Up From The Pit (Psalm 40)

Psalm 40

Up from the Pit

I waited patiently for the Lord;

he turned to me and heard my cry.

He lifted me out of the slimy pit,

out of the mud and mire;

he set my feet on a rock

and gave me a firm place to stand.

He put a new song in my mouth,

a hymn of praise to our God.

Many will see and fear

and put their trust in the Lord.

Blessed is the man

who makes the Lord his trust.

verses 1–4

Yet I am poor and needy;

may the Lord think of me.

You are my help and my deliverer;

O my God, do not delay.

verse 17

There are portions of Scripture that need substantial introductions, because they are not well known, and there are sections that need very little introduction, because they are. Psalm 40 is in the second category. It tells of a man who was stuck in a slimy pit, bogged down in mud and mire, but then was rescued by God, who set his feet on a rock and gave him a firm place to stand. That man was King David.

Perhaps that is the most important thing to say at the beginning of this study. I remind you that David was the beloved king of Israel, who reigned powerfully and well for forty years. He was installed, blessed, and approved by God, who called him “a man after his own heart” (1 Sam. 13:14). David was nearly always in close fellowship with God, and he wrote almost half of the psalms. By his writings and by his common speech he regularly and faithfully proclaimed the grace of God to others. Yet in Psalm 40 he describes himself as having been mired down in a pit from which he was unable to escape.

So I begin with the truth that muddy times may be the experience even of the greatest saints and slimy pits the lot even of kings and preachers.

Is this a messianic psalm? Saint Augustine, Charles Haddon Spurgeon, William L. Pettingill, and Harry A. Ironside thought so, in large part because verses 6 and 7 are applied to Jesus Christ in the New Testament. But this is an unnecessary and misleading assumption for the psalm as a whole. The mere fact that the psalmist confesses his sin in verse 12 warns us against applying everything in the psalm to Jesus Christ.

A more interesting question concerns the relation of this psalm to Psalm 70, which is an almost exact repetition of verses 13–17. A number of scholars, particularly those of the critical school, think that Psalm 40 was originally two psalms, verses 1–12 being the first and verses 13–17 being the second, and that they were put together somewhat awkwardly by an unknown editor. They think it awkward, because the first part speaks of deliverance from the pit and the second part is still seeking a deliverance. Such a combination of apparently diverse ideas is not strange to the psalms, however. It is equally possible—I believe this is actually the case—that Psalm 70 was detached from the longer psalm in order to salvage it for general use in a later period. The placing of the two psalms in the Psalter, the first in an early section among the many psalms of David and the second in a later, somewhat more eclectic section, may point in this direction.

Psalm 40 has three clear sections: an opening joyful testimony of God’s past deliverance (vv. 1–3); a present reflection on God’s goodness (vv. 4–10); and a prayer for God’s deliverance in the future (vv. 11–17). The tone is established in the last verse, which is presented to us as a poor man’s cry to God for God’s help.

A Joyful Testimony

In the thirty-eighth chapter of Jeremiah there is a well-known incident in which Jeremiah is thrown into a cistern because of his unpopular prophecies about the fall of Jerusalem to the Babylonians. It is a grim story. The cistern was empty of water, or Jeremiah would have drowned. But the bottom was filled with the accumulated mud of centuries so that Jeremiah sank down into it, into the “mud and mire.” He would have perished there if a foreigner from Cush named Ebed-Melech had not interceded for him with the king, who instructed the friendly Cushite to take thirty men and draw Jeremiah out of the cistern with ropes (Jer. 38:1–13).

Jeremiah was placed in the mud and mire of a pit quite literally, but there is no reason to think of the words pit, mud, and mire as anything more than metaphors in Psalm 40. We do not know what David was describing in this way, but it must picture a period in his life in which circumstances had trapped him so that he was unable, as we might say, to free himself.

It is good that we do not know the literal meaning of this pit, because we can the more easily see our own slimy pits in David’s reference. What is your slimy pit? I do not know the answer to that question. You will have to answer it for yourself. But I can think of a number of possible examples.

The pit of sin. Some people are caught in the mud and mire of sin. David himself was an example of this at one point in his life, although we do not know whether this is what he was describing in Psalm 40. He began his descent into this pit by staying home from battle in the season when kings were supposed to be at war. While enjoying himself in Jerusalem, he saw a woman named Bathsheba bathing herself on the roof of a home close to the palace. He asked about her and learned that she was married to a soldier named Uriah. In spite of that, David brought her to the palace, slept with her, and then, when he learned she was pregnant, arranged to have Uriah abandoned in battle so that he was killed by enemy soldiers. David continued nearly a year in this condition. The story is in 2 Samuel 11.

Maybe you are caught in just such a sin. Perhaps one sin has led to another. You know what is happening, but you can’t get out of it. That is no surprise. Sin is like that. Romans 1 describes the downward pull of sin on all people. When you are caught in this way, there is no point beyond which you may not go. You need help. Where is your help to come from if not from God?

The pit of defeat. Some people have a very different kind of pit from which they need to be lifted. It is the pit of personal defeat, whether at work or school or in the home or in some other setting or relationship. Some people would say that their entire lives have been one long and unending defeat. They have never succeeded at anything.

I do not know the answer in your specific case, of course. And I do not want to trivialize your discouragement or make light of it. But I can tell you this. God does have things he wants you to succeed at, and he will enable you to succeed at those, even though they may be different from what you are doing now. The place to begin is where David began. He began by laying his problem before the Lord. I repeat that I do not know what David was referring to by his metaphor of the pit, but there was a time early in his life when he could have spoken very graphically of his defeats. No matter what he did he was unable to please King Saul, and Saul in his hatred and jealousy of David ruthlessly hounded the young man from place to place. It was many years before the Lord intervened to remove Saul and eventually bring David to the throne. If you are defeated, bring your defeats to God. Wait on God. David “waited patiently for the Lord.” That is how Psalm 40 begins (v. 1). If you wait patiently, you too will learn that God has important things for you to do, and he will give you significant victories in his own perfect time.

The pit of bad habits. Other people are stuck in a pit of bad habits. Some of these habits are terribly destructive, like addictive drugs. Others are merely harmful, like an uncontrolled temper, patterns of self-pity, laziness, or overeating. Bad habits can be broken. New habits can take their place. But where are you going to learn these new habits? The best place is from God, who has made you in his image and wants to develop you into the fullness of the character of Jesus Christ. If that is to happen, you must turn to him and seek his help.

The pit of circumstances. The last example of a slimy pit that I think of here is circumstances, like the pattern of severe trials the apostle Paul mentions in 1 and 2 Corinthians. These were not sin, or defeats necessarily, or even the result of bad habits. Just the opposite was true. Paul had been persecuted because of his stand for Jesus Christ.

Nevertheless, as he says,

Five times I received from the Jews the forty lashes minus one. Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned, three times I was shipwrecked, I spent a night and a day in the open sea, I have been constantly on the move. I have been in danger from rivers, in danger from bandits, in danger from my own countrymen, in danger from Gentiles; in danger in the city, in danger in the country, in danger at sea; and in danger from false brothers. I have labored and toiled and have often gone without sleep; I have known hunger and thirst and have often gone without food; I have been cold and naked. Besides everything else, I face daily the pressure of my concern for all the churches (2 Cor. 11:24–28; cf. 1 Cor. 4:9–13; 2 Cor. 6:4–10).

Circumstances like those could be a pit for anyone. Yet Paul sought help from God, and God answered. Though he did not change the circumstances, he did help Paul, so that he was able to say, “We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed” (2 Cor. 4:8–9).

David’s testimony in respect to his own difficult and seemingly hopeless circumstances is that God heard him and helped him step by step. It is what verses 1–3 are all about. He says that God did five things: God turned to him, noticing his plight, God heard his cry, God lifted him out of the pit, God set his feet on a rock, giving him a firm place to stand, and God placed a new song of praise in his mouth.

Reflection on God’s Past Goodness

It is a characteristic of the psalms, particularly those of David, that they frequently first tell of the writer’s personal experience of God’s goodness and then reflect on that goodness, commending it to others. This is what the second section of Psalm 40 does (vv. 4–10). There are three aspects to this reflection.

A recommendation of his own trust in God to other people (vv. 4–5). This section begins with a beatitude reminiscent of Psalm 1.

Blessed is the man

who makes the Lord his trust,

who does not look to the proud,

to those who turn aside to false gods.

Why is the person who trusts God a blessed person? The answer is in the next verse, which reminds us that God has done great things for his people in the past and assures us, because his character has not changed, that God has many more similarly good things planned for those who trust him today. To experience these good things you must trust him. Or, to use the metaphor that was used a few psalms earlier, you must “taste and see that the Lord is good” (Ps. 34:8). It is possible that someone could invite you to the most magnificent banquet in all the world. But you would never know how good the food was unless you tasted it. It is the same with God’s goodness. Until you trust God, you will never know how good his goodness is.

A statement about the proper relationship of the trusting person to God (vv. 6–8). What is the right relationship of a person to God? It is not something that is established through mere ceremony but is rather the expression of a fully surrendered heart. In these verses David reiterates an important biblical principle: obedience takes precedence over sacrifice (cf. 1 Sam. 15:22; Isa. 1:10–17; Jer. 7:21–26; Hosea 6:6; Micah 6:6–8). The words are well known because of being applied to Jesus in Hebrews 10:5–10.

Sacrifice and offering you did not desire,

but my ears you have pierced;

burnt offerings and sin offerings

you did not require.

Then I said, “Here I am, I have come—

it is written about me in the scroll.

I desire to do your will, O my God;

your law is within my heart” (Ps. 40:6–8).

Verse 6 is a puzzling verse, which may explain the paraphrase found in the Septuagint. There are various ways of translating it. The word rendered “pierced” literally means “dug.” But because it can also mean “pierced,” many of the older commentators understood it to refer to the ceremony by which a slave could declare his desire to remain with his master permanently, as described in Exodus 21:1–6. If a slave had a good master and wanted to remain with him even after the legal six-year term of his slavery, the master was to take him to the judges where he would declare this intention. Then one of his ears would be pierced with an awl, indicating that he had become a servant for life.

The meaning of this ceremony certainly fits the context of Psalm 40. It would be an illustration of the nature of willing obedience and service. But there is a problem. The problem is that in this ceremony only one ear was pierced, and here the word is plural, ears rather than ear. The disparity is just enough to make us question the traditional understanding of the passage.

Today almost all commentators consider the word dug to mean “dug (or opened) up.” Obviously, this fits the context too, particularly since the passage goes on to talk about the scroll of God’s law and about the fact that its message is now written not only in the scroll, but in the psalmist’s heart.

Is there any better way to talk about the priority of obedience over sacrifice? I do not know of any. I do know that Jeremiah prophesied the coming of a new covenant, saying, “ ‘This is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after that time,’ declares the Lord. ‘I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people’ ” (Jer. 31:33). To Jeremiah, having the law in our hearts is a proper definition of what it means to be in a right relationship to God.

Jesus, too, had much to say about the heart, often stressing that the people’s hearts were calloused (cf. Matt. 13:15; Mark 7:6, 21). In regard to the law, Jesus said that the chief commandment is to “love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind” (Matt. 22:37).

How many people, even Christians, have plugged ears! Or to put it in other terms, how many hear with their ears only but do not hear with their hearts! They can’t hear anything anyone, even God, says to them. As a result they do not know the blessing of God this psalm speaks of, nor the deliverance from the pits of sin, defeat, bad habits, or circumstances.

A faithful testimony (vv. 9–10). Jesus said something else about the heart that parallels the next point of David’s testimony. He said, “For out of the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks” (Matt. 12:34). Do you ever wonder why the speech of some people is so vile? It is because their hearts are vile. They need to get their inner lives cleaned out; then their speech will follow. But it works the other way too, which is the point made here. If our hearts are open to God’s Word and are being cleansed and reformed by it, then our mouths will be speaking God’s words and will be praising him. This is the third part of David’s reflection on God’s goodness. He says,

I proclaim righteousness in the great assembly;

I do not seal my lips,

as you know, O Lord.

I do not hide your righteousness in my heart;

I speak of your faithfulness and salvation.

I do not conceal your love and your truth

from the great assembly (vv. 9–10).

Have you experienced the righteousness of God toward you through faith in Jesus Christ? Have you found the Lord faithful? Is his salvation good? Have you learned that he loves you, and have you discovered his truth in Scripture? To be a Christian is to have experienced exactly those things. But how can you have experienced them “in your heart” and yet fail to speak about them? If you are really aware of them, you will speak of them often, as David did.

A Prayer for Future Deliverance

The final section of this psalm is a prayer for future deliverance (vv. 11–17), which is particularly interesting in this context. David had been in a situation so hopeless that he could only adequately describe it as being in a slimy, muddy pit. He had waited for God, and God had delivered him, lifting him out of the pit and setting his feet on a rock. Yet now, even though he has been delivered from great trouble, as recounted in verses 1–3, Israel’s beloved king and poet still continues to have trouble and needs further help. In fact, as he writes about it, he knows that he is at least partly to blame since his “sins” have been part of the problem (v. 12). What poignant cries these are.

Do not withhold your mercy from me, O Lord.

For troubles without number surround me;

my sins have overtaken me, and I cannot see.

Be pleased, O Lord, to save me;

O Lord, come quickly to help me.

O my God, do not delay (vv. 11–13, 17).

It is a way of saying that life is one long trouble. Should we be surprised at this? Hardly! Ours is a sinful, evil world. Jesus said, “In this world you will have trouble.” But he added, “Take heart! I have overcome the world” (John 16:33).

That is worth remembering, isn’t it? Troubles, yes. Pessimism, no. There can be no pessimism for us, because Jesus has overcome the world and we are now destined to be more than conquerors in him. I think this is exactly what David felt as he got to the end of this psalm. He is asking God for help, but he is not discouraged. The tone is optimistic because of his former deliverance by God. And the ending ties in with the beginning in another way too. At the start he is waiting patiently for God. Here at the end he is still waiting, knowing that future deliverances will come.

“Poor and needy”? Yes, we will always be that. But we know that the Lord does think of us. We know that he is our help. We confess it: “You are my help and my deliverer.” We ask, “O my God, do not delay.”

James Montgomery Boice, Psalms 1–41: An Expositional Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Books, 2005), 346–353.