SONGS OF DEGREES

This Psalm speaks of the suffering of the Messiah. It points to Him Who came to give costly price of His precious blood for a rebellious generation. For this purpose the suffering and affliction of the people of Israel is evidenced as a type of Christ’s suffering. So, this time we will attempt to show you the suffering in Israel’s history, and in the next meditation, the Lord willing, we will try to point to Him in Whom all this has been fulfilled.

Who can name one people that has been afflicted so sorely throughout the centuries as the seed from Abraham descended? But although the need and miseries often rose to the greatest heights, the miracle is: Israel remained. And spiritual Israel shall remain until the youngest day. The faithfulness of the LORD is displayed in Israel’s way of suffering. For in spite of all oppression, it still proved true:

He will not chide for evermore,
He turns His wrath away;
He has not strictly marked our sins,
Our evil to repay.

(Psalm 103, Psalter 277)

Moreover, all the enemies of Israel have experienced God’s righteousness that exercised vengeance and all the enemies of this people will undergo the punishing hand of the Lord. But above all, the enemies of spiritual Israel will go down by the breath of His mouth.

This Psalm, therefore, is not in the first place a song of lamentation over the oppressions, but a song of comfort on account of the Lord’s miraculous deliverance from manifold needs.

Those needs have been severe. The poet says, “Many a time have they afflicted me from my youth, may Israel now say.” When Israel became a people chosen by the Lord above all the heathens round about, it soon experienced the affliction of the enemies in the days of youth.

Think only of the suffering in Egypt. But call to mind also the deliverance from that oppression of which the prophet Hosea exclaims, “And she shall sing there, as in the days of her youth, and as in the day when she came up out of the land of Egypt” (Hosea 2:15). Yes, the Lord testifies by the mouth of this servant, “When Israel was a child, then I loved him, and called my son out of Egypt” (Hosea 11:1). The Lord delivered His people—but out of Egypt, the place of their affliction in their youth. We pass by now that Hosea prophesies here about the coming Messiah because Israel’s people is our focus this time. But mark this Psalm as a Song Hamma’-aloth. From the depths of affliction, God’s people were led out of Egypt. Although the enemies afflicted Israel from its youth, still hear that people sing, “yet they have not prevailed against me.”

We can make the application right away. People of God, has it not been your experience that when the Lord began in your life, the enemies began to afflict you almost at the same time? Oh, even before you had received some liberty, some room in your soul, the oppression burdened you. Satan does not wait with afflicting spiritual Israel until they are many years on the way of grace. He does not hold off until they have been exercised many times. He certainly does not wait until they are justified. No, he likes to attack the child of God in his tender youth. Then the child is most vulnerable and has no weapons for defence. Then the devil is fierce in his raging because he has just lost another subject to King Jesus. He will afflict them from their very youth until the day of their death. So, if you are being afflicted, do not despair. Rather beg the Lord to strengthen your faith. Plead with Him if He will use the affliction to drive you to Christ alone. And people who are already a long time on the way, if you are being afflicted, keep courage. The strife will not last forever. Satan will surely not give up as long as you live, though one child of God may be afflicted more and more sorely than another one. For some the affliction will become heavier as they draw closer to the hour of death. Even then, trust in the Lord. He will not fail you. Jesus Himself was afflicted, as we hope to see next time, in order that He might deliver you forever. Your earthly life of affliction shall come to an end. Then you shall be forever with the Lord in eternal peace.

During the forty years of wandering in the wilderness, things were no different. How the hand of the Lord was heavy upon them! How they were afflicted oftentimes! However, deliverance came time and again and Israel might enter the promised land.

But again, when the day finally arrived that they might possess the land for an inheritance, repeatedly the oppression was heavy upon them. But also repeatedly did the Lord deliver unworthy people. It is blessed, my reader, if we, too, may still become unworthy people who can be helped by the Lord alone.

When David and Solomon reigned, it appeared that the affliction was past.

From strength to strength Thy children dear
Go forward, till they all appear
In Zion’s courts, God’s holy mountain.

(Psalm 84, Psalter 421)

And yet: already at the end of Solomon’s life the Lord began to cut Israel short. This is also something which spiritual Israel needs so many times. Do you know why? Why must affliction come? Because God’s people leave the Lord so many times. They begin to trust in themselves.

Later on it has proven true in a double sense, “Many a times have they afflicted me from my youth.” The poet even repeats it. What an oppressive times did Israel have to live through on account of the afflictions from the side of the Assyrians and Babylonians. Earlier there had been Syrians and later the Romans. “The plowers plowed upon my back: they made long their furrows,” laments God’s servant as speaking for God’s people that hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water. The plowshare of immense oppression has passed over Israel. Without stopping the enemies made long their furrows. Yes, presently there is no form nor comeliness left of that people.

Still: the enemies did not prevail, they did not cause that people to go down completely. Neither have they ever been able to destroy God’s Church and Israel. That was not due to the good things performed by this people. On the contrary. If the LORD had righteously continued, there would have been no Israel, no people left that could praise the God of their salvation.

How could this be? Well, for this reason: because Israel here is a symbol of Him, of Whom was true in a much deeper sense, “Many a time have they afflicted Me from My youth, may Israel now say.” It is true, is it not, that Zion’s redeeming Surety has been afflicted from His youth by the hellish devices of Satan and all his cohorts.

Only, this is the great difference: natural Israel received all these afflictions on account of God’s righteous anger upon sin, spiritual Israel must bear afflictions for the same reason and also to drive them closer to the Lord, but the King of the Church has borne these afflictions, not because He had or committed sins, but because He had been made sin voluntarily to deliver guilty people. Next time more about this, the Lord willing.

Chilliwack, B.C.

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