Psalm 4:7

Psalm 4 is a prayer of David, and it is often called an evening prayer, a companion to Psalm 3, which is a morning prayer. Its closing words about lying down to sleep fit the end of a day. David is under pressure from people who oppose him and speak falsely about him. Some link the psalm to the time of Absalom’s rebellion, the setting given in the title of Psalm 3, while the psalm itself leaves its occasion unnamed.

The psalm opens with David asking God to hear him (Psalm 4:1). He then rebukes those who “love vanity” and “seek after leasing”, that is, who chase empty things and lies (Psalm 4:2). He reminds them that the LORD has set apart the godly for himself (Psalm 4:3), and he calls them to fear God and stop sinning, to offer the sacrifices of righteousness and to put their trust in the LORD (Psalm 4:4–5). At verse 6 he turns from speaking to his opponents to speaking to the LORD, and from there the psalm moves to joy and to sleep.

“There be many that say” points to the people around David, and perhaps his opponents among them. Their question asks where well-being is to be found. The word for good, ṭôwb, is a broad one. It covers what is pleasant, agreeable, prosperous, beneficial and morally right. For people in Israel the good they hoped for was largely the good of daily life: rich harvests, victory, health and prosperity. The question carries a note of weariness or doubt, the voice of people looking for well-being among the things around them.

David answers it with a prayer, and the prayer says where the good is: in the favour of the LORD shining on his people. Jesus gives the same order of things when he tells us to “seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness” (Matthew 6:33).

The word countenance, pânîym, means face. It is plural in form and always used as a singular, and its senses reach from the face itself to the front or surface of a thing and to a person’s presence. In Scripture someone’s face stands for their presence, their attention and how they are disposed toward another. For God to lift up his face on his people is for him to look on them with favour and to bless them. When he hides his face it means displeasure or withdrawal, which is why David prays in another psalm, “Hide not thy face” (Psalm 27:9).

Light, ʼôwr, means illumination, or a light that gives it. Joined to God’s face, it pictures his favour as brightness falling on his people, bringing life, joy and clarity where there was darkness, sorrow and confusion. “Lift thou up” asks God to act, to turn that face toward them.

David’s words echo the blessing the priests spoke over Israel: “The LORD bless thee, and keep thee: The LORD make his face shine upon thee, and be gracious unto thee: The LORD lift up his countenance upon thee, and give thee peace” (Numbers 6:24–26). There God’s shining face goes with grace and peace, and David’s prayer also ends in peace. Psalm 80 prays the same way, “Cause thy face to shine” (Psalm 80:3). Light belongs to God from the first command of creation (Genesis 1:3) to the holy city of Revelation, where God himself is its light and it needs neither sun nor moon (Revelation 21:23). And David says of God’s presence in another psalm, “in thy presence is fulness of joy” (Psalm 16:11).

“Thou hast put gladness in my heart” names God as the giver. The verb put, nâthan, is the common word for giving, used very widely for putting, setting and making, and here it means that David’s gladness came to him as God’s gift. It sits in his heart, lêb, his inner self. Gladness, simchâh, means joy, gladness or mirth, joy that people feel and show, and it is a word often heard in worship and at the feasts. The same word stands in “fulness of joy” in Psalm 16:11.

David measures this gladness against the happiest season of a farming year: “the time that their corn and their wine increased”. Corn, dâgân, is grain, chiefly wheat or barley, the staple food of Israel, and the word is tied to the idea of increase. Wine, tîyrôwsh, is must or new wine, made from newly harvested grapes and possibly at the start of fermentation. Grain and new wine together stood for a good harvest, food for the year, security and a reason to celebrate. In Israel a full harvest was a sign of God’s blessing, and a failed one could bring famine. The word time, ʻêth, points to that season of plenty.

“Their” refers to the many of verse 6. At the moment when they are happiest, with their grain and wine increasing, David has a greater gladness, and God himself put it there. Grain and wine stand for every kind of material plenty, so the verse sets the joy God gives above the best that prosperity offers. Scripture says the same of wisdom, which is “more precious than rubies” (Proverbs 3:13–15). Paul says that he had learned to be content whatever his state (Philippians 4:11–13), and Nehemiah told the people, “the joy of the LORD is your strength” (Nehemiah 8:10). This joy holds steady when harvests fail and when opponents press, because it comes from God himself.

After the distress of the psalm’s opening, David says he will lie down and sleep in peace. It is a settled resolve, made with his troubles still around him. Peace, shâlôwm, names a state of completeness, soundness, welfare, peace and safety, from a root meaning to be complete or sound. It describes the whole of David’s condition as he lies down: well and safe under God’s care.

Sleep, yâshên, is the plain word for sleeping. A sleeper is defenceless and has handed over every kind of control. For a king who faced enemies outside and plots at home, the night was a time of danger, so sleeping in peace is an act of trust that God watches when David cannot. He said the same in the morning psalm: “I laid me down and slept; I awaked; for the LORD sustained me” (Psalm 3:5). Proverbs promises the one who keeps wisdom, “thy sleep shall be sweet” (Proverbs 3:24), and Isaiah says to God, “Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace” (Isaiah 26:3). Paul tells us to bring every request to God in prayer with thanksgiving, and the peace of God, which passes all understanding, will keep our hearts and minds through Christ Jesus (Philippians 4:6–7). Those who love vanity in verse 2 lie awake with their schemes, while David sleeps.

All three verses find their fullest answer in Jesus Christ. The light of God’s face shines on us in him, who called himself the light of the world (John 8:12). He is the Lamb of God (John 1:29), whose sacrifice removes the sin that separated us from God’s presence, and through him we receive the Spirit of adoption, by which we cry “Abba, Father” (Romans 8:15). The good the many asked about is found in the Good Shepherd, who lays down his life for the sheep (John 10:11).

Jesus is the bread of life (John 6:35) and the true vine (John 15:1), the food of the soul that the grain and wine of verse 7 can only point toward. The joy he gives is a fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22). He wants it to be full (John 15:11), and he promised his disciples, “your joy no man taketh from you” (John 16:22).

He is the Prince of Peace (Isaiah 9:6), who told his disciples, “Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you” (John 14:27). Through him we are reconciled to God (Romans 5:11), so the safety of verse 8 reaches beyond this life. He trusted his Father through the cross and rested in the tomb before he rose, and so even death lies within the safety God gives his people.

These verses give God’s answer to an old question, where good is to be found. The good is the light of his face, and he has shown it most fully in Christ. The gladness he puts in the heart is his gift, greater than everything a full harvest brings, and so it stays when harvests and circumstances change. And because the LORD alone keeps his people safe, David ends a hard day by lying down in peace, and everyone who trusts the LORD rests under the same keeping. The day and its troubles are left with the God who watches over his own through the night.