Most of us are familiar with the Golden Rule: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. This is another version of the second great command: Love your neighbor as yourself. This clear but profound rule is also found in natural law; it is written on our hearts, and it is published in Scripture. But because the Golden Rule is so simple, we can miss one of its wrinkles, and this arises out of misunderstanding. Loving others as we want to be loved implies self-projection. We project ourselves on others, which at times is invaluable but at others is problematic because people differ from us. How we want to be treated can vary wildly from how others want to be treated. Self-projection can result in mistreatment, even abuse. To love others properly requires a sympathetic imagination, to put ourselves in their shoes that do not fit us so well. And this psalm places a blessing on those who rightly understand the poor so that we may bless our Lord forever.

As with Psalm 1, this psalm opens with a blessing. Such a blessing pronounces God’s favor. The Lord smiles on this person so that he is fortunate before God. God is happy with this person, so he is happy in God. And this blessing from above falls on “the one who considers the poor” (v. 1). The poor, here, are not just those with a low socioeconomic status. “Poor” isn’t primarily about not having much money. Rather, “poor,” or maybe better “weak,” covers anyone who is down and out. This includes being vulnerable, persecuted, sick, or estranged. Yet the blessing does not fall on the lowly person, but it sprints to the one who considers those who are lowly. The sense is more “who understands the lowly.” To understand the lowly is to perceive the misery of their situation. This sees things from their perspective; it sympathizes with their hurt. It fully understands their point of view.

This is no common virtue. As you know, there is much talk about the poor, especially today. The poor can be valorized: Only they are honorable. Or they can be demonized: What a bunch of lazies! The poor are objects of charity, providing opportunity to virtue signal for the giver. Yet amid all this talk about the poor, there can be very little listening to them. Actually understanding them and their hardship is a rarer find. Hence, the Lord blesses the person who understands the lowly, which includes sympathy, empathy, and honest perception of their plight. This is having the same mindset and outlook as the poor person.

And look what the blessing imparts for this understanding one in verses 2–3. The Lord protects him and sustains his life. God places him in the category of blessed in the land. He will not give him up to the devouring enemies. The Lord even sustains him on his sickbed and restores him to full health. This blessing is a fount of the Lord’s kind support. The Almighty blesses the understanding one by being his rock of refuge and fountain of life.

Yet the benefits of this blessing elucidate a couple things. First, the Lord’s care is unleashed when the understanding person himself becomes lowly. The psalmist understood the poor, and then, when he falls into poverty, the Lord supports and sustains him. There is a balance and proportionality. If you sympathize with the poor, then the Lord sympathizes with your poverty. This is a reap-what-you-sow dynamic. Since you were thoughtful toward the lowly, God is compassionate toward you when hard times hit—very Golden Rule like.

Second, Yahweh’s care identifies the features of the poverty. He helps the poor one on his sickbed (v. 3). This is the impoverishment of poor health. Money is not involved at all. This is the lowliness of being ill—and desperately so. Next, God does not give him over to his enemies, so hostiles are part of the picture (vv. 4–7). People who hate and desire the harm of the understanding person will not get the upper hand, for the Lord keeps him safe. The poverty in view is sickness and foes. Put together, this is a situation where a person falls ill and enemies pop up to exploit his circumstance to their advantage. They kick him while he is down.

And this is key, for now the psalm shifts from the abstract to the personal. Verses 1–3 are stated as concrete fact. This is an abstract truth that applies to all times and places. In verse 4, though, the language changes to a specific situation, to an individual experience that the psalmist underwent. The principle is that the Lord blesses the one who understands the poor, and now the psalmist tells us a story about what he experienced: “As for me, this is what I endured.”

He records for us a prayer. One day, he petitioned for the Lord’s grace: “Be gracious to me” (v. 4). Why did he request a special measure of grace? Because he was ill. The psalmist was laid up in bed and the prognosis was not good. Would the fever break? Would he survive or not? The physician could give him no guarantees that he would be okay. No, this was a serious illness. Furthermore, the psalmist knows the cause of his disease. There is no guesswork on how he fell ill. He is sick because he sinned. This is very Mosaic. Under the law, one of the curses for sinning was the punishment of sickness. The Lord shaped and upheld providence to fashion a person’s health according to his deeds. Uprightness was rewarded with health, and disobedience was chastised with infirmities. Thus, the psalmist confesses his iniquity: “I sinned, so Yahweh be gracious to heal me.” This is the record of his repentance. He disobeyed, the Lord punished with illness, and now he repents so that grace can make him whole again.

Yet this summarized confession reveals that this was a personal matter. It was a private interaction between the Lord and the psalmist. There is a sort of doctor-patient confidentiality here. He sinned, the Lord corrected him, and he humbles himself for grace. No one else needs to be involved; this is not their business. Also, the sickness was the Lord’s full and proportional correction. The principle of justice is that the punishment should fit the crime, and here it does to a T. The Lord afflicting him with disease was full payment for his sin; anything more or less would be out of joint. It is an open-and-shut case. The Lord’s balanced discipline worked its intended purpose: repentance and reconciliation.

But this is where trouble comes in. The private matter did not stay private. Other people butted in; they stuck their nose where it did not belong—and what an ugly nose! For those who interjected themselves were hostiles. The psalmist labels them as his enemies, and the nuance of “enemy” here is one who desires your harm (v. 5). A friend wants your good; an enemy drools for your hurt. And these foes were salivating for blood. When will he die? How soon will his name perish for good? They are wishing for him to die; they are praying that the disease will take him. And they are anxious for this to be soon. Hurry up and die already!

Moreover, for your name to perish is not an earthly punishment, but it is a postmortem one. A person’s name goes extinct when he is condemned to the everlasting realm of Sheol. This hostile death wish, though, is wrong on two fronts. First, it arises out of hate; it shatters the law to love your neighbor. Second, it is judicially abusive. The punishment must fit the crime, which was already administered by God. But now the enemies pile on punishments that are too severe. The psalmist’s sin deserved sickness, but it did not warrant death, much less Sheol. Yet the foes want him to be strung up. For a misdemeanor, they want him sentenced like a felon. This is like asking for the death penalty for a parking ticket.

The hatred of the foes, though, gets more sinister. Second, the psalmist records how they come to see him (v. 6). They gave him a home visit. How caring of them! But at his bedside, they utter empty words, which refers to useless comforts. You visit the sick person to encourage him, to offer sweet words to help, but these are worthless counselors, vain comforters. Their platitudes are empty; their encouragements are hollow. They pretend to care, but you can see through their disguise easily to spot their insincerity. Furthermore, as they offer vain Hallmark cards, they are scheming to sin. Their minds gather up ways to harm and sin against the psalmist. Then, they leave and tell it abroad, which is malicious rumor spreading. At the suffering one’s bed, they sing of love and well wishes, but amid his neighbors, they say horrible things about him. “He is an evil person. Did you hear what he did? He is really bad off. He will be dead soon, and thank goodness! We can party when he is gone.” This is cruel and unusual punishment, and it gets worse. We will delve into such unpleasantness in part 2.

©Zach Keele. All Rights Reserved.

You can find the whole series here.

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Post authored by:

• Zach Keele

  

  Rev. Zachary Keele grew up on a ranch in a small town named Crawford, Colorado. He attended Geneva College in Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania and received his Master of Divinity from Westminster Seminary California. He has served as the pastor of Escondido OPC since 2006.

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