AP

Psalm 108:1-5 My heart is steadfast, O God!  I will sing and make melody with all my being!  Awake, O harp and lyre!  I will awake the dawn!  I will give thanks to you, O LORD, among the peoples;  I will sing praises to you among the nations.  For your steadfast love is great above the heavens; your faithfulness reaches to the clouds.  Be exalted, O God, above the heavens!  Let your glory be over all the earth!

The doxology David uses to begin this psalm is a repeat of the one he used to conclude Psalm 57.  The title of that psalm tells us it was written on one of the many occasions when David was fleeing for his life from the enraged Saul, and hiding in a cave.

Now, in this psalm he is Israel’s King and is foreshadowing the victories God has promised him over the surrounding nations.  In both situations – in extremity, and on the verge of triumph – his focus is not on his own need or accomplishment, but on God’s glory alone.  His use of phrases like, “my heart is steadfast” and “with all my soul”, gives us an insight into how committed he was to glorifying God in everything he did – and he wants the whole world to know about it!

In these, as in many other psalms, he highlights just two attributes of God that inspire his praise, confidence and trust – they are God’s ‘love’ (ches’-ed) and his ‘faithfulness’ (amunah).

Earlier in Psalm 57:3b he cried out in the midst of his distress: “God sends his steadfast love and his faithfulness”.  It isn’t easy to translate the full meaning of these two Hebrew words into English.  They are words embedded in the covenant relationship the LORD has established with his chosen people.  The KJV usually translates ‘chesed’ as ‘mercy’ or ‘lovingkindness’ whereas the ESV prefers ‘steadfast love’.  ‘Chesed’ covers this whole spectrum – the basis on which a holy, righteous God deals with repentant sinners.  ‘Amunah’ derives from the same root as ‘amen’ and carries with it the idea of truth, genuineness and reliability.

David knows and rejoices in the fact that he is not dealing with a sovereign God who is capricious, unpredictable or erratic, but one who will always keep his promises and deal with him with steadfast love/mercy/kindness.  Do we know David’s God?  Do we live and speak in such a way that he will “be exalted … above the heavens”, and that his “glory [will] be over all the earth”?  Do we take every opportunity to “sing praises to [him] among the nations”, and if we don’t happen to have a ‘harp and lyre’ handy for accompaniment’, do we ‘sing and make melody with all [our] being’?  In other words, do our whole lives, in every part, day by day from early dawn, come across to our watching world as a melodious, harmonious song?  Do our Christian friends see us as thankful people in every circumstance (cf 1 Thessalonians 5:18)?

– Bruce Christian