What is the land of the living, and how is God our portion in it (Psalm 142:5)?

While he makes such a complaint to the Lord, his faith overcomes his fear as he realizes that, as he says, "You are my refuge, my portion in the land of the living" (v. 5) Not only does God protect him, but God Himself is the satisfying portion of his life. He really needs nothing else. This being so, he can only expect God to attend to his cry when he is brought low by the strong opposition of persecutors (v. 6). As he says, "They are stronger than I," but what actual difference does this make when God is his portion? The distress he suffered is typical of the deep trial of the godly remnant of Israel at the time of the great tribulation, which is felt to be the bondage of imprisonment. We know their prayer to be brought out will be fully answered by the God of all grace (v. 7). The result will be just as he says, "That I may praise Your name," while also, "the righteous shall surround me," and he will find God dealing bountifully with him. Before the deliverance, he was surrounded by enemies. What a change indeed to be surrounded by the righteous! Thus, the psalm ends with a clear note of assurance of God's preserving goodness.

Among men he found no helper, none who would own acquaintance with him. Refuge was cut off unless he found it in Jehovah: none beside cared at all. A terrible place to be in; if Jehovah were not His hiding-place! but if He were not, though all arms were stretched out to succor him; how vain would it all be! God — how easily in our insane folly we think to do without Him, who is the one necessity for all His creatures. But such discoveries constitute the grand moments for the soul, when it turns to God as now to be its all: "I cried unto Thee, Jehovah; I said, — Thou art my refuge, my portion, in the land of the living."

Two things which go together, and refuse absolutely to be separated from one another: for He cannot suffice us in the one way, except He suffices us in the other: these are but two aspects of one need into which we are fallen; as fallen away from Him, — shelterless, famine-stricken; because away from the Father's house. To get back there is to find the one need met as surely as the other.

And "in the land of the living"! For death itself invades not the Father's house: "God is not the God of the dead, but of the living." And even the way with Him is a "way everlasting"; as the life we already live is "everlasting life." The psalmist could not know these things as we; but thus the truth he spoke was only fuller than he knew.

"The land," where this afflicted one is now toiling in so much conscious grief and enmity of the wicked, he calls a "thirsty land;" but the land he looks for he calls by two beautiful titles — "the land of the living," and "the land of uprightness." (Ps. 142:5; Ps. 143:6, 10) These are happy, honourable titles of God's place and kingdom in Judea, as it will be by and by. In divine reckoning, righteousness (uprightness) and life are always found together, as are sin and death. "If there had been a law given which could have given life, verily righteousness should have been by the law."

The "land of the living," or the land of the glory (Isa. 4:5, Ezek. 26:20), is Canaan. The Jews so interpreted it. But that of course.

In his path there are snares for his feet hidden by the enemy; but nothing is hidden from the Lord who knows his path. There is no man that “knows” him, but the Lord knows. Every earthly refuge fails him, and no one cares for his soul. Misunderstood, cast out and neglected by man, he turns to the Lord to find in Him a refuge from every trial, and the source of every blessing — his “portion in the land of the living.”

There is a special character belonging to Psalm 142: "I cried unto the LORD with my voice." Not only was his heart groaning, but he expresses himself openly to God. There is in his supplication a contention with Jehovah, "I cried unto thee, Jehovah; I said, Thou art my refuge, my portion in the land of the living."

“And David departed thence, and escaped to the cave of Adullam” (v. 1). That is where he composed the beautiful 142nd Psalm which expresses the feelings filling his soul in his solitude. “There is no man that knows me: refuge has failed me; no man cares for my soul” (v. 4). “In the way wherein I walked have they hidden a snare for me” (v. 3), This is written when — what mockery — Saul had the audacity to accuse him, saying: “My son has stirred up my servant as a lier-in-wait against me” (1 Sam. 22:8). But David found, precisely because all human refuge failed him, a sure refuge for his soul: “I cried unto Thee, Jehovah, I said, Thou art my refuge” (Ps. 142:5). He could count on the God of Israel for deliverance from his persecutors, for they were stronger than he (v. 6). Could David ever regret being found at such an extremity, abandoned by all, since there it was it that his soul knew and appreciated the sovereign refuge that is found in God? Thus the psalm ends with the assurance that filled his soul, for his time of solitude and of being forsaken would come to an end. “The righteous,” he says, “shall surround me” (v. 7).

Verse 5 expresses the unshaken trust of Jesus when within the immediate reach of the power of darkness. Jehovah was His refuge: "Thou art my portion in the land of the living." Death might intervene. But it was a death by undergoing which He would make both life and death for evermore His own. It was of God that death became the bitter portion of His Son. And glory waited but the accomplishment of that decease, to rest for ever on the risen Lord of life. He died indeed to sin, but at the Father's pleasure — His death was for the creature, by the grace of God. He lives unto God. The will of God was His delight until He finished it in death. And now it is His everlasting joy to be the delighted receiver of the honours which the righteous Father has awarded to His Son (John 14:28; Phil. 2:9).

I suppose "the land of the living" would signify the same in resurrection. Messiah uses it again in Psalm 116, where He evidently speaks as risen from the grave.

Again, to the Jew, as such, this world was the land of the living. It was the place of his blessing; and the great promise to obedience was, "That thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee." "I had fainted," said the psalmist, "unless I had believed to see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living." (Ps. 27:13.) But to the Christian, we may say, it is the land of the dying. "I protest," says Paul … "I die daily." It is also the land of death — the death of the Lord Jesus Christ; consequently it is the valley of the shadow of death. The cross has thrown its dark shadow over the whole scene. And where, it may be asked, is the place of the Christian's joy and blessing? In heavenly places in Christ.