I Love Yahweh, Because He Listens
1 I love Yahweh, because he listens to my voice, and my cries for mercy. 2 Because he has turned his ear to me, therefore I will call on him as long as I live. 3 The cords of death surrounded me, the pains of Sheol got a hold of me. I found trouble and sorrow. 4 Then I called on Yahweh’s name: “Yahweh, I beg you, deliver my soul.” 5 Yahweh is gracious and righteous. Yes, our God is merciful. 6 Yahweh preserves the simple. I was brought low, and he saved me. 7 Return to your rest, my soul, for Yahweh has dealt bountifully with you. 8 For you have delivered my soul from death, my eyes from tears, and my feet from falling. 9 I will walk before Yahweh in the land of the living. 10 I believed, therefore I said, “I was greatly afflicted.” 11 I said in my haste, “All people are liars.” 12 What will I give to Yahweh for all his benefits toward me? 13 I will take the cup of salvation, and call on Yahweh’s name. 14 I will pay my vows to Yahweh, yes, in the presence of all his people. 15 Precious in Yahweh’s sight is the death of his saints. 16 Yahweh, truly I am your servant. I am your servant, the son of your servant girl. You have freed me from my chains. 17 I will offer to you the sacrifice of thanksgiving, and will call on Yahweh’s name. 18 I will pay my vows to Yahweh, yes, in the presence of all his people, 19 in the courts of Yahweh’s house, in the middle of you, Jerusalem. Praise Yah!
A man who nearly died says why he loves God, and the reason is that he was heard.
I love Yahweh, because he listens to my voice, and my cries for mercy.
One of very few places in the Old Testament where a person says outright that he loves God, and the reason given is not majesty or power. He was listened to.
Because he has turned his ear to me, therefore I will call on him as long as I live.
The consequence drawn is a lifetime of praying. Being heard once produces the habit.
The cords of death surrounded me, the pains of Sheol got a hold of me. I found trouble and sorrow.
Yahweh preserves the simple. I was brought low, and he saved me.
The word for simple describes the inexperienced — someone easily taken in, without the resources to protect himself. The psalmist puts himself in that category rather than claiming any competence that earned the rescue.
Return to your rest, my soul, for Yahweh has dealt bountifully with you.
He speaks to himself, as the forty-second psalm does, and the instruction is to go back to a rest he had left.
10 I believed, therefore I said, “I was greatly afflicted.” 11 I said in my haste, “All people are liars.”
Two things said, and the psalm distinguishes them. The first came from faith; the second came from panic, and he labels it as such — in my haste, the same admission the thirty-first psalm makes. Paul quotes the first clause as the pattern of Christian speech: I believed, and therefore I spoke 2 Corinthians 4:13.
12 What will I give to Yahweh for all his benefits toward me? 13 I will take the cup of salvation, and call on Yahweh’s name.
The question is asked and the answer is not a payment. What he gives back is a cup he takes — receiving is offered as the fitting response to having received.
Precious in Yahweh’s sight is the death of his saints.
The most quoted verse in the psalm, and it is often read as consolation about dying. In context it is the reason he is still alive: their deaths are costly to God, not cheap, and he does not spend them carelessly.
Yahweh, truly I am your servant. I am your servant, the son of your servant girl. You have freed me from my chains.
A man born into the household, describing his freedom as the reason he stays in it.
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