Qoph
145 With my whole heart I cry; answer me, O Lord!
I will keep your statutes.
146 I call to you; save me,
that I may observe your testimonies.
147 I rise before dawn and cry for help;
I hope in your words.
148 My eyes are awake before the watches of the night,
that I may meditate on your promise.
149 Hear my voice according to your steadfast love;
O Lord, according to your justice give me life.
150 They draw near who persecute me with evil purpose;
they are far from your law.
151 But you are near, O Lord,
and all your commandments are true.
152 Long have I known from your testimonies
that you have founded them for ever.
Resh
153 Look on my affliction and deliver me,
for I do not forget your law.
154 Plead my cause and redeem me;
give me life according to your promise!
155 Salvation is far from the wicked,
for they do not seek your statutes.
156 Great is your mercy, O Lord;
give me life according to your rules.
157 Many are my persecutors and my adversaries,
but I do not swerve from your testimonies.
158 I look at the faithless with disgust,
because they do not keep your commands.
159 Consider how I love your precepts!
Give me life according to your steadfast love.
160 The sum of your word is truth,
and every one of your righteous rules endures for ever.
The emphasis on 'crying to God' which runs through the first of these two sections (145-152) prompts the reflection that every cry, every prayer in the pages of the Old Testament is validated and authenticated by one glorious and fundamental reality - the fact of Christ and His triumph in death and resurrection. It is essential for us, in our studies of the Scriptures, to realise that the message of Christ crucified and risen is the foundation and basis of all the true and valid interpretation we place upon any part of Scripture that we study. It is only because Jesus died and rose again that the lessons we have been gathering from this Psalm, and indeed from all the others, are valid at all, and not a matter of wishful thinking. This is why we can say, to every heart cry here or elsewhere, 'Yes, it will be heard, because Jesus died and rose again.' We should note the expressions of the Psalmist's faith in 145-148, 'I will keep thy statutes', 'I shall keep thy testimonies', 'I hoped in thy Word', 'That I might meditate in thy Word'. Here is the Psalmist resting in the faith of the promise. His heart is fixed, and because he is there his faith is going to be honoured. He will be heard (145), he will be saved (146), his long night of weeping will be brought to an end (147, 148), and he will be quickened (149) - and all on the ground and on the strength of something that had not as yet taken place, but only promised, i.e. the victory of Christ. Faith in the Old Testament is always faith in the promise. As the Westminster Confession puts it (VII.5) that promise was 'for that time sufficient and efficacious, through the operation of the Spirit, to instruct and build up the elect in faith in the promised Messiah, by whom they had full remission of sins, and eternal salvation.'