Psalm 6:9

Psalm 6 is a prayer of David, as its heading says, and for seven verses it is a cry of pain. His bones are vexed, his soul is sore vexed, and his eye is consumed because of grief and grown old “because of all mine enemies”. In Israel sickness was often taken as a sign of God’s displeasure, which made his suffering heavier and gave his enemies something to mock.

Then verse 8 turns. The man who was pleading now gives orders: “Depart from me, all ye workers of iniquity.” Lament psalms commonly move from complaint and petition to trust, and here the turn comes in one line.

The reason stands in the same verse. The word “for” (ki) gives the ground of the command: “for the LORD hath heard the voice of my weeping.” David’s courage comes from God’s hearing and from that alone. As far as the psalm tells us, his illness and his enemies are still there. The psalm leaves unsaid what passed between verse 7 and verse 8. God may have given him an inward assurance, or David may have called to mind who God is and what he has promised. On either reading he speaks of God’s answer before he can see it, because he is sure of the God who listens. That is faith, and it rests on the character of God.

Other psalms make the same journey from lament to trust, such as Psalm 13, and Psalm 22 moves from suffering to praise. They answer the cry of a psalm like Psalm 10:1, where the psalmist asks why the LORD hides himself.

The verb for “heard”, shâmaʻ, is the ordinary Hebrew word for hearing, and it often carries attention, understanding and a readiness to respond. When David says the LORD has heard, he means that God has taken in his cry and taken it to heart. The same verb opens verse 9, so that the two verses together say, with growing certainty, that the LORD has heard the voice of his weeping, has heard his supplication, and will receive his prayer.

David gives his weeping a voice. The sorrow of the earlier verses, poured out in tears, has reached God as clearly as spoken words, and its depth and sincerity are what God has heard.

The name David uses is Yᵉhôvâh, the LORD, God’s own covenant name, which speaks of him as the self-existent and eternal One, the I AM. It begins both halves of verse 9. David’s confidence rests on who the LORD is and on his faithfulness to his people, so he names him again with each statement.

The verb “depart”, çûwr, means to turn off, to remove or to withdraw, and here it is a command with authority behind it. A man who a moment ago could only plead now sends his enemies away. He speaks to them directly, as if they stood in the room, and that gives the line the force of a confrontation.

The phrase “workers of iniquity” is po’aley ‘aven in Hebrew, people who make a practice of evil. The noun ʼâven covers trouble, vanity and wickedness, and at its root it means nothingness. Their work is wicked, and in the end it comes to nothing. In this psalm they are David’s adversaries, people who probably gloated over his suffering and wanted to see him fall.

David draws a clear line between himself, as one whom God has heard, and those who practise evil. Scripture calls God’s people to the same separation. The blessed man keeps out of the counsel of the ungodly (Psalm 1:1), a father warns his son away from the path of the wicked (Proverbs 4:14–15), and another psalm gives this same command to evildoers (Psalm 119:115).

For us the workers of iniquity are first of all people who set themselves against God and his ways. The phrase also reaches anything that works against God’s will in our lives: sinful habits, destructive patterns of thought, the pressures of an ungodly culture, and relationships that draw us away from him. Jesus prays for his disciples as people who are in the world and are not of it (John 17:15–16).

Verse 10 grows out of verses 8 and 9. Since the LORD has heard, David can speak of his enemies’ defeat as certain, and the “let” of this verse is a prayer and a confident expectation at once. He appeals to God as the righteous judge, who judges the world in righteousness (Psalm 9:8). The word “all” gathers in every enemy he has. As king David faced many, from Saul and Absalom to the nations around Israel, and this psalm leaves its enemies unnamed.

“Ashamed” is bûwsh, a word that properly means to turn pale. It speaks of disappointment, public disgrace and the failure of everything one had planned. Honour and standing among the people counted for a great deal in Israel, and shame was the opposite of honour and success. For these enemies it means that their malice is exposed and their schemes come to nothing before God’s power.

“Sore vexed” is bâhal, to be terrified, dismayed and thrown into confusion, from a root meaning to tremble inwardly. David used the English phrase “sore vexed” of his own soul in verse 3. The distress his enemies brought on him now falls on them, and the people who meant to shame and trouble him are the ones put to shame and troubled. Another psalm says the same of the wicked, who are caught in the trap they set for others (Psalm 9:15).

“Let them return” pictures a retreat. They turn back, and their attack on David is reversed. Then “be ashamed” comes back, now joined to “suddenly”, which deepens their disgrace. “Suddenly” is regaʻ, a word for a very short space of time, from a root meaning a wink of the eye. When God acts, his judgment comes in a moment and catches the enemies unprepared, so the righteous can trust that their deliverance will come. Another psalm of David prays that his adversaries be put to shame (Psalm 35:4) and that ruin come on the wicked unawares (Psalm 35:8).

Jesus knew anguish deeper than David’s. In Gethsemane he poured out his soul to the Father with strong crying and tears, and Hebrews says that he was heard (Hebrews 5:7, Matthew 26:39). His prayer was “not my will, but thine, be done” (Luke 22:42). The Father heard him by sustaining him through the cross and raising him from the dead, and so vindicated him and his work. His prayers were always heard and received, because they were perfectly one with the Father’s will and his purpose to redeem.

Jesus endured the cross and despised its shame (Hebrews 12:2), and he was declared to be the Son of God with power by his resurrection (Romans 1:4). On the cross he triumphed over the principalities and powers (Colossians 2:15). He came to destroy the works of the devil (1 John 3:8), and in him we have the victory over death (1 Corinthians 15:54–57). The last and greatest workers of iniquity, sin, death and Satan, are put to shame by him. Our old man is crucified with him (Romans 6:6), so that believers can depart from the rule of sin.

Because of him, our own prayers rest on his finished work. In him we have boldness and access with confidence by faith (Ephesians 3:12), and we are bidden to “come boldly unto the throne of grace” (Hebrews 4:16). He ever lives to make intercession for us (Hebrews 7:25), and the Holy Spirit intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words (Romans 8:26–27), so that even our weeping comes before the Father.

These three verses give us a God who hears tears. David had nothing yet in hand when he said “the LORD hath heard”, and he spoke with the certainty of someone who already had his answer, because the LORD’s hearing carries his help with it. The same God hears his people now, through Christ. Honest lament is welcome before him, weakness is where David’s prayer began, and the wrongs done to his people are in the hands of a righteous judge who will put them right in his own time. A night of weeping can end, as Psalm 6 does, in the words “The LORD hath heard my supplication; the LORD will receive my prayer.”