WORD:
Ps 28:1-29:1
28 To you I call, O LORD my Rock; do not turn a deaf ear to me. For if you remain silent, I will be like those who have gone down to the pit. 2 Hear my cry for mercy as I call to you for help, as I lift up my hands toward your Most Holy Place.
NIV
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Ps 28
28 1 I pray to you, O Lord, my rock. Do not turn a deaf ear to me. For if you are silent, I might as well give up and die. 2 Listen to my prayer for mercy as I cry out to you for help, as I lift my hands toward your holy sanctuary
NLT
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Ps 28
A Psalm of David.
28 Unto thee will I cry, O LORD my rock; be not silent to me: lest, if thou be silent to me, I become like them that go down into the pit.
2 Hear the voice of my supplications, when I cry unto thee, when I lift up my hands toward thy holy oracle.
KJV
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Ps 28
28 To you, O LORD, I call; my rock, be not deaf to me, lest, if you be silent to me, I become like those who go down to the pit. 2 Hear the voice of my pleas for mercy, when I cry to you for help, when I lift up my hands toward your most holy sanctuary.
ESV
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I. Minor Key
A. Pleas (vv. 1- 3)
1. Hear Me! - v. 1
2. Have Mercy! – v. 2a
3. Help! – v. 2b
B. Imprecation (vv. 4-5)
II. Major Key
A. Praise (vv. 6-8)
B. Supplication (v. 9)
David’s Pleas:
1. Hear Me!
In the previous study, I dealt with the word for “cry” in verse one as well as the concept of God’s seeming silence. Verse 2 begins with the actual word “hear.” This verb is in the imperative mood, which at first blush might make one think that David was being impertinent in this prayer. Was David commanding or demanding that God would hear him? When consulting a Hebrew Grammar, I found that the imperative mood does not always refer to a command.
Hebrew ImperativeThe imperative often represents a direct command demanding an immediate response. It differs from volitional Imperfect in being more urgent and demanding immediate, specific action from the addressee. Many contexts demand a less forceful meaning: advice, counsel, invitation, wish, request, or petition. Imperatives can be used sarcastically and rhetorically. Reference: GKC §110; DHS §60; JMG §114 m-p; W-O'C §33.4.(from Wheeler's Hebrew Syntax Notes, Copyright © 1988-2006 by Rev. Prof. Dale M. Wheeler, Ph.D. All rights reserved. Used by permission.). (emphasis added)
One can see from the ways the imperative mood can be used – as well as the words that follow in this context – that David was pleading and not demanding. How can one demand “mercy?”
What best fits here from the reference just cited is “request” or “petition.” I quote from the same resource:
Request or Petition: The speaker may use an imperative to convey a request to humans or a petition to God. The imperative conveys respect and full dignity.(from Wheeler's Hebrew Syntax Notes, Copyright © 1988-2006 by Rev. Prof. Dale M. Wheeler, Ph.D. All rights reserved. Used by permission.)
I only mention this because much prayer prayed today smacks of spoiled, privileged children demanding things from daddy. I find myself having to stop in midsentence sometimes when I am praying. I catch myself telling God what to do in a situation. On the surface, it may seem like David is doing the very same thing. However, authentic prayer is born from a heart submissive to the will of God and prays according to what they know about the Sovereign God of the universe and His holy goodness, mercy, and righteousness. Prayers then will come from humility and not haughtiness. There will be a concern for God’s righteousness and not personal revenge. His justice and not our judgment will be the motive when we are praying for relief from our enemies.
In my former study, I also referenced the old word “beseech” to describe the intensity of David’s plea. Here I want to employ another archaic word to convey the tenor in which David uses this word. That word is “harken.”
listen; used mostly in the imperativeSynonyms:Type of:hear with intention
The Hebrew word here is um^v* (š¹m¹±).
Strong’s definition is brief:
OT:8085 um^v* shama` (shaw-mah'); a primitive root; to hear intelligently (often with implication of attention, obedience, etc.; causatively, to tell, etc.)(Biblesoft's New Exhaustive Strong's Numbers and Concordance with Expanded Greek-Hebrew Dictionary. Copyright © 1994, 2003, 2006, 2010 Biblesoft, Inc. and International Bible Translators, Inc.)
The TWOT defines the word this way:
OT:8085 um^v* (š¹ma±) hear, listen to, obey... š¹m¹± has the basic meaning "to hear." This is extended in various ways, generally involving an effective hearing or listening: 1) "listen to, " "pay attention, " 2) "obey" (with words such as "commandment" etc.), 3) "answer prayer, " "hear, " 4) "understand" and 5) "hear critically, " "examine (in court), " The derived stems have appropriately modified meanings.
(from Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament. Copyright © 1980 by The Moody Bible Institute of Chicago. All rights reserved. Used by permission.)
Vines says it means:
shama± OT:8085, "to hear, hearken, listen, obey, publish."
(from Vine's Expository Dictionary of Biblical Words, Copyright © 1985, Thomas Nelson Publishers.)
David is politely and passionately pleading for God to hear.
Hear what?
His “voice.”
“Lord, please listen to me...harken to my voice.”
The NIV translates it as “Hear my cry.” The NLT has “Listen to my prayer.” The more literal rendering is found in the KJV and ESV, “Hear the voice.” The HCSB has “Hear the sound.”
Strong’s says the word used here means:
OT:6963 loq qowl (kole); or qol (kole); from an unused root meaning to call aloud; a voice or sound:(Biblesoft's New Exhaustive Strong's Numbers and Concordance with Expanded Greek-Hebrew Dictionary. Copyright © 1994, 2003, 2006, 2010 Biblesoft, Inc. and International Bible Translators, Inc.)
From this, I see David’s prayer as verbal and visceral. This was not a silent prayer, but a loud gut felt prayer. It burst forth from a soul that was seeking aid from God who seemed silent at the moment. A silence shattered by David’s loud cries for...
HELP!
Witness:
Periods of silence from God are times of stretching and strengthening our faith. They also can be a time for revealing the shallowness of our faith. This is most evident sometimes when the silence comes over smaller things prayed for. Little things that can grow larger in our eyes in proportion to the length of time it takes for an answer. That time could be an hour or a hundred hours or more, depending on the depth of our faith.
An example of this was revealed to me the other day. I have been calling my younger daughter every day to make sure she wakes up on time for work. This particular day she did not answer her phone. Neither did her son, when I tried calling his number. After repeated calls and texts with no response, my anxiety arose. I began worrying that she would fail to get up and be written up for being late. Maybe she would sleep beyond the time she would be allowed to still come into work. I thought she might even get fired. Then I began to think of the repercussions from that.
No job, then no money. No money, then she can’t pay her bills including her rent. If that were so, then I wouldn’t be able to pay the mortgage. If I couldn’t pay the mortgage, I would sink into more debt and have to sell the house or worse, have it repossessed.
You see where this is going, don’t you? In the meantime, I was praying, and as time progressed and my daughter failed to answer her phone, my prayers grew louder and more fervent. In the silence, I began to cry out for God to hear me. I started to think He was mad at me. I began to think, “Maybe the silence is because He doesn’t really exist!” It was about that time the Holy Spirit showed me how faithless I was being. What if all these things came to pass.
Has not God been faithful in the past? Will He not be faithful in the future? If I lost it all, I would still have Him, and He is my priceless Treasure.
Well, it turns out that my daughter has to start going to work an hour earlier now. The time I usually call is now the time she has to be at work. So, she woke up an hour and a half before she had to be at work and made it to work on time. She hadn’t answered my calls or texts because she was at work already and unable to look at her phone until break time. So lesson learned... until next time (I’m a slow learner).
Epilogue: Yesterday, I called her an hour before she had to be at work. She didn’t answer, but I didn’t have time to fret because she called me back right away. Come to think of it, this highlights the fact that all the drama last week was orchestrated by the Lord to “stretch and strengthen” my faith, and to reveal the “shallowness” of my faith as well. You can learn a lot from silence.
Worship: Cry Out to Jesus, by Third Day
When contemplating what song to sing it didn’t take long for God to reveal which one it should be. As I started to search for a song I had heard on my phone the other day, this song was playing in the background. This song has real-life meaning to me, so I paused in my search to listen to it. It then dawned on me that this was the perfect song to represent true pleading prayer and the promise of His grace and mercy.
To everyone who's lost someone they love
Long before it was their time
You feel like the days you had were not enough
When you said goodbye
And to all of the people with burdens and pains
Keeping you back from your life
You believe that there's nothing and there is no one
Who can make it right
There is hope for the helpless
Rest for the weary
And love for the broken heart
And there is grace and forgiveness
Mercy and healing
He'll meet you wherever you are
Cry out to Jesus
Cry out to Jesus
For the marriage that's struggling just to hang on
They've lost all of their faith in love
And they've done all they can to make it right again.
Still, it's not enough.
For the ones who can't break the addictions and chains
You try to give up, but you come back again
Just remember that you're not alone in your shame
And your suffering
There is hope for the helpless
Rest for the weary
And love for the broken heart
And there is grace and forgiveness
Mercy and healing
He'll meet you wherever you are
Cry out to Jesus
When you're lonely
And it feels like the whole world is falling on you
You just reach out, you just cry out to Jesus
Cry to Jesus
To the widow who suffers from being alone
Wiping the tears from her eyes
And for the children around the world without a home
Say a prayer tonight
There is hope for the helpless
Rest for the weary
And love for the broken heart
And there is grace and forgiveness
Mercy and healing
He'll meet you wherever you are
There is hope for the helpless
Rest for the weary
And love for the broken heart
And there is grace and forgiveness
Mercy and healing
He'll meet you wherever you are
Cry out to Jesus
Cry out to Jesus
Oh, cry out to Jesus
Cry out to Jesus
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