Psalm 119:25
(This is an entry from a devotional commentary I am working on from Psalm 119 entitled God and His Word. The introduction can be found here, successive entries have covered the 22 sections of the Psalm, and following entries verse by verse.)
"Daleth. My soul cleaves to the dust;
Revive me according to Your word."
While he ‘cleaves’ to the dust now, he would soon ‘cling’ to Your testimonies (v. 31). Both of these words are the Hebrew ‘דָּבַק, dāḇaq: A verb meaning to cling to, join with, stay with. It is used of something sticking to or clinging to something else (Eze 29:4); it describes Ezekiel's tongue clinging to the roof of his mouth (Eze 3:26). It is used figuratively or symbolically of a man cleaving or clinging to his wife (Gen 2:24) or of evil deeds clinging to a person (Psa 101:3). It depicts leprosy clinging to a person, not going away and persisting (2Ki 5:27), as well as famine (Deu 28:21; Jer 13:11; Jer 42:16). It depicts relationships created as an act of joining together, to follow (Jos 23:12; 2Sa 20:2). When one cleaves, it seems a permanent position. How would the Psalmist be freed from this earth with its sin and despair? Only through Your resurrection power. 'Revive me according to Your word':
• When my soul cleaves to the dust (Psalm 119:25)
• When I am exceedingly afflicted (Psalm 119:107)
• When I need You to plead my cause and redeem me (Psalm 119:154)
‘…the Psalmist felt as if these ensigns of woe were glued to him, and his very soul was made to cleave to them because of his powerlessness to rise above his grief. Does he not also mean that he felt ready to die? Did he not feel his life absorbed and fast held by the grave's mould, half choked by the death-dust? It may not be straining the language if we conceive that he also felt and bemoaned his earthly-mindedness and spiritual deadness. There was a tendency in his soul to cling to earth which he greatly bewailed... Many are of the earth earthy, and never lament it; only the heaven-born and heaven-soaring spirit pines at the thought of being fastened to this world, and bird-limed by its sorrows or its pleasures…Many are of the earth earthy, and never lament it; only the heaven-born and heaven-soaring spirit pines at the thought of being fastened to this world, and bird-limed by its sorrows or its pleasures…David seeks quickening: one would have thought that he would have asked for comfort or upraising, but he knew that these would come out of increased life, and therefore he sought that blessing which is the root of the rest…the word of God shows us that he who first made us must keep us alive [Galatians 5:25]… it is a grand thing to see a believer in the dust and yet pleading the promise, a man at the grave's mouth crying, “quicken me,” and hoping that it shall be done…Life is in both cases the object of pursuit' that he may have life, and have it more abundantly [John 10:10].’[1]
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