Let my cry come near before thee, O LORD:
Give me understanding according to thy word.
Let my supplication come before thee:
Deliver me according to thy word (Psa 119.169-170).
This verse begins the last of 22 eight-verse sections in Psalm 119’s 176 verses, with the verses of each section all beginning with the same letter, the next in the Hebrew alphabet, here, “tau” or “taw.” Besides being stylistically elegant, this arrangement facilitated memorization and meditation upon the text. While an English translation loses the alliteration advantage, one could choose to memorize a good rhyming version like the Scottish Metrical Psalter (1650) which is extremely accurate, or the Trinity Psalter (1994, Crown and Covenant Publications), modern and also very good. These have the advantage of being set to music, and singing can be a great help to memorization. I say to my middle-aged and older friends, isn’t it amazing how you can still remember the lyrics of songs you heard on the radio forty or more years ago?
As an example, the Trinity Psalter suggests the familiar tune, “He Leadeth Me,” for verses 169 ff.:
Before You let my cry come near,
O LORD; true to Your word teach me.
Before You let my pleading come;
True to Your promise rescue me (vv. 169-170).
Of course God originally intended these Psalms to be sung, and so the restoration of Psalm singing to many churches and families in our own generation should be lauded.1
Once again David lets us hear his heart’s dealings with God and calls us by example to join him in his worshipful prayer.
HIS EARNEST AND URGENT CRY
A “cry” can indicate different things depending on the context, both in English and in Hebrew. Here the original word means a “ringing cry” of lamentation, though in other places it can mean a joyful cry or shout.2 Its usage here connotes a sense of desperate need, with earnestness and urgency predominant. Imagine someone trapped in the jammed elevator of a burning building pounding on the doors and shouting to potential rescuers.
A sense of real and imminent danger, along with hope of rescue, inspires such heartfelt pleas. That potential ruin of some kind was David’s real concern is clear from the next verse, when he prayed, “deliver me,” or, “rescue me” (v. 170 NLT).
What peril did David fear? While well-acquainted with physical danger from mortal enemies, he was less in danger that way at this point in his reign. Surely has in view especially his spiritual enemies, given the nature of the help he requests in line two. The world, the flesh, and the devil are perennial threats to all God’s children, and so this prayer is always necessary. Daily we should pray, “lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.”
Every sinner needs to be delivered by God from condemnation on account of his guilt by sin, so this desperate plea is not only for Christians. Every gospel hearer should seek the Lord while he may be found, and call upon him while he is near. And let each contrite soul be assured that sincerely calling upon Christ for salvation has heaven’s promise. The LORD will have mercy upon him, and our God will abundantly pardon (Isa 55.6-7).
But David is a forgiven believer in this urgent plea, and nothing less than a chronic sense of his vulnerability to sinning with its attendant miseries motivates him to keep on praying, to keep up his daily and earnest supplications to the Lord. David illustrates the normal course of a true Christian in contrast with mere pretenders.
Jonathan Edwards noted this in two penetrating pulpit addresses entitled, “Hypocrites Deficient in the Duty of Prayer” (1740). He wrote,
When a hypocrite hath had his false conversion, his wants are in his sense of things already supplied, his desires are already answered; and so he finds no further business at the throne of grace. He never was sensible that he had any other needs, but a need of being safe from hell. And now that he is converted, as he thinks, that need is supplied. Why then should he still go on to resort to the throne of grace with earnest requests? He is out of danger. All that he was afraid of is removed. He hath got enough to carry him to heaven, and what more should he desire? . . . But it is far otherwise with the true convert. His work is not done; but he finds still a great work to do, and great wants to be supplied. He sees himself still to be a poor, empty, helpless creature, and that he still stands in great and continual need of God’s help. He is sensible that without God he can do nothing.
So which does your prayer life more nearly resemble, the humble, needy believer, or the smug, self-sufficient false convert?
David personifies his cry, as if it were a he, sent on a mission into the heavenly court, to make request of the sovereign Lord on David’s behalf. “Let my cry come near before thee, O LORD,” literally, “let my cry of lament (wailing) approach to the face of you, Yahweh.” “Be pleased to admit my petition-messenger into your very presence, not only to speak, but to receive with your pleasure the very things asked of you,” even as Esther humbly approached her lord with all proper awe of his sovereign power and a specific favor in mind (Esther 4.8, 11).
The true Christian has it so much better, for while holy reverence remains eminently appropriate in our approaches to God, in Christ “we have boldness and access with confidence through faith in him” (Eph 3.12). We are all like David’s beneficiary Mephibosheth, treated generously for Jonathan his father’s sake (2 Sam 9.6-7), whom David loved as his own soul.
Even so, the Christian can expect answered prayer for worthy requests as he asks them in Jesus’ name and for his glory, because the Father delights in his Son and therefore also in all who are in Christ by faith.
HIS WORTHY AND BENEFICIAL REQUEST
“Give me understanding according to thy word.” This is an understanding that is a special gift of God, not that generally possessed by all men; hence, the request. The original word means an ability to discern and distinguish things that differ, and to be able to comprehend with insight.4 Once again (cf. 119.27, 34, 73, 125, 144), David is seeking spiritual illumination by the grace of God, and for that knowledge which leads to holy living and ultimate salvation.
Our wretched pride stifles prayers like this, for we all have an innate and misguided sense of self-sufficiency, especially in spiritual things. It is a kind of miracle when anyone first starts to pay serious attention to the gospel of Jesus Christ with an intense desire to understand it. Everyone has their own notions about what God is like and assumes those notions are correct. People flatter themselves with confident expectations of going to heaven, if there is a heaven. There are many who fancy themselves ethical experts, and some are university professors, who cannot even recite the Ten Commandments.
Again the psalmist mentions Scripture by using one of Psalm 119’s eight terms, here, as God’s “word,” his verbal speech. It is not easy to tell the exact connection. Spurgeon interprets with an inclusive approach and adds some excellent comments:
He desires spiritual light and understanding as it is promised in God’s word, as it proceeds from God’s word, and as it produces obedience to God’s word. He pleads as though he had no understanding whatever of his own, and asks to have one given to him. “Give me understanding.” In truth, he had an understanding according to the judgment of men, but what he sought was an understanding according to God’s word, which is quite another thing. To understand spiritual things is the gift of God. To have a judgment enlightened by heavenly light and conformed to divine truth is a privilege which only grace can give. Many a man who is accounted wise after the manner of this world is a fool according to the word of the Lord. May we be among those happy children who shall all be taught of the Lord.5
When Christians, conscious of our natural ignorance and folly, earnestly seek that heavenly wisdom by prayer which teaches us how to walk with God in our daily lives, we are bound to make progress. “If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him” (Jas 1.5). Ask in faith that you may receive! Amen.
Notes:
1 The old blue Trinity Hymnal lacks a traditional Psalter with all verses but represents all 150 Psalms.
2 BDB
3 Lexham Hebrew-English Interlinear Bible.
4 CHALOT, in loc.
5 Treasury of David, in loc.