Rescued from a Horrible Pit
Psalm 40:1–11 NKJV
I waited patiently for the Lord; And He inclined to me,
And heard my cry.
He also brought me up out of a horrible pit,
Out of the miry clay,
And set my feet upon a rock,
And established my steps.
He has put a new song in my mouth—
Praise to our God;
Many will see it and fear,
And will trust in the Lord.
Blessed is that man who makes the Lord his trust,
And does not respect the proud, nor such as turn aside to lies.
Many, O Lord my God, are Your wonderful works
Which You have done;
And Your thoughts toward us
Cannot be recounted to You in order;
If I would declare and speak of them,
They are more than can be numbered.
Sacrifice and offering You did not desire;
My ears You have opened.
Burnt offering and sin offering You did not require.
Then I said, “Behold, I come;
In the scroll of the book it is written of me.
I delight to do Your will, O my God,
And Your law is within my heart.”
I have proclaimed the good news of righteousness
In the great assembly;
Indeed, I do not restrain my lips,
O Lord, You Yourself know.
I have not hidden Your righteousness within my heart;
I have declared Your faithfulness and Your salvation;
I have not concealed Your lovingkindness and Your truth
From the great assembly.
Do not withhold Your tender mercies from me, O Lord;
Let Your lovingkindness and Your truth continually preserve me.
Just the thought of being mired in a pit elicits terror. “Will someone hear my cry for help and rescue me?” “Or will I die a slow miserable death in the Slough of Despond?” We read of the prophet Jeremiah being lowered into a dungeon pit where he was mired to the shoulders in sticky mud, surrounded by the stench of death. This has been used as a type of capital punishment throughout the ages. For example, it was used in the Middle Ages as a means of execution which did not shed blood. Because violence was not used, the noble or whoever put the victim there was somehow not guilty of murder. The very horror of it also served as a deterrent for others.
We don’t know the exact occasion which David wrote this Psalm, but the very fact he compared his current plight to that of being stuck in a pit of miry clay indicated that he was in deep distress. He did what anyone would do who had fallen into such a pit. He cried out loudly for rescue. But what matters here is to whom he addressed his cry. He knew that there was no human means of rescue. Rather, he cried out to the LORD. Humans might pretend to be deaf to the cries. They can choose not to get involved. I can think many years ago of a poor woman named Kitty Genovese who was raped and murdered in New York. Many heard her desperate cries for help, but no one came to her rescue. They did not even call the police, as far as I know. We can also think of the man who fell among thieves and left for dead. The Priest and the Levite pretended not to see. They took no risk. They did not want to be unclean in their ascent to Jerusalem and the Temple. They may have felt if they stooped down to help, they would have become victim to the thieves who had been wounded and left for dead. Thankfully, there was a Samaritan merchant who did stop and care. Not only this, he provided for the wounded man’s cure.
So, we can see, we have no assurance of help when we are in the miry pit if we expect help from men. Even those who would have helped need to be aware of the need. But, David knew that the LORD sees and knows all. David knew he had a relationship with the LORD. And David was right because the LORD intervened in his situation and pulled him out of this pit, whatever the situation was. His feet were again planted on solid ground, and he could continue on life’s journey.
David gushes out praise for the LORD’s deliverance. He responded by singing a new song of praise. But it was not a song that David kept to himself. Many saw how God had delivered David from his troubles, whatever it was, regardless of whether it was self-caused, caused by others, or from other “circumstances.” They saw David whose life was in the pit, and then they see him singing for joy. Joy is infectious. Because the LORD had delivered David, the came to trust in the LORD themselves.
David now becomes the teacher. He tells those who read to make the LORD their trust. Those who do so will be blessed. Those who would rather turn to believe lies or put their trust in earthly potentates will by implication be disappointed. The whole world runs on power and deceit. They promise deliverance, and perhaps for a little while they appear to do so. But in the end, these will fail. sooner or later, lies catch up with the liar. Kings die. Nations rise and fall. We do well to remember that “Kings and thrones may perish, kingdoms rise and wane. But the Church of Jesus, constant will remain.” (Onward Christian Soldiers) Kings and nations cannot save themselves from death, no less anyone else. It is He who puts His church on a solid foundation and establishes their goings. When Christians individually or as a church body take their eyes off from the LORD to deceit and earthly powers and gain, then they fall into a pit and despair. This is why we must constantly urge one another to look only upon the LORD. As David does here, so must we. David realized that he could not number the great works of the LORD. We can’t either. Let is be enough that the shorter list we can number shows us the mind of the LORD and how He cares for His own.
David also reminds us that we must realize that graciousness of the LORD. The LORD is not interested in outward sacrifices and offerings. These sacrifices and offerings can actually cause us to boast in our own works. We look unto our sacrifices rather than the One the LORD Himself provided, the One who came to do His will. David may or may not have understood this, but we know that this was a prophetic reference to Jesus, the greater David who would offer Himself as the sacrifice for our sin. For those who believe in Him and call upon Him will find deliverance from the bottomless pit. It is His sacrifice and offering that makes the difference. the Book of Hebres reminds us of David’s prophecy, that it was written in the Book and declared long before Jesus became flesh from the womb of the Virgin Mary and dwelt among us.
In the rest of the Psalm, we can see how Jesus lived this Psalm as well as all the Law, Prophets, and Writings. He delighted in doing His Father’s will, even unto death. He preached God’s righteousness to the greater congregation. Jesus declared the entire counsel of the Father and withheld nothing.
We remember that Jesus also faced death, the great pit with courage and resolve. No one ever suffered so greatly. These sufferings were felt during His ministry by the rejections He faced from His own people. These became intense in His agony in the Garden of Gethsemane. Jesus and His disciples resorted there when in Jerusalem. Ray Vanderlan in one of his “That the World may Know” series suggests that they stayed in an underground olive press where the oil was pressed under great pressure from the olives which were crushed there. This could serve as a metaphor of how the very blood of Jesus was squeezed through his soon to be wounded skin, starting even while He prayed before His arrest. Soon, all His life-blood would be drained from Him. The underground nature of the olive press also serves as a metaphor of the pit.
On the cross, Jesus quotes the despairing wail of the 22nd Psalm: “My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me.” Here Jesus suffers, His feet not fastened by miry clay but by painful nails through his feet fastened to the cross. He was mocked to come off the cross to prove Himself to be the Messiah. the first half of the 22nd Psalm predicted the horrors of the crucifixion a thousand years before the fact. In spite of the utter despair of the circumstances, we must also look at the second half of this Psalm.
Psalm 22:22–31 NKJV
I will declare Your name to My brethren;
In the midst of the assembly I will praise You.
You who fear the Lord, praise Him!
All you descendants of Jacob, glorify Him,
And fear Him, all you offspring of Israel!
For He has not despised nor abhorred the affliction of the afflicted;
Nor has He hidden His face from Him;
But when He cried to Him, He heard.
My praise shall be of You in the great assembly;
I will pay My vows before those who fear Him.
The poor shall eat and be satisfied;
Those who seek Him will praise the Lord.
Let your heart live forever!
All the ends of the world
Shall remember and turn to the Lord,
And all the families of the nations
Shall worship before You.
For the kingdom is the Lord’s,
And He rules over the nations.
All the prosperous of the earth
Shall eat and worship;
All those who go down to the dust
Shall bow before Him,
Even he who cannot keep himself alive.
A posterity shall serve Him.
It will be recounted of the Lord to the next generation,
They will come and declare His righteousness to a people who will be born,
That He has done this.
The same Jesus who cites the first verse of the 22nd Psalm in despair knew how this psalm ended. Jesus knew that the cries for deliverance from the pit would be heard and answered. This is important, because when we despair of life in this world overwhelms us, we also can arm ourselves with the same faith that our prayers are heard and our final deliverance will come. We are also reminded in Hebrews 12:1-4:
Hebrews 12:1–4 NKJV
Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.
For consider Him who endured such hostility from sinners against Himself, lest you become weary and discouraged in your souls. You have not yet resisted to bloodshed, striving against sin.
The Scriptures remind us that many other great witnesses of the faith endured suffering, knowing that deliverance would come as well as the brightest of futures. This is a vision which true faith provides. The travail of several heroes of the faith are mentioned by name in the 11th Chapter of Hebrews. The text also tells us that time would fail to mention the works of faith and endurance that God’s people have demonstrated, in fact a great cloud of witnesses. But the most important witness is seen in the life of God’s own Son. We know of the others, but we look upon Jesus, the author and finisher of the faith who ran with patience the race. He is the perfect example how the race should be run (the Greek word for “race” here is “agony.” He knew what lay beyond the cross, the joy that was on the other side of the cross. Likewise, let us arm ourself with the same attitude, even if our earthly race here ends in bloodshed.
Because we believe that we shall prevail in the end and come to the greatest joy, our spirits can be lifted out from the pit, even if we are in the depths of it in our bodies. We can proclaim the goodness of the LORD, even when our earthly circumstances appear otherwise. We proclaim to the great congregation that the LORD who delivered Jesus Christ and exalted Him, offers deliverance to all who live in this pit below. We proclaim that He has done great things for us. Knowing this, let us go forth from our tombs and live for Christ.
