What shall I render unto the LORD?

This ought to be our response to the LORD’s redemptive blessing in their lives. It is not asked out of duty, but out of love, and this opening declaration sets the tone for the whole psalm.

‘I love the LORD, because he hath heard my voice and my supplications: because he hath inclined his ear unto me, therefore will I call upon him as long as I live … Gracious is the LORD, and righteous; yea, our God is merciful.’ (v1,2,5)

The reasons given are that the Lord has heard and answered prayer, but ultimately it is because ‘God is merciful’. As we mentioned previously, OT mercy is a very broad concept that includes compassion and loving kindness, and so John can write in a similar vein: ‘we love Him, because He first loved us’ (1 John 4:19)

Delivered from Death

The first part of the psalm looks back to a time when ‘The sorrows of death compassed me, and the pains of hell gat hold upon me: I found trouble and sorrow’ (v2). In such a dark place, there is only one way to turn, and that’s to the Lord:  ‘O LORD, I beseech thee, deliver my soul’ (v4). In this case the LORD showed mercy and the Psalmist could testify: ‘thou hast delivered my soul from death, mine eyes from tears, and my feet from falling’ (v8).

We cannot however always assume there will be deliverance. Indeed, for God’s Son, death was the reason He came. It was God’s will then, and it can still often be His will for many of His people to pass through the article of death. Nevertheless, in such circumstances, this psalm comforts us that there is nothing cold or distant in our Lord’s call upon our lives, for we read: ‘Precious in the sight of the LORD is the death of his saints’ (v15)

This verse explains the reason why the psalmist was delivered from death. It is that the LORD values ‘His saints’ such that He will not look upon their ‘death’ with a trivial indifference. He values them because they are ‘His saints’ – representatives of His holy character in a wicked, sinful and rebellious world. This leads to the question: how do we represent His holiness?

Delivered from out of Death

Consider again that our Saviour was singing this psalm on the night He was betrayed, perhaps with such pathos. I have already stated that Christ would have to die. There would be no deliverance for Him, at least from death. But, we know the LORD had a greater plan, and that was to save Him from out of death. This is the sense of the words in Hebrews 5:7: ‘when he had offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears unto him that was able to save him from (out of) death, and was heard in that he feared’.

This was a greater plan because in resurrection, Jesus Christ took away the ‘sting of death’ (1 Cor 15:55,56) and guaranteed us eternal life and rest. Therefore, we are assured of ultimate deliverance: ‘the dead in Christ shall rise first, then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air and so shall we ever be with the Lord’ (1 These 4:16,17).

Spiritual Pledge

Enjoying the spiritual blessedness of divine rest once again, our thoughts turn to serving our LORD, and the psalmist concludes with five ‘I will’ statements:

1) ‘I will walk before the LORD in the land of the living (v9). This brush with death has made the psalmist re-evaluate, and he makes the pledge that the rest of his life will be lived for the Lord and His glory.

‘Only one life, ‘twill soon be past! Only what’s done for Christ will last!’ [C.T.Studd]

2) ‘I will take the cup of salvation, and call upon the name of the LORD (v13). ‘The cup of salvation’ refers to the drink offering poured out upon the sacrifice (Lev 23:13). This typifies a life fully given over to the Lord until the last breath, as Paul would exemplify: ‘I am now ready to be offered’ (2 Tim 4:6).

3) ‘I will offer to thee the sacrifice of thanksgiving, and will call upon the name of the LORD (v17). We now move from the private to the public; from the closet to the temple. In the presence of all the people, the psalmist would offer his ‘sacrifice of thanksgiving’ – a peace offering (Lev 7:11,12).

‘And let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to the which also ye are called in one body; and be ye thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom; teaching and admonishing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord. And whatsoever ye do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God and the Father by him.’ (Col 3:15-17)

4 & 5) ‘I will pay my vows unto the LORD now in the presence of all his people (v14,18). We conclude with the repeated phrase ‘I will pay my vow’ identifying the indebtedness felt by the psalmist to the LORD. This debt would be repaid ‘in the presence of all His people’, and when we come to the NT, we find that it is through serving all people that we serve the Lord.

‘Owe no man any thing, but to love one another: for he that loveth another hath fulfilled the law’. (Roms 13:8)