Bible Commentary - Psalms 31

As with so many other psalms, the first verse clearly sets the tone here: this is a prayer psalm, and it is structured much like other prayer psalms.

Verses 1-5 open with repeated declarations of trust and faith in God’s power to save.  I personally find the language here to be quite similar to Psalm 18:1-3, which also calls God a “rock”, “fortress”, “strength”, etc.  Positionally, both psalms open with these declarations of God’s strength and stability; more than that, both psalms also emphasize the personal nature of this relationship.  David calls God “my strength”, “my fortress”, “my rock”.  God is not a power in the abstract, unrelated to David’s problems.  David finds God to be not just a stronghold, but his own stronghold and his own strength in the time of trouble.

I’m not sure how to read verses 6-8.  David is continuing to praise God for deliverance, but I’m not sure how to fit that into the overall poetic structure.

Verses 9-13 resumes with the problem statement.  David describes, in allusive and general ways, the troubles that have come upon him.  His trouble comes in two forms.  First, David has trouble because of his “iniquity” (v. 10).  Secondly, his problems are from his “adversaries” (v. 11).  This fits the narrative of David’s life pretty well.  After his sin with Bathsheba, Nathan the prophet declared that “what you have done secretly”, i.e. sleep with Uriah’s wife, “will be done to you publicly”.  That was later fulfilled when David’s son Absalom slept with his concubines on the palace roof.  Absalom was only one of David’s many enemies, and from Nathan’s prophecy it is clear that at least some of this persecution was God punishing David for his sin with Bathsheba.

In any case, I have mentioned over and over that the psalms are intentionally generic and almost never reference specific historical incidents, so that they can remain broadly applicable to future generations.  This psalm does likewise, and while we can possibly find historical events from David’s life that fit the psalm, it does not directly mention any of them.

Verses 14-18 are the plea for deliverance.  This is where David breaks out the imperative verbs, saying “deliver me”, “save me”, “let me not be put to shame”, and similar things.  Verses 17 and 18 in particular emphasize the traditional dichotomy between the wicked and the righteous.  David asks for “the wicked” to be put to shame, and for them to be silenced when “they speak arrogantly against the righteous”.  It leaves us imagining these “voices” that are “speaking against” David by plotting evil against him (v. 13).  David’s prayer is for the voices to be silenced, that they can speak no more and are buried in death in the grave.

Verses 19-24 conclude with thanksgiving and praise in anticipation of God’s response.  This is conventional for a prayer psalm and shares many similarities with Psalm 18.  Even in his praise, David continues to think about the “tongues” that are speaking and plotting against him (v. 20).  He imagines himself as one living in a besieged city (v. 21) because of the wicked men surrounding him.  In “his alarm”, he imagines himself destroyed and cut off, but in the end he realizes that God saves the righteous and that his life will be preserved.  This is basically David’s emotional reaction at the scope of the threat and disaster looming over him, that he views his situation as hopeless and that God has abandoned him.  However, in faith he declares that God hears and saves his righteous ones and that he is destined for God’s goodness, “which you have stored up for those who fear you” (v. 19).

As with most prayer psalms, one of the central messages here is faith.  We lay our problems before God, we ask for help, and then we praise him even before the help arrives.  These are all declarations of faith in their own way.  Laying our problems before God and asking for help are statements of faith because we are implicitly trusting God to answer us when we ask.  Nobody would ever ask for help from God if we did not believe, at least in some small way, that God was perhaps capable of answering our prayer and helping us.  This belief is faith.  Praising God before he saves us is also a statement of faith for a similar reason; even before seeing the answer to our prayer, we trust and believe that God wishes to help us, and we praise him in the expectation that an answer is coming.  This belief is faith.

In both cases, we only pray because we believe that God exists and that he blesses and protects his righteous ones, those who love and fear him.  This belief is faith.

One important point of clarification here.  Prayer is only a statement of faith if it comes from a genuine belief, however small, that God might answer that prayer.  If someone is praying because of a religious tradition or similar, and there is no genuine expectation that God would ever do anything in response, then it does not require any faith at all.  Faith is a belief that God exists and an expectation that he will respond to our prayer.  For example, in many Christian communities it is conventional to pray before eating food; while this is an admirable practice, it rarely involves any expectation of God’s response and consequently does not represent any meaningful quantity of faith.

This kind of faith is not specific to this one psalm, it’s generally true of all prayer psalms, but it’s worth mentioning since I have not previously discussed how prayer is an aspect of faith.