God’s Word for You
Psalm 77:4-9 Has God’s Word failed?
by Pastor Timothy Smith on Sunday, October 23, 2022
4 You held my eyelids open.
I was troubled but did not speak.
5 I thought about the old days,
the years of long ago.
6 During the night I remembered my music.
This is not a natural break in the psalm, but at this point we want to ask, what music is Asaph remembering? Is it perhaps something recorded for us in the Bible? Is he thinking of a song like Psalm 50, “Call upon me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you will honor me” (50:15), or Psalm 75: “We give thanks for your Name is near; men tell of your wonderful deeds” (75:1)? This is a moment in the late-night agony of the suffering believer that we can identify with. “In the past, Lord, I thanked you for many bright and happy things. How good it was to praise you when the girl of my dreams said she would marry me! How good it was to praise you as each child was born, one after another, to fill my quiver (as Solomon says, Psalm 127:5). I even found a way to thank and praise you when my wife’s life was ebbing away, that she did not suffer or die in pain, but was surrounded by her family in the quiet of a peaceful afternoon.” But Asaph is suffering. The happy things he’s praised God about in “the old days, the years of long ago” are overshadowed by something terrible, something over which this Levite has no control.
With my heart I pondered, and my spirit asked,
7 “Will the Lord reject forever?
Will he never show his favor again?
8 Has his mercy vanished forever?
Has his word failed for all generations?
9 Has God forgotten to be gracious?
Has he really shut up his compassion in anger?”
In this rapid-fire questioning, Asaph pierces right to the heart of things with one single phrase: “Has his word failed?” He can ask about God’s favor and mercy, his graciousness coming to an end, and he knows that these things will come again when God wills to send them. But to ask, “Has his word failed?”!
First, I must defend my translation. Many versions say something like, “Has his promise failed?” (NIV, KJV, ESV, NASB). This takes the noun omer as a single promise or decree. But there are times when it can simply mean a word or statement, such as in the complicated phrase in Habakkuk 3:9, often translated “you called for many arrows,” but which says literally, “Your bow was made bare (by) the rods of the tribes (or “chastisements”), even your word.” Taken in its simplest sense, omer can mean “word, statement.” Whether a particular message or promise, it is the word of God.
Can God’s word fail? “Not a word the Lord has spoken… will fail” (2 Kings 10:10). Jesus said: “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away” (Matthew 24:35). The word of God is the foundation of everything in our faith. It is every promise God makes, and every promise he makes, he keeps. What greater promise do we have than, “Your sins are forgiven”? We must gratefully accept this, and stand upon it as the rock that rises up out of an ocean of wild uncertainty. Upon this rock we stand, untroubled by the rumors and doubts of the world crashing all around us.
Man does not ascend up to God, climbing hand over hand up a ladder to heaven. It is God who carries us, telling us what he has done so that we let go of our opinions and our self-righteousness. We must go limp, and trust that Christ will carry us into the presence of God after the flights of angels have carried us to heaven when we die (Luke 16:22). As Luther says: “It is not possible that a man, of his own reason and strength, should by works ascend to heaven, anticipating God and moving him to be gracious. On the contrary God must anticipate all works and thoughts, and make a promise clearly expressed in words, which man then takes and keeps in a good, firm faith. Then there follows the Holy Spirit, who is given to man for the sake of this same faith” (LW 35:82-83).
So no, Asaph. God’s Word has not failed. Nor has his grace, his mercy, his favor, or tightened the drawstrings on his bag of compassion. But by allowing us to wonder these things, by waiting for the poet Asaph to place them into a Psalm, God has given us the bricks to pave the path of man’s weakness so that we will never forget just how helpless we are apart from the Lord our God. He has shown us our need for a Savior, and this in itself is a priceless blessing. Without it, we might be tempted, as so many poor fools are, to believe in our own worthiness. But we are not worthy. We are beggars at the roadside, asking the Lord God himself for a handout.
And God, in his grace, his mercy, his favor, and his compassion, and according to everything in his holy Word, gives to us what we need. He supplies all that we lack. He takes our cries and soothes them, answers them, and carries us with his Word into the very gates of Paradise.
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.