Psalms 31:14

FURTHER CRIES TO GOD FOR HELP

"But I trusted in thee, O Jehovah:

I said, Thou art my God.

My times are in thy hand:

Deliver me from the hand of mine enemies, and from them that persecute me.

Make thy face to shine upon thy servant:

Save me in thy lovingkindness.

Let me not be put to shame, O Jehovah; for I have called upon thee:

Let the wicked be put to shame, let them be silent in Sheol.

Let the lying lips be dumb,

Which speak against the righteous insolently,

With pride and contempt."

When everything goes wrong, when all of our dreams come crashing down around us, when friends and neighbors shun and forsake us, when even the consciousness of our sins presses heavily upon our conscience, what is to be done? These verses are the answer. "Cry mightily unto God; lift up thy penitent voice unto Him, pour out thy soul to the Father in prayer," as "The man after God's own heart" did here.

"Make thy face to shine upon thy servant" (Psalms 31:16). This statement is evidently inspired by Numbers 6:25, commonly referred to as Aaron's blessing. The full text of this passage in Numbers, one of the most precious in all the Bible, has been set to music and sung by Christians all over the world continually. See our two page discussion of this blessing in Vol. 4 of our series of Commentaries on the Pentateuch, pp. 319,320.

The Psalms have several quotations from this Aaronic blessing Psalms 4:6; 67:1; 80:5,7,19; and Psalms 119:135.[15] In this light it is impossible not to see the five books of Moses as being far older than the Psalms.

"Let the wicked be put to shame" (Psalms 31:17). We have no respect for commentators who deplore what they call the imprecatory psalms, where prayers are offered for the frustration and destruction of the wicked. God Himself has revealed to us through the apostle John that even in heaven, the redeemed martyrs are offering that very kind of prayers (Revelation 6:10).

The conception of our Lord Jesus Christ as a kind of namby-pamby, do-gooder who never would hurt anybody, no matter how wicked they are, is false. Did not our Lord himself say, "But these mine enemies that would not that I should reign over them, bring hither, and slay them before me" (Luke 19:27)? There are certain preachers whom I would like to hear expound on that text!

Leupold properly discerned that, "To pray for the overthrow or the just punishment of the wicked is not wicked."[16]