Psalm 30

Verse 1 contains a nice image for what happened, for when David says “you lifted me out of the depths” he chooses a verb which was used of drawing a bucket up out of a well. He is saying that it is as if God reached down and pulled him up out of death’s pit when, apart from God, there was no hope for him at all. The image introduces the first set of uplifting contrasts:

• lifted “up” versus “going down”

• God who helped versus enemies who gloated

• serious sickness versus renewed health

• threat of the “grave” versus life

• physical suffering versus praise and thankfulness to God

The important point, of course, is that God was responsible for the healing, which is why David is thanking him. It leads to this question: Do we adequately think of sickness and recovery in these terms? Generally speaking, we do not, though as Christians we do tend to think of God and call to him when we are actually sick. We live in a scientific age, which has had the bad effect of removing us from a sense of God’s presence and intervention in our lives. It makes us substitute secondary causes for the first Cause. We speak of “the miracles of modern medicine” much more easily than we speak of God’s miracles or miraculous intervention. But strictly speaking, as thankful as we should be for medical knowledge, skills, personnel, and resources, medicine is no “miracle.” It is a technology. The “miracle” even in contemporary medical healing is God’s.

So when you are sick, pray. Ask God for healing.

And when you are well again, remember that it is God who has healed you, and thank him for it, as the psalmist does.

You lifted me out of the depths. The psalmist cites his experience of deliverance for which he praises Yahweh. Yahweh has “lifted” (from dlh) the psalmist “out of the depths.” The counterbalance provided through the use of the parallel verbs “exalt” (rwm) and “lift” (dlh) become more clear as one considers them from the point of view of the speaker. “Exalt” involves motion up and away from the speaker—as if one were pushing a small child up on to a high rock to safety in rising waters (cf. 27:5). By contrast, “lift” describes motion up from below and toward the speaker. The verb dlh can describe “drawing water” from a well (Ex. 2:16, 19; Prov. 20:5)—as one would pull a person in danger of drowning out of the raging water with the aid of a rope. It is interesting to note in this regard that the phrase reported in the NIV as “out of the depths” is supplied interpretively, since there are no corresponding words in the Hebrew text.

Did not let my enemies gloat. No clear picture is gained of the psalmist’s opponents in this psalm. This single reference would classify them as the type of people who hang around those in difficulty or suffering in order to “rejoice” over their downfall. In this case, “to gloat” translates the Hebrew phrase śimmaḥ li (“allow to rejoice concerning me”). Similar concern expressed with this phrase appears in 35:19, 24, 26; 38:16.

You healed me. The psalmist’s suffering may have been occasioned by a desperate illness. Certainly there is a sense of having been delivered from death’s door. The psalmist “called … for help” and was answered with divine healing. Yahweh “brought [the psalmist] up” from Sheol, the abode of the dead, and caused him to live from among those “going down into the pit.” The use of the participle “those going down” in this latter phrase emphasizes the immediacy of death. The psalmist appears almost to have been plucked out of the line of those currently waiting to enter Sheol.

God’s Wonderful Acts (30:2–3)

2–3 Second, the psalmist praises the Lord for answered prayer. We must observe here again how the psalmist expresses a close relationship between himself and his God even in the hour of need: “O LORD my God” (v. 2). Unfortunately, this phraseology seems still distant to our Western ears. The psalmist calls God by his revealed name: “Yahweh my God,” as if to say, “Yahweh, you are my God, and I lay claim on your promises to care for me as your child.” In the intimacy of communion lies the secret of answered prayer.

Third, the Lord’s act of restoring or healing the psalmist (vv. 1–2; cf. 51:12; 60:1; 80:3, 7, 19; 85:4; 107:20) ends the gloating of the enemies. So often the wicked rejoice in the adversity of the godly. To them it was proof that God sees neither good nor evil, that he does not reward righteousness, and, therefore, that he does not judge wickedness. The psalmist was concerned, not only with his own sin, but particularly with the good name of the Lord. Since the Lord has saved him out of the pits, he praises him as the Exalted One.

His anger lasts only a moment. The psalmist’s call to praise flows from the awareness that Yahweh’s final word is never lament and suffering but deliverance for his faithful ones. The reference to the limits to divine anger are intended as occasion for hope, especially for those who endure faithfully even in the face of suffering. The use of the image of divine anger in this context implies that the psalmist may be relating the suffering he has experienced to divine action, possibly as the result of his sin. The only failing attributed to the psalmist in this psalm is the smug sense of false security mentioned in 30:6–7. The psalmist assures the enduring faithful (the “saints”) that divine displeasure is not an eternal fixture of life, but the tears of suffering will ultimately resolve into morning shouts of joy. Tears are “permitted to stay the night”—like a particularly unwelcome guest—but must be on their way by morning.

God’s Anger and God’s Favor

After expressing thanks to God for his healing the psalmist quite naturally turns to God’s people, whom he calls “you saints of his,” and asks them to join in praising God too. It would be right for David to have asked them merely to thank God that their king had been spared. But he does something much finer than that in this section (vv. 4–5). He asks them to praise God, not merely because God had been gracious to himself but because it is God’s nature to be gracious. In other words, David was calling on the people to realize that this is how God is and that, because he is like this, it is how he has also been treating them.

To understand the principle David develops in this section we need to recognize that it is a spiritual statement regarding God’s character and not just a detached observation on life. Without the first half of verse 5, the second half might suggest the latter:

weeping may remain for a night,

but rejoicing comes in the morning.

By itself, this passage could mean, merely, “into each life a little rain must fall” or “every cloud has a silver lining” or “you’ve got to take the bad with the good” or “cheer up, things will get better.” But, of course, that is not the idea at all. It is true that there are good and bad things in life and that we do not always have to see a specific judgment or blessing of God in each one. But what David is talking about is God’s disfavor versus his favor, expressed in the experiences of life. His conviction is that the favor always outweighs the disfavor for God’s people.

The point is this. God is indeed displeased with sin and can never be indifferent to it. He judges sin with a holy anger, even in Christians. But for his people God’s judgments and anger are short-lived. They pass quickly. What remains is his favor, which lasts for our lifetimes and indeed forever.

IN THE REST of the psalm, the psalmist gives an account of the changing mental and emotional processes that accompanied his downfall and deliverance. It is not often that we find such a clear and linear description of the circumstances behind lament and thanksgiving.

From mourning to singing (vv. 8–12). When God saw that the discipline had done its work, He healed David and forgave his sins. David changed clothes, picked up his harp, and began to sing praises to the Lord. No matter how dark the night, dawn will come. No matter how heavy your heart, one day there will be a song.