I believed, therefore have I spoken. As for me, I was greatly afflicted.
The writer of this psalm is in deep trouble, and at this verse his faith begins to speak. Older translations read the line as "I believed, therefore have I spoken" — the wording Paul takes up as his own in 2 Corinthians 4:13.
Belief comes first, then speech. Faith also makes the believer feel the trouble around him.
"I believed, therefore I spoke." This is a proper order. Speaking ought always to come from faith. Then he adds, "I am greatly afflicted." Looking at the state of things around us with the eyes of faith is bound to afflict the soul.
The affliction did two things at once. It threw the psalmist onto God, and it emptied him of any other support.
And confidence in the Lord opens his mouth to witness to the Lord: "I believed, therefore have I spoken" (2 Cor. 4:13). If his affliction drew out his confidence in the Lord, it also destroyed his confidence in man, as such.
Nothing in the psalm says the pressure has lifted by the time he speaks. What has changed is where he is looking.
Nothing suggests that his circumstances changed. Only his eye has lifted from man's hand to the Lord's, to see His dealing in everything He had allowed to come on him. So by faith the soul already looks ahead to the full result in resurrection. Things had been very different with the Psalmist: "I was greatly afflicted. I said in my haste — in agitation, not hastiness — all men are liars." There is absolutely no one he can trust. But that was while he was taken up with the human instruments of the trial.
Paul quotes this line while death presses in on him.
Faith, however, looks ahead to the land of the living before it gets there. It may get there by rescue from death, or by resurrection. "I believed, therefore have I spoken" is the language of faith. The Apostle Paul pointed back to it in 2 Corinthians 4:13: "we have the same spirit of faith." Death rolled in on his spirit and threatened his body too. But by faith his eye was on the resurrection world, so he could testify boldly, just as the Psalmist did in his day.
That hope lies on the other side of death.
No trial or suffering, not death itself in view, can stop the believer's mouth: he trusts God, and can speak out, and speak well of Him.
The psalmist's trouble was not Paul's trouble. So how much of this psalm belongs to us?
The quotation of the apostle shows how these psalms can be used as containing holy principles of life for every saint. Despite suffering and trial, trust in Jehovah opened the believer's mouth. The passage does not describe Paul's own case, and he never said in sudden distress that all men were liars — though there is something like it in "all seek their own." But the apostle can take up the general and important principle.
Some writers hear another voice in this psalm — the voice of Christ Himself.
Psalm 116 is the end of His life of faith — in resurrection, joy, and praise; and the apostle, in "the same spirit of faith," can look to share the same kind of resurrection-joy with his divine Lord and Forerunner (2 Cor. 4:13-14).
So the sufferer who speaks here does not speak alone.
Psalm 116 recounts His experiences, and shows Him as the Leader of our praises.
- Affliction — the trouble is real and stays real; faith is not a way around it but the eye lifted from man's hand to the Lord's.
- Belief — pressure that drains confidence in man draws out confidence in God. That confidence opens the mouth.
- Speech — the order never reverses. Speaking should always come out of faith.
- Resurrection — faith speaks of the land of the living before it gets there. So no trial, and not death itself, can stop the believer's mouth.
- Praise — Paul takes up the same spirit of faith. And Christ, who walked this path to the end, leads the praise of His people.
I said in my haste, All men are liars.
Commentary for this verse has not been generated yet.