For thou hast delivered my soul from death, mine eyes from tears, my feet from falling.
The verse looks back on a rescue and names three things God did, each one spoken straight to Him. Behind it stands a man who had been at death's door. The psalm asks what such a rescue should produce in the person rescued.
The psalmist does not divide the credit. Each of the three clauses has the same subject, and the change in him flows from that.
The psalmist goes on to describe the effect on his soul of the Lord's gracious dealings with him in the time of trial. First, he is brought into rest, as the result of the Lord's bountiful dealings — the rest that comes from confidence in God. Then he gladly credits every blessing he has received to the Lord. He can say, "You have delivered my soul from death, my eyes from tears, my feet from stumbling." The Lord has done it all. The Lord has given him rest of soul, and deliverance from death; He has dried his tears and kept his feet. So he can look ahead with confidence and say, "I will walk before the Lord in the land of the living." Rest of soul leads to a godly walk that has the Lord for its object.
Why does God let anyone come to such a point at all? One writer answers from the psalmist's case.
Man's extremity is God's opportunity, as the psalmist shows. He praises the Lord for His grace, righteousness, and mercy. Then he can say, "You have delivered my soul from death, my eyes from tears, my feet from stumbling." This is also the blessed experience of everyone who is brought low before God and throws himself on His mercy. God takes no pleasure in the sorrows of men. Yet in His great mercy and wisdom He often leads them into ways of sorrow and distress, so that they may come to the end of themselves and trust Him wholly.
Verse 7 was the psalmist talking to himself; verse 8 turns and speaks to God. One writer calls that turn a privilege in itself. He then asks what it should mean for anyone rescued from more than an early grave.
Turning to God, after having spoken to his own soul, the writer of the psalm can say, "For you have delivered my soul from death, my eyes from tears, my feet from stumbling." It is a blessed thing to tell others what we have been through. It is blessed to think over the grace and mercy of God. But it is a wonderful privilege to return to God after praying to Him, and to acknowledge that He has answered our prayers. If this speaks of someone kept from death to live a little longer on earth, think of those who know what it is to be delivered from the judgment of God, and to have passed from death into life. What praise and thanksgiving should come from their hearts?
The three clauses are not all true of the believer in the same way today. One writer says so plainly. He also notes that the psalmist's circumstances had not changed — his view of them had.
There is no hint that the circumstances changed. Only the eye has lifted from man's hand to the Lord's. Verse 11 shows us who the instruments of the sorrow were — lying men. Now he sees the Lord's dealing in all that God had allowed to come upon him, so that the soul anticipates by faith the full result in resurrection. By grace we can do the same with the first clause of verse 8 — but what about the second and the third?
Commentators also read the psalm forward, to a coming age of blessing on earth. On that reading the dried tears and steadied feet describe a whole people, not one man's escape.
The grace of God has delivered their soul from death, taken the tears from their eyes, and kept their feet from stumbling (v. 8). How deeply the godly will feel it! This millennial blessing stands in contrast to the world as it is now — "the land of the dying."
Commentators differ on how far the deliverance reaches. One writer asks what happens to those who are not delivered.
Many a saint who enters the great tribulation will not be delivered, as the book of Revelation makes very plain. Verse 15 of our psalm fits with this. The death of those who fall before the persecuting power of Satan will be very precious in the sight of the Lord. He will show this by the special resurrection that Revelation 20:4 speaks of.
- Brought low. God allows distress so that a person comes to the end of himself and trusts Him wholly.
- Delivered. Three rescues, one Rescuer — life spared, tears dried, feet held. He did all of it.
- Acknowledged. The rescued man turns back to God and says so. Answered prayer calls for a word back to the One who answered it.
- Rested. Confidence in God is what settles the soul, and rest of soul comes first — everything else grows out of it.
- Walking. Rest produces a walk before the Lord — He kept your feet so that you would walk with Him in view.
I will walk before Jehovah in the land of the living.
Psalm 116 is the song of a man who came close to death, cried out, and was rescued. Verse 9 is what he does with the life he gets back, and it raises two questions: what is this walk, and where is "the land of the living"?
The order matters. He is not walking to earn anything. He is describing what rest of soul produces in a man just rescued.
The Lord has done it all. The Lord has given him rest of soul, and deliverance from death: He has dried his tears and kept his feet. So he can look to the future with confidence and say, "I will walk before the LORD in the land of the living." Rest of soul leads to a godly walk that has the Lord for its object.
Readers often flatten this phrase into "safely" or "under God's care". One writer, commenting on the same phrase elsewhere in the Psalms, says it means far more than protection.
This does not mean only, as Moll says, that he may walk under "divine protection", however much that phrase may suggest it. No — he is to walk before God, who has protected him. This means what "to walk with God" meant for Enoch. It means the same for all who have walked that path since. It is the simplest way to describe a life fit for such company.
The man who says verse 9 is still surrounded by trouble. One writer finds the same faith holding up the apostle in his own trials.
The apostle goes on to speak of the power that sustained him through all these trials. It was the power of faith. The same spirit of faith sustained the psalmist when the sorrows of death surrounded him, when he found trouble and sorrow, and was greatly afflicted. Then he could speak of life, for he said, "I will walk before the LORD in the land of the living." Then he tells us how he could speak of life in the middle of death: "I believed, therefore have I spoken."
For the psalmist, the land of the living is this earth. His hope was to stay alive in it, though he still expected to die one day.
The hope is to be kept alive so as to live on the earth: "I will walk before the LORD in the land of the living" (Ps. 116:9; see also Pss. 37:19; 115:17). The hope of resurrection was there (Ps. 16:9), but the expectation was to go through death.
Commentators differ on how far the rescue reaches. Another writer looks at verse 15 and sees more than escape from an early grave: "the ultimate deliverance in view is from death in sheol" — the place of the dead (Frederick W. Grant).
One writer hears a whole people in this psalm, not just one man. Their rescue from death is what the walk of verse 9 follows.
Psalm 116 celebrates this deliverance when they were at the very point of death. Jehovah had heard them, and they would walk before the Lord in the land of the living. Seen this way, the psalm keeps retelling the gracious mercy of Jehovah. They were brought low, and He helped them. It drew out their love to Him.
Another writer applies the verse to Christ Himself: the world He walked through, and the one He will head:
Jesus once walked before Jehovah in the land of vanity. He was Himself the only living One in a world of death. So He will walk, as the anointed Head of Redemption, in the land of the living (verse 9).
The psalmist had escaped death for a time. Those who know a greater rescue have more reason for the same resolve. One writer turns it into a question.
Walking before Jehovah in the land of the living was a precious privilege for a man so near to the gates of death. But we can walk before God in the light of the full and perfect revelation He has made of Himself in the Person of the Son. We have the life the Son came to reveal, and we possess it in Him who is our life. We should still ask our own hearts whether we want to walk before God in the life He has given us.
- Rescued. God delivered the soul from death, the eyes from tears, the feet from falling. He did it all. The walk of verse 9 is the response, never the payment.
- Rested. Rest of soul comes before the walk, and produces it; a heart at rest walks with the Lord as its object.
- Before Him. To walk before the LORD is more than living under His protection. It is what "walking with God" meant for Enoch: a life fit for God's company.
- Spoken. Faith says these words while death still presses. The same spirit of faith held up the apostle in his own trials.
- Ahead. The psalmist looked for life on earth. Writers differ on whether the rescue reaches beyond it. The Christian walks before God in the fuller light of the Son.