God’s Word for You

Psalm 58:6-9 And comfort for a certain grief

by Pastor Timothy Smith on Sunday, December 18, 2022

David has been talking about those “sons of Adam” (sinful men) who oppose God’s Word and the gospel; whose own wicked words are like the venom of the cobra.

6 O God, break the teeth in their mouths,
  tear out the fangs of the lions, O LORD!
7 Let them vanish like water that flows away.

Verse 6 marks the middle of the psalm, and from here the subject changes back and forth from “them” to “him,” and so I will address each part separately. David asked God to break the teeth of the wicked in Psalm 3 (3:7), and thinking of the venomous fangs of the cobra, he adds the same thought here. Whether they behave like a slithering, poisonous snake or a roaring, ravenous lion, break their teeth, O Lord!

References to teeth and mouths are often used as representations of speech as well. “Let them be caught in their pride for the sins of their mouths, for the words of their lips” (Psalm 59:12). The speech of the wicked is nullified by God; their curses do not touch the faithful. Isaac said in his blessing: “May those who curse you be cursed” (Genesis 27:29). And David says: “Those the Lord blesses will inherit the land, but those he curses will be cut off” (Psalm 37:22).

David also asks the Lord to cause the wicked and their words to evaporate from his life like water that flows away. This is either the idea of a spilled jug of water, or of the many gulches (wadis) of Canaan that dry up in the summertime.

The prayer is that the ferocity of the wicked will be removed, but the reality is that too often the wicked opponents of the gospel will never stop their attacks until they themselves are gone from the scene. This is not a cry for anyone to take up arms or bring violence against their perceived enemies, for the Lord claims vengeance for himself alone (Deuteronomy 32:35; Romans 12:19), and “it is a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God” (Hebrews 10:31). But we pray that the raging and dangerous rivers of unbelief would dry up so that we can carry God’s word, the true and living water, to everyone who needs it.

  When he draws the bow, let his arrows be blunted.
8 Like a slug melting away as it moves along,
  like a stillborn child, may they not see the sun.

Midway through verse 7, the subject turns from “them” to “him.” The image of drawing the bow here is to step on it, which one might do when stringing the bow. But David asks God to blunt the arrows so that they do no harm. The term for blunting is rough soldier humor; the Hebrew term for “circumcise.”

The image from the beginning of verse 7 seems to continue here, where water was seen melting or evaporating away. A creature that ancients described as always melting was the slug or snail, whose slimy trail looks as if the creature melts as it moves. This comparison then moves into the sad reminder of a stillborn baby that will not see the sun (please read my additional note below about stillborn or miscarried children). The general idea is that David is asking for the removal of the wicked so that they are gone from the world, but another, more violent image occurs to him:

9 Before your pots can feel the heat of the thorns—
  whether green or dry—
  they will be swept away by a tornado.

This is a challenging verse to translate, and this doesn’t need to be explained in detail, except that the Hebrew reader or listener would have understood that “green” means alive and “dry” means dead wood. Thorns were often used as kindling or tinder for cooking fires because they were plentiful and not useful for much else. Burning thorns also appear in Psalm 118:12; Ecclesiastes 7:6; 2 Samuel 23:6; and in the prophecies of Isaiah (9:18; 10:17). But no matter what kind of thorns were gathered for the fire and for cooking, the whole apparatus—fire, hook, pot, and food—will be swept away in a whirling storm. I have translated this word as “tornado” in Zechariah and here because this is what we call these whirling storms in America and other English-speaking countries today.

The fearsome words of this Psalm plead with God to silence the words of the wicked and to put an end to all of their wicked works This is not merely to make life better or easier on believers, but to open doorways to proclaiming the gospel, so that many who are now unbelievers might hear the word of Christ and believe in him for the forgiveness of their sins. Then the unbeliever can confess, “I have stilled and quieted my soul, like a weaned child with its mother” (Psalm 131:2).

About stillborn or miscarried children

Since Luther wrote an excellent and comforting message about this in 1541 for the congregation in Wittenberg, I am content to quote and paraphrase his words here.

Many devout parents, especially wives, are in need of consolation because they have suffered agony and heartbreak when a child they have been carrying has died. My wife and I went through this when we lost little girls between the births of our third and fourth sons, little girls we would have called Nola and Sarah Jane.

We should remember that God’s will is always better than ours. Miscarriage and stillbirth are not a sign of God’s anger, but his judgment is hidden from us, and must remain hidden from us. Such a child is not able to be brought to baptism, but we can pray boldly and with confidence that God will accept the child, not on account of the child’s merits or our own, but for Jesus’ sake and based upon the merits of Jesus. Luther says: “It is true that a Christian in deepest despair does not dare to name, wish, or hope for the help (as it seems to him) which he would wholeheartedly and gladly purchase with his own life were that possible, and in doing so find comfort. However, the words of Paul (Romans 8:26-27) properly apply here: ‘The Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit.’”

We should also remember these points from God himself, and God does not lie:

1, God does not will or desire that anyone would be lost (Ezekiel 18:23).

2, God wants all people to be saved and to come to a knowledge of the truth (1 Timothy 2:3-4).

3, “All things are possible to him who believes” (Mark 9:23).

4, God invites us to “Call upon me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you shall glorify me” (Psalm 50:15).

To these points we could add many other comforting words from the Holy Scriptures, especially “The Lord is a refuge in a day of trouble,” (Nahum 1:7); “Nothing can hinder the Lord from saving” (1 Samuel 14:6); “The Lord will do what is good in his sight” (1 Chronicles 19:13); “May the Lord give you the desire of your heart” (Psalm 20:4); “Surely God is my help, the Lord is the one who sustains me” (Psalm 54:4); and “The Lord will write in the register of the peoples: ‘This one was born in Zion’” (Psalm 87:6). And there are many more besides these.

“In summary,” Luther concludes, “Do not be dismayed (O Christian) or grieved about your child or yourself, and know that your prayer is pleasing to God and that God will do everything much better than you can comprehend or desire…. In the Gospel, Christ raised the widow’s son at Nain because of the prayers of his mother, apart from the (child’s) father or the son (that is, the dead young man, Luke 7:11-17). And he freed the little daughter of the Canaanite woman from the demon through the faith of the mother apart from the daughter’s faith (Matthew 15:22-28).”

This comfort is not about those older ones who die in unbelief, who have heard about Christ and rejected him. But this is meant to comfort the Christian families of the littlest children lost. Be comforted, and be assured that God’s will is that we be saved, and when an accident or even his own holy will removes a child from us too soon for baptism, the gospel of Jesus in the means of grace can nevertheless reach a child, beyond our reason or understanding, and carry those whom God has chosen into everlasting life.

In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith

 

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