Psalms 30

I will extol you, LORD, for you have raised me up, and have not made my foes to rejoice over me. Dedication praise begins with personal rescue: drawn up, foes denied their gloating. Wesley's outline opens here—praise for deliverance before the call to the saints.

Extol because he has already acted. Dedication of house or temple fits thanksgiving after near ruin. Let enemies' failed triumph sharpen gratitude, not bitterness.

Calvin: as one brought from the grave to the life-giving air, he promises to extol God's name. It is God who lifts us up with his own hand when we have been plunged into a profound gulf; our duty is to sing his praises with our tongues. Foes—domestic and foreign—found no matter of rejoicing over him.

Drawn up names God's hand, not self-rescue. Extol in answer to lift; refuse a silence that would leave enemies the last word.

LORD my God, I cried to you, and you have healed me. Cry and healing sit together: prayer was not theatrical; healing answers the plea. Dedication song remembers sickness or danger mended by the LORD my God.

Heal names mercies felt in body and life. Keep crying to him who hears; do not separate help from the Healer's name.

Calvin: when at the very point of death he directed supplications to God alone and immediately felt he had not done so in vain. Though rapha often means to heal and some restrict it to sickness, it also means to restore or set up again—and may properly mean here any deliverance. Life is endangered in many ways besides disease.

Cry to God alone; take healing as God's restoring hand. Do not shrink deliverance to one medical frame if the text opens wider rescue.

LORD, you have brought up my soul from Sheol. You have kept me alive, that I should not go down to the pit. Grave-language magnifies the rescue: as good as dead among pit-goers, then raised to life. Dedication thanks fits such nearness to the end.

Sheol and pit are not poetry to soft-pedal. Confess restoration as God's act. Live as one brought up, not as one who barely noticed the brink.

Calvin: he could not sufficiently express the magnitude of the favor unless he compared that darkness to a grave and pit into which he had thrown himself to hide until danger passed. As one restored to life he proclaims marvellous deliverance from present death—sacred history shows how completely he was overwhelmed with despair on every side.

Brought up from Sheol names despair answered, not stoic calm. Magnify the favor; refuse to flatten pit-language into mild inconvenience.

Give thanks to his holy name. Private deliverance widens into a call: saints must sing and give thanks at the memorial of his holiness. Wesley: praise and exhortation occupy verses 1–5.

Join the song; holiness remembered is fuel for thanks. Do not keep dedication joy as a private diary only.

Calvin: the better to testify gratitude, David calls all the saints to join; under one class he describes the whole body. Preserved beyond expectation, he includes the general deliverance of the whole church as well as his own. Memorial of his holiness may point toward the tabernacle as memorial of presence, or simply to the name by which God has rendered himself worthy of remembrance.

One rescue catechizes the church. Sing as his meek ones; let particular mercy preach God's prompt help to all the godly.

For his anger is but for a moment. His favor is for a lifetime. Weeping may stay for the night, but joy comes in the morning. Wesley: Cometh—Speedily and in due season. Night-lodging tears do not cancel morning joy; anger's moment yields to lasting favor.

Hold both lines without denying either tears or dawn. Wait for joy in due season; do not call God's favor brief because the night felt long.

Calvin: life is opposed to for a moment and signifies long continuance. If God chastises, he mitigates and is soon appeased, while kindness is prolonged. David, though tried almost his whole life, confesses he was lightly afflicted only for a short period. Weeping will lodge in the evening, rejoicing come in the morning—not merely one calendar night, but adversity's darkness followed by timely light. Favor continues beyond the boundaries of this transitory life; those raised by a taste of heavenly life bear chastisements with cheerfulness.

Moment-anger and lifetime-favor, night-weeping and morning-joy. Weigh mercies heavier than fretting; let evening tears lodge without evicting hope of morning.

As for me, I said in my prosperity, "I shall never be moved." Wesley's outline: recollection of former security before the prayer in trouble. Prosperity bred a careless vow of unshakable standing—pride before the fall the next verses narrate.

Name the folly without despair. Dedication honesty includes confessing when ease said what faith should not. Watch prosperity; it softens prayer faster than pain does.

Calvin: confession that he was justly punished for foolish and rash security—forgetting mortal condition and setting his heart too much on prosperity. In tranquillity, when fortune smiled and no danger appeared, his mind sank into deep sleep and he flattered himself that the happy condition would continue. Carnal confidence frequently creeps upon the saints when they indulge in prosperity. Not the pious security that leans on God's promise, but confidence from his own feelings and uncertain prosperity.

"I shall never be moved" in ease is a snare. Distinguish faith's quiet trust from fleshly certainty; the more bountifully God deals, the more carefully watch against such flatteries.

By your favor, O LORD, when you favored me, made my mountain stand strong; but when you hid your face, I was dismayed. Wesley: Mountain—My kingdom: kingdoms are usually called mountains in prophetical writings. Favor built the height; hidden face undid the feeling of strength. Dismay follows when the Face turns away.

Kingdom-strength was never self-made. Trace standing to favor; treat dismay under a hidden face as call back to prayer, not as proof God is gone forever.

Calvin: difference between confidence founded on God's word and carnal security from presumption. True believers, relying on God, are not neglectful of prayer; David failed here—anchoring on present wealth and tranquillity, not ready to resign blessings into God's hands. Strength established to his mountain means solid support (allusion to Zion admissible); stability was not in the nest he formed but in God's good pleasure alone. Hidden face purged perverse confidence—a marvellous method that darkness opens eyes which broad light of prosperity had blinded.

Mountain stands by favor; hidden face terrifies to heal pride. Let want and dismay drive you from soothing infatuation back to depending on free grace.

He cries to the LORD. I made supplication to the Lord. After dismay, the cure is cry and plea—not stubborn silence. Wesley groups verses 6–10 as security remembered and prayer in trouble.

Turn from self-assurance to mercy. Double address presses urgency: cry and plead. Pride's sleep ends where prayer wakes.

Calvin: now follows the fruit of chastisement. Previously sleeping and fostering indolence by forgetfulness, he is awakened with fear and begins to cry to God. As iron contracted with rust cannot be used until heated and beaten, so when carnal security masters a man, he cannot give himself cheerfully to prayer until softened by the cross. Chief advantage of afflictions: they make us sensible of wretchedness and stimulate us again to seek God's favor.

Cry and plead for mercy are the intended fruit of the hidden face. Let the cross soften security into prayer; do not waste dismay on mute sulking.

"What profit is there in my destruction, if I go down to the pit? Shall the dust praise you? Shall it declare your truth?" Wesley: Profit—What wilt thou gain by it? The dust—Shall they that are dead celebrate thy goodness in the land of the living? Or, shall my dust praise thee? The argument is God's glory in ongoing praise among the living.

Plead for life so praise can continue here. Faithfulness wants witnesses who still speak. Ask to live for thanks, not for private ease alone.

Calvin: What profit wilt thou derive from my death? Blood here signifies death. Lifeless body is useless for celebrating God's praises. He mentions truth/faithfulness because an untimely death before the promise of an heir was accomplished would seem unsuitable to God's character. We are born and nourished to be witnesses and heralds of grace; death shuts the mouth for that mutual showing-forth in this world—without denying that the dead in another sense glorify God.

Dust cannot tell faithfulness in the land of the living as the living must. Argue from God's glory and promise-keeping; seek prolonged life for praise, not mere survival.

Hear, LORD, and have mercy on me. The plea softens into direct petition: hear, mercy, help. Trouble-prayer reaches its simplest form before the turn to dancing.

Ask help without bargaining flourish. Mercy first, help next. Dedication faith still needs this cry when the face feels hidden.

Calvin: he softens and corrects the former complaint; it would be absurd to expostulate like one who despaired and leave off in a fretful temper. Conceiving new hope, he calls for mercy and help, putting God's favor first, from whom alone he could expect the help implored.

Move from argument to mercy. Hear and help rest on favor, not on the strength of our reasoning. Hope renews the cry without despair's tone.

You have turned my mourning into dancing for me. You have removed my sackcloth, and clothed me with gladness. Wesley: Sackcloth—Given me occasion to put off that sackcloth, which they used to wear in times of mourning. Girded—With joy, as with a garment, surrounding me on every side. God authors the exchange: mourning to dancing, sackcloth to gladness.

Receive the turn as gift, not self-improvement. Joy can surround like a garment after deep grief. Stir thankfulness as Wesley's outline urges in verses 11–12.

Calvin: he concludes as he began, with thanksgiving. He was not insensible under affliction but mourned; mourning exercised him to repentance—sackcloth marks approaching God as a guilty criminal seeking forgiveness. Dancing is not wanton leaping but sober, holy joy like that when the ark was brought up. Laying aside mourning apparel, he returned to joy by God's grace alone as deliverer. (He doubts restricting the whole danger to a sickbed, since sackcloth suits public humiliation.)

God turns mourning to dancing and looses sackcloth. Keep penitence honest and joy holy; ascribe the exchange to the Deliverer, not to time's vague healing.

“That my heart may sing praise to you, and not be silent.” LORD my God, I will give thanks to you forever! Wesley: My glory—My tongue. Rescue aims at unsilent praise; forever thanks crowns the dedication song.

Tongue-glory exists to sing, not to boast of mountain-strength. Keep thanks going past the morning of joy. Forever is the fit length for the God who drew you up.

Calvin: he acknowledges the purpose for which God preserved him—that he might spend the rest of his life celebrating God's praises. Glory (kebod) is used metaphorically for the tongue. O Lord, as thou hast preserved me that thy praises may resound from my tongue, I will faithfully discharge this service even unto death. To sing and not be silent is Hebrew amplification: the tongue shall not be mute or deprive God of due praise.

Preserved in order to praise. Let glory mean the speaking self given back to thanks forever; silence after rescue would rob God of his due.