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).