Psalm 119:85

We are working our way through the octave of Psalm 119 entitled Caph.  In this octave the psalmist is obviously experiencing prolonged stress with no relief in sight.  In the foregoing verse we saw that the source of this stress was persecution.  In today’s verse we find the psalmist’s persecutors identified as the proud.

Psalms 119:85  The proud have digged pits for me, which are not after thy law.

In previous verses, which we have already considered, we saw the psalmist being troubled by the proud.  Recall that the proud are those that are so full of themselves that they defy Almighty God and His servants.  They will reject and resist anyone that crosses their will. 

The proud had had him “greatly in derision” (verse 51).  They mocked him.  They had “forged a lie against” him (verse 69).  They invented falsehoods against him.  And he wrote:  “they dealt perversely with me without a cause” (verse 78).  They did not treat him right.  Now we find the proud digged pits for him.

The proud were obviously out to get the psalmist.  Something about his life exposed them in such a way that they had to rid themselves of him.  So they digged pits for him.  They deliberately, with malice aforethought, devised ways to trap the psalmist.  And they didn’t just dig one pit; they digged pits, plural.  They made numerous and varied attempts to trap him, first digging a pit here and then another there thinking he would surely stumble into one of them.  This reminds us of the attempts made by the scribes and Pharisees to entrap our Lord in His words so they could have some cause against Him.    

Luke 11:53  And as he said these things unto them, the scribes and the Pharisees began to urge him vehemently, and to provoke him to speak of many things:

54    Laying wait for him, and seeking to catch something out of his mouth, that they might accuse him.

The pits that the proud digged for the psalmist were not after thy law.  God’s law warns us against devising evil against our neighbour.

Proverbs 3:29  Devise not evil against thy neighbour, seeing he dwelleth securely by thee.

God’s law commands us to love our neighbour as ourselves rather than trying to destroy him.  So any such pit as the proud were digging was not after God’s law. 

But, alas, the proud who dig pits for the righteous will themselves fall into the pits they have dug.  So that we may say, when you set out to destroy someone else who has done you no wrong, you are really digging your own grave.

Psalms 57:6  They have prepared a net for my steps; my soul is bowed down: they have digged a pit before me, into the midst whereof they are fallen themselves. Selah.

Proverbs 26:27  Whoso diggeth a pit shall fall therein: and he that rolleth a stone, it will return upon him.

In contrast to the pit-digging proud, let us rejoice with thanksgiving for our humble and lowly Saviour Who came into this world, not to dig a pit for us, but to deliver us from the pit.

Psalms 40:2  He brought me up also out of an horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock, and established my goings.

John 3:17  For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved.

Psalm 119:84

Have you ever encountered a stressful situation which seemed to drag on and on to the point that you wondered how long you were going to live with it?  In fact, you wondered how long you were going to live, period!  If so, you are in the company of the author of Psalm 119, for we find him wondering the same thing. 

Psalms 119:84  How many are the days of thy servant? when wilt thou execute judgment on them that persecute me?

As we have been noticing in this octave of Psalm 119, the psalmist was in a comfortless condition that was stretching out in front of him with no relief in sight.  From this passage we can deduce that prolonged persecution was the source of his stress.  As the persecution continued to wear him down, he became weary of life and, therefore, asked:  How many are the days of thy servant?  One’s life can become so distasteful that he begins to wish for it to end and to wonder how long it will be before it does.   

Job shared the sentiments of the psalmist as he too was the object of persecution, not only from the devil who was smiting him, but even from his friends.

Job 19:21  Have pity upon me, have pity upon me, O ye my friends; for the hand of God hath touched me.

22    Why do ye persecute me as God, and are not satisfied with my flesh?

Job suffered prolonged misery and could find no relief during the day or during the night.  Therefore, he longed to die and end his days on this earth.

Job 7:1  Is there not an appointed time to man upon earth? are not his days also like the days of an hireling?

2  As a servant earnestly desireth the shadow, and as an hireling looketh for the reward of his work:

3  So am I made to possess months of vanity, and wearisome nights are appointed to me.

4  When I lie down, I say, When shall I arise, and the night be gone? and I am full of tossings to and fro unto the dawning of the day.

13  When I say, My bed shall comfort me, my couch shall ease my complaint;

14  Then thou scarest me with dreams, and terrifiest me through visions:

15  So that my soul chooseth strangling, and death rather than my life.

16  I loathe it; I would not live alway: let me alone; for my days are vanity.

Now the psalmist posed this question to his God:  when wilt thou execute judgment on them that persecute me?  That God will execute judgment on the persecutors of His people is a given.

Psalms 7:11  God judgeth the righteous, and God is angry with the wicked every day.

12  If he turn not, he will whet his sword; he hath bent his bow, and made it ready.

13  He hath also prepared for him the instruments of death; he ordaineth his arrows against the persecutors.

When God will execute this judgment is the question.  Of course, God will ultimately execute judgment on our enemies at the second coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.

2 Thessalonians 1:6  Seeing it is a righteous thing with God to recompense tribulation to them that trouble you;

7  And to you who are troubled rest with us, when the Lord Jesus shall be revealed from heaven with his mighty angels,

8  In flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ:

9  Who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power…. 

However, history is replete with examples of the Lord executing judgment on the persecutors of His people during their lifetime on earth.  Consider the judgments executed on the Egyptians who refused to let Israel go.  Did not the Lord execute judgment on Saul who persecuted David?  And don’t forget the judgment executed on the Assyrians who besieged Jerusalem in the days of Hezekiah, when an angel of the Lord smote 185,000 Assyrians in a night.  These are to name but a few.  With such precedents before us, we are encouraged to ask the Lord when He will execute judgment on our enemies and bring our trouble to an end. 

So the limited time the psalmist had on this earth was running out and what days he had were being spent being mistreated by his enemies.  But the silver lining in this grey cloud is the fact that the psalmist did not avenge himself.  He could have reasoned that since his days on earth were numbered, he might as well take matters in his own hands and secure his own relief so that he might pass the rest of his days in ease.  Instead, he brought his concerns to God appealing to Him as the One Who could resolve them.  Charles Bridges sums it up beautifully:

“Your trial has done its appointed work, when it has brought you to him; and inclined you, after your blessed Master’s example, instead of taking the vengeance into your own hands, to commit yourself and your cause ‘to him that judgeth rightouesly’” (1Peter 2:23).  

 

Psalm 119:83

We are working our way through the octave of Psalm 119 entitled Caph.  Today’s verse connects with the previous verse by the word for.  In the previous verse the psalmist was in a low and dark condition of soul.  His eyes were failing for the comfort of God’s word wondering when it would come.  Now the psalmist gives a graphic description of himself in this comfortless state:

Psalms 119:83  For I am become like a bottle in the smoke; yet do I not forget thy statutes.

In Bible times animal skins were used to make bottles.  Therefore, such a bottle in the smoke would have been charred, dried, and shriveled up.  This is how the psalmist felt.  David experienced this same dismal frame of mind when he wrote:  “I am forgotten as a dead man out of mind: I am like a broken vessel” (PSA 31:12).  Or we hear the lament of the author of Psalm 102 pouring out a similar complaint: 

Psalms 102:3  For my days are consumed like smoke, and my bones are burned as an hearth.

And it is not out of the question that his comfortless soul was affecting his body so that he appeared withered physically.

Proverbs 17:22  A merry heart doeth good like a medicine: but a broken spirit drieth the bones. 

The prophet Job took on a charred aspect as he underwent his afflictions:

Job 30:30  My skin is black upon me, and my bones are burned with heat.

But even if you aren’t physically withered, if you are as I, you have times when you feel withered under the weight of stress with no comfort in sight.  Charles Spurgeon eloquently expressed this:

“Some of us know the inner meaning of this simile, for we, too, have felt dingy, mean, and worthless, only fit to be cast away.  Very black and hot has been the smoke which has enveloped us; it seemed to come not alone from the Egyptian furnace, but from the bottomless pit; and it had a clinging power which made the soot of it fasten upon us and blacken us with miserable thoughts.” 

Although the psalmist felt so utterly miserable, he still remembered his Bible:  yet do I not forget thy statutes.  No matter what condition the psalmist found himself in, he always referred it to the Scriptures.  He brought everything before the word of God.  It was indeed his court of appeal in every situation.  I cannot improve upon Matthew Henry’s comment on this point:

"We must in every condition, both prosperous and adverse, have the things of God in remembrance; and, if we be mindful of God’s statutes, we may pray and hope that he will be mindful of our sorrows, though for a time he seems to forget us.”