Latest / Reformed Thinking / The Lord Hears the Weeping of the Repentant (Psalm 6) | Matthew Henry

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The Lord Hears the Weeping of the Repentant (Psalm 6) | Matthew Henry · Reformed Thinking

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  Hello and welcome to Reformed Thinking.
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  I'm your host and I'm really glad you could join us.
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  Today we're going to be opening UA text that it really deals
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  with some of the darkest nights of the human soul, but we're
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  looking at it through the lens of a man who, well, who knew
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  exactly where to find the light. We're sitting down to analyze
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  the work of Matthew Henry, and specifically his commentary on
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  Psalm 6. It's good to be here.
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  And yeah, this is a text that really doesn't pull any punches.
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  If you're looking for a best life now kind of philosophy,
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  this is, well, this isn't it. We're looking at the gritty
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  reality of suffering and how a believer is meant to respond to
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  it. We certainly are.
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  And before we really get into the heavy lifting, we should
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  probably set the table a bit for anyone listening who might be
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  new to our approach. We analyze these texts as
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  Protestant Christians. Our framework, you could say, is
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  the Westminster Confession of Faith.
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  That's the lens we use for things like sin, assurance and
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  the sovereignty of God. And that framework is just so
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  critical here. I mean, Matthew Henry is
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  practically the voice of that whole tradition.
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  When you read his work, you're not just getting a literary
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  analysis or, you know, some kind of poetry appreciation.
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  You're getting a robust doctrinal look at how the Bible
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  actually applies to life. Henry does not sugarcoat the
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  hard parts of the Christian walk.
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  No, he definitely does not, especially with Psalm 6.
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  Right out of the gate, he classifieds this Psalm as a
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  lamentation. He even draws this really
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  fascinating parallel connecting David directly to Jeremiah.
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  We usually think of Jeremiah as the weeping prophet, but Henry
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  suggests David earns that title just as well.
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  He does. Henry points out that while we
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  often picture David as the warrior king or the sweet singer
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  of Israel, he was also a man who was intimately acquainted with
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  grief. Henry notes that this song was
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  either written during, or at least designed for a time of,
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  you know, a comprehensive crisis.
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  It's not just one thing going wrong.
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  It's everything going wrong all at once.
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  And that's really the mission for our discussion today, isn't
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  it? To understand what Henry calls
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  the anatomy of affliction, he breaks down the complaint in
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  those first 7 verses into 3 distinct grievances.
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  It's like a triad of suffering. You've got sickness of the body,
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  trouble of the mind, and then the insults of enemies piling
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  on. And the brilliance of Henry's
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  analysis is that he doesn't see these as three random,
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  unconnected bad things happening.
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  He sees a causal link between them.
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  He argues that the sickness of the body is often the very
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  trigger for the trouble of the mind.
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  OK, so let's walk through that connection.
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  Why does the physical ailment lead to a spiritual crisis in
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  Henry's view? Well, think about the human
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  condition, right? When you're strong, you're
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  healthy, you're busy. It's easy to ignore that subtle
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  gnawing of your conscience or the quiet questions of the soul,
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  but Henry observes that when the body is laid low, when you're
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  stuck in bed, you're in pain. Especially in the quiet of the
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  night, the mind starts to race. The physical pain brings a sense
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  of sin right to the surface. You start asking, why is this
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  happening to me? Is God punishing me?
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  What have I done to invite this? And that vulnerability is
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  exactly where that third element, the enemies, comes in.
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  Precisely. It's almost predatory.
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  The enemies see the king is down, he's physically weak, he's
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  spiritually doubting, and they seize that exact moment to
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  insult him. It's a cast skating failure.
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  The physical weakness invites the spiritual doubt, and the
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  spiritual doubt leaves you wide open to the attacks of those who
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  want to see you fail. There's a specific observation
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  Henry makes about David's status here that I found, well,
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  incredibly grounding. David is a king.
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  He has access to the best physicians, the best food, the
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  best guards. And yet, Henry writes, David was
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  a king, yet he was sick and pained.
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  His imperial crown could not keep his head from aching.
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  It's a fantastic line. Great men are men.
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  Henry is stripping away the facade.
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  We have this tendency, you know, to think that success or high
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  office or even extreme piety creates some kind of force field
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  against the common calamities of life.
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  But Henry reminds us that David, the man who killed lions and
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  bears and giants, still had to bow before distempers.
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  Distempers. That's an old word.
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  We don't really hear it much anymore.
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  It just means illness, a disorder of the body.
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  But Henry is using it to make a theological point.
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  He says this proves that God is for the body.
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  The fact that God allows a man after his own heart to suffer
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  physically means that our physical suffering is not a sign
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  that we've been abandoned. It's part of the curriculum, so
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  to speak. It forces the strong to realize
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  they're just dust. It's a check on human pride.
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  But Henry is also very clear in distinguishing the weight of the
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  suffering. He contrasts the bones being
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  vexed with the soul being vexed. Yeah, he seems to imply this
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  spiritual anguish is just infinitely heavier than the
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  physical pain. Oh.
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  Absolutely, he quotes the proverb.
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  The spirit of a man will sustain his infirmity, but a wounded
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  spirit, who can bear? I mean, you can grit your teeth
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  through a broken leg, you can endure a fever, but when your
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  soul is trembling, when you feel the weight of God's displeasure,
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  that just crushes you. So that's the trouble of mine we
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  touched on earlier. Right.
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  David isn't just saying my back hurts, he's saying I feel like
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  God is angry with me. He sees the sickness as a token,
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  a symbol of God's displeasure, and that is what leads to that
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  desperate cry. I am weak.
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  Heal me. He wants the pain to stop, yes,
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  but more than that, he wants the assurance that God is not his
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  enemy. And he asks how long.
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  Henry points out this implies the suffering wasn't, you know,
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  some 24 hour bug. No, this was a season.
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  A lingering, grinding season that how long is the cry of
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  someone who has lost track of time in the darkness?
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  It adds a layer of desperation that's I think really important
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  for us to recognize. Sometimes we think if we just
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  pray correctly, the relief will be instant.
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  Henry's saying no. Sometimes you have to wait in
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  the dark. The duration is part of the
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  task. And this, this pressure cooker
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  of physical pain and spiritual doubt that leads us right into
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  the second section of our analysis, the nature of Dave's
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  reaction. And honestly, looking at the
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  text through modernize, it's, it's a little uncomfortable.
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  It's very wet. It is soaking wet.
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  It's uncomfortably raw. Henry highlights the imagery,
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  groaning until he's weary, weeping until his bed swims,
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  watering his couch with tears. Verse 7 says his eye is consumed
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  because of grief. I mean, if we saw a modern world
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  leader, a general, or a president crying until their
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  mattress was soaked, we would probably worry about their
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  capacity to lead. We'd think they'd lost it.
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  We'd call it a breakdown. We value stoicism, don't we?
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  We want our leaders to be unflappable, composed.
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  But Henry just flips the script here.
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  He argues this isn't a lack of courage, it's an abundance of
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  spiritual sensitivity. He says David had the courage to
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  face Goliath without even flinching.
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  But here, facing his own sin and the distance of God, he melts
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  into tears. So the tears are not really
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  about the physical pain. Henry is absolutely adamant
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  about that. He says a soldier doesn't weep
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  like this over a flesh wound. David is weeping because sin is
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  heavy on his conscience. It takes a hard heart to sin
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  without feeling it, but it takes a strong, soft heart to truly
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  mourn over it. Henry wants us to see that
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  spiritual grief is a sign of life, not a sign of weakness.
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  This brings up a distinction Henry remakes between David's
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  morning and, say, the morning of the Pharisees.
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  The Pharisees were also known for making a big show of their
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  religion, often with these grand displays of emotion or
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  asceticism. And that's the key difference.
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  The audience, the Pharisees, would disfigure their faces so
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  that men would see they were fasting.
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  It was all theater. It was performance art for
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  social credit. David's morning, according to
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  Henry, happens in his retirement.
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  By retirement, he means in private.
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  Exactly. In his private chambers at
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  night, when the door is locked, Henry says true penitence.
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  Weep in their retirements. Well, if your grief over sin is
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  only visible when you have an audience, you really need to
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  check your motives. But if you're weeping on your
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  pillow where only God can see, that's the mark of sincerity.
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  Henry uses a phrase here that has, well, it's largely fallen
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  out of our vocabulary. He calls the Christian life a
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  veil of tears. It sounds so gloomy to us,
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  doesn't it? We want the mountaintop
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  experience. We want the victory lap.
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  But Henry insists on realism. He says we must accommodate
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  ourselves to the temper of the climate.
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  You know, if you live in a place where it rains constantly, you
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  don't complain about the rain. You just buy an umbrella.
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  You expect it. In a fallen world, we should
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  expect tears. It's the nature of the place we
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  inhabit. But.
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  He doesn't just leave it at life is hard.
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  He connects this to Christ. Yes, the typology here is so
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  significant. David is a type of foreshadowing
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  of Jesus. Henry points us to Hebrews 5.7
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  and reminds us that Christ offered prayers with strong
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  crying and tears. If the King of kings was a man
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  of sorrows, why on earth do we think we should be exempt?
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  David's weeping validates our grief.
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  It tells us that deep emotion isn't unspiritual.
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  It's actually Christ like to weep over the brokenness of the
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  world and the weight of sin. That brings us to the actual
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  content of his prayer. I mean, David is crying, but
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  he's also speaking. And verse one contains this very
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  specific theological distinction that I really want to drill
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  into. Rebuke me not in thy anger,
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  neither chase me in thy hot displeasure.
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  This is where Henry's Reformed theology just shines.
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  You have to notice what David does not pray.
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  He doesn't say, Lord, do not rebuke me.
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  He doesn't say, Lord, do not chasten me.
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  Which is counterintuitive. I think most of us, we just want
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  the discipline to stop. We want the pain to go away.
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  But David knows his sonship. He knows that, as Hebrews 12
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  says, the Lord disciplines the one he loves.
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  Chastisement is a family privilege.
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  I mean, if God ignores your sin, you might be illegitimate.
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  If he corrects you, you're a son.
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  So David accepts the rod. What he's praying against is the
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  anger. He accepts the correction, but
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  he fears the wrath. Exactly.
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  He's saying, correct me as a father who loves me, not as a
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  judge who is executing me. Henry uses this really visceral
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  image here. He calls the anger of God, the
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  Wormwood, and the gall in the cup of affliction.
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  Wormwood and gall, so bitterness and poison.
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  Right. Think of the affliction as a cup
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  you have to drink. If that cup is mixed with God's
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  love, and it's intended for your sanctification, then it's
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  medicine. It might taste terrible, but it
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  cures you. But if that cup is mixed with
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  God's hot displeasure, his judicial wrath, then it's
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  poison. It destroys.
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  David is saying, Lord, please give me the medicine, but leave
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  out the poison. And Henry notes that this was
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  Christ's experience on the cross, wasn't it?
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  It absolutely was. If you look at the crucifixion,
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  Jesus never complaints about the physical torture.
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  He doesn't scream about the nails or the thorns.
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  What does he cry out about? The forsaking.
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  My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
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  He drank the Wormwood. He took the hot displeasure so
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  that we would only ever get the medicinal chastisement.
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  That's the great exchange. That is a striking comfort.
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  So based on this distinction, Henry then outlines David's
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  specific requests. It's like a restoration list.
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  Pity, pardon, healing, reconciliation.
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  And the preservation of the inward man.
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  He's terrified of his soul withering.
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  He wants his relationship with God restored above all else.
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  But right in the middle of these requests, we hit verse 5.
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  And this is a verse that has confused people for, well, for
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  centuries. David prays for in death, there
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  is no remembrance of thee. On the surface, it almost sounds
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  like David is claiming that when you die, you just you just stop.
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  It sounds like soul sleep, doesn't it?
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  Or even a denial of the afterlife.
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  Dead men tell no tales, basically.
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  Right. So how does Henry reconcile this
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  with a Christian worldview? Well, Henry is quick to defend
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  the afterlife. He says no separate souls live
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  and act. He's very clear that death isn't
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  the end of consciousness, but he offers 2 very practical
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  interpretations of what David means.
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  The first one is about the second death, about hell.
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  If David dies under God's wrath, he goes to a place where there
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  is no pleasing remembrance of God.
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  The damned might remember God, but only to blasphemy him or
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  tremble before him. There's no worship in the outer
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  darkness. OK, so he's praying to be saved
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  from hell. That makes sense, but Henry
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  offers a second interpretation, one regarding usefulness that I
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  found even more compelling. He uses this analogy of soldiers
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  versus courtiers. Oh, I love this analogy.
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  It explains the tension between what he calls the Church
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  militant, that's us here on earth, and the Church
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  Triumphant, the Saints in heaven.
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  OK, break that down for us. So the Saints in heaven are like
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  courtiers in the throne room. They're dressed in fine robes,
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  they're safe, they're happy. They're looking at the king for
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  the individual that is the best possible place to be.
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  It's rest, it's glory. But the king also has an army
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  out on the field. Exactly.
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  The Saints on earth are the soldiers in the field.
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  They're in the mud. They're fighting the war.
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  And Henry argues that while the courtier is happier, the soldier
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  is more useful to the current campaign.
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  Dead bodies can't fight the war against sin.
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  They can't evangelize, they can't edify the church.
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  So David is basically saying, Lord, keep me alive because I
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  have work to do for you. Keep me in the trenches a little
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  bit longer. It transforms the prayer for
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  healing from a selfish request I want to be comfortable to a
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  service oriented request I want to be useful.
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  It implies that if God has work for you to do, you have a valid
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  argument to ask for more life. It reframes the whole concept of
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  survival. Departing is better for me, but
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  abiding is better for the church.
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  Precisely. It's the same logic Paul uses in
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  Philippians. It's an argument based on
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  utility for the Kingdom. Now that brings us to the final
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  section of the Psalm, verses 8 through 10.
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  And Henry calls this the sudden turn, and it is incredibly
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  abrupt. It's like a Thunder clap, isn't
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  it? In verse 7, he's weeping.
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  His eyes are consumed. He is weak.
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  In verse 8, he's standing tall, commanding, confident.
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  Depart from me all you workers of inequity.
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  It's a total shift in tone, Henry says.
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  He that was groaning here looks and speaks very pleasantly.
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  So what changed? I mean, did the sickness just
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  vanish between verse 7 and 8? Did the enemies suddenly
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  apologize? The text doesn't say his
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  circumstances changed one bit. He's likely still sick.
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  The enemies are likely still outside his door.
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  What changed was his assurance. Henry explains that in his
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  depression, David feared he would be gathered with sinners.
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  He thought, I'm suffering like a wicked man, so maybe I am one.
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  Maybe my lot is with them. The doubt we talked about
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  earlier. Right.
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  But then suddenly faith kicks in.
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  The cloud breaks. He realizes, no, I am a child of
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  God. And because he knows he belongs
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  to God, he knows he does not belong with the wicked.
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  So he tells them to get lost. It's a separation.
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  It is, and Henry suggests these workers of iniquity might have
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  been tempting him. Maybe they were whispering curse
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  God and die or just give up David, and David, renewed in his
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  faith, just rejects them entirely.
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  He resolves to have nothing to do with them.
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  And as a king, this isn't just a personal decision, it's a
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  political one. Yes, Henry is quick to note the
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  leadership application. David is essentially saying I'm
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  back, and because I'm back, I'm going to clean house.
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  I'm going to suppress sin and reform manners in my Kingdom.
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  He's taking charge again. The engine behind this sudden
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  confidence seems to be answered prayer.
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  Verse 9 says the Lord had heard the voice of my weeping.
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  There's a beautiful phrase Henry uses here.
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  He says silent tears are not speechless ones.
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  That just stops you in your tracks.
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  Yeah, silent tears are not speechless.
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  Yeah, we tend to think of prayer as vocabulary, you know, well
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  constructed sentences. We worry if we have the right
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  words. But Henry says tears have a loud
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  voice in God's ears. God understands the language of
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  our grief even when we're too choked up to speak.
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  It's a huge comfort for anyone who's just too overwhelmed to
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  articulate their prayer. And David speaks of this hearing
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  in the past tense. The Lord have heard.
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  It's the Fiat, the let it be done, Henry says.
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  David speaks of it has already accomplished because grace is at
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  work in his heart. He has the receipt.
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  The package hasn't arrived yet. The healing might not be
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  manifest in his body, but he knows the order has been
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  processed in the throne room. And that really is the
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  definition of faith, the assurance of things hoped for.
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  So because he has this assurance, he then addresses the
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  fate of his enemies in verse 10. Let all mine enemies be ashamed
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  and sore vexed. Now is this just David being
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  vindictive? You know, I hope you guys suffer
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  like I did. Henry gives us two ways to read
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  this and it really showcases his balance.
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  The first option is actually quite charitable.
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  He suggests it could be a prayer for their conversion.
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  Let them be ashamed is a prayer for conversion.
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  How does that work? Well, think about the mechanics
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  of repentance. You can't repent unless you were
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  first ashamed of what you've done.
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  You have to be vexed at your own folly.
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  You have to realize you were wrong.
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  So Henry suggests, David might actually be praying.
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  Lord, show them how wrong they are so that they can turn back
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  to a better temper. OK, that's the best case
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  scenario. What's the alternative reading?
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  The alternative is justice, confusion, and ruin.
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  If they will not be converted, then it's a prediction that the
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  evil they wished on David will just boomerang right back on to
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  them. Henry lays down a very sober
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  principle here. Those who will not give glory to
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  God will have their faces filled with everlasting shame.
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  You can bow now or you can bow later.
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  Exactly. It's the reality of the two
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  paths. There is no third option.
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  So we've really walked through this incredible progression.
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  We started in the absolute depths, humiliation, fear of
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  wrath, physical pain. We move through the struggle of
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  prayer and these arguments for usefulness, and we ended on this
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  high note of assurance and separation from sin.
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  Henry suggests there's great utility in praying over the
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  Psalm. He does.
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  He encourages us to use it as a template when we are in the
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  greatest straits. As he puts it, those tight,
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  impossible spots. We should use these words to
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  wait on God. It gives us a vocabulary for our
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  suffering when we don't have our own.
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  It teaches us how to complain to God without complaining about
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  God. I want to leave our listener
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  with a thought that Henry brings up something that really stuck
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  with me he does about sewing. In tears, he suggests that
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  getting ready for mercy requires this sewing.
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  It's a very provocative idea for the modern mind.
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  It is. I mean, in our context, we're
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  allergic to sadness. We want the hack, we want the
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  pill. We want to get back to happy and
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  productive as fast as humanly possible.
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  But Henry seems to imply that the weeping is actually part of
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  the cure. He does.
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  If we skip the morning, if we bypass that deep, agonizing
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  wrestling with our own brokenness and our sin, we might
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  actually be stunting our own growth.
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  We might be delaying the very comfort we're looking for.
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  The comfort is so much sweeter when you've pasted the
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  bitterness of the gall. The assurance is stronger when
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  you have stared into the abyss of the how long?
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  So the question we have to ask ourselves, I suppose, is, are we
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  brave enough to weep? That is the question.
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  Thank you for that insight, and thank you to everyone listening
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  for taking this deep dive with us today.
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  We'd encourage you to open the text yourself, read Psalm 6,
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  read Matthew Henry's thoughts on it.
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  Just let it soak in. It's well worth the time.
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  Until next time, keep thinking.