A Response to Severe Chastening

This introduction resembles the previous two psalms. It belonged in the collection of psalms for use in regular temple worship, was accompanied by string instruments – like guitars and harps, and was written by David, God’s chosen king, from whom would become our ultimate king, Jesus Christ.

There’s unique detail here though, that it was to be played “on the eighth.” We’re not sure what this means. Some suggest it was to be played on an eight-string instrument, the eighth string of an instrument, or an eight-note scale. Others that it was to be played – by extension – on a lower note range or register and to be sung by a lower, male voice. A lower or more isolated sound would have certainly been appropriate for this song because apart from the final few lines, this is a sad song not a happy one.

This psalm is the first (technical term) penitential psalm, in which the writer confesses his sin and asks forgiveness and mercy from God. The other such psalms are Psa 32, 38, 51, 102, 130, and 143, with Psa 51 being most well-known. What’s fascinating about this psalm is that unlike Psa 51, when David confessed his sins of adultery and conspiring to murder, he doesn’t reveal the details of his sin. He focuses instead on the degree of his suffering and his humble reliance on God.

Since David doesn’t mention a sin, it’s tempting to view this as a psalm about intense illness or suffering in general, whether physical or emotional or both. Yet that sin and personal spiritual failure was somehow a part of the situation seems most likely because of David’s opening use of words like anger or rage and punish or discipline.

It seems that David was aware at the very least of some sinful weaknesses in his life for which God was disciplining him. Sometimes God allows suffering into our lives because we’ve sinned and refuse to repent. Other times he allows suffering to help us overcome more stubborn sinful tendencies.

So, this psalm teaches us that sometimes God allows intense suffering, even at the hands of ungodly people, to bring about godly change in our lives.

Chastening is an experience that does occur for believers. Heb 12:5-7 tells us so:

You have forgotten the exhortation which speaks to you as to sons: “My son, do not despise the chastening of the LORD, nor be discouraged when you are rebuked by him; for whom Yahweh loves he chastens, and scourges every son whom he receives.” If you endure chastening, God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom a father does not chasten?

Chastening refers to how God brings about increased Christlikeness in our lives by allowing or causing certain consequences and circumstances that relate to our sinful choices or tendencies which must change. Though we prefer to believe that we can change and become more like Christ through Bible study, prayer, and positive experiences alone, this simplistic, Pollyannish fails to recognize the depth and seriousness of our sin.

It’s helpful to point out that not all suffering is chastening. Sometimes suffering occurs because we live in a cursed, fallen world permeated by death and decay. But sometimes suffering is chastening. To know the difference, we should depend on God through prayer to reveal whether there is a known sin or sinful tendency in view (Psa 139-23-24)

Search me, O God, and know my heart; try me, and know my anxieties; and see if there is any wicked way in me and lead me in the way everlasting.

Sometimes the nature of our sin[fulness] is so bad that significant consequences, pain, or other kinds of suffering are required to bring about change. Psalm 6 brings this difficult reality into plain view as David responds to God’s chastening work in his own life.

Sometimes God chastens his children intensely. (v. 1-3)

Yahweh, do not – in your anger – punish me,

do not – in your rage – discipline me.

Have mercy on me, Yahweh, because I am exhausted;

heal me, Yahweh, because my bones are in agony.

My soul is in severe agony –

but you, Yahweh – how long?

It’s easy to slip into a self-centered mindset when we’re being chastened, asking questions like, “Why is this happening to me?” and “What did I do to deserve this?” You can sense such a tendency in this prayer. Even so, David focuses on Yahweh, whom he names four times in this opening section. He believed Yahweh had allowed his suffering for a corrective purpose and that it wasn’t some arbitrary experience due to chance or fate. He also believed that only God was able to reverse it and bring it to an end.

David also highlights a certain activity that Yahweh performs, which is chastening. Punish and discipline refer to this activity. For some unstated reason, David was experiencing chastening from God.

Anger and rage show that David did not want the intensity of God’s chastening to escalate any further. He wanted God to show compassion to him (“have mercy”) by bringing this chastening to a close and healing him from its painful and uncomfortable effects.

David was exhausted, weary, and faint from this chastening. He further described his exhaustion in both physical (bones) and nonphysical terms (soul). He endured pain and weakness (agony) from a physical standpoint but even greater (severe) pain and weakness from an emotional, mental, psychological, and spiritual standpoint (soul).

The well-known British preacher, Martyn Lloyd-Jones, was so aware of a similar sense of fatigue among the members of his church at the end of World War II that he preached a series of sermons on it called Spiritual Depression: Its Causes and Cure.

David did not question his need to be chastened or God’s right to chasten him. In fact, he even seems to have believed that God could have a just cause to be genuinely upset with him for some reason or another. Instead, he focused on the duration of this chastening by asking how much longer it would need to go on.

If the idea that God could be angry – even very angry – towards your sin bothers you, then you do not have an accurate view of sin because all sin is monstrous and immeasurably offensive.

What sin or sinful tendency in your life do you tend to minimize? Will you repent from that sin or depend on God to change, or must he bring about intense chastening to accomplish that change in your life? Sometimes God allows intense suffering, even at the hands of ungodly people, to bring about godly change in our lives in areas of sin[fulness] which need transformation.

This chastening should produce greater praise. (v.4-5)

Turn back, Yahweh, set my soul free;

rescue me for the sake of your steadfast love.

For there is not – in death – remembrance of you;

in the underworld, who gives you praise?

Here David shifts his attention to two potential outcomes of his chastening. Which of these outcomes would occur depended on how God would respond to David’s prayer and whether he would reverse the course of David’s chastening.

David prayed for God to reverse his current suffering (turn back). He desired for his “soul” to be “set free” from whatever difficulties he was experiencing. He desired to be “rescued,” which indicates that he felt as though he would die if his chastening continued much longer. So, the two potential outcomes are to be rescued or to die and David knew he was unable to experience a positive outcome without God’s intervention.

Once again, David did not ask God to release him from suffering on the basis of his own good behavior or personal merit. He didn’t even ask for deliverance on the basis of God being a loving God.

Notice “for the sake of” rather than “because of.” “Steadfast love” here is chesed, which refers to God’s unconditional covenant loyalty to David. God had committed himself to David and his descendants, therefore God was committed to preserving David – even when he chastened him. If God did not rescue David from this chastening, then God’s own reliability would be called into question and his promises would not be fulfilled.

Regarding Option A, that he dies as a result of God’s chastening, David points out that when a person dies, he or she doesn’t “remember” God anymore. Remember does not mean to recall information from the past in an academic or intellectual sense, as when you recite a poem for speech class or memorize information for an exam. It refers to recalling something publicly like when you memorialize somebody with a statue or honor them by retelling their good behavior from the past.

David’s point is not that dead people lose their memory for eternity. His point is that (to quote an old proverb) “dead men tell no tales.” When a mob boss quotes this line, he means that killing a man will prevent him from telling incriminating secrets. But when David makes a similar claim, he means that a man who dies will be no longer able to sing God’s praises to those who are alive. Sheol (or underworld or netherworld) simply refers to the shadowy, veiled existence beyond the grave. There are no choirs in a cemetery.

By “remembering,” David envisioned God’s people gathering at the temple for worship and sharing public testimonies of God’s past blessings and mercies to his people both in past history as well as from their recent personal lives. So, David reveals a wholesome perspective on divine chastening here – that God chastens his children not to destroy them but to tune them into instruments of better praise.

Sometimes God allows intense suffering, even at the hands of ungodly people, to bring about godly change in our lives, change which results in praise to God through our lips and through our changes lives.

This chastening may come through personal adversaries. (v. 6-7)

I am weary with my groaning:

all night I drench my bed;

with my tears I soak my couch.

From sorrow my eye goes dark;

it grows weak because of all my foes.

Next, David transitions from the desired outcome of chastening – divine praise – to the possible and somewhat surprising means of God’s chastening – ungodly adversaries, people who wrongfully seek to hurt you. In fact, these are people who are quite effective at what they do, causing even the most secure individuals to wear down.

Here David refers once again to his physical and emotional condition. “I am weary” portrays a state of acute or severe fatigue in which everything you do is a struggle. When you become weary, like David, you struggle to find energy and motivation to do much of anything, much less to do it with enthusiasm. This is how David felt.

David had become so fatigued that he frequently groaned and sighed from distress and his night times were no different. He “drenched” (“flooded”) his bed with tears and soaked (“saturated”) his coach with them.

This description envisions the more comfortable, elevated, plush bed of a well-to-do person, not the floor mat of a poor person or the cot of a middle-class person. Even though David enjoyed a comfortable bed, he did not enjoy a good night’s sleep. He was so distressed it was though he flooded his mattress with tears. He was at a breaking point.

Sorrow refers to intense personal anxiety and frustration – vexation. It describes someone who is “beside themselves” with unsolvable internal anguish, pain, and tension. David had become so upset that “his eye was going dark.” This means his eyelids had become swollen and red due to excessive weeping, or that his eyesight was failing due to weeping, stress, and lack of sleep, or that his health was fading away, or all of these at once.

Is it possible that you are experiencing a similar struggle?

too worn out to go to church

too depressed to get the kids off to school

too weary to get out of bed and get dressed

too tired to clean the house

too exhausted to get into the car and go to work

Experiences like these are sometimes, not always, the result of chastening from God.

David focuses on the cause of his escalating duress – “all of his foes.” All reveals that David suffered incredible pressure, even physical illness, due to mistreatment from many people, not just one or two individuals. Foes refers to enemies, people who did not have David’s best interest in mind but his worst, instead. They wanted to hurt or destroy him.

At first this seems unusual, doesn’t it? David began this prayer by revealing Yahweh as the source of his chastening. Now he reveals his enemies as the source of his chastening. This is difficult for us to accept, isn’t it? When ungodly people are the source of our suffering, it’s easy for us to view ourselves as innocent martyrs who don’t deserve to be treated that way. Yet allows this very experience to bring about godly change in our live.

Somehow or another, God allows mistreatment from other people – even ungodly people – to chasten us and to tune us into instruments of greater praise. A wise and humble believer will take this to heart, as David did.

This chastening will result in personal deliverance. (v. 8-10)

Go away from me, all who do evil;

for Yahweh hears the sound of my weeping.

Yahweh hears my plea;

Yahweh will accept my prayer.

All my enemies will be disgraced and in severe agony;

they will turn back and be disgraced suddenly.

Before David finishes this prayer, he takes an abrupt turn. He shifts abruptly from expressions of agonizing pain to claims of confident expectation. He tells those who are causing his suffering to go away. Why? Because he is completely certain that Yahweh had heard his prayer.

That Yahweh had heard his prayer means something more definite than that he had heard the sounds of David’s prayer and thought about it. As David goes on to explain, he believed that Yahweh had listened to his prayer in such a way that he had “accepted” it, which means something like “picking up” or “taking” something.

To comprehend what this means, envision a television commercial or Facebook ad. We hear a lot of commercials and see a lot of ads, but we only respond to some of them by clicking on them or even buying the product or service. Like a Facebook ad, David was convinced God had not only seen or heard his prayer, but that he had also clicked on it and accepted the call to action (to use marketing terminology).

How had God decided to respond to David’s prayer? What would the outcome of his request turn out to be?

All (see the emphasis on all from before?) of David’s enemies would be “disgraced,” every last one of them.

Disgraced means to be humiliated, put to shame, and totally embarrassed by what they had done.

Severe agony repeats how David described his own personal turmoil at the beginning of this prayer. The irony here of course is that they had all conspired together to cause “severe agony” for David, but David’s lone prayer would turn out to cause “severe agony” for all of them instead.

Turn back repeats how David had asked Yahweh to “turn back” from his chastening, only here he reveals that this will occur by David’s enemies “turning back” from their mistreatment of him. Yahweh would turn them back in response to David’s prayer.

Disgraced suddenly repeats (therefore emphasizes) how his enemies would be totally embarrassed and humiliated by their treatment of him. Suddenly intensifies this emphasis by underlining how shocking and stunning this reversal will be for them.

So, our sovereign God is able to allow the mistreatment of his people by ungodly people to bring about godly change in our lives. At the same time, he will bring about just consequences for their ungodly behavior in the end.

As you consider this psalm, ask yourself how you may be suffering from the ungodly behavior of others. What ungodly behavior by others – whether in your family, community, workplace, school, or nation – is making your life more difficult? Causing pain, illness, fatigue, agony, and many tears?

Whatever the case may be for you, keep your focus squarely on Yahweh. Speak to him about your agony and ask him to relent. Let him bring about the godly change in your life, helping you to turn from and overcome sin[fulness] in your own life. Then because of such prayer, rise up with renewed confidence and hope that God will rescue you from your suffering and punish the ungodly in the end.

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