Psalm 119:82

Today we plunge more deeply into the darkness of this octave of Psalm 119 that Charles Spurgeon called “the midnight of the psalm.”

Psalms 119:82  Mine eyes fail for thy word, saying, When wilt thou comfort me?

The psalmist needed comfort.  Thomas Manton wrote the following about our need for comfort:

“Comfort is necessary because a great part of our temptations lies in troubles, as well as allurements.  Sense of pain may discompose us as well as pleasure entice us.  The world is a persecuting world as well as a tempting world.  The flesh troubleth as well as enticeth.  The Devil is a disquieting as well as an ensnaring Devil.”

Therefore, we need strength, encouragement, help, and support, all of which are wrapped up in that word comfort. 

In asking the Lord “when wilt thou comfort me?” the psalmist was acknowledging God as the Source of comfort and rightly so, since God is “the God of all comfort” (2Corinthians 1:3).  Now the God of all comfort uses the Scriptures to comfort His children (Romans 15:4).  So the psalmist was rightly expecting to find comfort in the word of God.  God’s word was his comfort in his affliction (Psalm 119:50).  However, the comfort of the Scriptures that he looked for was delayed in coming, so long delayed that his eyes were failing for it. 

Fail – To fall off in respect of vigour or activity; to lose power or strength; to flag, wane; to break down; fig. of the heart.  Of the eyes, light, etc.:  To grow dim.

He was losing his power to find comfort in the word of God.  If there was any comfort in the Scriptures for him, it seemed as if his eyes were unable to see it.  He was in darkness of soul.  It was as if he were going spiritually blind.

Now it says a lot for a man when he so loves his Bible and so much expects comfort from it that he will keep looking for it until his eyes wear out.  But we do have a breaking point, a point where we grow so weak through affliction that we despair of ever finding comfort.  There are times when we may prayerfully read our Bible regularly, but for some reason its message does not seem to reach us.   Sometimes our experience is echoed in these passages:

Psalms 77:2  In the day of my trouble I sought the Lord: my sore ran in the night, and ceased not: my soul refused to be comforted.

3  I remembered God, and was troubled: I complained, and my spirit was overwhelmed. Selah.

4  Thou holdest mine eyes waking: I am so troubled that I cannot speak.

5  I have considered the days of old, the years of ancient times.

6  I call to remembrance my song in the night: I commune with mine own heart: and my spirit made diligent search.

7  Will the Lord cast off for ever? and will he be favourable no more?

8  Is his mercy clean gone for ever? doth his promise fail for evermore?

9  Hath God forgotten to be gracious? hath he in anger shut up his tender mercies? Selah.

Psalms 88:6  Thou hast laid me in the lowest pit, in darkness, in the deeps.

7  Thy wrath lieth hard upon me, and thou hast afflicted me with all thy waves. Selah.

8  Thou hast put away mine acquaintance far from me; thou hast made me an abomination unto them: I am shut up, and I cannot come forth.

9  Mine eye mourneth by reason of affliction: LORD, I have called daily upon thee, I have stretched out my hands unto thee.

If it is any comfort to you to know this, then know that I, whose calling is to study and teach the Scriptures, have times when the comfort of those Scriptures is beyond my reach.  Although I read the words, it is as though I am staring into a void.  I put my Bible down as comfortless as when I opened it.  I go to God asking for help and rise from my knees as burdened as when I knelt to seek relief.  I sometimes feel shut up and shut out.  But, thanks be to God, it has been my experience that just about the time I think I can hold out no longer, the Lord comes through with a word of comfort to carry me forward.  It is said of our Lord:  “And therefore will he wait, that he may be gracious unto you” (Isaiah 30:18).  Charles Bridges wrote:  “He waits – not because he is reluctant to give, but that we may be fitted to receive.”  The Lord knows just how to time the gift of His comfort.  You may think He is just wearing you down, when He is really stretching your capacity to endure.  By withholding relief, He is really strengthening you.  It works like that in physical exercise.  You strengthen your muscles by working them to the point of muscle failure. 

Are your eyes failing after the comfort of God’s word?  If so, you are likely nearing the point when the light will break forth and you will find the comfort that will turn your night to day, your mourning into dancing, and your heaviness into praise. 

Psalm 119:81

The next octave of Psalm 119 that we meet is entitled Caph.  Caph is pronounced like the first syllable of coffee or like the word cough, if you are from the Midwest.  As we go through this octave, I’ll see what I can caph up for you.  Oooooh!  That was bad!  But at least I try.

As we have gone through the octaves we have noted that some of them bear a distinguishing characteristic.  Unlike some of the other octaves, the verses that comprise this one connect with one another to form an overall theme.  Following is Charles Spurgeon’s summation of this octave, which I find quite interesting:

“This portion of the gigantic psalm sees the Psalmist in extremis.  His enemies have brought him to the lowest condition of anguish and depression; yet he is faithful to the law and trustful in his God.  This octave is the midnight of the psalm, and very dark and black it is.  Stars, however, shine out, and the last verse gives promise of the dawn.  The strain will after this become more cheerful; but meanwhile it should minister comfort to us to see so eminent a servant of God so hardly used by the ungodly:  evidently in our own persecutions, no strange thing has happened unto us.” 

With this we come now to consider the first verse of the octave.

Psalms 119:81  ¶CAPH. My soul fainteth for thy salvation: but I hope in thy word.

Now let’s define the word faint so that we understand what the psalmist was experiencing.

Faint - To lose heart or courage, be afraid, become depressed, give way, flag.

First note that the soul of the psalmist was fainting for God’s salvation.  He did not want any deliverance other than that which the Lord would give in His time and way.  We must ever guard against wanting deliverance so desperately that we will take it any way we can get it.  This can open us up to Satan’s devices.  Not every way out of a difficulty is a good way.

But the salvation of the Lord was apparently delayed in coming.  In fact, it was so long in coming that the psalmist was fainting for it.  The delay was wearing him down so that he was losing heart and becoming depressed. 

However, the psalmist may have been cast down in his soul, but he was not destroyed (2Corinthians 4:9).  There was something else at work in the psalmist to counteract his fainting fit and that was hope in thy word.  He believed the promises of salvation in the word of God and expected their fulfillment in due time.  The deliverance might be long delayed, but it would certainly come.  The psalmist could count on it.

Habakkuk 2:3  For the vision is yet for an appointed time, but at the end it shall speak, and not lie: though it tarry, wait for it; because it will surely come, it will not tarry.

I refer again to the words of Charles Spurgeon commenting on this verse: 

“To faint for salvation, and to be kept from utterly failing by the hope of it, is the frequent experience of the Christian man.  We are ‘faint yet pursuing.’  Hope sustains when desire exhausts.”

Our complete and ultimate salvation will be brought to us at the second coming of our Lord Jesus Christ when He shall redeem our bodies from the present bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God.

Hebrews 9:27  And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment:

28  So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many; and unto them that look for him shall he appear the second time without sin unto salvation.

Romans 8:21  Because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God.

22  For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now.

23  And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body.

24  For we are saved by hope: but hope that is seen is not hope: for what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for?

25  But if we hope for that we see not, then do we with patience wait for it.

Sometimes this bondage of corruption presses us to the point of fainting, but we are saved from collapsing under the weight of it by our hope in the promised coming of our Redeemer.  And thus our fainting souls sigh in the hope:  “Even so, come, Lord Jesus” (Revelation 22:20).