The Song of Weary Tears

In this lament, David is clearly suffering, but we get hints, not specific details, about the circumstances of his suffering. In the early church tradition, this was the first of seven “penitential psalms” that were recited on Ash Wednesday, and indeed David does speak of God’s discipline and rebuke, so he could be suffering as a result of his own sin. He mentions foes, so he could be facing opposition like in Psalms 3 and 5. He prays for healing, so he could be ill or injured. It could be all of the above or a combination of them, but in some ways, the specifics are not important. The point is that this suffering has been going on for a long time. In verse 3, David prays, “But you, O LORD — how long?” In the Psalms, when someone is experiencing new, fresh distress, the cry is “Why, O LORD?” But when the anguish is extended and there’s no end in sight, the prayer is “How long?” As Tim Keller puts it, this is “the cry of someone who has walked with more pain and sickness than he thought he could ever bear.” Or as Derek Kidner writes, “The psalm gives words to those who scarcely have the heart to pray, and brings them within sight of victory.” For many of us who have suffered for weeks or months or years, whether physically or emotionally, this psalm is an invitation to enter into that pain unapologetically and without guilt, crying out to God and finding him in the midst of our trouble.

As I mentioned at the beginning, David is remarkably honest about how he is suffering. In verse 2, he says that he is “languishing,” which means to wither, to be sucked of all your vitality. David’s bones and soul are troubled; his whole person feels it. This is a good reminder that the biblical authors know how the inward and outward parts of our humanity affect each other; there is a connection between what we experience in our bodies and what we experience in our minds and emotions. In verses 6-7, David gives full vent to all that he’s feeling: “I am weary with my moaning; every night I flood my bed with tears; I drench my couch with my weeping. My eye wastes away because of grief; it grows weak because of all my foes.” These are weary tears. On the one hand, he has too many tears, an ocean of sorrow. But on the other hand, he has not enough energy; he wastes away and grows weak. If we were to hear a spiritual leader talk like this, we would be embarrassed for them, but those who have really suffered know that embarrassment doesn’t matter when you are in the valley of the shadow of death. And David does invoke death in verse 5 after he asks God to deliver him: “For in death there is no remembrance of you; in Sheol who will give you praise?” The concept of “Sheol” is worth explaining, because it shows up often in the Psalms. It is a way of describing what was likely an earlier understanding of the place for the dead. It’s the underworld, or sometimes it’s just a synonym for death itself. We should not read it like David is musing on the philosophical and theological state of being that we experience after death. Rather, David is using poetic, evocative language to describe the depths of his despair. He’s saying, “If I sink any lower, if my life ends, if death were to grasp me and pull me down, I’ll be lost. My worship of God will end, and is there anything worse than that?” The tragedy of death is at the front of David’s mind. But despite all of this pain, the psalm takes a turn at the end that is surprising and deeply encouraging.

For all of David’s cries for help, his petitions and prayers to God are only in the first four verses. “Rebuke me not.” “Be gracious to me.” “Heal me.” “Turn, deliver my life.” “Save me for the sake of your steadfast love.” But the second half of the psalm starts with David’s weeping and then ends with a tone of defiant faith: “Depart from me, all you workers of evil, for the LORD has heard the sound of my weeping.” This psalm presents us with a very different tone toward David’s enemies than what we’ve seen so far in the Psalms: David simply dismisses his opposition because God has heard his tearful prayer and will act on his behalf. He is confident that God is listening, even though he hasn’t done anything about the circumstances… yet. In verse 9, he says that the LORD has heard his plea, and then in the next verse, he says that someday, God will deal with his enemies. David’s confidence goes even further when we look at the original Hebrew. The words that David uses in the beginning of the psalm to describe his pain are the very same words he uses at the end of the psalm to describe God’s deliverance. “Be gracious to me” in verse 2 has the same root as the “plea” in verse 9, a cry for mercy. He prays for grace, and God gives it. David’s bones are troubled, but his enemies shall be greatly troubled. His prayer for God to turn and notice him is answered by his enemies turning back and retreating due to God’s mighty salvation. And the poetic repetition goes further in the last verse: “All my enemies shall be ashamed and greatly troubled; they shall turn back and be put to shame in a moment.” The words for “turn” and “shame” sound very similar in Hebrew (yehvoshu and yashuvu); David becomes a slam poet wielding words like weapons. All of this wordplay isn’t just for style; David is showing us that even though his suffering was long and wearying, the exact things that he prayed for are answered by the God who hears. David’s tears were not in vain. He is not alone.