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How quick we are to call on friends. Yet we often drag our heels in calling on God in prayer. In this world, the hearts of saints are often weighed down by sorrow and stress. Yet in Psalm 62, the Spirit of Christ has furnished the church with a song and sigh for help. Its theme is one of the Reformation solas: By faith alone we walk the path to grief’s relief.
urgent trust
David in Psalm 62 urges trust on every Israelite. What had been a practical necessity for David himself, he now preaches to the church. His prayer began with lips tightly zipped (probably through fear of speaking ill-judged words that he might later regret): Having rolled his burden onto the Lord, he quietly waits for God’s response (vv. 1–2). Heat from Absalom’s insurrection had dissipated by the time that Jeduthun employed these lyrics in public worship. David had been blindsided by a heartbreaking insider’s assault. A cunning smear campaign had badly damaged his reputation. As is typical with wicked, ruthless enemies, when they saw a man in a weakened state, they rushed to give the prince a final push to knock him off his perch. Yet this cracked dam did not burst (vv. 3–4). Through faith, David, though badly shaken, was not greatly moved. In urging us to trust amid panic-inducing assaults, David informs God’s people that faith always works.
secure trust
No additional insurance policy is required if Yahweh is our confidence. When Saul breathed down his neck, David, God’s refugee, was never safer than when he was on the run to stony caves, clefts, or crags, for Yahweh was his Rock. Like one who peers down on vast enemy ranks from vertiginous peaks of Edom or the secure walls of Zion, the fugitive, though embattled and encircled, was safe in God’s impregnable safe house (vv. 2, 6–7). Trust in the Lord put Jesse’s son both out of sight and out of reach. Though all the other tribes had by then defected to his son Absalom and royal strategist Ahithophel had urged Absalom to take David out by night in a swift, surprise, precision strike, David stood back and watched the Lord providentially work an amazing deliverance: Hushai foiled the plot, and spies brought an intelligence report—David forded the Jordan and escaped to Gilead (2 Sam. 15:1–37; 16:14–17:24). Remember: If all earth makes threats and plots against God’s Christ, believers who trust Him will obtain rescue and relief.
single trust
There is a tiny Hebrew word that is applied to God and that crops up repeatedly in this prayer as the first word of Psalm 62:1, 2, 5, and 6. The word is a characteristic feature of this psalm and can be taken in two ways. Either it adds stress and is best translated “truly,” or it has a single focus with the meaning “only.” In other words, surely and solely, emphatically and exclusively, Yahweh, the covenant God of Israel, is the only true object of saving hope, in life and death, for His saints. Two strong encouragements are added to bolster the believer’s faith. First is divine power—nothing is impossible for our God, for though we are weak, all who rely only on Him are strong (v. 11). Second is divine promises—“steadfast love” is Yahweh’s covenant love, for He proves faithful to His pledge and performs all His oaths (v. 12). Just as David survived to sire a royal line of kings, so God “comes through” for us who make Christ our single trust.
rival trust
We must sharply distinguish between divine and merely human trusts (vv. 9–10). David sharply warns us that the latter are light; they are insubstantial. The influential big hitters, movers and shakers, or heavyweights of earth are nothing of the sort. They ultimately and always disappoint: Weighed in old-fashioned balances, they never tip the scales. They are insignificant, untrustworthy, vain, useless lightweights, or, as Derek Kidner described them, mere “puffs of wind” (v. 9). Their rescue repertoire is curtailed to rebellion, resistance, slander, shouting, scheming, and striking—“only” this, and nothing else. Yahweh, by contrast, has limitless, infinite glory (weight) and gravitas: He always produces the goods and delivers on time, as promised. Neither does spiritual compromise, or moral shortcut, protect or insulate us from harm (v. 11): Power that oppresses, or robbery that extorts, cannot secure or save. Surely you know that pensions, portfolios, privilege, and position cannot save us. Rescue from sorrow or sin comes only to saints who put their trust in Christ.
prayerful trust
Twice King David gushes praise to God (a different verb); three times he pours out his heart before the Lord (Pss. 42:4; 62:8; 142:2). To pour out the heart means to empty out a flood of tears or a river of sorrows before the Lord. Every drop of grief, bottled up inside, is spilled in a copious, abundant, voluminous, surging, saturating torrent of Spirit-given prayer. A poured-out soul is like a jar of water, tipped upside down, with all its contents emptied out. If the spirit of Gethsemane and Golgotha pours out prayer to God, nothing remains inside the heart, and every burden tumbles out; no detail is held back or left out. If “we are all too apt . . . to shut up our affliction in our own breast” (John Calvin) and make matters worse, let us not stifle pains or bottle griefs: Instead of “hanging dirty laundry out in public” or “bending every open ear,” let us pray lengthily, with fervency, to God. “Let it all out” in the hearing of the Lord. Martin Luther has helpful, colorful advice about pouring out the heart:
Just throw it in a pile before Him, as you open your heart completely to a good friend. . . . Come right out with it, even if all you have is bags full of need. Out with everything. . . . Do not dribble your requests before Him.