Bird's-eye view
Psalm 116 is a intensely personal testimony of deliverance and a subsequent vow of public thanksgiving. The psalmist has been brought to the very brink of death, to the gates of Sheol itself, and has cried out to Yahweh in his distress. In response, God heard and delivered him. This psalm, therefore, is the aftermath. It is the grateful response of a man who knows, without any ambiguity, that God has acted decisively on his behalf. The psalm moves from a declaration of love for God based on His attentiveness (vv. 1-2), to a recounting of the distress (vv. 3-4), to a celebration of God's character (vv. 5-7), to a summary of the deliverance (v. 8), and finally to a series of vows about how the psalmist will now live his life in light of this salvation, culminating in public worship and sacrifice (vv. 9-19). It is a textbook example of how personal crisis, desperate prayer, and divine salvation are meant to result in a life of grateful, public piety.
The central logic of the psalm is this: God acts, and His people respond. God hears, so I love. God delivers, so I will walk before Him. God is good, so I will pay my vows. This is not the logic of a business transaction, but the logic of a loving, covenantal relationship. The entire psalm stands as a rebuke to a sterile deism that assumes God is distant and non-interventionist. This psalmist knows nothing of such a God. His God is one who inclines His ear to the desperate cries of His people, and for that, He is to be loved and praised.
Outline
- 1. The Foundation of Affection (Ps 116:1-2)
- a. The Declaration: A Love for the Listening God (Ps 116:1)
- b. The Reason: God's Personal Attentiveness (Ps 116:2a)
- c. The Resolve: A Lifetime of Prayer (Ps 116:2b)
Context In Psalms
Psalm 116 is part of what is known as the "Egyptian Hallel," a collection of psalms (113-118) that were traditionally sung during the Passover feast. This context is significant. Just as Israel as a nation was delivered from death and bondage in Egypt, this psalmist celebrates his own personal exodus from the "pains of death." The themes of bondage, crying out to God, deliverance, and a subsequent life of worship resonate powerfully with the Passover narrative. When Jesus and His disciples sang a hymn after the Last Supper (Matt 26:30), it was almost certainly these psalms. Christ, on the verge of His own descent into the ultimate distress, sings of the God who delivers His people from death. This psalm is therefore not just the testimony of an individual but is also prophetic of the great deliverance that would come through the death and resurrection of the Messiah, who is the ultimate afflicted one whom God raises from the dead.
Key Issues
- The Relationship Between God's Actions and a Believer's Affections
- The Doctrine of Answered Prayer
- The Nature of Covenantal Love
- Prayer as a Lifelong Discipline
- The Anthropomorphism of God "Inclining His Ear"
The Logic of Love
The psalm begins with a straightforward declaration that ought to govern the entire Christian life. "I love the Lord." This is not a vague, sentimental feeling. It is a robust affection that is grounded in a concrete reality. The psalmist loves God for a reason, and he states it plainly: "because He hears my voice." This is the foundational logic of a healthy relationship with God. Our love for God is not something we work up from within ourselves through mystical effort. It is a response. God acts first. God reveals Himself. God listens. God saves. Our love, our worship, and our obedience are the fitting reply to His gracious initiative.
In our therapeutic age, we are often encouraged to look inside ourselves to find our truth or our feelings. But biblical faith is objective. It looks outside of itself to God and what He has done. The psalmist's emotional state is not the starting point; God's action is. This is crucial. If our love for God is based on our performance, it will be fickle and weak. But if it is based on His character and His saving deeds, it has a rock-solid foundation that can withstand the greatest distress, as the rest of this psalm demonstrates.
Verse by Verse Commentary
1 I love Yahweh, because He hears My voice and my supplications.
The psalmist begins with the pinnacle of what the law requires: to love the Lord your God. But notice the cause and effect. The affection is not the cause of God's favor, but the effect of it. He loves Yahweh, the covenant-keeping God of Israel, for a very specific reason. God is a God who hears. He is not a deaf idol carved of stone or a distant, abstract philosophical principle. He is a person who listens to persons. The psalmist specifies two things God hears: his voice and his supplications. This is comprehensive. It includes both the raw, desperate cry of the heart (voice) and the specific, articulated requests for help (supplications). God pays attention to both the emotion and the content of our prayers. This is an immense comfort. When we are in such distress that we can barely form coherent sentences, God hears our voice. When we have the presence of mind to lay out our specific needs, He hears our supplications. For this reason alone, He is worthy of our love.
2 Because He has inclined His ear to me, So I shall call upon Him in all my days.
This verse deepens the reason for his love and states the resulting resolution. The phrase "He has inclined His ear to me" is a beautiful anthropomorphism. It paints a picture of a great king, or a loving father, bending down low to catch the faint whisper of a child. God is infinitely majestic, high above us, yet He condescends to listen intently to our prayers. He doesn't just hear in a passive sense; He actively leans in to pay attention. This is a picture of profound, personal care. The experience of being heard in this way produces a firm resolve in the psalmist. The logic is impeccable: "Because God has proven Himself to be a prayer-hearing God, therefore my life's policy will be to pray." He resolves to call upon God "in all my days." This is literally "as long as I live." Prayer is not just an emergency measure for moments of crisis. Because God is always a listening God, the believer is to be always a praying believer. The past experience of answered prayer becomes the fuel for a future life of constant communion with God.
Application
The opening of this psalm presents a direct challenge to the modern Christian. Do you love God? If so, why? Is your love for Him grounded in the fact that you have experienced Him as a God who hears and acts? Or is it a vague religious sentimentality? This psalm invites us to build our spiritual lives on the solid ground of God's revealed character and His actions in our lives. We should be people who can point to specific instances where we cried out and God inclined His ear. We need to get better at telling the stories of His faithfulness.
Furthermore, this passage teaches us the right motivation for a life of prayer. We don't pray in order to get God to love us. We pray because He has already demonstrated His love by inclining His ear to us in Christ. The cross is the ultimate proof that God hears the cries of His people and has bent down to save us. Because He heard us in our ultimate distress, we now have the confidence and the obligation to call upon Him in all our days. A prayerless Christian is a practical atheist, living as though God is deaf. But a praying Christian is one who has taken Psalm 116:1-2 to heart, who loves God because He has heard, and who resolves to keep speaking to Him for as long as he has breath.