Psalm Chapter 40

Psalm 40: The New Song from the Pit

The psalm begins with a completed rescue. "I waited patiently for the Lord; and he inclined unto me, and heard my cry. He brought me up also out of an horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock." The sequence matters: first the waiting, then the inclining, then the rescue, then — and only then — the new song. God does not merely pull David out of the mud; He gives him music about it. And this new song, David says, is itself an evangelistic act: "Many shall see it, and fear, and shall trust in the Lord." Then comes the turn that lifts the psalm from testimony to prophecy: "Sacrifice and offering thou didst not desire; mine ears hast thou opened." What God wanted was never the smoke of burnt offerings but an opened ear, a willing heart, a life that says, "Lo, I come." The author of Hebrews recognized this voice as belonging to Christ Himself. And yet the psalm does not end in triumph but in honest need: "I am poor and needy; yet the Lord thinketh upon me." That small word "yet" carries the whole weight of faith — the admission of poverty and the confidence that one is not forgotten.

00:00 Up from the Horrible Pit
01:00 Not Sacrifice but Obedience
02:00 Poor and Needy, Yet Remembered