My soul melteth for heaviness: Strengthen thou me according unto thy word (Psa 119.28).
Real Christians are liable to the same kind of sorrows as unbelievers. The “happy-clappy religion” so popular today has denied this and fostered unrealistic expectations of Christian experience. What may surprise even sounder believers is that in some respects, real Christians are vulnerable to deeper griefs than the unconverted. Puritan Thomas Manton takes great pains to prove this in his sermon on our text:
God’s children oftentimes lie under the exercise of such deep and pressing sorrow as is not liable to happen to other people. . . . The reasons of the point are 1) their burdens are greater [e.g., temptation, desertion, chastening for sin], 2) they have a greater soul sensitivity than others [since they have a clearer spiritual understanding along with delicate and tender affections], and 3) they have greater expectations of blessing, and so they are more exercised about not enjoying it.1
This being the case, profound sadness and depression is definitely not a reliable sign that one is not truly saved, a thought that often plagues sincere believers during their lowest times, multiplying their griefs unnecessarily.
The psalmist’s candid testimony offers proof of and insight into the reality of Christian depression and its supports.
Pray for strength when overwhelmed with sorrow.
DARKNESS THAT CAN BE FELT
David describes his own “dark night of the soul.”2 The plague of darkness upon Egypt was a “darkness which may be felt . . . [even] a thick darkness” (Exod 10.21). Everyone goes through times of sadness and a general malaise, but this verse expresses something more severe.
“My soul melteth for heaviness.” “Soul” is a very near equivalent for the Hebrew word used here for the invisible part of man. Comparable biblical terms include heart, mind, and spirit.
Likewise, the Hebrew for “heaviness” is very well-rendered, as the original means “sorrow, anguish, and grief as an attitude or emotion, as the antithesis of joy.”3 Even today, when we speak of a heavy heart, we mean one who is sad, sorrowful, downcast, disconsolate, despondent, depressed, and the like.
The exact sense here of the original word for “melteth” is more difficult. It means, more precisely, “drip” or “drop,” and each of these is plausible in this context.
The first seems to refer to tears which drip from our eyes, with the thought that my very soul weeps (figuratively speaking) for the anguish it feels. The same Hebrew verb is used in Job 16.20, “mine eye poureth out tears unto God.” In this case it is an expressive way to convey the meaning of deep sadness.
The second possible interpretation seems to be the choice of the AV. “It refers to his languishing under the extremity of his sorrow; as an oily thing wastes away by dropping, so was his soul even dropping away.”4 Compare the similar expressions in Psa 107.26 and Psa 22.14 (prophesying of the experience of Jesus Christ in His passion). Perhaps this sense is to be preferred.
The solid strength of his constitution was turning to liquid as if molten by the furnace heat of his afflictions. Heaviness of heart is a killing thing, and when it abounds it threatens to turn life into a long death, in which a man seems to drop away in a perpetual drip of grief. Tears are the distillation of the heart; when a man weeps he wastes away his soul. Some of us know what great heaviness means, for we have been brought under its power again and again, and often have we felt ourselves to be poured out like water, and near to being like water spilt upon the ground, never again to be gathered up.5
In this passage even the great preacher, evangelist, pastor, and theologian, C. H. Spurgeon, confesses his own struggles with depression. He suffered throughout his life with gout, a contributing factor to his early death at 57 years old. Besides chronic illness, many other grievous things conspired to cast down the soul of this man. One particularly great calamity was the Surrey Hall incident early in his ministry (he was only 22 years old) in which seven people died and 28 were hospitalized with serious injuries when troublemakers, trying to disrupt the meeting of about 12,000 gathered to hear him preach, shouted “Fire! Fire!,” and panic ensued. Spurgeon
was totally undone and literally carried from the pulpit and taken to a friend’s house where he remained for several days in deep depression. He was so distressed he was unable to preach for several weeks and later said the experience was “sufficient to shatter my reason” and might have meant his ministry “was silenced for ever.” He remarked—“Perhaps never a soul went so near the burning furnace of insanity, and yet came away unharmed.” (At last he found comfort in the verse)—“Wherefore God hath highly exalted him, and given him a name that is above every name.” . . . until Spurgeon’s death, the specter of the calamity so brooded over him that a close friend and biographer surmised—“I cannot but think, from what I saw, that his comparatively early death might be in some measure due to the furnace of mental suffering he endured on and after that fearful night.”6
Countless experiences of overwhelming depression could be produced from the testimonies even of the choicest saints through the centuries. William Cowper, a great hymn writer, attempted suicide many times, and may have succeeded except for the close and tender pastoral care of John Newton, author of “Amazing Grace.”7
Let all this be a warning to us as counselors against judging the state of depressed people too harshly, and doing more harm than good. Also, let it encourage you who are suffering such soul-grief to maintain hope that you are truly saved.
PRAYER THAT SHOULD BE OFFERED
“Strengthen thou me according unto thy word.” The Hebrew verb basically denotes rising up from a prostrate position8 (same word in Psa 119.62; note its figurative usage in 119.38). Here its sense is figurative also and means to establish or strengthen the soul. This
word is frequently used in martial contexts. It refers to preparation for, engagement in, and victory in war. Sometimes, [it] connotes anticipated or realized victory.9
One of the most devastating effects of deep depression is that it debilitates one from exertion in responsibilities. What can a Christian do in those times? Do what the psalmist did here. Pray for God to raise up your soul according to His Word, that is, His promises to you in the covenant of grace, of which there are very many (e.g., Psa 27.14; Isa 40.31; Eph 3.16-19). And while you are suffering and waiting on the Lord, walk by faith and do your duty until He blesses you with a return of the more typical and joyful experience of true believers.
Fold the arms of thy faith I say, but not of thy action: bethink thee of something that thou oughtest to do, and go to do it, if it be but the sweeping of a room, or the preparing of a meal, or a visit to a friend. Heed not thy feelings: do thy work.10
While you may have to endure a long time in such a condition, the example of the psalmist remains your best course until God saves you from such a miserable state of mind. You must learn to pray in the dark if you would come into the light. The Lord give you grace to heed this divine counsel. Amen.
Notes:
1.Paraphrased from Works of Thomas Manton, VI.265-67.
2.This phrase, taken from writings of a mystic, is not intended to endorse its associated ideas.
3.Dictionary of Biblical Languages with Semantic Domains, #9342.
4.Manton, in loc.
5.Treasury of David, in loc.
6.The Anguish and Agonies of Charles Haddon Spurgeon by Darrel Amundsen, available at http://members.aol.com/pilgrimpub/agonies.htm
7.John Piper relates the story well in When the Darkness Will Not Lift (2006, Crossway Books) in chapter 6, “Loving Those Who Cannot See the Light” (highly recommended).
8.TWOT #1999.
9.Ibid.
10.Piper(p. 47), quoting George MacDonald.
All rights reserved.