Embrace the Word for Monday, March 2, 2026
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Psalm 31 is a declaration highlighting the strength that the LORD gives to His people. The superscription simply reads: “To the choirmaster. A Psalm of David.” This basic superscription was last used for Psalm 21. Psalm 31 heavily uses many terms and statements that have been used in previous Psalms. One example of this would be “refuge,” which is in the opening line of Psalm 31. “Refuge” has been frequently used in earlier Psalms (See 7:1; 11:1; 16:1; and 25:20), and is prominently used in this Psalm (31:1,2,4,19). Psalm 31 opens with David acknowledging the strength that he has through trusting in the LORD (31:1-8), but then David turns to admitting the sorrowful weakness that he felt while trusting in the LORD (31:9-18), before he concludes with appreciating the strength that comes through trusting the LORD (31:19-24).
Psalm 31 begins with David confessing that he takes refuge in the LORD: “In you, O LORD, do I take refuge; let me never be put to shame; in your righteousness deliver me!” (31:1). David’s strength and safety is in the LORD. Calling upon the LORD as His refuge, David realizes that it is only as he trusts in His God that he would not be put to shame. This shame is most likely the disgrace and humiliation that he would experience if his enemies are allowed to defeat him. David further knows that his rescue from such shame can only come because he knows that God always does what is right or just.
Expanding on his request for deliverance, David adds: “Incline your ear to me; rescue me speedily! Be a rock of refuge for me, a strong fortress to save me!” (31:2). There is urgency in David’s request. David perceives that he immediately needs the LORD to be a rock of refuge as well as a strong fortress. And yet, he turns around and declares that the LORD is to him, what he has just asked the LORD to be for him: “For you are my rock and my fortress; and for your name’s sake you lead me and guide me” (31:3). David is simply praying that the LORD would show him what the LORD said to him that he was. This is an important feature concerning the language and logic of prayer. Praying is stating to the LORD what He has stated to us. Prayer is appealing to the LORD to demonstrate what He has declared. David is showing that his confidence is in the LORD’s commitment to see His name honored and will thus, guide and direct him through his troubles: “you take me out of the net they have hidden for me, for you are my refuge” (31:4). Thus David can confidently profess: “Into your hand I commit my spirit; you have redeemed me, O LORD, faithful God” (31:5). David confidently surrenders his life to the hands of the One who is faithful; the God who redeems His people.
David disdains any source of false confidence even as he is resolute in his trust in the LORD: “I hate those who pay regard to worthless idols, but I trust in the LORD” (31:6). David explains the outcome of the LORD’s faithfulness to him: “I will rejoice and be glad in your steadfast love, because you have seen my affliction; you have known the distress of my soul, and you have not delivered me into the hand of the enemy; you have set my feet in a broad place” (31:7-8). David is deeply gladdened by the LORD’s covenant love toward him. David knew that the LORD was aware of his affliction and distress and David is conscious of the fact that the LORD intervened. The LORD not only disallowed David from being handed over to his enemies, he also placed him in a stable, safe place.
As David has recounted how the LORD had rescued him from his affliction and distress, David rewinds and re-describes his experience spoken of in verses 1-8, but with more emphasis upon his sorrows and struggles in the midst of his affliction and distress. David paints a dreadful picture of sorrow and suffering: “Be gracious to me, O LORD, for I am in distress; my eye is wasted from grief; my soul and my body also. For my life is spent with sorrow, and my years with sighing; my strength fails because of my iniquity, and my bones waste away” (31:9-10). The anguish that David traumatically describes reveals the effects upon him as being located in his body and his soul. David is physically and spiritually depleted. But David has admitted that at least some of his weakened state, in at least this case, is due to his own sin. Sin not only weakens and destroys, while promising to lift us up, free us, make us happy, and empower us. In reality it only ever tears us down, results in sorrow, and enslaves us. And while sin weakens us, it emboldens our enemies and isolates us from our friends: “Because of all my adversaries I have become a reproach, especially to my neighbors, and an object of dread to my acquaintances; those who see me in the street flee from me.” (31:11).
With a brief portrait of his affliction and distress, David returns back to what he affirmed in verses 1-8 to restate his trust in the LORD: “But I trust in you, O LORD; I say, “You are my God.” My times are in your hand; rescue me from the hand of my enemies and from my persecutors!” (31:14-15). David is emphatic about Whose he is and how that shapes his response to his sorrows and struggles. When David says that the LORD is his God, I think we should see where David got such an idea. David makes such a claim because, in fact, the LORD has said to His people, “I will be your God” (See Genesis 17:7; Exodus 6:7). The LORD is his God and thus he knows that all that unfolds in his life is under the always-wise, all-powerful, and ever-loving hand of God. David also knows that what he most needs in his affliction and distress, his sorrows and struggles is the gracious love of the LORD: “Make your face shine on your servant; save me in your steadfast love!” (31:16).
David has confessed his hatred of the wicked and his love for the LORD (31:6-8), thus he prays for the gracious love of God to shine upon him, coupled with a prayer for the wicked to be judged: “O LORD, let me not be put to shame, for I call upon you; let the wicked be put to shame; let them go silently to Sheol. Let the lying lips be mute, which speak insolently against the righteous in pride and contempt” (31:17-18). Now for a second time in this Psalm, David asks to not be put to shame. But he does ask the LORD to put the wicked to shame. David is able to distinguish between himself, as one who calls upon the LORD, and the wicked who lie and are mean in their speech and arrogant in their heart. David calls upon the LORD to uphold and apply justice even as he prayerfully trusts in the LORD until He does so.
As David looks at his dreadful sorrows and struggles through the lens of the LORD’s faithfulness (31:5, 14), his response turns celebratory: “Oh, how abundant is your goodness, which you have stored up for those who fear you and worked for those who take refuge in you, in the sight of the children of mankind!” (31:19). David simply marvels at the goodness of God that has been richly stored up for him. The change of mood is dramatic. What is not clear is what may or may not have actually changed situationally. It’s most likely that David’s situation has not changed, but that his heart has changed. Perhaps more accurately, the Spirit of God has changed David’s heart and David sight is one of faith in the certainty of God’s faithfulness. His trust in the LORD has shaped the way David sees reality: “In the cover of your presence you hide them from the plots of men; you store them in your shelter from the strife of tongues” (31:20). David is confident that he has been sheltered by the LORD.
Thus David declares: “Blessed be the LORD, for he has wondrously shown his steadfast love to me when I was in a besieged city” (31:21). Blessing is due to the LORD for not merely showing His love toward David, but for wondrously showing off His love. David likened his situation to being in a city under siege (which according to 1 Samuel 23:1-14, he actually had been). But as David has already cited in this Psalm (31:2), his urgent cry was heard: “I had said in my alarm, “I am cut off from your sight.” But you heard the voice of my pleas for mercy when I cried to you for help” (31:22). David considered that he might be cut off, but the LORD heard and mercy promptly helped.
Before he closes, David uses his own experience with the LORD’s faithfulness to encourage all the LORD’s loved ones: “Love the LORD, all you his saints! The LORD preserves the faithful but abundantly repays the one who acts in pride” (31:23). The term “saints” is literally the steadfast loved ones, that is, the ones on whom God’s covenant love resides. The ones loved by the LORD are to love the LORD in return, knowing that the LORD faithfully preserves his faithful ones. Thus, in light of the love of God that preserves, God’s people are given a charge: “Be strong, and let your heart take courage, all you who wait for the LORD!” (31:24). We who are natively week, fear-filled, and impatient, are altered by the love of God to become the strong, and courageous who wait upon the LORD.
As we reflect on Psalm 31 we should make note of Jesus’ use of this Psalm. Verse 5 was some of the last words on the lips of Jesus as He died on the cross: “Then Jesus, calling out with a loud voice, said, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit!” And having said this he breathed his last” (See Luke 23:46). Upon the cross and at the culmination of a life in which, “He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not” (See Isaiah 53:3), Jesus entrusted Himself to His Father. Jesus is always much more then an example to us, but He is never less. We too should entrust ourselves to the LORD as we face difficulties and even persecution. But we should not merely endure, we are to be happily strong and courageous: "But rejoice insofar as you share Christ’s sufferings” (See 1 Peter 4:13). But we must remember that it is the Spirit of Christ within us that makes it possible to have such trust in the LORD.
That’s all for Embrace the Word for Monday, March 2, 2026. I look forward to being back with you for the Wednesday, March 4, 2026 episode of Embrace the Word as we take a look at Psalm 32.