Out of the depths means out of guilt, sin, sorrow, distress, affliction, anguish, weakness, trouble, fear and need, crying humbly to the Lord for hearing, comfort and deliverance even when he seems far away. The cry is met not with terror but with gentle, loving and complete forgiveness that takes away all sting and fearful expectation of judgment, so that pardon brings peace, joy, gratitude and love, and to know the forgiving God is to know love. The Lord inclines and hears while the petitioner waits in faith, lifts the soul onto the Rock which is Jesus, takes the feet from mire and clay, sets them upon the Rock and establishes the goings, so that even those sunk in rottenness and chains of lust who cry with the whole heart are saved and given a new song. Being in the depths and yet alive itself gives confidence, for it proves God in Christ is present to deliver, so weakness and sinfulness believed become a pledge of redemption rather than discouragement, and going down into the depths with Jesus brings agony, then depth of soul, then growth and joy.
Depths and Psalm Setting
Out of the depths is the humble plea of one in guilt and need crying to the Lord for hearing, help, comfort and deliverance. Those depths are sin, sorrow, distress, affliction, anguish, discouragement, weakness, trouble, fear and need, and the cry rises even when he seems far away. Even when the trouble is self-caused and the distress deserved, crying to God with desire to turn to him brings help from his sanctuary. It is a call from deep distress for help, and from overwhelming affliction for deliverance.
The depths are also the low spiritual place after falling from high resolve. At dawn on spiritual heights the same poor stumbling mortal has hope and courage with high resolves to do and dare and to rise over earth and self for good, but when the will is crossed and the burden galls and the midday glare blinds, he goes the old wrong way in weak despair. Then in night come tears and sighs, a cry for pardon and cleansing through Jesus' blood.
The depths are sudden calamity and death, as by the blue Sicilian sea, with breaking hearts and tortured mouths among the living who scarce draw breath, and still tongues among the dead who sleep no more to wake. The cry rises even when God's blow feels mighty and unexplained, his written law feels too vast to measure, ruin comes for no offense through poverty and pestilence, and his love seems mockery. Yet the cry itself proves faith stays whole in terror-mastered souls though strength is shattered, spreading from land to land and sea to sea among all who blindly follow his design. It looks to God as Maker not destroyer, holding that night shall at last fade, the riddle be made plain, and broken lives be gathered again by his hand.
The depths are the dark, dread deep of a lost soul calling to the unknown God, the Infinite. His world has been clouded and robbed of heaven's light by faithless faith and false wisdom given as delusion and snare, while furious waters leap round clamoring in demoniac delight. He makes the cry at the altar rail where wandering feet return to the narrow path to God, nervous in doubt's anxious aftermath. He pleads to be heard, for swift relief, for every doubt to be stilled and for the chastening rod to be spared, to the pitying God who stills the tempest and to the loving Son of man, declaring belief while asking help for unbelief.
The depths are gloom and darkness, blindness and confusion and near despair after fanaticism. There is fear of claiming promises and of seeking the Spirit for fear of invoking a wrong spirit. The depths are also being cast down in soul in seasons of mental cloud, shattered nerves, dejected spirits and brooding desolation when no cheering light appears. They are overwhelming trouble when the spirit is overwhelmed and sinking under waves and billows as in a horrible pit of miry clay with life almost gone.
It is David crying from the depths of sorrow, and songs of praise rising from such affliction and a chastened spirit are especially heavenly. The psalm is one of the Psalms of Ascent, also called Psalms of Degrees. It was sung by pilgrims as they approached Jerusalem and chanted while worshipers ascended the fifteen steps leading to the inner court of the temple. Its songs stirred the devout to the depths of their spiritual life and awakened the true spirit of worship.
The psalm is one of the seven penitential psalms, a group marked by repentance. In its setting it belongs to songs associated with the distress of the Hebrew captives during the Babylonian captivity and their appeal for divine help and deliverance. It expresses a cry to the Lord from deep sorrow and affliction in that captivity setting.
God Hears and Saves
Out of the depths the sinner cries to the Lord from guilt and need, from sin and anguish and discouragement, pleading to be heard, and the answer is not terror but gentle, loving, complete forgiveness that removes all sting and terror and fearful expectation of judgment. Because God pardons, He is revered not with dread but with peace and joy and gratitude, with adoration and sincere, sweet, inexpressible love for having heard and forgiven. To know the forgiving God is to know love, for God is love, and this perfect love casts out all terror. This reverent love is the fear of the Lord, and it is the beginning of wisdom.
God's love and mercy reach even into the depths of human woe and misery and sin. The hindrance to pardon is not want of mercy in God but refusal of the purity and submission that pardon carries with it, and now is the time to accept His mercy. Those in the depths of sin may therefore cry with confidence, and the depths themselves give confidence. To be in the depths and yet alive proves that God in Christ on the cross is present to deliver, everything under the curse preaches the gospel, and personal weakness and sinfulness believed become a pledge of redemption rather than discouragement, so that out of weakness strength is made.
The Lord inclines and hears while the petitioner waits patiently in faith and holds fast to the Rock. He lifts the soul bodily onto the Rock which is Jesus, takes the feet from the mire and clay, sets them upon the Rock and establishes the goings. Even those sunk in unspeakable rottenness and the chains and slime of lust who cry with the whole heart will be saved, for He longs to save and is mighty to save, turning the sinner from corruption to the clean One to rejoice and worship at Jesus' feet and sing a new song of grateful praise. So the slave of sin and appetite, with chains burning into the soul and dragging down to hell even after many long years without prayer, may sob out simple, earnest prayer for mercy for himself and for wife and children, asking God to pity and break the chains. That cry is heard with compassion, every chain is broken and every burden lifted, and he becomes a free and redeemed man able to leave sin, keep his resolve, establish prayer in the home, and bring comfort and purity and peace back to his family.
The cry rising from inward sorrow and heartfelt sighs of a repentant, wounded heart is beautiful and welcome in God's sight. It is the plea of a suffering heart turning to Jesus the human Savior who knows human weakness and can pity and shelter those in need. God hearkens and gradually dispels the terrible darkness, giving light and hope in the heart. He leads to renewed vows with resolve to try even at risk of perishing, to persevere though buffeted by Satan and pressed by cares and trials, completing the gracious work begun and keeping the petitioner faithful until awaking in His likeness, even after gloom and blindness and confusion and near despair with fear of claiming promises and seeking the Spirit for fear of a wrong spirit.
The cry longs to feel the blessed nearness of the Lord's presence so close beside that no hidden foe can thrust between and no unseen enemy can separate from the beloved Savior. That realized nearness brings rejoicing with exceeding joy and perfect security in perfect love that casts out all fear, and the verse so belongs to the appeal for strength in learning to trust the Savior out of spiritual darkness. For the cast-down soul in seasons of mental cloud and shattered nerves and dejected spirits and brooding desolation with no cheering light, the Bible remedy is not frivolous reading for refreshment but hope in God. It is to hold that He is yet over all and in all and through all despite encircling gloom, and that the gloom however dismal shall at length, perhaps very shortly, be not only pierced but flooded with sunshine in God's own time and way.
The Christian life is sorrowful yet always rejoicing and must go down into the depths with Jesus. Agony of soul gives depth of soul, depth gives growth, and growth gives joy, so that crying from the depths in Jesus brings pain, then growth, then joy. Refusing to suffer with Him forfeits being glorified with Him, for only those who go with Him into suffering see Him in glory, and saving the life loses it while losing it in suffering finds joy. Even when trouble is self-caused and deserved, the one overwhelmed by sorrow and distress and anguish who cries to God with desire to turn to Him brings help from His sanctuary. So the cry for deliverance belongs to the habitual drinker who repeatedly pleaded for help yet relapsed into drunkenness despite prayers and resolutions, and to others in spiritual darkness still needing help.
Out of the depths means out of guilt, sin, sorrow, distress, affliction, anguish, weakness, trouble, fear and need, crying humbly to the Lord for hearing, comfort and deliverance even when he seems far away. The cry is met not with terror but with gentle, loving and complete forgiveness that takes away all sting and fearful expectation of judgment, so that pardon brings peace, joy, gratitude and love, and to know the forgiving God is to know love. The Lord inclines and hears while the petitioner waits in faith, lifts the soul onto the Rock which is Jesus, takes the feet from mire and clay, sets them upon the Rock and establishes the goings, so that even those sunk in rottenness and chains of lust who cry with the whole heart are saved and given a new song. Being in the depths and yet alive itself gives confidence, for it proves God in Christ is present to deliver, so weakness and sinfulness believed become a pledge of redemption rather than discouragement, and going down into the depths with Jesus brings agony, then depth of soul, then growth and joy.
Depths and Psalm Setting
Out of the depths is the humble plea of one in guilt and need crying to the Lord for hearing, help, comfort and deliverance. Those depths are sin, sorrow, distress, affliction, anguish, discouragement, weakness, trouble, fear and need, and the cry rises even when he seems far away. Even when the trouble is self-caused and the distress deserved, crying to God with desire to turn to him brings help from his sanctuary. It is a call from deep distress for help, and from overwhelming affliction for deliverance.
The depths are also the low spiritual place after falling from high resolve. At dawn on spiritual heights the same poor stumbling mortal has hope and courage with high resolves to do and dare and to rise over earth and self for good, but when the will is crossed and the burden galls and the midday glare blinds, he goes the old wrong way in weak despair. Then in night come tears and sighs, a cry for pardon and cleansing through Jesus' blood.
The depths are sudden calamity and death, as by the blue Sicilian sea, with breaking hearts and tortured mouths among the living who scarce draw breath, and still tongues among the dead who sleep no more to wake. The cry rises even when God's blow feels mighty and unexplained, his written law feels too vast to measure, ruin comes for no offense through poverty and pestilence, and his love seems mockery. Yet the cry itself proves faith stays whole in terror-mastered souls though strength is shattered, spreading from land to land and sea to sea among all who blindly follow his design. It looks to God as Maker not destroyer, holding that night shall at last fade, the riddle be made plain, and broken lives be gathered again by his hand.
The depths are the dark, dread deep of a lost soul calling to the unknown God, the Infinite. His world has been clouded and robbed of heaven's light by faithless faith and false wisdom given as delusion and snare, while furious waters leap round clamoring in demoniac delight. He makes the cry at the altar rail where wandering feet return to the narrow path to God, nervous in doubt's anxious aftermath. He pleads to be heard, for swift relief, for every doubt to be stilled and for the chastening rod to be spared, to the pitying God who stills the tempest and to the loving Son of man, declaring belief while asking help for unbelief.
The depths are gloom and darkness, blindness and confusion and near despair after fanaticism. There is fear of claiming promises and of seeking the Spirit for fear of invoking a wrong spirit. The depths are also being cast down in soul in seasons of mental cloud, shattered nerves, dejected spirits and brooding desolation when no cheering light appears. They are overwhelming trouble when the spirit is overwhelmed and sinking under waves and billows as in a horrible pit of miry clay with life almost gone.
It is David crying from the depths of sorrow, and songs of praise rising from such affliction and a chastened spirit are especially heavenly. The psalm is one of the Psalms of Ascent, also called Psalms of Degrees. It was sung by pilgrims as they approached Jerusalem and chanted while worshipers ascended the fifteen steps leading to the inner court of the temple. Its songs stirred the devout to the depths of their spiritual life and awakened the true spirit of worship.
The psalm is one of the seven penitential psalms, a group marked by repentance. In its setting it belongs to songs associated with the distress of the Hebrew captives during the Babylonian captivity and their appeal for divine help and deliverance. It expresses a cry to the Lord from deep sorrow and affliction in that captivity setting.
God Hears and Saves
Out of the depths the sinner cries to the Lord from guilt and need, from sin and anguish and discouragement, pleading to be heard, and the answer is not terror but gentle, loving, complete forgiveness that removes all sting and terror and fearful expectation of judgment. Because God pardons, He is revered not with dread but with peace and joy and gratitude, with adoration and sincere, sweet, inexpressible love for having heard and forgiven. To know the forgiving God is to know love, for God is love, and this perfect love casts out all terror. This reverent love is the fear of the Lord, and it is the beginning of wisdom.
God's love and mercy reach even into the depths of human woe and misery and sin. The hindrance to pardon is not want of mercy in God but refusal of the purity and submission that pardon carries with it, and now is the time to accept His mercy. Those in the depths of sin may therefore cry with confidence, and the depths themselves give confidence. To be in the depths and yet alive proves that God in Christ on the cross is present to deliver, everything under the curse preaches the gospel, and personal weakness and sinfulness believed become a pledge of redemption rather than discouragement, so that out of weakness strength is made.
The Lord inclines and hears while the petitioner waits patiently in faith and holds fast to the Rock. He lifts the soul bodily onto the Rock which is Jesus, takes the feet from the mire and clay, sets them upon the Rock and establishes the goings. Even those sunk in unspeakable rottenness and the chains and slime of lust who cry with the whole heart will be saved, for He longs to save and is mighty to save, turning the sinner from corruption to the clean One to rejoice and worship at Jesus' feet and sing a new song of grateful praise. So the slave of sin and appetite, with chains burning into the soul and dragging down to hell even after many long years without prayer, may sob out simple, earnest prayer for mercy for himself and for wife and children, asking God to pity and break the chains. That cry is heard with compassion, every chain is broken and every burden lifted, and he becomes a free and redeemed man able to leave sin, keep his resolve, establish prayer in the home, and bring comfort and purity and peace back to his family.
The cry rising from inward sorrow and heartfelt sighs of a repentant, wounded heart is beautiful and welcome in God's sight. It is the plea of a suffering heart turning to Jesus the human Savior who knows human weakness and can pity and shelter those in need. God hearkens and gradually dispels the terrible darkness, giving light and hope in the heart. He leads to renewed vows with resolve to try even at risk of perishing, to persevere though buffeted by Satan and pressed by cares and trials, completing the gracious work begun and keeping the petitioner faithful until awaking in His likeness, even after gloom and blindness and confusion and near despair with fear of claiming promises and seeking the Spirit for fear of a wrong spirit.
The cry longs to feel the blessed nearness of the Lord's presence so close beside that no hidden foe can thrust between and no unseen enemy can separate from the beloved Savior. That realized nearness brings rejoicing with exceeding joy and perfect security in perfect love that casts out all fear, and the verse so belongs to the appeal for strength in learning to trust the Savior out of spiritual darkness. For the cast-down soul in seasons of mental cloud and shattered nerves and dejected spirits and brooding desolation with no cheering light, the Bible remedy is not frivolous reading for refreshment but hope in God. It is to hold that He is yet over all and in all and through all despite encircling gloom, and that the gloom however dismal shall at length, perhaps very shortly, be not only pierced but flooded with sunshine in God's own time and way.
The Christian life is sorrowful yet always rejoicing and must go down into the depths with Jesus. Agony of soul gives depth of soul, depth gives growth, and growth gives joy, so that crying from the depths in Jesus brings pain, then growth, then joy. Refusing to suffer with Him forfeits being glorified with Him, for only those who go with Him into suffering see Him in glory, and saving the life loses it while losing it in suffering finds joy. Even when trouble is self-caused and deserved, the one overwhelmed by sorrow and distress and anguish who cries to God with desire to turn to Him brings help from His sanctuary. So the cry for deliverance belongs to the habitual drinker who repeatedly pleaded for help yet relapsed into drunkenness despite prayers and resolutions, and to others in spiritual darkness still needing help.