If this is your first viewing, please see my Introduction before reading this, and the introduction to the Psalms for this book of the Bible in particular.
4 July. Psalms 40-45
I have just been on a train from Carlisle to Leeds, which crosses the infamous Dandry Mire viaduct. The story goes that this bog at the top of Garsdale was so wet that although the engineers trying to make an embankment across it spent weeks tipping thousands of tons of soil and stones onto it, the mire swallowed it all and the embankment could not be built. Instead it was decided to build a viaduct, which meant piling down through the mire until solid rock was reached to erect the piers. Hard work, but the resulting structure is still carrying heavy trains nearly 150 years later.
That was in my mind when I read Psalm 40, which starts with a brief preface, and verse 2 seemed relevant: “The Lord drew me up from the desolate pit, out of the miry bog, and set my feet upon a rock, making my steps secure”. John Bunyan wrote in effect a commentary on this verse in his Pilgrims Progress: “This miry slough is such a place as cannot be mended: it is the descent whither the scum and filth that attends conviction for sin doth continually run, and therefore it is called the Slough of Despond.”
The point he is making is that recognising our own sin, although it is necessary before we can honestly turn to God for help, tends to make us despondent (afraid that nothing can help us). But in the Pilgrims Progress, a character called Help come along and pulls the Christian out of it. In response to Christian’s question why there was no path over the mire, Help answers that “It is not the pleasure of the King that this place should remain so bad. His labourers also have, by the direction of his Majesty’ surveyors, been for above this sixteen hundred years employed about this patch of ground, if perhaps it might have been mended: yea, and to my knowledge,” said he, “there have been swallowed up at least twenty thousand cart loads, … but it is the Slough of Despond still, and so will be when they have done what they can”. In other words, no human attempts at dealing with the guilt of sin can ever achieve it. Only Jesus (one of whose titles is the Rock), who deals with our sins, can pull us out of our despondency.
Both the first two psalms of today’s reading (40, after this preface, and 41) follow a similar pattern, common in this genre: first a statement that those who believe and trust in God, and do the right thing, will be happy (or blessed – different translations of the same word); then a cry to God for help in times of persecution or other form of trouble; then another declaration of trust in God. The person who has faith will not be lacking in troubles and difficulties, and may well feel overwhelmed by them, like the man in the slough of despond; the difference is that they can call on God for strength, and believe that they will, sooner or later, in one way or another, be brought safely through their troubles.
Psalms 42 and 43 are actually a single composition (and appear as such in Catholic bibles), as can be seen from the refrain found in both of them: “Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you disquieted within me? Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my help and my God.” The writer remembers times when he could praise God with joy, be satisfied with his presence, and take part in celebrations. But now he is feeling despondent (see above!) and unable to take part meaningfully in worship.
In one of the most vivid images in the Bible, he compares himself to a hunted deer, parched with thirst after the chase, and longing for the cool spring water of God’s love. Many people of faith have experienced this longing for God’s presence, especially when they have once known it and no longer do so, and described it in terms of other human appetites – desire, hunger or thirst.
So whether you experience the lack of God’s presence as hunger, thirst or being stuck in the mud, the good news is that if you call on him, he will hear, and respond.
No comment on Psalms 44 and 45 just now, except to note that they are very different in their content, one being a lament for a nation’s lost glory, and the other an ode for a royal wedding (probably of David himself).