun in us."

Augustus Toplady, one of the greatest hymn writers, wrote this, "The work which his goodness began, the arm of his strength will complete. His promise is yea and amen and was never forfeited yet."

And here's a final quotation from a very old writer, quoted by Spurgeon, "God's creating hands formed our souls at the beginning. His nail-pierced hands redeemed them on Calvary. His glorified hands will hold our souls fast and not let them go forever. Therefore, unto his hands let us commend our spirits, sure that even though the works our hands have made void the work of his hands, yet his hands will again make perfect all that our hands have unmade."

And it's true. Hallelujah.

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