Many say, Who shall cause us to see good? Lift up upon us the light of thy countenance, O Jehovah.
The verse sets two voices side by side. A crowd asks whether any real good is left, and one man turns that same restlessness into prayer. His prayer for the light of God's face answers a search the world has already given up on.
The crowd is not asking in hope. Commentators trace their words back to a search that has already failed:
The pursuit of vanity does not bring any satisfaction to the sons of men. The very reverse. It leaves them sadly discontented. They end up in just the same frame of mind as Solomon, who came to the conclusion that everything was empty and left the spirit frustrated. So their cry is, "Who will show us any good?" They ask it with the air of people who believe there is no real answer, because there is no real good to find. Many asked that question, just as many said of David that there was no hope for him in God. Both the claim and the question clearly sprang from the same root of complete unbelief. Yet there was help for David in God, and only there. Absolute and eternal good exists, and some can show it when challenged. David accepted the challenge and went on to show the good. He knew it not only in theory, but by experience.
The same cry can rise from a soul that is being driven to see where it stands:
The soul is always pushed to the point of saying, "Who will show us any good?" There is nothing that stays as the support of the soul. You find yourself outside Eden; God seems not to be for us; Satan is against us. You have to be driven there to understand that everything around is far from God, with no good to be seen in yourself and no resource outside yourself.
The phrase comes from a Hebrew word with two senses:
We have nasa, "to lift up." It can mean to forgive — to lift the sins away in the mind of the person offended. It can also mean to show favour by lifting up the face of the person being favoured. Ps. 4:6.
That favour works like daylight. Natural light brings strength and health to the body, and God's light gives the soul cheerfulness and strength (Morrish Bible Dictionary).
The verse's second half answers its first. One writer describes what happens when the soul has nothing left but God:
When the soul rests entirely on the Eternal and has nothing but God, it enters into peace and joy. It is easy to bless God when the circumstances are as we wish. But if God leaves us there, He leaves us far from Him, taken up with the things that perish. If man is content with what he finds here below, he is content with death, with what passes away.
For those who read the psalm in the light of the New Testament, the answer has a name:
The Son of God, of whom Solomon was a picture, alone can answer this hard question. Listen to His apostle in Phil. 3:8: "Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord." The heart of such a man was clearly at rest. In the knowledge of Christ he had found eternal good. Apart from Him the search for satisfaction is only chasing the wind. The WORK of Christ is God's answer to the guilty man, and the PERSON of Christ to the disappointed man.
David prayed for a light that believers now stand in:
No "good" is to be found in the darkness of this world: to get it we must stand in the light of God. David knew this, but how much more should we know it, since we are in the light of His face, fully shining in Christ. In the coming of our Lord Jesus the very face of God has indeed been lifted upon us, and not merely His "back parts" as in the case of Moses.
One writer hears in this prayer words that will rise again in a coming time of trouble:
The mocking words "who will show us any good?" — the challenge of unbelief — are met by prayer and the assurance of faith. "Lift up the light of Your face upon us, O LORD!" We shall find later that this is a favourite prayer of the Jewish saints in the tribulation. (See Psalm 80.)
The verse also becomes a personal measure. One writer asks the reader: am I content in any circumstances, as long as God lifts the light of His face upon me? If not, something still needs correcting. A heart moved by circumstances loses its happiness when they change (J. N. Darby).
- The question — "Who will show us any good?" is the voice of people who searched, found nothing, and now ask without expecting an answer.
- The turn — the psalmist takes that same cry and lifts it upward instead of outward; the appeal to men becomes a prayer to God.
- The words — to lift up someone's face is to show favour. God's light does for the soul what daylight does for the body.
- The answer — the good is not a thing but a Person. Christ's work meets the guilty man; Christ Himself meets the disappointed man.
- The reach — David asked for the light. Believers now stand in it, shining in Christ. The same prayer will rise again in a coming time of trouble.
Thou hast put joy in my heart, more than in the time that their corn and their new wine was in abundance.
David wrote this psalm at a time when evil was strong and the wicked seemed to prosper. His answer is not better circumstances, but a gladness God had already put inside him — a joy he measures against the world's happiest moment.
The verse is a reply. One commentator sets the scene: a suffering few, surrounded by wicked people who appear to prosper:
Evil is everywhere and the wicked appear to prosper, so many are tempted to say, "Who will show us some good?" Faith sees differently. The favour of God — the light of His face — belongs to a suffering few, and it is far better than the outward prosperity of the wicked.
Another writer goes further. The soul finds this joy when it has nothing left but God:
When the soul rests entirely on the Eternal and has nothing but God, it enters into peace and joy. It is easy to bless God when the circumstances are as we wish. But if God leaves us there, He leaves us far from Him, preoccupied with the things that perish.
The verse opens with what God has done. This joy was a gift, not an achievement:
First, there is gladness. But note carefully where that gladness comes from. Its source is God, so it does not depend on the things of earth. It is gladness in the heart, not the shallow, frothy kind the world deals in. It was God who put it into the heart of David.
God does more than shield His people from the outside:
God is the satisfying portion of His people. He is not only a "shield about" them, but a "light" — a glory within the soul, true gladness. The soul does not produce it, and neither does man's work.
David names the exact place where the gladness lands:
"You have put more joy in my heart" (Ps. 4:7). Worldly joys put gladness on the face. The rich Corinthians "boast about outward appearance and not about what is in the heart" (2 Cor. 5:12). But the Spirit of God puts gladness into the heart. Divine joys are heart joys.
David does not compare his joy with misery. He compares it with the best hour of the farming year, when the grapes came in:
Wine, the grape, is a picture of human joy and human strength. Harvest time always meant celebration, songs and gladness. Workers gathered the grapes, and the juice burst from the vats. It was the time of joy… it was only reminding them of the happiest times in nature, the fullest natural joy, and comparing that with a fuller, deeper joy.
Note the word "their." The harvest belongs to other people; the gladness belongs to David.
If the joy does not depend on the crop, it survives a bad year:
When earthly blessings increase, people are usually very happy. But a sense of the nearness of the Lord gives a far deeper gladness than any increase of material riches can give. This stays true even when someone lacks material things badly. The prophet Habakkuk says so plainly: "Though the fig tree should not blossom, nor fruit be on the vines… yet I will rejoice in the LORD; I will take joy in the God of my salvation."
People with nothing have proved these words true. One writer applies them to Christ, and then to two men in a prison cell:
Grain and wine make the hearts of men glad. But He could say, "You have put more joy in my heart than they have when their grain and wine abound." … No men in Philippi were happier than Paul and Silas, though men had beaten them cruelly and locked them in a dungeon. They had nothing to comfort them but the love of God. That was more than all the rest of the city had, and it filled their lips with praise.
- Question: People cry, "Who will show us some good?" The answer is God's favour, not better circumstances.
- Gift: God put the gladness there. Our soul did not make it and our work did not earn it, so earthly loss cannot end it.
- Place: The world's joy shows on the face. God's Spirit puts this joy in the heart.
- Measure: David weighs it against harvest time, the world at its best. His portion is greater.
- Proof: It holds when the fig tree fails and when the prison door shuts. Paul and Silas had less than anyone in Philippi, and more.
In peace will I both lay me down and sleep; for thou, Jehovah, alone makest me to dwell in safety.
The psalm ends at nightfall, with the enemies of the earlier verses still there and nothing changed. What is left is a man lying down to sleep — and his reason is not that the danger has passed, but that God alone keeps him.
The last line belongs to the end of a day. Commentators note that this psalm is paired with the one before it, and that the two mark different hours.
The fourth Psalm is linked to the third. The third is "a Morning Psalm" and the fourth "an Evening Hymn."
There is a kind of sleep that comes from being worn out. This sleep is different. One writer contrasts it with the restlessness of people who have plenty.
For this reason the psalmist can say, "In peace I will both lie down and sleep; for You alone, O Lord, make me dwell in safety" (v.8). This is not the sleep of exhaustion, but that of confiding faith. Those whose riches grow are more likely to lie awake at night. They worry about how to keep their wealth, or how to spend it.
The rest spoken of in verse 8 does not come from nowhere. It follows the gladness of verse 7, where the psalmist weighs God's favour against the wicked's rich harvest and finds it better.
Faith sees that God shines His face on a small group of suffering people who stay true to Him. That favour is far better than the outward success of the wicked. God's favour brings a gladness into the heart that is far greater than the enjoyment of things we own here and now. Enjoying this favour, the soul can lie down in peace and safety. The evil of the world no longer keeps it anxious.
Another writer names the same three gifts, and notes that when we tell others about them, the order runs backwards.
And then we can tell of the gladness and peace and safety, which have been brought to us by the gospel. Only perhaps we should reverse their order, and speak of safety, peace and gladness.
The little word "alone" carries the verse. It shuts out every other guarantee.
Third, the presence of the Lord kept him safe. Others might threaten him and put him in danger, but the Lord, and the Lord alone, made him dwell in safety.
Commentators differ on what the word "alone" goes with. One writer reads it as describing the man, not God: he is kept safe even when nobody else is around. That writer sees a picture of it in the prophet Elijah, whom God sent to hide by a stream, where birds brought him food.
David wrote in Ps. 4:8: "In peace I will both lie down and sleep; for You alone, O Lord, make me dwell in safety." One older translation puts a different sense in its margin: "You, Lord, though I am alone, make me dwell in safety." Elijah at the brook Cherith could have said the same. No wild animal or enemy could harm him. He was alone, but he was there because the Lord had told him to be, and he stayed under the Lord's watchful eye.
Earlier in the psalm, the psalmist tells others to lie on their beds and search themselves. He himself lies down and sleeps. One writer points to the clearest example of that rest.
The godly man, as here, can go to bed and sleep (v. 8). But he tells others to go to bed and there talk with their own hearts and search themselves (v. 4). He knows he has every right to rest in God, undisturbed, for "He gives to His beloved sleep." The Lord Jesus lived this out. He slept while wind and waves tossed the boat on the Sea of Galilee. (See Mark 4)
The same rest is open to believers today. And we know something more: who God is to us.
Christian, He gives that pillow to us, and we may find sweet rest in the middle of trouble. He says, "Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid" (John 14:27), and He also said "My Father and your Father, my God and your God" (John 20:17). And if fear rises in the heart, and the cry breaks out, "Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?", the answer is this: "casting all your anxieties on Him, because He cares for you" (1 Peter 5:7).
- Evening. This is the closing hour of a hard day. The psalm before it is a morning psalm, this one an evening hymn — and the enemies have not gone anywhere.
- Gladness. The rest in verse 8 grows out of verse 7. God's favour brings a joy that outweighs the wicked's full harvest. Only then can the soul lie down untroubled.
- Faith. The sleep is of "confiding faith," not exhaustion — the opposite of the rich man lying awake over how to guard what he owns.
- Alone. Others could threaten, but the Lord alone made him safe. One reading even puts the safety in being alone, as Elijah was at the brook.
- Christ. Jesus asleep in the tossing boat is the perfect example. He offers us the same pillow: His own peace, and His word to cast all our anxiety on Him.