Psalm 66:18

Psalm 66 begins with the whole earth. Psalm 66:1–12 calls all lands to make a joyful noise to God and recalls how he brought Israel through the Red Sea and the Jordan, tested them in a net and under a heavy burden, and brought them out into a place of plenty. The second half, Psalm 66:13–20, is one man’s story. In Psalm 66:13–15 he goes into God’s house with offerings to pay the vows he made when he was in trouble, and in verse 16 he turns to the people gathered there and tells them why. The faithfulness the psalm has praised in Israel’s history is something he has known in his own life.

“Come and hear” is an urgent summons. He wants the people to stop and listen, because what he is about to say matters. He addresses “all ye that fear God”, and the word for those who fear, yârêʼ, is the adjective for a fearing or reverent person. The fear of God is reverence and awe before him, joined to obedience, and “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom” (Proverbs 9:10). He speaks to these people because they already know who God is and will grasp what he has done, and their own faith will be built up by hearing it. “The secret of the LORD is with them that fear him” (Psalm 25:14).

“I will declare” is a promise to speak openly. The verb çâphar means to count or number, and in the form used here it means to recount, tell or declare. The psalmist is going to tell the story of what God did.

What God did was “for my soul”. The word nephesh means a breathing creature, and so life, soul, self or person. God’s work reached the psalmist himself, his life and his inner being, along with his outward circumstances. Another psalm says of the LORD, “He restoreth my soul” (Psalm 23:3), and in another the psalmist speaks to his own downcast soul and tells it to hope in God (Psalm 42:11).

Verse 17 gives the whole story in a single line. “I cried unto him with my mouth” uses qârâʼ, to call out or call to someone, a verb often used of prayer in trouble. The psalmist was in need and called to God aloud, with his mouth (peh), and he called to God himself. “And he was extolled with my tongue” tells what came of it. The word behind “extolled”, rôwmâm, comes from rûwm, “to be high” or “to lift up”, and speaks of lifting God high in praise. The tongue, lâshôwn, is the ordinary word for the tongue and also for language. The voice that called for help is the voice that praised, and prayer and praise belong together in one life with God.

Psalm 34:1–6 tells the same story. The psalmist will bless the LORD at all times, he calls others to “magnify the LORD with me”, and he says, “This poor man cried, and the LORD heard him, and saved him out of all his troubles.” Israel did the same as a nation when they sang to the LORD after he brought them through the sea (Exodus 15). God is worthy of this praise. “For the LORD is great, and greatly to be praised” (Psalm 96:4), and in heaven he is praised in the words, “Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honour and power” (Revelation 4:11). Through Christ we offer “the sacrifice of praise to God continually, that is, the fruit of our lips giving thanks to his name” (Hebrews 13:15).

Verse 18 pauses the story to state a condition: “If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me.” To regard, râʼâh, is the common verb for seeing and looking, and here it means to look on iniquity with favour, to keep it in view and let it stay. Iniquity, ʼâven, means nothingness, trouble, vanity and wickedness, the moral evil that turns out empty and worthless in the end. The heart, lêb, is the whole inner person, mind, will and feelings together. So the verse speaks of an inner disposition, a person who knows of a sin, is fond of it, and keeps it.

“The Lord” here is ʼĂdônây, God as sovereign master. “Hear” is shâmaʻ, to hear, listen, understand or obey. God knows every word anyone speaks, so the hearing in this verse is the hearing that takes heed and answers. A heart that cherishes sin stands against his holiness, and its prayer goes unanswered.

The verse sits between the cry of verse 17 and the “But verily” of verse 19, and it explains why the psalmist was heard. He came to God with a heart that held on to no cherished sin, so the condition he names was met, and he can speak of God’s answer with confidence.

The rest of Scripture says the same. Isaiah tells Israel that the LORD’s ear is able to hear, “But your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you, that he will not hear” (Isaiah 59:1–2). Proverbs says, “He that turneth away his ear from hearing the law, even his prayer shall be abomination” (Proverbs 28:9). The one who may stand in God’s holy place has “clean hands, and a pure heart” (Psalm 24:3–4), and John writes, “Beloved, if our heart condemn us not, then have we confidence toward God”, and we receive what we ask because we keep his commandments (1 John 3:21–22).

The law asked for this inward faithfulness from the start, calling Israel to love the LORD “with all thine heart” (Deuteronomy 6:5). Sacrifices covered sins done in ignorance, while sin done deliberately and kept without repentance broke fellowship with God.

“But verily God hath heard me” answers the “if” of verse 18. “Verily”, ʼaken, is a strong word of certainty, and the psalmist is sure. The verb for “heard” is shâmaʻ, the same verb as “will not hear” in the verse before, and here it carries its full sense of listening with the intent to act.

“He hath attended to the voice of my prayer” says it again. The verb qâshab means to listen attentively or pay attention, literally to incline the ear. The word for prayer, tᵉphillâh, comes from pâlal, “to judge”, and by extension “to intercede” or “to pray”. The voice of his prayer is the prayer itself, spoken from the heart. Saying the same thing in two lines makes it certain and complete: God listened, and he gave his attention to what the psalmist asked.

God has promised to hear like this. “Then shall ye call upon me, and ye shall go and pray unto me, and I will hearken unto you” (Jeremiah 29:12). Jesus says, “Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you” (Matthew 7:7–8). John writes, “if we ask any thing according to his will, he heareth us” (1 John 5:14–15). Paul tells us to bring everything to God by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, and the peace of God will keep our hearts and minds (Philippians 4:6–7). James says, “The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much” (James 5:16), and the psalmist has found it so.

The psalm ends with a blessing. To bless, bârak, comes from a root meaning “to kneel”, and when it is said of God it means to adore and praise him. When we bless God we declare the worth he already has, and we own him as the source of every blessing.

“Which hath not turned away my prayer” means that God received the psalmist’s request and answered it with favour. The word for prayer is again tᵉphillâh, as in verse 19. Another psalm opens in the same spirit: “I love the LORD, because he hath heard my voice and my supplications” (Psalm 116:1–2).

“Nor his mercy from me” grounds the answer in who God is. Mercy here is cheçed, steadfast love, lovingkindness and covenant loyalty, the committed and lasting love God has pledged to his people. The LORD describes himself as “merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth, Keeping mercy for thousands” (Exodus 34:6–7). “It is of the LORD’s mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not. They are new every morning” (Lamentations 3:22–23). God’s ear and God’s love go together, so his answer to prayer flows from his unchanging love.

Israel’s God hears and answers, and that set him apart from the silent idols of the nations around Israel. “Call unto me, and I will answer thee” (Jeremiah 33:3). His mercy also lasts: “O give thanks unto the LORD; for he is good: for his mercy endureth for ever” (Psalm 136:1).

The psalmist told what God had done for one soul, and the gospel tells what God has done for every soul that believes in his Son. Jesus is the Word made flesh (John 1:14), and “the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him” (John 1:18). “God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son” (John 3:16), and in him God’s cheçed is poured out in full. Believers still tell this story, and they overcome “by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony” (Revelation 12:11).

Jesus also knew the cry and the answer of verses 17 and 19. He prayed in agony in Gethsemane (Luke 22:41–44) and cried from the cross, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46). The Father answered by raising him and exalting him, giving him a name above every name (Philippians 2:9–11). Hebrews says that he offered up prayers “with strong crying and tears” and “was heard in that he feared” (Hebrews 5:7). He could say, “I do always those things that please him” (John 8:29), and at the tomb of Lazarus he prayed, “Father, I thank thee that thou hast heard me. And I knew that thou hearest me always” (John 11:41–42). He is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world (John 1:29), and he is extolled in heaven: “Worthy is the Lamb that was slain” (Revelation 5:12–13).

Verse 18 shows why we need him. Our hearts are far from pure, and Christ bore the penalty for our iniquity. “For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him” (2 Corinthians 5:21). He is our merciful and faithful high priest, who suffered being tempted (Hebrews 2:17–18), and so we “come boldly unto the throne of grace” (Hebrews 4:14–16). He is the way to the Father (John 14:6), and he promised, “If ye shall ask any thing in my name, I will do it” (John 14:13–14). The call to a clean heart still stands for believers. In Christ our confession is heard and our prayers are welcomed even while we struggle with sin, so long as we are giving that sin up to him.

The psalmist gives us his story so that we can hear it, and in it we meet who God is. He hears his people when they cry to him. He looks for honesty in the heart that prays, and he bends his ear to the voice of a prayer. His mercy stays with those who call on him, and he is worthy of the praise that follows. What he does for one soul he means to be told, and those who fear him are built up by hearing it. Every answered prayer in your own life is a story of the same kind, and verse 16 shows where it belongs: “Come and hear, all ye that fear God, and I will declare what he hath done for my soul.”