They draw nigh that follow after mischief:
They are far from thy law.
Thou art near, O LORD;
And all thy commandments are truth (Psa 119.150-51).

Each afternoon during my first year of elementary school, I had to walk a couple of blocks home. While I cannot recall the specifics, some older boys began to bully me between the school and my house. I felt traumatized to some degree until my friend Kenny, older and stronger than the bullies, began to accompany me each day on that walk. Nothing bad ever happened when Kenny was with me. And so even though I knew the bullies were never far away, as long as I had Kenny right by my side, my heart was at peace.

The psalmist was aware that serious danger to his body and soul was right at hand. This was a great temptation to fear, and no doubt induced some fear, even in this great man of God. Courage is not the absence of fear but the strength to do the right thing in spite of it.

Our text includes the psalmist’s prayerful confession of his belief in the Lord’s loving and protective presence, and it is obvious that this faith became an instrument of deep comfort.

In another place, the psalmist plainly admits his fear and his recourse in it:

Be merciful unto me, O God: for man would swallow me up; he fighting daily oppresseth me. Mine enemies would daily swallow me up: for they be many that fight against me, O thou most High. What time I am afraid, I will trust in thee (Psa 56.1-3, emphasis mine).

This is not a psychological trick based on wishful thinking, but an adjustment of the pious heart toward the reality of safety and salvation based upon God’s eternal covenant of grace with his people. When we find ourselves in the grip of fear and discouragement, we may have overestimated the danger, but if not, we have certainly underestimated the Deliverer, our Lord and Savior, in his love, power, and nearness to us in our time of trouble.

When the King of Syria, Israel’s mortal enemy, sent to horses and chariots and a great host to arrest Elisha the prophet for relaying messages from God that had helped the Israelites resist their enemies, Elisha remained perfectly calm. One morning in Dothan, Elisha’s servant had arisen early and beheld the mighty army surrounding the city. He saw the trouble, but that was all that he saw, and so he was in a great panic. “Alas, my master! How shall we do?” (2 Kgs 6.15). Alternate renderings include, “Alas, alas, alas, my lord, what shall we do?” and “We are doomed, sir! What shall we do?” Elisha’s answer was classic.

And he answered, Fear not: for they that be with us are more than they that be with them. And Elisha prayed, and said, LORD, I pray thee, open his eyes, that he may see. And the LORD opened the eyes of the young man; and he saw: and, behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha (2 Kgs 6.16-17).

These were not imaginary, or existing only subjectively for those who believe, but ordinarily invisible spiritual forces, far superior to any human army, arrayed at God’s command to oppose the enemies of his church. The rest of the story details the Lord’s triumph in royal style over the Syrians, using his confident servant Elisha. He was not afraid because he knew by faith that God was nearer than his enemies.

Christians are always surrounded by enemies, even in those times and places when there is little threat to our physical safety. Until the Lord returns at last there will always be spiritual dangers at hand, the seduction of antichrists who would lure us away from Christ, out of the church and back into the world. To comfort his dearly beloved fellow Christians, John may have been thinking about Elisha’s counsel while writing these words, “Ye are of God, little children, and have overcome them: because greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world” (1 John 4.4).

These two verses in Psalm 119 use spatial language to describe the psalmist’s enemies and his God. David says, in effect, “Yes, my enemies are drawing near, but my Lord is nearer still, for my safety, according to his promises.”

MY ENEMIES’ THREAT AND CHARACTER (v. 150)

The godly man does not live in denial of any clear and present danger. Rather, he takes it before the Lord in prayer for deliverance from it. Without naming them, David simply refers to his enemies in third person pronouns, making this prayer of general use to the whole church. “They draw nigh” to me, is the sense, and this movement is, in itself, most menacing. “They are coming to get me.” It was not paranoid to say this, since it was true. He characterizes them as those who “follow after mischief.” They are not only engaged in hot pursuit of God’s people, but also of carrying out a wicked plan against them, as the noun signifies. Another translation gives, “My pursuers are coming closer to their wicked designs.”

What kind of people would do such a thing? Only those “that are far from thy [God’s] law,” that is, Holy Scripture with its righteous standard. Unbelief inspires hatred for God’s people, and vice versa, in a vicious cycle. The original rebel Satan recruits multitudes in the battle against believers. One’s vertical relationship determines the nature of his horizontal ones. Those who hate God persecute the godly; those who love God identify with them, and serve them.

There seems to be a play on words which is brought out more strikingly in a modern paraphrase: “As those out to get me come closer and closer, they go farther and farther from the truth you reveal.” Except God graciously intervenes, the ever-hardening sinner is being sucked into a vortex of increasing malice against Christians and apostasy from Christ. This is not only a horrible prelude to judgment for the sinner, but it constitutes a real threat to the church worldwide.

MY LORD’S PRESENCE AND PROMISE (v. 151)

This verse seems to continue the wordplay and so is a deliberate complement to the previous one. Consider the suggestion of the Hebrew parallelism in these four lines, in which the psalmist raises:

Line 1: My enemies’ relationship to me (drawing near).
Line 2: Their relationship to God’s Word (far away).
Line 3: God’s relationship to me (already near).
Line 4: God’s relationship to his Word (true like him).

“Thou art near, O LORD,” that is, near to me, the psalmist means. Even though his relationship with the Lord is expressed using spatial language, this is, of course, metaphorical. God is omnipresent—present everywhere at the same time. And as God is “without body, parts, or passions,”¹ he is altogether present everywhere at the same time; there is not more of him in one place than at any other. Remember, too, that God is wholly non-physical, and “a most pure Spirit.”² To take this language about God’s being “near” in a literal and physical sense is superstitious, and to turn him into a mere idol.

No, this confession of the Lord’s nearness is an expression of confidence that God is favorable toward the psalmist and ready to act—nay, acting—on his behalf and in his best interests. It is David’s assurance of protection with God, as Matthew Henry says,

“They draw nigh to destroy me, but thou art near, O Lord! to save me, not only mightier than they and therefore able to help me against them, but nearer than they and therefore ready to help.” It is the happiness of the saints that, when trouble is near, God is near, and no trouble can separate between them and him. He is never far to seek, but he is within our call, and means are within his call, Deut 4.7.

And Calvin likewise observes,

He encourages himself from the consolatory consideration, that God, when he sees his own people sore pressed, comes forward seasonably to afford them succor; even as Paul on this subject says, (Phil 4.5,) “Be not over-careful, the Lord is at hand, let your moderation be known to all men.”

How could David speak so confidently of this divine protection? Only because it was guaranteed to him by the promise of him who cannot lie! “All thy commandments are truth”—not just true, but truth itself, a most solid bedrock for knowing we shall be saved. Holy Scripture is “true truth,” an absolutely reliable declaration of God and his ways.

If a six-year-old boy could feel safe because his eight-year-old buddy walked him home from school, how much more comfort should God’s people derive from knowing, absolutely for sure, that he is with us, even as enemies draw near, to protect and deliver us from any ultimate harm. “There shall not an hair of your head perish” (Luke 21.18). As a real Christian, you have God’s word on it! Amen.

Notes:

1 1689 LBCF II.l.
2 Ibid.