Psalm 9: The Past For The Sake Of The Present (Part 2)—Exegetical Considerations

by on August 3, 2024 | Comment

Looking to the past ought to have an encouraging place in the Christian life, especially if we apply that practice to how we pray. Psalm 9 models how we can find great hope for the present by recalling what God has previously done for us. This essay highlights how that practical insight is built into the psalm itself.

In part one of this series, we considered how Psalm 9 fits into the Psalter to further the developing point that God sustains his messianic king even as the nations rage against him. Despite God’s promises that his king will ultimately win victory to bless his people, our experience of the nations raging still contains real trial. Psalm 9 is located among other prayers in Psalms 3–14 petitioning God to help his anointed king who is presently in distress.

How does this psalm then teach us a distinct lesson about walking with God through our experience of distress? It instructs us to look at God’s past record of faithfulness in order to be reminded in our present struggle that God has always come through for us.

Making Sense of the Psalm’s Origin

One question that helps us get to grips with any psalm is: Why did the author write it? God’s Word of course has application to us—it continues to address God’s people for our spiritual good. Still, we can learn best how to apply a psalm by considering, from a human perspective, what sort of situation motivated the psalmist to pen the specific words he did. When we understand why these words were fitting as a prayer to God in the psalmist’s specific circumstances, we can start to grasp how it might help us as we confront parallel or analogous challenges wherein we need God’s help. If these songs model for us how to pray and the godly response to various challenges in the Christian life, what challenge motivated this prayer as the author composed it?

The superscript heading tells us David wrote this psalm. Nevertheless, as with most psalms, we do not know the exact background for the events recounted in it. Scholars are always ready to make guesses. Because of the lack of consensus or even anything firmer than conjectures, we do better to content ourselves with the Lord’s providence and not knowing. That lack of knowledge can actually help us more readily connect the struggles God’s people often find themselves to the Psalms’ exhortations to pray.

Structure as Key

The structure of Psalm 9 clarifies the big picture. The first half of the psalm in verses 1–12 declares that God is worthy of praise because he had previously rescued David in overcoming the nations who were his enemies. The second half (13–20) records David’s prayer for the present, that God would again see David’s plight as nations rose against him and that God would again act to rescue him. So, we have the first half of praises and the second half of pleas.1

As is the case in many if not most psalms, the structure illuminates the main point. That transition from praise to plea is exactly that focal issue. In that respect, John Calvin excellently summarizes what happens in this psalm:

David, after having recounted the former victories which he had gained, and exalted in lofty strains the grace and power of God in their happy issue, now again, when he sees new enemies and dangers rising up, implores the protection of the same God by whom he had before been delivered, and beseeches him to overthrow the pride of his enemies.2

As Calvin highlighted, the simple reality is that, even though God overcomes the challenges we face, we will often face challenges again. When that happens, God will be there to help us again.

In the first half of Psalm 9, the point is that throughout their history, God acted in amazing ways to deliver Israel from destruction, which is especially clear in how he helped David. God had demonstrated that he never abandons those who seek him when they are in need.3

David began with a proclamation of his intent to praise God with his whole heart by telling of the wonderful things God had done for him in the past.

I will give thanks to the Lord with my whole heart;

I will recount all of your wonderful deeds.

I will be glad and exult in you;

I will sing praise to your name, O Most High. (1–2)

As he tells us, this act of praising God’s name will further David’s own gladness. In that sense, praising God is both for his glory and for our good. It honors him and blesses us.

As he continued, David teaches us a lesson about how to praise God. Not only does he say that he will do something to praise God, he truly does it. How many modern praise choruses simply drone on about the singer’s intent to praise God? David, however, builds on his stated purpose by worshipping God for overcoming the nations that were rising against him. The situation looked dire. Nevertheless, David recenters the situation around the realities that have been in the background of the whole Psalter so far: God’s enduring kingship brought to bear for his people:

But the Lord sits enthroned forever;

he has established his throne for justice,

and he judges the world with righteousness;

he judges the peoples with uprightness.

The Lord is a stronghold for the oppressed,

a stronghold in times of trouble.

And those who know your name put their trust in you,

for you, O Lord, have not forsaken those who seek you. (7–10)

The first stretch of Psalm 9, which is the larger portion, is just David retelling what God had already done to rescue him, an outline of praise for how God was faithful to deliver him.

The reality of God’s past actions becomes David’s foundation for praying with confidence that God would be gracious and remove affliction from him as the nations are rising, setting more traps, and planning to act against him again. In verses 13–20, David cried out for help with the new problem that he faced. Thus, David makes his plight known to God and closes with a plea that the Lord would rise to judge the nations in righteousness so that they might not harm God’s people.

Conclusion

The combination of praise and plea in Psalm 9 gives us perspective on why we ought to have hope in present prayer. When we learn to follow David’s example, we see that God’s past faithfulness should inspire us to eagerly pray in the midst of our present challenges. The structure of Psalm 9 highlights the main lesson that God wants to bring home for our instruction: look to the past to remember why we should have confidence in present prayer.

Notes

  1. Allen P. Ross, A Commentary on the Psalms, 3 vol. (Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Academic Press, 2011–16), 1:304.
  2. John Calvin, Calvin’s Commentaries, 22 vol. (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2009), 4.2:109.
  3. John Goldingay, Psalms, 3 vol., Baker Commentary on the Old Testament Wisdom and Psalms (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2006–8), 1:184.

© Harrison Perkins. All Rights Reserved.

You can find this whole series here.

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