"I love the Lord, because he has heard
my voice and my pleas for mercy.
2 Because he inclined his ear to me,
therefore I will call on him as long as I live.
3 The snares of death encompassed me;
the pangs of Sheol laid hold on me;
I suffered distress and anguish.
4 Then I called on the name of the Lord:
“O Lord, I pray, deliver my soul!”
5 Gracious is the Lord, and righteous;
our God is merciful.
6 The Lord preserves the simple;
when I was brought low, he saved me.
7 Return, O my soul, to your rest;
for the Lord has dealt bountifully with you.
8 For you have delivered my soul from death,
my eyes from tears,
my feet from stumbling;
9 I will walk before the Lord
in the land of the living.
10 I believed, even when I spoke,
“I am greatly afflicted”;
11 I said in my alarm,
“All mankind are liars.”
12 What shall I render to the Lord
for all his benefits to me?
13 I will lift up the cup of salvation
and call on the name of the Lord,
14 I will pay my vows to the Lord
in the presence of all his people.
15 Precious in the sight of the Lord
is the death of his saints.
16 O Lord, I am your servant;
I am your servant, the son of your maidservant.
You have loosed my bonds.
17 I will offer to you the sacrifice of thanksgiving
and call on the name of the Lord.
18 I will pay my vows to the Lord
in the presence of all his people,
19 in the courts of the house of the Lord,
in your midst, O Jerusalem.
Praise the Lord!"
Psalm 116
This next Psalm continues to offer the same striking association of ideas as those that precede it, in relation to our Lord's own experience. He had celebrated the Passover in the Upper Room with the disciples, and uttered the memorable words 'This cup is the new covenant in My Name...'. Then they sang this Psalm in the midst of which (13) we have the words 'I will take the cup of salvation...'. It is not possible to grasp the message of the Psalm without taking note of this. Also, at the end of Psalm 115 we had the note of triumph over death; and here, in this Psalm, there is the experience of going down into the sorrows of death and the pains of hell (3, 6, 8, 15), and being lifted up and delivered. We must consider, then, our Lord taking these words on His lips as He faced His great work of atonement and redemption, and bear in mind that He Himself fed upon the Word of Scripture for His sustenance and encouragement, and had fellowship with the Father in and through that Word. The progress of 3-8, as applied to our Lord's experience is very striking, with 9 as the end-product of it all, 'I will walk before the Lord in the land of the living' - this, following 8, is surely a testimony to the reality of the resurrection. In this connection, we should also recall our Lord's words in the Upper Room (John 14:19), 'Because I live, ye shall live also', and realise that all that is said here is made over to His own as their triumph song over death (cf Ephesians 1:21ff '...Head over all things to the Church'). This Psalm is true for us, because Christ has made it true, by His death, resurrection and exaltation. Praise be to His Name!