God’s Word for You
Psalm 141:8 A prayer for life
by Pastor Timothy Smith on Saturday, August 9, 2025
8 But my eyes are on you, LORD God.
In you I take refuge. Do not pour out my life.
David had confessed his faith in God’s protection and also in the resurrection. But there is for every believer the thought that follows every reassurance of the resurrection: “In the mean time….” Before we rise from the dead, before we close our eyes in death, we live here, now, from this moment to that moment, for however long that may be. So we keep our eyes fixed on our Lord God, “like the eyes of slaves look to their master” (Psalm 123:2). We look eagerly to God for every good thing, the same way that my cats appear from all over the house the moment I begin to stir in the morning. They know that soon their bowls will be filled with food; cool water will be in the water dish. They know that this comes from me, and just as God feeds me at the proper time, so I take care of them (Psalm 145:15; Proverbs 12:10). It is not much different from what I see from my good sons. They know that at a certain time of the afternoon they can begin to appear and I will almost be finished making their supper. But we look to God for more than food. We look to him for all of our needs, spiritual and physical. For some of these things, we look with the eyes of our hearts (Ephesians 1:18). For whatever it may be: work, rest, healing, companionship, a friend, a wife, an answer to a question or a problem—all of these things come from our heavenly Father. He is the “Watcher over every spirit,” the Lord who preserves the faithful, the one who guards our lives and delivers us from the hands of the wicked.
David also calls God his refuge. For David, I think that this was a reminder of his days running away from Saul, when he had to find refuge in some pretty rough places. The forests of Judah (1 Samuel 22:5), the caves of what today we call Qumran, the rugged heights above the deep river gorges to the east of the Jordan where Jacob once wrestled with the Angel of the Lord (Genesis 32:24). The wild ravines and tangles along the road from Jerusalem down to Jericho (Luke 10:30). The barren places around the Sea of Galilee where there were tombs and wild men (Matthew 8:28). Such were the sorts of refuge sought by David; places where wicked men might be too frightened even to look for Saul’s harpist and faithful captain. Sometimes the Lord protects us by guiding us where the wicked fear to tread. He himself is a refuge for the oppressed (Psalm 9:9); for the poor, for those fleeing from traps, and for the soul as well as for the body (Psalm 57:1). Even as little animals find safety when they need it (Psalm 104:18), even so God’s people, both high and low, find safety in God’s holy word.
He gives us protection with his Commandments, by revealing his will to us. He does this so that we may walk the path of life knowing where the dangers are, so that we can avoid the pitfalls on both sides of the road.
Finally at the end of our verse, David prays, “Do not pour out my life.” The NIV says “Do not give me over to death,” but the verb is ‘arah. Now, this word doesn’t occur in the plain Hebrew stem, but it does occur in each of the other main verb stems. At the beginning of this Psalm, we described a passive nifal verb. In the passive, ‘arah means to be poured out (Isaiah 32:15). In the causative hifil, it means to expose, uncover, or abandon something (Leviticus 20:18). This can be turned into a more forceful passive or reciprocal (hithpael), to be stripped naked, like a field after the locusts come, or like a person shamefully stripped naked (Lamentations 4:21). Here it is a verb stem known as the piel, and just as we see in Genesis 24:20 where Rebekah poured out water for the camels, here it means to empty a man’s body of life. He’s talking about blood, but he also means the spirit. He does not want to be given over to death.
This is a fine prayer, a prayer we could imitate in every way. But the idea of pouring out one’s life, giving it over to death, also brings us to the prophecy of Isaiah, where Christ “poured out his life (same word) unto death, and was numbered with the transgressors. For he bore the sins of many, and made intercession for the transgressors” (Isaiah 53:12). The pagans misunderstood this and made all sorts of offerings, even human sacrifices, to placate God for sin, but Isaiah meant that one victim and one victim only, the sinless Son of God, would give his life as the ransom for the sins of all mankind. Because of the merits and the value of Christ’s perfect life and his innocent atoning death, and his resurrection by the power of the Father, we have nothing to fear of the grave or of judgment day. Yet it is altogether proper to ask the Lord to spare our lives and to allow us to live a long life so that we may serve him in this world that he made for us and take care of our kids and our cats and our other loved ones. We will have all of forever at his side. Be content in the mean time and enjoy the world he made for you and love the people he has surrounded you with.
In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith
Pastor Smith serves St. Paul’s Lutheran Church in New Ulm, Minnesota. To receive God’s Word for You via e-mail, please visit the St. Paul’s Lutheran Church website.