Psalm 25:16

Psalm 25 is a prayer of David written as an acrostic, in which each verse begins with the next letter of the Hebrew alphabet, with a few irregularities along the way. It opens, “Unto thee, O LORD, do I lift up my soul” (Psalm 25:1). David asks the LORD to show him his ways and teach him his paths (Psalm 25:4–5), calls on his tender mercies and lovingkindness (Psalm 25:6), prays “Remember not the sins of my youth, nor my transgressions” (Psalm 25:7), and rests on the LORD’s faithfulness to those who keep his covenant (Psalm 25:10). With verse 15 the prayer gathers into a run of urgent requests that carries it to its end.

The psalm names no occasion. David’s life held many: Saul’s pursuit, wars with the Philistines and other nations, Absalom’s rebellion, and the bitter fruit of his own sin with Bathsheba and Uriah. The prayer fits any of them, and its words have fitted God’s people in trouble ever since.

“Mine eyes are ever toward the LORD” is the steady posture beneath every request that follows. The word for eyes, ʻayin, is the ordinary word for the organ of sight, and here it stands for where a person’s whole attention and expectation are turned. “Ever” translates tamid, which means continually, constantly or regularly, of something that goes on or keeps being repeated. David looks to the LORD all the time, in prayer, longing and reliance, and the one he looks to is Yᵉhôvâh, the covenant name the KJV prints as “the LORD”. Other psalms speak the same way. David tells his soul to wait only upon God (Psalm 62:5–8), he tells of waiting patiently for the LORD (Psalm 40:1–3), and another psalmist confesses that his help comes from the LORD (Psalm 121:1–2).

The second half of the verse gives the reason: “for he shall pluck my feet out of the net.” The net, resheth, is the hunter’s or fowler’s net, spread to catch birds and animals. A creature caught in one is held fast until someone frees it. The word for feet, regel, is the plain word for the foot, and the picture is of a man caught by the feet like a bird in a snare. The verb behind “pluck”, yâtsâʼ, means to go or come out, and in this form to bring out, so David is saying that the LORD will bring his feet out of the net. He speaks of it as something that shall happen, and that confidence is why his eyes stay on the LORD. A psalm promises deliverance from the snare of the fowler (Psalm 91:3), and Proverbs sets the fear of man against trust in the LORD (Proverbs 29:25).

The net covers whatever holds God’s people fast: the schemes of enemies, the consequences of sin, crushing anxieties and dangers to life itself. The LORD who brought Israel through the Red Sea (Exodus 14) is the deliverer David looks to, and Paul near the end of his life was sure that the Lord would rescue him (2 Timothy 4:18). God’s rescue comes in his own way and time. It may change the circumstances, or change the heart, or give strength to endure, for “God is our refuge and strength” (Psalm 46:1).

“Turn thee unto me, and have mercy upon me; for I am desolate and afflicted.” The verb pânâh means to turn or to face, and David asks the LORD to turn and face him. It is the prayer of a man who feels overlooked, asking God to look on him with favour, as the priestly blessing asks the LORD to make his face shine upon his people (Numbers 6:25). “Have mercy upon me” follows at once. David rests his hope on God’s merciful character alone, the hesed (steadfast love) and rachamim (compassion) he has already called on in verse 6.

He gives two reasons. “Desolate” translates yâchîyd, which properly means united, and so the only one. By extension it can mean beloved, and it can mean lonely. Here it is the loneliness of a man who stands by himself in his suffering, with no one beside him to help or comfort. Scripture marks that state from the very beginning, when God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone” (Genesis 2:18).

“Afflicted” is ʻânîy, from a root meaning to depress or afflict. It describes someone pressed down in mind or in circumstances: poor, needy, lowly and humble. The afflicted have no power of their own to lift their burden, and in the Psalms they are the very people the LORD hears. “This poor man cried,” a psalm says, and the LORD heard him (Psalm 34:6). “The LORD is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart” (Psalm 34:18). Isaiah calls the wicked to return to the LORD, who will abundantly pardon (Isaiah 55:7), and James writes, “Draw nigh to God” (James 4:8).

This is a king speaking. David, with an army and a throne, could call himself lonely and poor before God, and that honesty is part of the prayer. God’s people may lay their loneliness and their hardship before him in plain words.

Verse 18 joins two requests. “Affliction” is ‘ŏnîy, misery or trouble, a noun from the same root as the “afflicted” of verse 16, the root meaning to depress. “Pain” is ʻâmâl, toil and wearing effort, and so the worry and sorrow of body or mind that come from it. It is often used of the grief that mischief and wickedness bring. David asks God to look on all of it. Scripture speaks of God’s looking in human terms, and the request is that God would take David’s trouble to heart and act, as a father who sees his child in pain.

Then, with no pause, “and forgive all my sins.” The verb nâsâʼ means to lift, to bear or to carry away. Sin is a heavy weight, and God’s forgiveness lifts it off the sinner and carries it away. “All” takes in every sin. Psalm 32 celebrates the blessedness of the man whose sin is forgiven, David elsewhere declares his iniquity and is sorry for his sin (Psalm 38:18), and the LORD says that he is the one who blots out transgressions (Isaiah 43:25). Isaiah also foresaw a servant who would bear the sins of many (Isaiah 53:4–6).

“Consider” is râʼâh, the common verb to see, which also means to look at, regard, perceive and take heed. David asks God to look at his enemies with purpose, as a judge looks at a case before he acts. “Enemies” is ʼôyêb, from a verb meaning to be hostile, the usual word for an enemy. They are many, too many for David to face alone.

“They hate me with cruel hatred” is in Hebrew a hatred of violence. “Hate” and “hatred” are the verb sânêʼ and the noun sinʼâh, and “cruel” is châmâç, violence, wrong and injustice. Their hatred wants to harm David and goes about it by violent and unjust means. These are human enemies of the kind David met in Saul, in Absalom’s supporters and in foreign nations, and the same prayer serves God’s people against every enemy, including the spiritual forces of evil. The LORD hears the righteous when they cry and delivers them (Psalm 34:17), and David elsewhere calls, “Arise, O LORD” (Psalm 7:6).

“O keep my soul, and deliver me.” The soul is nephesh, a breathing creature, life, self or person, so David is asking God to guard his life and his whole self. “Deliver” is nâtsal, to rescue, and David is the one to be taken out of danger.

“Let me not be ashamed” uses bûwsh, to grow pale, to be disappointed, to be put to shame. In Israel shame was public. A man put to shame stood disgraced before everyone, his hope shown to have been misplaced. If David’s enemies triumphed, they would say that his trust in God had come to nothing, and God’s own name would be mocked along with him. So his plea for his honour is a plea for God to show his faithfulness. Isaiah promises that those who wait for the LORD will be spared shame (Isaiah 49:23), and that Israel will be saved with an everlasting salvation and kept from shame (Isaiah 45:17). Paul writes, “Whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed” (Romans 10:11).

“For I put my trust in thee” uses châçâh, to flee for protection, to take refuge, and figuratively to trust. David’s trust is the act of a man who has run to God for shelter, and it is the ground of everything he has asked. It rests on God’s faithfulness. “Trust in the LORD with all thine heart” (Proverbs 3:5–6), and the LORD keeps his people from all evil (Psalm 121:7).

“Integrity” is tôm, completeness, soundness, blamelessness or innocence. It describes a man whose inner life matches his outward life, devoted to God with an undivided heart. “Uprightness” is yôsher, from a root meaning straight: rectitude, honesty, straight dealing. tôm speaks more of the wholeness within, and yôsher more of the straightness of a person’s conduct, so together they describe a life lived in line with God’s truth. “Preserve” is nâtsar, to guard, watch over or keep, a verb also used of keeping God’s commands.

David speaks of integrity and uprightness as guards standing watch over him. Behind the figure, God is the one who preserves those who walk this way, as he watches over his people in Psalm 121. David has just asked forgiveness for all his sins, so the integrity he prays for is the honest, wholehearted devotion of a forgiven man. Proverbs says that the integrity of the upright guides them (Proverbs 11:3), and Peter asks who will harm those who follow what is good (1 Peter 3:13).

“For I wait on thee” uses qâvâh, to wait for, look for or hope for. It is the eager expectation of someone who looks for God to act and trusts his timing. “Wait on the LORD,” another psalm says (Psalm 27:14), and “Wait on the LORD, and keep his way” (Psalm 37:34), which joins waiting and upright living just as this verse does. Verses 20 and 21 both end with David’s reason, “for I put my trust in thee” and “for I wait on thee”.

In the last verse David turns from himself to the whole people. “Redeem” is pâdâh, to sever, ransom, deliver or set free, often with the sense of a powerful rescue or a price paid. The word gāʾal often carries the sense of a kinsman acting for his family, and pâdâh speaks more broadly of rescue from bondage, danger or destruction. The plea calls to mind God’s promise to redeem Israel from slavery in Egypt (Exodus 6:6). “O God” is ʼĕlôhîym, plural in form and used of the one God, and it speaks of his majesty and power. “Israel” is the whole covenant people, the descendants of Jacob.

“All his troubles” uses tsârâh, the same word as the “troubles” of David’s heart in verse 17. The troubles he felt growing in his own heart are now set inside the troubles of the whole nation, and the same God is asked to bring both out. “All” takes in every kind of distress, spiritual, physical, social and political. God tells Israel that he has redeemed them and will be with them (Isaiah 43:1–3), and David calls the LORD his rock and his deliverer (Psalm 18:2).

Every request in these verses finds its fullest answer in Jesus Christ, who also prayed this way himself. His eyes were ever toward the Father. In Gethsemane, with his soul sorrowful even to death (Matthew 26:38), he gave himself up to the Father’s will (Matthew 26:39, Luke 22:42). He was the man of sorrows, acquainted with grief, despised and rejected of men (Isaiah 53:3). His enemies were many, and their hatred ended in an unjust and violent death. On the cross he knew the deepest desolation of all when he cried, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46), and he bore the shame of the cross in obedience to the Father (Philippians 2:8). He alone had perfect integrity and uprightness, tempted in all points as we are yet without sin, and so he is a High Priest touched with the feeling of our infirmities (Hebrews 4:15). God brought him out of death by raising him, and his trust was vindicated.

Because he passed through all this, he answers the prayer for us. He bore our sins in his body on the tree (1 Peter 2:24), the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world (John 1:29), and so the lifting and carrying away of sin that verse 18 asks for is what he has done. God made him to be sin for us so that we might be made righteous in him (2 Corinthians 5:21). Through his death he destroyed the devil, who had the power of death, and set free those held captive by the fear of death (Hebrews 2:14–15). He triumphed over principalities and powers (Colossians 2:15). He is the good shepherd who gives his life for the sheep (John 10:11), and he has made us free (Galatians 5:1).

The redemption of verse 22 is his work too. Christ gave himself to redeem us (Titus 2:14), purchased his church “with his own blood” (Acts 20:28), redeemed us from the curse of the law (Galatians 3:13), and delivered us into the kingdom of God’s Son, in whom we have redemption and the forgiveness of sins (Colossians 1:13–14). To the lonely he says, “I will not leave you comfortless” (John 14:18), and he gives the Spirit of adoption (Romans 8:15). He calls, “Come unto me, all ye that labour” (Matthew 11:28), and he gives his peace (John 14:27). Those who wait on God now wait on the risen Christ. His Spirit gives life (Romans 8:11), Christ in us is the hope of glory (Colossians 1:27), and he who began a good work in us will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ (Philippians 1:6). We are “kept by the power of God through faith” (1 Peter 1:5), looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith (Hebrews 12:2).

These verses give us a prayer for the times when trouble presses from every side. They show a God who turns his face to the lonely, looks on pain, lifts sin off and carries it away, sees the enemies of his people, keeps those who take refuge in him and redeems his people out of all their troubles. David prays this way with his eyes on the LORD and his feet still in the net, so the prayer belongs to the middle of trouble, before any rescue has come. It lets us bring loneliness, growing anxieties, pain and guilt to God in the same breath, and it sets our own needs alongside the needs of all God’s people. In Christ every request in it has its answer, and the forgiveness of verse 18, the keeping of verse 20 and the redemption of verse 22 belong to all who are his.