To the chief Musician, to Jeduthun, A Psalm of David.
Truly my soul waiteth upon God: from him
cometh my salvation. Psa 61:1
Truly my soul waiteth upon God: from him
cometh my salvation. Psa 61:1
We have here two corresponding clauses, each, beginning a section of the Psalm. The difference is that the one expresses the Psalmist’s patient stillness of submission, and the other is his self-encouragement to that very attitude and disposition which he has just professed to be his.
Notice:--
Notice:--
 | The expression of waiting. That one word "truly" or "only" is the record of conflict and the trophy of victory, the sign of the blessed effect of effort and struggle in a truth more firmly held, and in a submission more perfectly practiced. The words literally run, "My soul is silence unto God." That forcible form of expression describes the completeness of the Psalmist’s unmurmuring submission and quiet faith. His whole being is one great stillness, broken by no clamorous passions, by no loud-voiced desires, by no remonstrating reluctance. |
His whole being is one great stillness, broken by no clamorous passions, by no loud-voiced desires, by no remonstrating reluctance. His silence is a silence of the will. The plain meaning of this phrase is resignation; and resignation is just a silent will. Such a silent will is a strong will.
The true secret of strength lies in submission. We must keep our hearts silent too. He cannot say, "My soul is silent unto God," whose whole being is buzzing with vanities and noisy with the din of the market-place. There must be the silence of the mind, as well as of the heart and will. We must cultivate the habit of detaching our thoughts from earth and keeping our minds still before God, that He may pour His light into them.
This man’s profession of utter resignation is perhaps too high for us; but we can make his self-exhortation our own. The silence of the soul before God is no mere passiveness. It requires intense energy of all our being to keep all our being still and waiting upon Him. So put all your strength into the task, and be sure that your soul is never so intensely alive as when in deepest abnegation it waits hushed before God.
(A. Maclaren, Weekday Evening Addresses, p. 151.)
The true secret of strength lies in submission. We must keep our hearts silent too. He cannot say, "My soul is silent unto God," whose whole being is buzzing with vanities and noisy with the din of the market-place. There must be the silence of the mind, as well as of the heart and will. We must cultivate the habit of detaching our thoughts from earth and keeping our minds still before God, that He may pour His light into them.
This man’s profession of utter resignation is perhaps too high for us; but we can make his self-exhortation our own. The silence of the soul before God is no mere passiveness. It requires intense energy of all our being to keep all our being still and waiting upon Him. So put all your strength into the task, and be sure that your soul is never so intensely alive as when in deepest abnegation it waits hushed before God.
(A. Maclaren, Weekday Evening Addresses, p. 151.)
“My Soul Waiteth Upon God.”
Truly my soul waiteth upon God: from him
cometh my salvation. Psa 61:1
Truly my soul waiteth upon God: from him
cometh my salvation. Psa 61:1
“Truly,” or verily, or only". The last is probably the most prominent sense here. That faith alone is true which rests on God alone, that confidence which relies but partly on the Lord is vain confidence. If we Englished the word by our word “verily,” as some do, we should have here a striking reminder of our blessed Lord's frequent use of that adverb. “My soul waiteth upon God.” My inmost self draws near in reverent obedience to God. I am no hypocrite or mere posture maker. To wait upon God, and for God, is the habitual position of faith; to wait on him truly is sincerity; to wait on him only is spiritual chastity. The original is, “only to God is my soul silence.” The presence of God alone could awe his heart into quietude, submission, rest, and acquiescence; but when that was felt, not a rebellious word or thought broke the peaceful silence. The proverb that speech is silver but silence is gold, is more than true in this ease. No eloquence in the world is half so full of meaning as the patient silence of a child of God. It is an eminent work of grace to bring down the will and subdue the affections to such a degree, that the whole mind lies before the Lord like the sea beneath the wind, ready to be moved by every breath of his mouth, but free from all inward and self-caused emotion, as also from all power to be moved by anything other than the divine will. We should be wax to the Lord, but adamant to every other force. “From him cometh my salvation.” The good man will, therefore, in patience possess his soul till deliverance comes: faith can hear the footsteps of coming salvation because she has learned to be silent. Our salvation in no measure or degree comes to us from any inferior source; let us, therefore, look alone to the true fountain, and avoid the detestable crime of ascribing to the creature what belongs alone to the Creator. If to wait on God be worship, to wait on the creature is idolatry; if to wait on God alone be true faith, to associate an arm of flesh with him is audacious unbelief. (Charles Spurgeon-Treasury of David)
Silence of Faith
“My soul is silence unto God.” That forcible form of expression describes the completeness of the psalmist’s unmurmuring submission and quiet faith. His whole being is one of great stillness, broken by no clamorous passions; by no loud-voiced desires; by no remonstrating reluctance. That silence is first a silence of the will. Bridle impatience till God speaks. Take care of running before you are sent. Keep your will in equipoise till God’s hand gives the impulse and direction. We must keep our hearts silent too. The sweet voices of pleading affections, the loud cry of desires and instincts that roar for their food like beasts of prey, the querulous complaints of disappointed hopes, the groans and sobs of black-robed sorrows, the loud hubbub and Babel, like the noise of a great city, that every man carries within, must be stifled and coerced into silence. We have to take the animal in us by the throat, and sternly say, Lie down there and be quiet. We have to silence tastes and inclinations. There must be the silence of the mind, as well as of the heart and will. We must not have our thoughts ever occupied with other things, but must cultivate the habit of detaching them from earth, and keeping our minds still before God, that He may pour His light into them. Alas! how far from this is our daily life! Who among us dares to take these words as the expression of our own experience? Is not the troubled sea which cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt, a truer emblem of our restless, labouring souls than the calm lake? Put your own selves by the side of this psalmist, and honestly measure the contrast. It is like the difference between some crowded market-place all full of noisy traffickers, ringing with shouts, blazing in sunshine, and the interior of the quiet cathedral that looks down on it all, where are coolness and subdued light, and silence and solitude. This man’s profession of utter resignation is perhaps too high for us; but we can make his self-exhortation our own. “My soul! wait thou only upon God.” Perfect as he ventures to declare his silence towards God, he yet feels that he has to stir himself up to the effort which is needed to preserve it in its purity. Just because he can say, “My soul waits,” therefore he bids his soul wait. That vigorous effort is expressed here by the very form of the phrase. The same word which began tim first clause begins the second also. As in the former it represented for us, with an emphatic “Truly,” the struggle through which the psalmist had reached the height of his blessed experience, so here it represents in like manner the earnestness of the self-exhortation which he addresses to himself. He calls forth all his powers to the conflict, which is needed even by the man who has attained to that height of communion, if he would remain where he has climbed. And for us who shrink from taking these former words upon our lips, how much greater the need to use our most strenuous efforts to quiet our souls. If the summit reached can only be held by earnest endeavor, how much more is needed to struggle up from the valleys below. (A. Maclaren, D. D.)
Comparative verses:
Exo 34:27 And the LORD said unto Moses, Write thou these words: for after the tenor of these words I have made a covenant with thee and with Israel.
Exo 34:28 And he was there with the LORD forty days and forty nights; he did neither eat bread, nor drink water. And he wrote upon the tables the words of the covenant, the ten commandments.
Luk 5:16 And he withdrew himself into the wilderness, and prayed.
Luk 6:12 And it came to pass in those days, that he went out into a mountain to pray, and continued all night in prayer to God.
See also: Mat_14:23; Mar_1:35-36, Mar_6:46; Joh_6:15
Comparative verses:
Exo 34:27 And the LORD said unto Moses, Write thou these words: for after the tenor of these words I have made a covenant with thee and with Israel.
Exo 34:28 And he was there with the LORD forty days and forty nights; he did neither eat bread, nor drink water. And he wrote upon the tables the words of the covenant, the ten commandments.
Luk 5:16 And he withdrew himself into the wilderness, and prayed.
Luk 6:12 And it came to pass in those days, that he went out into a mountain to pray, and continued all night in prayer to God.
See also: Mat_14:23; Mar_1:35-36, Mar_6:46; Joh_6:15
