1I waited patiently for the Lord;
he inclined to me and heard my cry.
2He drew me up from the pit of destruction,
out of the miry bog,
and set my feet upon a rock,
making my steps secure.
“Mire” is apparently quicksand, though perhaps I should consult with my brother-in-law the agronomist on that. I’ve encountered quicksand in two places: The Boy Scout Handbook and Tarzan movies (starring Johnny Weissmuller, not the other guy). From both I learned that to save someone sinking in the stuff you shouldn’t venture out toward the person but extend a branch or board or the like. Ditto with somebody who’s broke through the ice on a pond, but the Psalms weren’t written in Michigan.
At any rate, here as in some other psalms (e.g., Psalm 69:2 & 14) “mire” or “the miry bog” is a figure of speech for a whole lot of trouble that a person can’t get out of on their own. The thoughts of those who are in quicksand, literal or metaphorical, are concentrated on desire to have their “feet upon a rock” and their “steps secure.” God is the one who has a stick, or perhaps just a longer arm than anyone else, and who is therefore able to save.
Psalm 40 contains, then, the report of one who was in the mire and who now stands up firmly in church and gives testimony to that experience, because it is an experience of God’s goodness. To such give testimony is, in fact, an obligation of a person whom God has rescued from trouble:
3He put a new song in my mouth,
a song of praise to our God.
Many will see and fear,
and put their trust in the Lord.
. . .
9I have told the glad news of deliverance
in the great congregation;
behold, I have not restrained my lips,
as you know, O Lord.
10I have not hidden your deliverance within my heart;
I have spoken of your faithfulness and your salvation;
I have not concealed your steadfast love and your faithfulness
from the great congregation.
This also means that we of the “great congregation” have an obligation to listen. That takes patience. Some of us (and I raise my hand here) grow weary of testimony, especially if we have doubts about
- whether what we are hearing is spoken less from the heart than out of a desire to fit in or make a good show,
- whether the deliverance has been accompanied by repentance,
- whether the trouble (the “mire” the speaker has been pulled out of) is over-spiritualized (“he wasn’t so much demon-oppressed as drunk and disorderly”),
- whether we really should put a microphone in front of people who find it so easy to get into trouble,
- whether God might want to share the credit with, say, a surgical oncologist, or
- well, you get the picture.
Testimony is a Bible-approved way of speaking, even clumsily, about God and of hearing, even smugly, about God. Indeed, “Many will see and fear, and put their trust in the Lord.”
There is more to Psalm 40, but I seldom miss an chance to say something good about testimony meetings, and I didn’t want this opportunity to get obscured by other business.
- Psalm 40 is quoted here from the English Standard Version (2011).
- These posts on the Psalms are in aid of the reading of the Psalms—one a day through the first five months of 2022—by members, attenders, friends, et al. of Together Church, Wyoming, MI.
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