Make thy face to shine upon thy servant: save me for thy mercies’ sake.
Psalm 31 is a song of human experience that is to become part of the experience of God's children as they meet daily tasks and trials. It also belongs to a prophetic picture of Christ's inner experience, in which David foresaw in vision and inwardly felt the life-and-death struggles Christ would endure. Read in that light, the verse discloses Christ's experience in hardship and temptation and presents him as a Friend able to help those who are tempted.
The prayer for God's face to shine is a request for the servant to live and move in the light of God's countenance. Christian character develops only while that divine light, the shining of the Sun of righteousness, rests upon the soul. When that light is removed or obscured by doubt and despair, the work of transforming surroundings into Christlike character stops. In spiritual darkness and moral depression a person then actually consumes and loses Christlike character already gained.
The plea asks God to save on the ground of his abundant mercy, not because of any merit in the servant. God's answering work of saving and pardoning sinners is connected with the vindication of his righteous character before the universe. As part of the Psalms, the verse gives help in discouragement, strength in trial, comfort in grief, warning about sin, and assurance that God is able and willing to save. The prayer for God's favor and merciful deliverance is therefore suited to times of sorrow, as when a believing family grieves with hope at the death of a child.
Psalm 31 is a song of human experience that is to become part of the experience of God's children as they meet daily tasks and trials. It also belongs to a prophetic picture of Christ's inner experience, in which David foresaw in vision and inwardly felt the life-and-death struggles Christ would endure. Read in that light, the verse discloses Christ's experience in hardship and temptation and presents him as a Friend able to help those who are tempted.
The prayer for God's face to shine is a request for the servant to live and move in the light of God's countenance. Christian character develops only while that divine light, the shining of the Sun of righteousness, rests upon the soul. When that light is removed or obscured by doubt and despair, the work of transforming surroundings into Christlike character stops. In spiritual darkness and moral depression a person then actually consumes and loses Christlike character already gained.
The plea asks God to save on the ground of his abundant mercy, not because of any merit in the servant. God's answering work of saving and pardoning sinners is connected with the vindication of his righteous character before the universe. As part of the Psalms, the verse gives help in discouragement, strength in trial, comfort in grief, warning about sin, and assurance that God is able and willing to save. The prayer for God's favor and merciful deliverance is therefore suited to times of sorrow, as when a believing family grieves with hope at the death of a child.