He only is my rock and my salvation; my high fortress I shall not be greatly moved.
A man surrounded by enemies has stopped looking anywhere but to God. Verse 2 rests on two words: "alone," which shuts out every other help, and "greatly," the one limit he puts on his confidence.
One word runs through this whole psalm. An older translation hides it behind other words.
The special character of Psalm 62 is more easily seen if we notice that one word — "only" — occurs in it no less than six times. In our Authorized Version this is a little obscured, since the word "truly" is used in verse 1 and "surely" in verse 9.
This word is not decoration. It marks the road into salvation, and into the assurance that follows.
We shall also see that this trust in God only, to the exclusion of every other hope, is the way of salvation, and also the basis of the assurance of salvation. Distrust of man works the other way. In him there is only evil, and no good at all. So distrust of man brings us face to face with our need of salvation, and shuts us up to God.
Few people begin here. Most arrive only after every other help has failed.
The psalm opens with the soul in difficulties, surrounded by enemies. But it has learned the lesson that salvation, that is deliverance, can only come from God... We never reach this blessed place of entire dependence until we come to the end of ourselves and of man. We have to find out by experience how empty all human help is, and be shut up to God alone. When we reach it, even in the smallest measure, we pass into a new circle, outside of man, where the presence of God is our home.
The verse gives God three names, and each one shuts out every rival.
The psalmist is very emphatic on this point. His soul waited upon God alone. Literally, it is that his salvation came from Him, and that He, and no one else, was his Rock and his Tower of defence. Since this is so, we might take it for granted that he was in a place of absolute security and full assurance.
The psalm just before this one shows the same man at an earlier stage. (Older versions read "moved" where the ESV reads "shaken.")
In the last psalm, the godly man, though looking to God, is still overwhelmed in spirit. Here, looking only to God, he is revived in spirit... In the last psalm he looks with confidence to be led to the rock. Here he has reached the rock, and so can say of God, "He only is my rock." Resting upon the rock, he can say, "I shall not be greatly moved."
One word, "greatly," holds the sentence back. Writers read it as caution, not weak faith.
He is not going to say more than he is absolutely sure of. He is sure that he will not be greatly moved — moved a little, perhaps; but greatly, no. Many of us have been just like the psalmist. Our trust has been in God, indeed in God alone; and yet we could not altogether forget ourselves. So an element of uncertainty stayed in our minds.
One voice in the Psalms drops the qualifier.
With God as the Object of the psalmist, he might well say, "I shall not be greatly moved" (v. 2). He does not say, "I shall not be moved," as the Lord Jesus says (Ps. 16:8). Frail man cannot usually speak about himself with such absolute confidence. But he knew that God would keep him from being greatly moved.
Verse 6 repeats verse 2 word for word with the qualifier dropped. That gap is the psalm's spiritual progress.
"I shall not be greatly moved" (v. 2) had been the words of his mouth; "I shall not be moved" (v. 6) is the assurance of his heart. It is God's battle, so the victory is sure.
Other writers trace the Lord's own path in these words.
No doubt we have here the path and experience of the Lord Himself. That makes it all the more valuable and instructive for His people. He was the first to walk the path of faith in all its fullness and perfection.
- Only. The word repeats through the psalm and controls verse 2. Trust in God to the exclusion of every other hope is the way of salvation and the ground of assurance.
- Only comes last. We reach full dependence only after human help has failed us. Then the soul enters a new circle, where God's presence is home.
- Only is enough. One Person is rock, salvation and fortress. No one else is any of them.
- Only "greatly." The psalmist claims no more than he is sure of. The words without that limit, "I shall not be moved," belong to Christ in Psalm 16.
- Only grows. By verse 6 the same sentence drops the limit. What his mouth said becomes the assurance of his heart.
How long will ye assail a man; will ye [seek], all of you, to break him down as a bowing wall or a tottering fence?
A whole crowd turns on one man, and they see him as something already half-collapsed, ready to push over. The verse raises two questions: who is the leaning wall, and what does the cry "How long?" ask of God?
The question is not a complaint from someone who has given up. It sits inside a psalm of settled confidence. It expects God to act at the right time.
In Psalm 62 confidence is more expressed. It is not looking from an overwhelmed heart, but a free looking up, so that one is not overwhelmed. His soul waits on God, has none else indeed, but does not desire any other. There is a "how long?" as well as a waiting. God will certainly come in at the right time, and then it will be known to whom power belongs.
On one reading, the crumbling wall is the sufferer himself — that is how his enemies size him up. They attack a person already weak, and they do it while pretending friendship.
The psalmist turns to his enemies and objects to their secret attacks on a man in weakness, like "a bowing wall, or a tottering fence." Outwardly they may pretend to favour the godly. Inwardly they curse them, and secretly plot to cast him down. This was indeed a character of suffering that the Lord had to meet in full measure.
If that is the picture, then the reversal comes later in the psalm. The man they wrote off as ready to fall is the man God will lift up.
The plottings of the wicked cannot, however, move the godly man from his confidence in God. He does not seek to defend himself. He does not look to man for help… In due time God will exalt the one whom man treats as a "bowing wall or a tottering fence."
Commentators differ here. Others read the leaning wall as the enemies themselves — their own wall is the one about to fall. The writer below follows an older translation, which reads the line as a sentence passed on the attackers.
"How long?" (v. 3) is a question often on the lips of believers. But the final outcome is added at once: "You shall be slain, all of you like a leaning wall and a tottering fence." They boast in a wall by which they seek to separate themselves as holier than others. It will collapse when judgment comes on them.
Another writer agrees, and shows why this steadies the psalmist. He already knows how the fight ends.
So he views the wicked as a bowing wall and a tottering fence, and he knows how the conflict must end… "I shall not be greatly moved" (2) had been the words of his mouth. "I shall not be moved" (6) is the assurance of his heart. It is God's battle, so the victory is sure.
The hostility here is not only the psalmist's experience. One writer traces it through the Gospels. The plan was to bring down the One whose glory exposed the darkness around Him.
The second section shows the hostility of man, as it will appear one day once the restraint on it is gone… The gospel of John especially reveals this murderous opposition — the plots and attempts to cast Him down from His high place. He was this Light, and His personal glory only displayed the darkness of the world through which He passed. This world has not changed at all, although it may change its outward manner, the more thoroughly to deceive.
The opposition here comes in named forms. The same forms still meet anyone walking that road.
No doubt we have here the path and experience of the Lord Himself. That makes it all the more valuable and instructive for His people, since He was the first to tread the path of faith in all its completeness and perfection. He especially had three things to face while enduring the cross and despising the shame. Verses 3 and 4 name them — hatred, envy, and hypocrisy… And every believer who runs the same race, "looking off" to Jesus, must reckon on the same forms of opposition.
So what is left standing? One writer weighs what proud men are worth.
Proud, boastful men, who delight in lies, prove to be nothing but a lie themselves. Once you grasp that each of us, seen simply as men in the flesh, is only that, all our confidence in man or in self is gone. We turn to God and to God alone.
- Wall — commentators differ. Some read the leaning wall as the weak man his enemies hope to topple. Others read it as the enemies' own wall, which falls in judgment.
- Mask — the attack is secret and two-faced. Outwardly they pretend to favour the godly; inwardly they curse him and plot his fall.
- Christ — the plots to cast a man down from his high place reached their full form against Jesus, who faced hatred, envy, and hypocrisy. The world has changed its manners, not its heart.
- Alone — proud men prove to be a lie, and so are we in ourselves. Confidence in man and in self goes, and the soul turns to God alone.
- Reversal — "How long?" is a waiting question, not a defeated one. God comes in at the right time, and lifts up the man they treated as a tottering fence.
They only consult to thrust [him] down from his excellency; they delight in lies; they bless with their mouth, but in their inward part they curse. Selah.
The psalmist has just called God his only rock. Now he looks at the men circling him: their plan is to pull him down from his place, and they hide it behind warm words.
Their aim is not just harm. They want the man out of the place he holds. One writer reads that place as the one God Himself had given:
God will certainly come in at the right time, and then everyone will know to whom power belongs. How long would they keep planning mischief against a man? What was their object? Why hate him like this, and by falsehood try to root him out of his place — the place of God's blessing, in which He had set the godly in Israel? But this, I have no doubt, applies in a special way to Christ. He was the One truly in that place, and they aimed all their malice at Him, to cast Him down from His excellency.
The blessing and the cursing are not two moods at different times. They happen together, one on the surface and one underneath:
The psalmist turns to his enemies. He condemns their secret attacks on a man who is weak, like "a leaning wall, a tottering fence." On the outside they may pretend to favour the godly. Inside they curse them, and they plot in secret to cast him down. This was indeed a form of suffering that the Lord had to meet in full measure.
The Gospels record a scene where the compliment and the plot arrive together. The same pattern will return, one writer says, in the future time of trouble called the Tribulation:
The Pharisees met together to cast the Lord down from the place of moral dignity they envied. So it will be in the Tribulation: those who delight in lies will attack Christ and His followers in the same vicious way (v. 4). "They bless with their mouths, but inwardly they curse." One striking example is the men who came to the Lord Jesus (Luke 20:20-25). They pretended to honour Him: "Teacher, we know that you speak and teach rightly, and show no partiality, but truly teach the way of God." So with their mouths they blessed Him, but their object was to have Him cursed. Of course the Lord Jesus saw through their falsehood, and silenced them by His wise answer.
One writer names the three forces in verses 3 and 4, and warns that they are not aimed at Christ alone:
No doubt we have here the path and experience of the Lord Himself. That makes it even more valuable and instructive for His people, since He was the first to walk the path of faith in all its completeness and perfection. Verses 3 and 4 name the three things He had to face while enduring the cross and despising the shame: hatred, envy, and hypocrisy. Read the accounts of the arrest, trial, and condemnation of our blessed Lord, and these three things stand out clearly. And every believer who runs the same race, looking away to Jesus, must reckon on the same forms of opposition.
This verse sits inside a repeated word. The same small word that marks the psalmist's confidence in God also marks his verdict on man:
We shall then see that no fewer than four times the psalmist expresses his confidence and hope in God only (vv. 1, 2, 5, 6). In verses 4 and 9 he exposes fallen man and shows his distrust of him. Man is only set on bringing down what is good. So man himself, whether of low degree or of high degree, is only vanity and a lie.
The verse says these men take pleasure in falsehood. One writer follows that to its end:
Proud, boastful men, who delight in lies, prove to be nothing but a lie themselves. Once you grasp that each of us, viewed merely as men in the flesh, is only that, all our confidence in man, or in self, is gone. We turn to God and to God alone.
- Only — their aim. Their whole plan is to push a man out of the place God gave him. In the end the malice aims at Christ, whom they wanted cast down from His excellency.
- Only — their method. Favour on the outside, cursing on the inside, with the plotting kept secret. This was suffering the Lord met in full measure.
- Only — their example. Men flattered Jesus as a truthful teacher to trap Him. He saw the falsehood and answered it.
- Only — their reach. Hatred, envy and hypocrisy met Christ first. Every believer who follows Him must expect the same three.
- Only — their end. Men who love a lie prove to be a lie themselves. When confidence in man collapses, the soul rests on God alone.