GOD’S WORD FOR YOU
PSALM 71:1-4
Psalm 71
Do Not Cast Me Away When I Am Old
(A Psalm of David. For the Sons of Jonadab, before the captivity)
This title is not in the Hebrew text and therefore is usually not found in most of our translations. It was included in the Greek Septuagint from a very early date (second century BC?), and no Greek manuscripts I have checked fail to have it. It is also in most of the Latin versions. Dr. Brug calls this a Psalm of David’s old age. Jonadab was David’s nephew and a friend of Amnon (2 Samuel 13). A later Jonadab was the Recabite who set his family aside for special service (Jeremiah 35:6-19)
The EHV has an excellent outline of this Psalm:
1-4 Opening prayer
5-6 Remembrance of past help
7-8 Statement of present need
9-13 Plea for help in present trouble
14-18 Present and future praise
19-21 Closing confidence
22-24 Closing praise
1 In you, O LORD, I have taken refuge;
let me never be put to shame.
2 Rescue me and deliver me in your righteousness;
turn your ear to me and save me.
3 Be my rock of refuge, to which I can always go;
give the command to save me,
for you are my rock and my fortress.
4 Deliver me, O my God, from the hand of the wicked,
from the grasp of evil and cruel men.
This opening prayer shows the child of God putting his life completely in God’s hands. This is the essence of obedience to the First Commandment, and really to the whole first table of the Law. We want to seek refuge in the Lord because there is no true protection or true rest anywhere else. If we take shelter in our own abilities, our strength will fail us. If we take refuge in our own intellect, logic, or reason, the Devil may attack us with a wasting disease or dementia, and we will find those strongholds to be hollow, weak, and useless. If we secure ourselves deeply into the culture of experience (as our younger generations are trying to do), we will find that there is no true substance there, and that memories are as fragile as reason and logic, and that this, too, is a dream that waste’s one’s time of grace.
Only the Lord our God is the true rock of refuge, and note carefully the promise of verse 3: The Lord is the refuge “to which I can always go.” There is no sin so vile, no humiliation so terrible, no embarrassment so crushing, that the sinner who trusts in Christ cannot run back to God in repentance for forgiveness, comfort, and strength. Too often we try to handle things on our own, and it just makes everything worse.
During the winter of 1538, Philip Melanchthon was very upset and depressed because of some disobedient stubbornness of his daughter’s husband, who wouldn’t allow her to travel to Wittenberg even though Mrs. Melanchthon and their other children were ready to travel to her in Halle and bring her safely back. Quite a few people tried to console him, but it was Luther who put his finger on the matter.
“He is gnawing at his own heart,” said Luther. “I, too, often suffer from severe trials and sorrows. At such times I seek the fellowship of men, for the humblest servant has often comforted me. A man doesn’t have control of himself when he is downcast and alone, even if he is well equipped with a knowledge of the Scriptures. It is not for nothing that Christ gathers his church around the Word and the sacraments and is unwilling to let these be hidden in a corner. Away with monks and hermits! These are inventions of Satan because they exist apart from all the godly ordinances and arrangements of God. According to the plan of creation every man is either a domestic or a political or an ecclesiastical person. Outside of these ordinances he is not a man, unless he is miraculously exempted. Accordingly a solitary life should be avoided as much as possible.” (LW 55, “Table Talk,” number 3754, dated February 18, 1538).
As we grow older, we grow fonder of what is familiar, and we stop seeking out new adventures. Even the old wooden chair in my home study, hard and unyielding, is like an old friend because it doesn’t offer any surprises. The refuge of God’s word and God’s promises and comfort are something to which we return, again and again, knowing that all of our confidence comes from God alone. It isn’t my memory that saves me, or the good things I think I’ve done. It isn’t a depth of knowledge or a particular insight that makes me God’s child—it is God’s grace alone. So my prayer matches David’s prayer here: “Be my rock of refuge, to which I can always go.” I will keep on returning to the Lord, morning by morning, evening by evening, until the light of the last evening falls on my life and the dawn springs which will never end, and I will live in the house of the Lord forever.
In Christ,
Pastor Timothy Smith
Archives by Wisconsin Lutheran Chapel: http://www.wlchapel.org/worship/daily-devotion/
Pastor Smith serves St. Paul’s Lutheran Church, New Ulm, Minnesota