In the first part of this psalm, we see the sufferer forsaken and in anguish. In the second part we see him delivered and rejoicing. The contrast between the two sections is very great, and the transition from one to the other extremely abrupt. The change takes place in the last sentence of verse 21, which is just one word in the Hebrew but four in English translation: You have answered me.
This abruptness is entirely in harmony with what happened at the cross when our Lord cried, It is finished, and very shortly after, Father into your hands I commit my spirit. His sufferings ended, and his spirit came immediately into the presence of his Father in heaven. There he confessed, You have answered me.
1. A Promise of Personal Praise in the Great Assembly (verse 22-25)
These verses begin and end with the promise of personal praise (verses 22 and 25). In between them, in verses 23 and 24, is a calling on his brethren in the assembly to join him in his praise.
It may seem to us a little strange that it should be Jesus himself who speaks these words. Yet that is exactly what Hebrews 2 tells us is true. In verses 11 and 12 the apostle puts these words into the mouth of Jesus. It is he, then, who says after he has been made perfect through suffering, I will declare your name to my brethren.
The very first thing that he does in his deliverance is join the assembly of the faithful, so that he may bring testimony to them of what the Lord has done for him and may offer his personal praise to the Lord there. That assembly is the gathering described in Hebrews 12. It is a glorious assembly, a wonderful and marvelous place. It is the assembly of those who fear the Lord.
This is what he is doing when he, through his servants, proclaims the gospel to us and to all nations. He is proclaiming the praises of the Lord, and his mighty works towards himself in his suffering and in his deliverance.
He calls the people of that assembly brethren. We are his brothers and sisters, as he himself said, and we are his brothers and sisters because we are, along with him, children of God. He is the eternal and natural son. We are sons and daughters by adoption and regeneration. But we are part of the family, with all the privileges and joys that belong to that family.
He goes on to say, My praise shall be of you. We usually take that to mean, My praise will be about you, but it means, My praise shall be from you. He means that he will receive the songs and words with which he praises the Lord from the Lord himself.
Part of that praise is the payment of vows. It was not unusual for men who were seeking some great benefit from God to make vows. Jacob as he was leaving the land of Canaan to go to his uncle Laban vowed that he would offer sacrifices at Bethel, if God would bring him back to the land in peace. Jephthah made a vow also when he was seeking the Lord’s help against the Ammonites. It would not necessarily be a conditional vow, such as these, but a spontaneous response of gratitude for some benefit already received.
The law made provision for this kind of vow in the thank offering. In Leviticus 7:15,16 God instructs his people: The flesh of the sacrifice of his peace offering for thanksgiving shall be eaten the same day it is offered. He shall not leave any of it until morning. But if the sacrifice of his offering is a vow or a voluntary offering, it shall be eaten the same day that he offers his sacrifice. In the New Testament we bring these thank offerings when we offer the fruit of our lips, giving thanks to his name. Hebrews 13:15
Not only does he bring his personal praise and thanks, but, in verses 23 and 24, he calls on his brethren to offer praise with him.
He calls his brethren those who fear the Lord, descendants of Jacob and offspring of Israel. They are those who fear the Lord because they recognize the Lord’s superiority to themselves and stand in awe of him and of the mighty works that he does. They show their fear by coming to worship and tremble before him in the assembly. They are not descendants of Jacob and offspring of Israel because of physical descent. The really important thing here is that they show themselves to be Jacob’s children by their faith and by the imitation of his example.
They are to praise, glorify and fear the Lord. By praise the anointed means the offerings of songs and prayers that acknowledge his great works. By glorify, the anointed means that they do not boast in themselves, but give the credit for deliverance to the Lord, pointing all who will listen to him as the author and finisher of it. Exhorting them to fear is striking because they are those who already fear the Lord. But their fear expresses itself in adoration and obedience, particularly now in the assembly.
They are to do this because of what the Lord has done for the anointed (v. 24). They will be thankful because one of their brethren has received a great deliverance. They rejoice with him in the good that God has given him. So, we ought also to rejoice in the good that God gives to our brothers and sisters here.
But the good of the Anointed is also our good. We are members of the same body. If one member suffers, we all suffer. If one member receives good, we all receive good. This is especially true with respect to our elder brother and head, whose sufferings and glory are ours. He always communicates his own blessings and glory to us.
So, Christ’s exhortation comes to us: All you who fear the Lord, praise him for what he has done for me.
2. A Promise of Universal Worship (verses 26-31)
This part of the psalm can be a little confusing and difficult unless we get a firm grasp on its structure. The key to that structure is the contrast and similarity between the first line of verse 26 and the first line of verse 29. In verse 26 he talks about the poor, but in verse 29 about the prosperous, or fat, of the earth. So, there is in the verses a contrast between the poor and the prosperous.
In both verses he talks about them eating. Why eating? Because it was a part of the worship of God in the tabernacle and temple. As we saw above men made vows and fulfilled their vows by bringing thank offerings to the place of worship. They would eat part of that offering there before the Lord. Both the poor and the prosperous will eat of the thank offerings brought to the assembly. But he again introduces a contrast between them when he says that the poor will eat and be satisfied, but the prosperous will eat and worship. And this is exactly according to the need of each. James puts it in the form of an exhortation in James 1: let the poor man rejoice in that he is exalted and the rich in that he is made low. God will feed the souls of the poor until they are satisfied. Nothing will be lacking to them. But God will make the fat ones of the earth, the rich, the great and the noble, prostrate themselves before him.
The contrast goes farther than that. The poor, because they know that they are poor, seek the Lord and having found him, praise him for the benefits they have received. Therefore, “Let your heart live forever!” That is, you have received food for everlasting life. Now let your hearts be active and joyful before the Lord forever. They hear a proclamation of blessing.
But the prosperous, the fat ones, are those who go down to the dust, who cannot keep their souls alive. Many commentators make this a third group of people, the dead or those who are dying. But it seems to me that there is a deliberate parallel in this verse with verse 26, especially when we consider that the last line of the verse is, and his soul shall not live. The verse makes a threefold parallelism, and lines 2 and 3 further define the prosperous of line 1.
They do not receive life through their eating, but instead prostrate themselves in the dust, to acknowledge the Lord of all even as they perish. Their worship is a compelled worship, and their humbling a humbling that is against their wills. Philippians 2 tells us that every knee shall bow, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. In these two verses of the psalm, we see both sides of that. Some bow gladly, some are forced to their knees by the heavy hand of God, but all worship. The soul of the latter, in contrast with the heart of the poor, will not live.
This is the two-fold effect of the preaching of the gospel as described by the apostle Paul in 2 Corinthians 2:15,16. There he says, For we are to God the fragrance of Christ among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing. To the one we are the aroma of death leading to death, and to the other the aroma of life leading to life.
So, we see the universality of the worship of God first in the worship of both the poor and the prosperous. We see it secondly in that all nations turn to the Lord. That’s in verses 27 and 28.
Now this appears between the verses about the poor and the prosperous because we are to understand that this is the poor and prosperous of all nations. The scope of the psalm is broad, especially when we remember that it belongs to the Old Testament. But this is another way in which we see that the Psalms anticipate more clearly than any other book of the Old Testament the realities of the New and the glorious fulfillment of God’s promises in it, especially the promise of salvation for all nations.
The entire world will hear what God has done for his suffering servant and will come before him in remembrance of it. They will turn to the Lord. That is a clear prophecy of the extension of God’s promises to the Gentiles and the inclusion of the Gentiles in the family of God. All nations in this dispensation are worshiping the Lord.
Why? Because in the deliverance of his Anointed the Lord established him as king not only of Israel, but of all the nations. The kingdom is God’s, and, through Christ, he rules over the nations. Christ sets in motion the triumphant progress of the gospel that finally brings all nations in subjection to him. He is the stone carved out of the mountain without hands that strikes the kingdom of man at its foundations, grinds it to powder and then grows to fill the whole earth.
So that’s the second way in which we see the promise of universal worship fulfilled. The third way is that generation after generation serves the Lord. When the nations bow, we see the kingdom of Christ extended geographically and in space. When generation after generation serves the Lord, then we see the kingdom of Christ extended historically and in time. That’s verses 30 and 31.
Notice that there are three generations mentioned here, and perhaps a fourth is implied. A posterity shall serve him. That may well be the posterity of the nations mentioned earlier. Those nations are the first generation. We’ve already seen how they praise the Lord. Now their posterity comes and serves him. But they do more than that. They also recount to the next generation what the Lord has done. And that generation comes and declares his righteousness to a people who will be born. The psalm even looks into the not yet seen future. We see the praise of the Lord handed down from generation to generation throughout the whole history of the New Testament.
So, there will always be a church that the Lord is gathering, defending and preserving for himself. The gates of hell will never prevail against her, but she will remain, terrible as an army with banners, until the great day of the Lord has come.
Verse 30 uses the name Lord (Adonai) rather than Yahweh, even though Yahweh has been the name used before. The reason is simply that that name puts the emphasis on the rule of the Lord, which is the focus of this part of the psalm.
The psalm says in conclusion that the next generation will declare to a people who will be born that he has done this. Done what? Delivered his suffering servant, his Anointed One, from all the anguish and torments described so vividly in the first part of the psalm. This is the Lord’s doing, and it is marvelous in our eyes.
We see in this psalm the suffering and obedience of the servant of the Lord, as well as the glory that followed, and in seeing them hear the call to worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness. Let your heart live forever!