Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Psalms 31:5
Into thine hand I commit my spirit: thou hast redeemed me, O LORD God of truth.
5. I commit &c.] Or, as P.B.V. and R.V., I commend my spirit. To God’s care he entrusts as a precious deposit the life inbreathed by God Himself (Job 10:12; Job 17:1). The context makes it plain that it is for the preservation of his life that he thus entrusts himself to God; but the further application of the words to the departing spirit is obvious and natural, and it is sanctioned and consecrated by our Lord’s use of them on the Cross (Luk 23:46). Cp. the noble words of Wis 3:1 ; “The souls of the righteous are in the hand of God:” and Joh 10:28 f.; 2Ti 1:12 ; 1Pe 4:19 (noting how a faithful Creator corresponds to thou God of truth here). “The many instances on record, including St Polycarp, St Basil, Epiphanius of Pavia, St Bernard, St Louis, Huss, Columbus, Luther, and Melancthon of Christians using these words at the approach of death, represent how many millions of unrecorded cases!” Kay.
The words, Thou hast redeemed me, O Lord, thou God of truth, give the double ground of this confidence, in his own past experience, and the known character of Jehovah as the God of faithfulness. Redeemed primarily means delivered from temporal distress (2Sa 4:9); but for the Christian the word must bear a deeper significance.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Into thine hand I commit my spirit – The Saviour used this expression when on the cross, and when about to die: Luk 23:46. But this does not prove that the psalm had originally a reference to him, or that he meant to intimate that the words originally were a prophecy. The language was appropriate for him, as it is for all others in the hour of death; and his use of the words furnished the highest illustration of their being appropriate in that hour. The act of the psalmist was an act of strong confidence in God in the midst of dangers and troubles; the act of the Saviour was of the same nature, commending his spirit to God in the solemn hour of death. The same act of faith is proper for all the people of God, alike in trouble and in death. Compare Act 7:59. The word spirit may mean either life, considered as the animating principle, equivalent to the word myself; or it may mean more specifically the soul, as distinguished from the body. The sense is not materially varied by either interpretation.
Thou hast redeemed me – This was the ground or reason why the psalmist commended himself to God; this reason was not urged, and could not have been by the Saviour, in his dying moments. He committed his departing spirit to God as his Father, and in virtue of the work which he had been appointed to do, and which he was now about finishing, as a Redeemer; we commit our souls to Him in virtue of having been redeemed. This is proper for us:
(a) because he has redeemed us;
(b) because we have been redeemed for him, and we may ask Him to take His own;
(c) because this is a ground of safety, for if we have been redeemed, we may be certain that God will keep us; and
(d) because this is the only ground of our security in reference to the future world.
What David may have understood by this word it may not be easy to determine with certainty; but there is no reason to doubt that he may have used it as expressive of the idea that he had been recovered from the ruin of the fall, and from the dominion of sin, and had been made a child of God. Nor do we need to doubt that he had such views of the way of salvation that he would feel that he was redeemed only by an atonement, or by the shedding of blood for his sins. To all who are Christians it is enough to authorize them to use this language in the midst of troubles and dangers, and in the hour of death, that they have been redeemed by the blood of the Saviour; to none of us is there any other safe ground of trust and confidence in the hour of death than the fact that Christ has died for sin, and that we have evidence that we are interested in his blood.
O Lord God of truth – True to thy promises and to thy covenant-engagements. As thou hast promised life and salvation to those who are redeemed, they may safely confide in thee. See the notes at 2Co 1:20.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Psa 31:5
Into Thine hand I commit my spirit.
The last words of Christ on the Cross
(with Luk 23:46; Act 7:59):–
I. I invite you first to consider our Saviours words just before his death: Father, into Thy hands I commend my spirit.
1. Observe how Christ lives and passes away in the atmosphere of the Word of God. Christ was a grand original thinker, and He might always have given us words of His own. He never lacked suitable language, for never man spake like this Man. Yet the great majority of His expressions may be traced to the Old Testament. Even where they are not exact quotations, His words drop into Scriptural shape and form. You can see that the Bible has been His one Book. It was food to Him, as it is to us; and if He thus lived upon the Word of God, should not you and I do the same?
2. Notice that our Lord, in the moment of His death, recognized a personal God. We have far too much fiction in religion, and a religion of fiction will bring only fictitious comfort in the dying hour. Come to solid facts. Is God as real to thee as thou art to thyself? Come now; dost thou speak with Him as a man speaketh unto his friend? Canst thou trust Him, and rely upon Him as thou dost trust and rely upon the partner of thy bosom? If thy God be unreal, thy religion is unreal.
3. Observe how Jesus Christ here brings out, the Fatherhood of God. The psalm from which He quoted did not say, Father. David did not get as far as that in words, though in spirit he often did; but Jesus had the right to alter the psalmists words. He can improve on Scripture, though you and I cannot. He did not say, O God, into Thine hand I commit My spirit; but He said, Father. Oh, how sweet, in life and in death, to feel in our soul the spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father!
4. From this passage we learn that our Lord cheerfully rendered up His soul to His Father when the time had come for Him to die. No man taketh it from Me, said He concerning His life; I lay it down of Myself; and there is here a cheerful willingness to yield up His spirit into His Fathers hands. It is rather remarkable that none of the evangelists describe our Lord as dying. He did die, but they all speak of Him as giving up the ghost,–surrendering to God His spirit. You and I passively die; but He actively yielded up His spirit to His Father. In His case, death was an act; and He performed that act from the glorious motive of redeeming us from death and hell; so, in this sense, Christ stands alone in His death. But, oh, if we cannot render up our spirit as He did, yet, let us be perfectly ready to give it up. When God calls us to die, it will be a sweet way of dying if we can, like our Lord, pass away with a text of Scripture upon our lips, with a personal God ready to receive us, with that God recognized distinctly as our Father, and so die joyously, resigning our will entirely to the sweet will of the ever-blessed One, and saying, It is the Lord, My Father, let Him do as seemeth Him good.
II. My second text (Psa 31:5) is evidently the passage which our Saviour had in His mind just then: Into Thine hand I commit My spirit: Thou hast redeemed Me, O Lord God of truth. It seems to me that these are words to be used in life, for this psalm is not so much concerning the believers death as concerning his life.
1. Let us cheerfully entrust our souls to God, and feel that they are quite safe in His hands. Are you always doing this?
2. Notice that our second text has these words at the end of it: Thou hast redeemed Me, O Lord God of truth. Is not that a good reason for giving yourself up entirely to God? Christ has redeemed you, and therefore you belong to Him. So, every day, go to Him with this declaration, Into Thine hand I commit my spirit. Nay, not only every day, but all through the day. Have you to go into a house where there is fever; I mean, is it your duty to go there? Then go saying, Father, into Thine hand I commit my spirit. I would advise you to do this every time you walk down the street, or even while you sit in your own house.
III. My third text (Act 7:59) is intended to explain to us the use of our Saviours dying words for ourselves.
1. If we can die as Stephen did, we shall die with a certainty of immortality. An infidel once said to a Christian man, Some of you Christians have great fear in dying because you believe that there is another state to follow this one. I have not the slightest fear, for I believe that I shall be annihilated, and therefore all fear of death is gone from me. Yes, said the Christian man, and in that respect you seem to me to be on equal terms with that bullock grazing over there, which, like yourself, is free from any fear of death. Pray, sir, let me ask you a simple question, Have you any hope? . . . Hope, sir? No, I have no hope; of course, I have no hope, sir. Ah, then! replied the other, despite the fears that sometimes come over feeble believers, they have a hope which they would not and could not give up. And that hope is, that our spirit–even that spirit which we commit into Jesus Christs hands,–shall be for ever with the Lord.
2. To a man who can die as Stephen did, there is a certainty that Christ is near,–so near that the man speaks to Him, and says, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.
3. There is a certainty that we are quite safe in His hands.
4. There is the other certainty, that He is quite willing to take us into His hands. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Into, Thy hands
This psalm is the heart-cry of a man in great trouble, surrounded by all sorts of difficulties, with his very life threatened. He was down in the very depths of darkness, and ringed about by all sorts of enemies at that moment. Into Thine hands I commit my spirit, as a man standing in the midst of enemies, and bearing some precious treasure in his hand might, with one strong cast of his arm, fling it into the open hand of some mighty helper, and so baulk the enemies of their prey.
I. where to lodge a soul for safe keeping, Into Thine hands–a banker has a strong room, and a wise man sends his securities and his valuables to the bank and takes an acknowledgment, and goes to bed at night, quite sure that no harm will come to them, and that he will get them when he wants them. And that is exactly what the psalmist does here. He deposits his most precious treasure in the safe custody of One who will take care of it. The great hand is stretched out, and the little soul is put into it.
1. Trusting Him for the salvation of our souls. Take your stand on the fact, and with emancipated and buoyant hearts, and grateful ones, work from it, and because of it.
2. Trusting Him in reference to daily life, and all its difficulties and duties. The act of trust is to run through everything that we undertake and everything that we have to fight with. Self-will wrenches our souls out of Gods hands. A man that sends his securities to the banker can get them back when he likes. And if we undertake to manage our own affairs, or fling ourselves into our work without recognition of our dependence upon Him, or if we choose our work without seeking to know what His will is, that is recalling our deposit. Then you will get it back again.
3. This must be accompanied with corresponding work. Peter tells us that it is vain for us to talk about committing the keeping of our soul to God unless we back up the committing with consistent, Christlike lives.
4. This committing of our souls into Gods hands does not mean that we are absolved from taking care of them ourselves.
II. the blessedness of thus living in an atmosphere of continual dependence on, and reference to, God, about great things and little things. Whenever a man is living by trust, even when the trust is mistaken, or when it is resting upon some mere human, fallible creature like himself, in the measure of his confidence is the measure of his tranquillity.
III. the ground upon which this great venture of faith may be made. Thou hast redeemed me, Lord God of Truth. (A. Maclaren, D. D.)
Committing ourselves to God
Thou hast redeemed me, O Lord God of truth. Hence–
I. he testifies, by his committing himself to god, to the power of the Lords redemption. He has felt it and acknowledges it.
II. To Gods faithfulness. God is the Lord God of truth. To which class do we belong? (R. W. Evans, B. D.)
The dying Christian come, rifting his soul to God
I. with whom does the dying Christian wish to entrust his soul? There are only two beings who can have charge of it when it quits the body–the Lord or Satan. Into the hands of one of these our souls must go when they die, and with one of these we must spend eternity. But men generally are quite indifferent on this matter. They feel no real concern. They have a vague hope of heaven and fear of hell. But neither influences their conduct in any important degree. Christians, however, must desire that which David so desired–that the Lord God should receive his spirit.
II. what is implied in committing his soul into his hands in a dying hour.
1. A firm persuasion that the soul will outlive the body. Not by reason but by the Gospel only does he first learn really and habitually to regard himself as the heir of eternity. And this conviction deepens as he grows in grace.
2. A high value for the soul. The body is as nothing compared to it. The body is the casket, but the soul is the jewel, and that he would, indeed, have saved.
3. A lively sense of the serious, and awful nature of death, a conviction of our need of help in a dying hour. The soul in such an hour will cling more closely to its God. No man will think lightly of death who has ever thought himself near death.
4. A belief that God is willing to receive the soul.
III. the warrant and encouragement thus to do.
1. God is the Christians Redeemer.
2. The faithfulness of God. He is the God of truth, and He has promised to save them that trust in Him.
IV. the lesson of this subject.
1. The great value of Christian faith.
2. Here is a source of comfort under the loss of friends.
3. How confidently we may commit into the same hand all other things.
4. How important that now we should become the redeemed of the Lord. (C. Bradley.)
A watchword /or life and death
I. The true watchword of life.
1. We approach the duties of life through a series of the most elevating considerations.
(1) We are not our own.
(2) We are parts of a great system.
(3) We are servants, not masters.
(4) The things that are round about us are beneath our serious notice, except for momentary convenience or instruction.
2. We accept the trials of life with the most hopeful patience. They are–
(1) Disciplinary.
(2) Under control.
(3) Needful.
3. We recognize the mercies of life with the most joyful thankfulness. The name of God is upon the smallest of them.
II. the true watchword of death. This watchword, as spoken by Jesus and Stephen, shows–
1. Their belief in a state of being at present invisible. They must at least be credited with speaking their deepest personal convictions. It is something to us in our ignorance and weakness to know who have believed this doctrine of a future state.
2. Their assurance of the limitations of human malice. The spirit was free!
3. Application.
(1) Where the spirit is fit for the presence of God, there is no fear of death.
(2) All who have died in the faith are present with the Lord.
(3) Jesus Himself knows what it is to pass through the valley of the shadow of death.
(4) The prayer for entrance amongst the blest may come too late. We have no authority for the encouragement of death-bed repentance. (J. Parker, D. D.)
The saints dying prayer
I. These words are full of the fact of our human immortality. Man has and is a spirit, which he can commit.
II. A man must do somewhat with his spirit. Some commit their spirit to the dream of theosophy; spiritualism; a worldly carelessness about its destiny; an external morality; external rites; purging punishments.
III. to whom it is most right and reasonable to commit ones spirit.
1. To a personal God.
2. To a redeeming God.
3. To a God of truth. (W. Hoyt, D. D.)
The redeemed soul in Gods hand
I. the believer has been redeemed by God. This Divine redemption–
1. Is a deliverance from the greatest of all evils, the service of Satan–ignorance, disease, remorse, death, hell.
2. Was effected at an infinite cost–the death of Him who is one with the Father.
3. Is an eternal redemption of the entire nature.
II. the believer is assured of his redemption.
1. This assurance comes of faith.
2. Feeling thus assured of our redemption, God should constantly be the object of our love, and our lives be dedicated to His service.
III. the believer, feeling assured of his redemption, trustfuly yields his spirit into the hand of his maker, when he departs this life. Be ye also ready. Prepare to meet your God. (Thos. Evans.)
Redemption a ground of encouragement to commit the soul to God
No question so important to us as this–how can we be just with God. Reason and philosophy cannot answer it, but the Bible does.
I. take a brief view of Gods plan of redemption. It includes–
1. The free and full pardon of sin.
2. Provision for our sanctification.
3. Adoption into Gods family.
II. All this furnishes ample ground for the committal of our souls into the hands of God. What is it to do this? It implies–
1. Conviction of guilt.
2. Persuasion of His readiness to receive and keep what is committed to Him.
3. Choosing to be ruled by Him.
III. the encouragement there is in redemption to do this. You are assured–
1. That all obstacles are put out of the way.
2. That all you need is provided for you and freely offered to you
3. No conditions are required but that you simply commit your soul to God.
4. It is the only way of being saved.
IV. conclusion.
1. None may say, there is no hope for me.
2. The work of redemption illustrates the goodness of God.
3. Are we now trusting in Christ? if so, we have committed, etc.
4. How great our obligations to live to the Divine glory. (J. Hawes, D. D.)
The language of a dying saint
I. what is implied in his committing his spirit to God.
1. A deep conviction of the souls immortality.
2. A preferable concern for his soul.
3. A firm persuasion that his spirit would be safe with God. The soul is as a precious jewel, hence a great trust.
II. His encouragement herein. Thou hast redeemed me, etc. For in this redemption the believer finds–
1. Love, wonderful, matchless, divine (1Jn 4:10; 1Pe 1:18). Hence he is greatly encouraged.
2. Property (Eze 13:4; 1Co 6:19; Eze 16:8; Isa 43:21). And then–
3. Power. God is able to keep that, etc.
4. Faithfulness.
III. improvement.
1. Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord.
2. Acquaint now thyself with God and be at peace.
3. Rejoice in the prospect of the glorious resurrection day. (Samuel Lavington.)
From the text learn
I. dying in a saints account is a difficult work.
1. It is an untried work.
2. It is a final farewell to the present world.
3. It is to put off or lay down the body, no more to be re-assumed till the general resurrection at the end of the world.
4. Our probation is at an end.
5. To die is a great and difficult work, seeing thereupon the soul removes into a new state and world. To remove from one kingdom or country to another, is a great thing; but how much greater to remove into a new world! a world we have not seen, and are little acquainted with.
6. We have to meet God as our Judge, who will order our soul to its unchangeable state and place in the eternal world. For all these reasons to die is always difficult. And it is more so if death find us in the dark as to our title to the life to come. Conscience may be filled with terror under the sense of sin, and dread of deserved wrath. Sin, unpardoned sin, is the sting of death, as drawing after it an everlasting hell; and the very suspicion of this is enough to make the heart to tremble. God in our last moments may hide Himself, or withdraw the light of His countenance; and what distress follows upon this, none can tell but those that have felt it. It is no wonder that such circumstances make dying work peculiarly hard.
II. the children of God considering themselves as dying, are chiefly concerned about their immortal souls. The psalmist here was so; he had prayed for temporal salvation in the words of this psalm before my text, but did not insist mainly upon it. However it was as to his body, his great care was with reference to his soul; O Lord, into Thy hand I commit my spirit: let that be safe, and I shall be satisfied. (Anon.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 5. Into thine hand I commit my spirit] These words, as they stand in the Vulgate, were in the highest credit among our ancestors; by whom they were used in all dangers, difficulties, and in the article of death. In manus tuas, Domine, commendo spiritum meum, was used by the sick when about to expire, if they were sensible; and if not, the priest said it in their behalf. In forms of prayer for sick and dying persons, these words were frequently inserted in Latin, though all the rest of the prayer was English; for it was supposed there was something sovereign in the language itself. But let not the abuse of such words hinder their usefulness. For an ejaculation nothing can be better; and when the pious or the tempted with confidence use them, nothing can exceed their effect. “Into thy hands I commend my spirit; for thou hast redeemed me, O Lord God of truth.” I give my soul to thee, for it is thine: thou hast redeemed it by thy blood; it is safe nowhere but in thy hand. Thou hast promised to save them that trust in thee; thou art the God of truth, and canst not deny thyself. But these words are particularly sanctified, or set apart for this purpose, by the use made of them by our blessed Lord just before he expired on the cross. “And when Jesus had cried with a loud voice, he said, , ‘Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit,'” Lu 23:46. The rest of the verse was not suitable to the Saviour of the world, and therefore he omits it; but it is suitable to us who have been redeemed by that sacrificial death. St. Stephen uses nearly the same words, and they were the last that he uttered. Ac 7:59.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
Into thine hand, i.e. to thy care and custody,
I commit my spirit, i.e. my soul or life, called a mans spirit, as Ecc 3:21; 12:7, &c. Either,
1. To receive it; for my case is almost desperate, and I am ready to give up the ghost. Or,
2. To preserve it from the plots and malice of mine enemies.
Thou hast redeemed me; thou hast delivered me formerly in great dangers, and therefore I willingly and cheerfully commit myself to thee for the future.
O Lord God of truth; who hast showed thyself to be so to me, in making good thy promises.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
5, 6. commit my spiritmylife, or myself. Our Saviour used the words on the Cross [Lu23:46], not as prophetical, but, as many pious men have done, asexpressive of His unshaken confidence in God. The Psalmist rests onGod’s faithfulness to His promises to His people, and hence avowshimself one of them, detesting all who revere objects of idolatry(compare Deu 32:21; 1Co 8:4).
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
Into thine hand I commit my spirit,…. Either his life, as to a faithful Creator and Preserver, who was the God of his life, gave him it, and upheld his soul in it; or his soul, and the eternal salvation of it, which he committed into the hand of the Lord his Redeemer, where he knew it would be safe, and out of whose hands none can pluck; or this he might say, as apprehensive of immediate death, through the danger he was in; and therefore commits his spirit into the hands of God, to whom he knew it belonged, and to whom it returns at death, and dies not with the body, but exists in a separate state, and would be immediately with him. Our Lord Jesus Christ used the same words when he was expiring on the cross, and seems to have taken them from hence, or to refer to these, Lu 23:46;
thou hast redeemed me, O Lord God of truth; which may be understood, either of the temporal redemption of his life from destruction in times past, which encouraged him to commit his life into the hands of God now, who was the same, and changed not; or of spiritual and eternal redemption from sin by the blood of Christ, and which the psalmist speaks of as if it was past, though it was to come, because of the certainty of it; just as Isaiah speaks of the incarnation and sufferings of Christ, Isa 9:6; and of which he was assured, because the Lord, who had provided, appointed, and promised the Redeemer, was the God of truth, and was faithful to every word of promise; and Christ, who had engaged to be the Redeemer, was faithful to him that appointed him; and having an interest therefore in this plenteous redemption, by virtue of which he was the Lord’s, he committed himself into his hands.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
5. Into thy hand I commit my spirit. David again declares his faith to God, and affirms that he had such high thoughts of his providence, as to cast all his cares upon it. Whoever commits himself into God’s hand and to his guardianship, not only constitutes him the arbiter of life and death to him, but also calmly depends on him for protection amidst all his dangers. The verb is in the future tense, “I will commit,” and it unquestionably denotes a continued act, and is therefore fitly translated into the present tense. It is also to be observed, that no man can possibly commit his life to God with sincerity, but he who considers himself exposed to a thousand deaths, and that his life hangs by a thread, or differs almost nothing from a breath which passes suddenly away. David being thus at the point of despair, leaves nothing to himself to do but this — to go on his way, trusting in God as the keeper and governor of his life. It is marvellous, that, although many things distress us all, scarcely one in a hundred is so wise as to commit his life into God’s hand. Multitudes live from day to day as merry and careless as if they were in a quiet nest, free from all disturbance; but as soon as they encounter any thing to terrify them, they are ready to die for anguish. It thus happens that they never betake themselves to God, either because they deceive themselves with vain delusions, flattering themselves that all will yet be well, (639) or because they are so stricken with dread and stupified with amazement, that they have no desire for his fatherly care. Farther, as various tempests of grief disturb us, and even sometimes throw us down headlong, or drag us from the direct path of duty, or at least remove us from our post, the only remedy which exists for setting these things at rest is to consider that God, who is the author of our life, is also its preserver. This, then, is the only means of lightening all our burdens, and preserving us from being swallowed up of over-much sorrow. Seeing, therefore, that God condescends to undertake the care of our lives, and to support them, although they are often exposed to various sorts of death, let us learn always to flee to this asylum; nay, the more that any one is exposed to dangers, let him exercise himself the more carefully in meditating on it. In short, let this be our shield against all dangerous attacks — our haven amidst all tossings and tempests — that, although our safety may be beyond all human hope, God is the faithful guardian of it; and let this again arouse us to prayer, that he would defend us, and make our deliverance sure. This confidence will likewise make every man forward to discharge his duty with alacrity, and constantly and fearlessly to struggle onward to the end of his course. How does it happen that so many are slothful and indifferent, and that others perfidiously forsake their duty, but because, overwhelmed with anxiety, they are terrified at dangers and inconveniences, and leave no room for the operation of the providence of God?
To conclude, whoever relies not on the providence of God, so as to commit his life to its faithful guardianship, has not yet learned aright what it is to live. On the other hand, he who shall entrust the keeping of his life to God’s care, will not doubt of its safety even in the midst of death. We must therefore put our life into God’s hand, not only that he may keep it safely in this world, but also that he may preserve it from destruction in death itself, as Christ’s own example has taught us. As David wished to have his life prolonged amidst the dangers of death, so Christ passed out of this transitory life that his soul might be saved in death. This is a general prayer, therefore, in which the faithful commit their lives to God, first, that he may protect them by his power, so long as they are exposed to the dangers of this world; and, secondly, that he may preserve them safe in the grave, where nothing is to be seen but destruction. We ought farther to assure ourselves, that we are not forsaken of God either in life or in death; for those whom God brings safely by his power to the end of their course, he at last receives to himself at their death. This is one of the principal places of Scripture which are most suitable for correcting distrust. It teaches us, first, that the faithful ought not to torment themselves above measure with unhappy cares and anxieties; and, secondly, that they should not be so distracted with fear as to cease from performing their duty, nor decline and faint in such a manner as to grasp at vain hopes and deceitful helps, nor give way to fears and alarms; and, in fine, that they should not be afraid of death, which, though it destroys the body, cannot extinguish the soul. This, indeed, ought to be our principal argument for overcoming all temptations, that Christ, when commending his soul to his Father, undertook the guardianship of the souls of all his people. Stephen, therefore, calls upon him to be his keeper, saying, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit,” (Act 7:59.) As the soul is the seat of life, it is on this account, as is well known, used to signify life.
Thou hast redeemed me. Some translate the past tense here into the future; but, in my opinion, without any reason. For it is evident to me, that David is here encouraging himself to continued confidence in God, by calling to remembrance the proofs of his favor which he had already experienced. (640) It is no small encouragement to us for the future, to be assuredly persuaded that God will watch over our life, because he hath been our deliverer already. Hence the epithet by which David recognises God. He calls him true or faithful, because he believes that he will continue the same to him for ever that he has already been. Accordingly, this is as it were a bond by which he joins to the former benefits which God had conferred upon him confidence in prayer, and the hope of aid for the time to come: as if he had said, Lord, thou who art ever the same, and changest not thy mind like men, hast already testified in very deed that thou art the defender of my life: now, therefore, I commit my life, of which thou hast been the preserver, into thy hands. What David here declares concerning his temporal life, Paul transfers to eternal salvation.
“
I know,” says he, “whom I have believed, and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed to him,” (2Ti 1:12.)
And surely, if David derived so much confidence from temporal deliverance, it is more than wicked and ungrateful on our part, if the redemption purchased by the blood of Christ does not furnish us with invincible courage against all the devices of Satan.
(639) “ Se faisans a croire que de leur faict ce ne sera que triomphe.” — Fr.
(640) Horsley, while his translation is similar to that of Calvin, “Thou hast delivered me,” takes a somewhat different view of the meaning. “Thou hast, i.e., Thou most surely wilt. — The thing is as certain as if it were done.”
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
(5) I commit.Most memorable, even among expressions of the Psalms, as the dying words of our Lord Himself (Luk. 23:46), and a long line of Christian worthies. Polycarp, Bernard, Huss, Henry V., Jerome of Prague, Luther, Melancthon, are some of the many who have passed away comforted and upheld by the psalmists expression of trust. But death was not in his thought, it was in life, amid its troubles and dangers, that he trusted (Hebrew, deposited as a trust) his spirit (rach, comp. Isa. 38:16) to God. But the gift brought to the altar by the seer of old, has been consecrated anew and yet anew.
Lord God of truth.Comp. 2Ch. 15:3, where, as here, there is a contrast between Jehovah and idols; but also, as in Deu. 32:4, the faithful God.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
5. Into thine hand I commit my spirit Both the Hebrew , ( rooahh,) and the Septuagint , ( pneuma,) are the strongest words in either language for the intellective and immortal nature of man. The utterance has derived an awful sanctity from being repeated by Christ as his last words upon the cross. Luk 23:46. He uses verbatim the language of the Septuagint. It is no objection to its Messianic application that the clause stands alone. The whole psalm has a Christologic expression, and it is according to all analogy that a sudden foregleam of Christ’s sufferings should break upon the vision of the prophet with a distinctness not given to any other portion of the psalm. The committal itself is made with a conscious proximity to death, as the last words of a dying man. Compare Act 7:59. John Huss, when going to the stake, often repeated, “Into thine hands I commend my spirit. Thou hast redeemed me, my Lord Jesus, God of truth.”
Thou hast redeemed me The preterite for the future, as the language of faith, calling things that are to be as though they were.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Into your hand I commend my spirit,
You have redeemed me, O YHWH, you God of truth.
I hate those who regard lying vanities (false idols),
But I trust in YHWH.
With that in mind he commends his spirit to God because he knows that it is YHWH the God of truth Who has redeemed him. God has, as it were, paid a price that he might live by exerting His power on his behalf. It should be noted that he is not here commending his spirit to God because he expects to die, but because he wants to live. This is in contrast with Jesus’ use of the words in Luk 23:46, although it is equally significant in that context. And he then confirms that he wants nothing to do with false worship, and indeed hates those who participate in it. Rather he trusts wholly in YHWH. We gain the impression that the people who were trying to trap him in their secret nets were indeed such false worshippers. But with God’s help he has escaped them and emerged triumphant.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
Psa 31:5. Into thine hand, &c. i.e. “To thy care and custody I commit my life, or my breath, as the word ruach, signifies, as well as the spirit or soul; and the breath, being the sign of life, may here be taken for life itself.” But our Saviour used these words, when expiring on the cross, in a more proper and literal sense than they can be applied to David. See Luk 23:46. He used them, says St. Augustin, to let us see that he is the person speaking in this psalm: most probably, with a design to convince the Jews, that, though suffering, he was the Messiah, and that son of David who should sit on his throne for ever. Mudge renders the lost clause, “Thou hast purchased me, O Lord God of truth; i.e. I am thy own property. I have been thine from the womb, and destined to thy service.”
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
“Handfuls of Purpose”
For All Gleaners
“Into thine hand I commit my spirit.” Psa 31:5
These are amongst the most memorable and graphic words in the highest human experience. Stephen used a similar expression. Our Lord himself used them in his dying moments. What a light this throws upon the action of the last enemy! Did the men who used these words really die? then their last speech actually contradicted itself. Here, is nothing said of extinction or annihilation. The image which is represented by these terms is that of a man depositing his true life in the hands of God as a trust. Think of the beauty of this image, and be comforted. The body dies; the house is torn down, but the tenant escapes; the throat will no longer be used as an instrument, but the singer and his song have gone on where their opportunity is larger. All history testifies that there have been men who have risen to this height of faith. Polycarp, Bernard, Huss, Henry V., Jerome of Prague, Luther, Melanchthon, and innumerable others have passed from earth into the unseen state with these very words upon their lips. We must take these farewell words as more than sentiment. They express a confidence, they constitute an argument; they come back upon us as a sublime assurance. Who knows what death is to those who have encountered it? Who can say what visions are revealed to their eyes? It should be regarded as one of the chief treasures of the Church that the men who have passed away from earth, even by a violent death, have been enabled at the last to deposit in the hands of God their spirit as a sacred trust. Instead, however, of leaving this exclamation to be the final utterance of life, why should we not make it the prayer of every day? Why not every morning say, “Lord, into thine hand I commit my spirit”? The meaning would then be that we have no way of our own, no merely selfish will, no desires that would escape the chastisement and the refinement of heaven. It would be but another way of putting ourselves absolutely at the disposal of God, saying, Lord, what wilt thou have me do? I commit myself wholly to thy care. Commit thy way unto the Lord, and he will surely bring it to pass. Blessed are they who do not take care of themselves in any sense that excludes the supremacy of the divine oversight.
Fuente: The People’s Bible by Joseph Parker
Psa 31:5 Into thine hand I commit my spirit: thou hast redeemed me, O LORD God of truth.
Ver. 5. Into thine hand I commit my spirit ] So did our Saviour, so did St Stephen, and divers of the dying martyrs, with these very words, most apt and apposite surely for such a purpose. But what a wretch was that Huberus, who died with these words in his mouth, I yield my goods to the king, my body to the grave, and my soul to the devil.
Thou hast redeemed
O Lord God of truth
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Psalms
‘INTO THY HANDS’
Psa 31:5
The first part of this verse is consecrated for ever by our Lord’s use of it on the Cross. Is it not wonderful that, at that supreme hour, He deigned to take an unknown singer’s words as His words? What an honour to that old saint that Jesus Christ, dying, should find nothing that more fully corresponded to His inmost heart at that moment than the utterance of the Psalmist long ago! How His mind must have been saturated with the Old Testament and with these songs of Israel! And do you not think it would be better for us if ours were completely steeped in those heart-utterances of ancient devotion?
But, of course, the Psalmist was not thinking about his death. It was an act for his life that he expressed in these words:-’Into Thine hands I commit my spirit.’ If you will glance over the psalm at your leisure, you will see that it is the heart-cry of a man in great trouble, surrounded by all sorts of difficulties, with his very life threatened. He was down in the very depths of darkness, and ringed about by all sorts of enemies at that moment, not sitting comfortably, as you and I are here, but in the midst of the hurly-burly and the strife, when by a dead lift of faith he flung himself clean out of his disasters, and, if I might so say, pitched himself into the arms of God. ‘Into Thine hands I commit my spirit,’ as a man standing in the midst of enemies, and bearing some precious treasure in his hand might, with one strong cast of his arm, fling it into the open hand of some mighty helper, and so baulk the enemies of their prey. That is the figure.
I. Now, let me say a word as to where to lodge a soul for safe keeping.
Now that is only a picturesque way of putting the most threadbare, bald, commonplace of religious teaching. The word faith, when it has any meaning at all in people’s minds when they hear it from the pulpit, is extremely apt, I fear, to create a kind of, if not disgust, at least a revulsion of feeling, as if people said, ‘Ah, there he is at the old story again!’ But will you freshen up your notions of what faith it means by taking that picture of my text as I have tried to expand and illuminate it a little by my metaphor? That is what is meant by ‘Into Thy hands I commit my spirit.’ There are two or three ways in which that is to be done, and one or two ways in which it is not to be done.
We do it when we trust Him for the salvation of our souls. There are a great many good Christian people who go mourning all their days, or, at least, sometimes mourning and sometimes indifferent. The most that they venture to say is, ‘But I cannot be sure.’ Our grandfathers used to sing:-
‘‘Tis a point I long to know,
Oft it causes anxious thought.’
Further, the Psalmist meant, by committing himself to God, trusting Him in reference to daily life, and all its difficulties and duties. Our act of trust is to run through everything that we undertake and everything that we have to fight with. Self-will wrenches our souls out of God’s hands. A man who sends his securities to the banker can get them back when he likes. And if we undertake to manage our own affairs, or fling ourselves into our work without recognition of our dependence upon Him, or if we choose our work without seeking to know what His will is, that is recalling our deposit. Then you will get it back again, because God does not keep anybody’s securities against his will-you will get it back again, and much good it will do you when you have got it! Self-will, self-reliance, self-determination-these are the opposites of committing the keeping of our souls to God. And, as I say, if you withdraw the deposit, you take all the burden and trouble of it on your own shoulders again. Do not fancy that you are ‘living lives of faith in the Son of God,’ if you are not looking to Him to settle what you are to do. You cannot expect that He will watch over you, if you do not ask Him where you are to go.
But now there is another thing that I would suggest, this committing of ourselves to God which begins with the initial act of trust in Him for the salvation of our souls, and is continued throughout life by the continual surrender of ourselves to Him, is to be accompanied with corresponding work. The Apostle Peter’s memory is evidently hovering round this verse, whether he is consciously quoting it or not, when he says, ‘Let them that suffer according to the will of God commit the keeping of their souls to Him in welldoing ,’ which has to go along with the act of trust and dependence. There must come the continual ordering of the life in accordance with His will; for ‘well-doing’ does not mean merely some works of beneficence and ‘charity,’ of the sort that have monopolised to themselves the name in latter days, but it means the whole of righteous conduct in accordance with the will of God.
So Peter tells us that it is vain for us to talk about committing the keeping of our soul to God unless we back up the committing with consistent, Christlike lives. Of course it is vain. How can a man expect God to take care of him when he plunges himself into something that is contrary to God’s laws? There are many people who say, ‘God will take care of me; He will save me from the consequences.’ Not a bit of it-He loves us a great deal too well for that. If you take the bit between your teeth, you will be allowed to go over the precipice and be smashed to pieces. If you wish to be taken care of, keep within the prescribed limits, and consult Him before you act, and do not act till you are sure of His approval. God has never promised to rescue man when he has got into trouble by his own sin. Suppose a servant had embezzled his master’s money through gambling, and then expected God to help him to get the money to pay back into the till. Do you think that would be likely to work? And how dare you anticipate that God will keep your feet, if you are walking in ways of your own choosing? All sin takes a man out from the shelter of the divine protection, and the shape the protection has to take then is chastisement. And all sin makes it impossible for a man to exercise that trust which is the committing of his soul to God. So it has to be ‘in welldoing,’ and the two things are to go together. ‘What God hath joined let not man put asunder.’ You do not become a Christian by the simple exercise of trust unless it is trust that worketh by love.
But let me remind you, further, that this committing of our souls into God’s hands does not mean that we are absolved from taking care of them ourselves. There is a very false kind of religious faith, which seems to think that it shuffles off all responsibility upon God. Not at all; you lighten the responsibility, but you do not get rid of it. And no man has a right to say ‘He will keep me, and so I may neglect diligent custody of myself.’ He keeps us very largely by helping us to keep our hearts with all diligence, and to keep our feet in the way of truth.
So let me now just say a word in regard to the blessedness of thus living in an atmosphere of continual dependence on, and reference to, God, about great things and little things. Whenever a man is living by trust, even when the trust is mistaken, or when it is resting upon some mere human, fallible creature like himself, the measure of his confidence is the measure of his tranquillity. You know that when a child says, ‘I do not need to mind, father will look after that,’ he may be right or wrong in his estimate of his father’s ability and inclination; but as long as he says it, he has no kind of trouble or anxiety, and the little face is scarred by no deep lines of care or thought. So when we turn to Him and say, ‘Why should I the burden bear?’ then there comes-I was going to say ‘surging,’ but ‘trickling’ is a better word-into my heart a settled peacefulness which nothing else can give. Look at this psalm. It begins, and for the first half continues, in a very minor key. The singer was not a poet posing as in affliction, but his words were wrung out of him by anguish. ‘Mine eyes are consumed with grief; my life is spent with grief’; ‘I am . . . as a dead man out of mind’; ‘I am in trouble.’ And then with a quick wheel about, ‘But I trusted in Thee, O Lord! I said, Thou art my God.’ And what comes of that? This-’O how great is Thy goodness which Thou hast laid up for them that fear Thee!’ ‘Blessed be the Lord, for He hath showed me His marvellous kindness in a strong city.’ And then, at the end of all, his peacefulness is so triumphant that he calls upon ‘all His saints’ to help him to praise. And the last words are ‘Be of good courage, and He shall strengthen your heart.’ That is what you will get if you commit your soul to God. There was no change in the Psalmist’s circumstances. The same enemy was round about him. The same ‘net was privily laid for him.’ All that had seemed to him half an hour before as wellnigh desperate, continued utterly unaltered. But what had altered? God had come into the place, and that altered the whole aspect of matters. Instead of looking with shrinking and tremulous heart along the level of earth, where miseries were, he was looking up into the heavens, where God was; and so everything was beautiful. That will be our experience if we will commit the keeping of our souls to Him in well doing. You can bring June flowers and autumn fruits into snowy January days by the exercise of this trust in God. It does not need that our circumstances should alter, but only that our attitude should alter. Look up, and cast your souls into God’s hands, and all that is round you, of disasters and difficulties and perplexities, will suffer transformation; and for sorrow there will come joy because there has come trust.
I need not say a word about the other application of this verse, which, as I have said, is consecrated to us by our Lord’s own use of it at the last. But is it not beautiful to think that the very same act of mind and heart by which a man commits his spirit to God in life may be his when he comes to die, and that death may become a voluntary act, and the spirit may not be dragged out of us, reluctant, and as far as we can, resisting, but that we may offer it up as a libation, to use one metaphor of St. Paul’s, or may surrender it willingly as an act of faith? It is wonderful to think that life and death, so unlike each other, may be made absolutely identical in the spirit in which they are met. You remember how the first martyr caught up the words from the Cross, and kneeling down outside the wall of Jerusalem, with the blood running from the wounds that the stones had made, said, ‘Lord Jesus! receive my spirit.’ That is the way to die, and that is the way to live.
One word is all that time permits about the ground upon which this great venture of faith may be made. ‘Thou hast redeemed me, Lord God of Truth.’ The Psalmist, I think, uses that word ‘redeemed’ here, not in its wider spiritual New Testament sense, but in its frequent Old Testament sense, of deliverance from temporal difficulties and calamities. And what he says is, in effect, this: ‘I have had experience in the past which makes me believe that Thou wilt extricate me from this trouble too, because Thou art the God of Truth.’ He thinks of what God has done, and of what God is. And Peter, whom we have already found echoing this text, echoes that part of it too, for he says, ‘Let them commit the keeping of their souls to Him in well doing, as unto a faithful Creator ,’ which is all but parallel to ‘Lord God of Truth.’ So God will continue as He has begun, and finish what He has begun.
‘A faithful Creator-’ He made us to need what we do need, and He is not going to forget the wants that He Himself has incorporated with our human nature. He is bound to help us because He made us. He is the God of Truth, and He will help us. But if we take ‘redeemed’ in its highest sense, the Psalmist, arguing from God’s past mercy and eternal faithfulness, is saying substantially what the Apostle said in the triumphant words, ‘Whom He did foreknow, them He also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of His Son . . . and whom He did predestinate them He also . . . justified, and whom He justified them He also glorified.’ ‘Thou hast redeemed me.’ ‘Thou art the God of Truth; Thou wilt not lift Thy hand away from Thy work until Thou hast made me all that Thou didst bind Thyself to make me in that initial act of redeeming me.’
So we can say, ‘He that spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?’ You have experiences, I have no doubt, in your past, on which you may well build confidence for the future. Let each of us consult our own hearts, and our own memories. Cannot we say, ‘Thou hast been my Help,’ and ought we not therefore to be sure that He will not ‘leave us nor forsake us’ until He manifests Himself as the God of our salvation?
It is a blessed thing to lay ourselves in the hands of God, but the New Testament tells us, ‘It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.’ The alternative is one that we all have to face,-either ‘into Thy hands I commit my spirit,’ or into those hands to fall. Settle which of the two is to be your fate.
Fuente: Expositions Of Holy Scripture by Alexander MacLaren
Into, &c. Quoted in Luk 23:4 Luk 23:6.
hand. Figure of speech Anthropopatheia.
commit = I will commit.
spirit. Hebrew. ruach. App-9.
redeemed = delivered by power. Hebrew. padah. See note on Exo 13:13. Compare Exo 6:6.
GOD. Hebrew El. App-4.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
redeemed
(See Scofield “Isa 59:20”) See Scofield “Exo 14:30”
Fuente: Scofield Reference Bible Notes
Into: Luk 23:46, Act 7:59, 2Ti 1:12
thou: Psa 71:23, Psa 130:8, Gen 48:16, Lev 25:48, Isa 50:2, Tit 2:14, 1Pe 1:18, 1Pe 1:19, Rev 5:9
God: Deu 32:4, 2Ti 2:13, Tit 1:2, Heb 6:18
Reciprocal: 2Sa 4:9 – who hath Psa 34:22 – redeemeth Psa 49:15 – God Psa 69:18 – redeem Psa 107:2 – Let the Ecc 9:1 – that the Isa 65:16 – in the God Jer 10:10 – true God Joh 10:28 – neither 1Pe 2:23 – but 1Pe 4:19 – commit
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Psa 31:5. Into thy hand That is, to thy care and custody; I commit my spirit My soul or life, either to preserve it from the malice of mine enemies, or, if they are permitted to kill my body, to receive it. For my case is almost desperate, and I am ready to give up the ghost. But our Lord used those words, when expiring on the cross, in a more proper and literal sense than they can be applied to David. He used them, probably, to convince the Jews that, though suffering, he was the Messiah, and that son of David who should sit on his throne for ever. For thou hast redeemed me Thou hast delivered me formerly in great dangers, and therefore I willingly and cheerfully commit myself to thee for the future: O Lord God of truth Who hast showed thyself to be such to me in making good thy promises.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
31:5 Into thine {c} hand I commit my spirit: thou hast redeemed me, O LORD God of truth.
(c) He desires God not only to take care of him in this life, but that his soul may be saved after this life.
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes
David committed his life to God’s care. He did so confidently because God had faithfully delivered him in the past and had proved true to His promises. The Lord Jesus prayed the first line of this prayer on the cross (Luk 23:46). We should also follow this example in our times of suffering (1Pe 4:19).