Psalm 86:11-17 Commentary

We do not know for certain if David wrote all of the psalms that are attributed to him (probably not seems to be the consensus of many scholars).  The Hebrew phrase “Of David” can mean multiple things.  Yes, it can indicate authorship but it could also be “in the style of David” or “in honor of David” or some variation on these.  Psalm 86 is said to be “Of David” and if it is true, then this is one of only a couple times reference is made to David’s mother.  In the 1 Samuel accounts of David’s origin story we know his father was Jesse of Bethlehem but the name of David’s mother is never mentioned in Scripture and in fact she is basically never referenced either.  Mothers often weren’t mentioned in a lot of the Old Testament and certainly they were not included on typical Hebrew genealogies.  (Matthew’s opening family tree for Jesus in chapter 1 is striking precisely because Matthew included the names of five women and a few of them were surprising people to include in a genealogy at that).

But at the end of Psalm 86 in verse 16 suddenly the psalmist here claims to have been serving God all along in his life “just as my mother did.”  Mothers can and usually do have as much influence over their children as do fathers and this may certainly be true during a child’s formative years before they approach adulthood. They may begin working with their father or mother and for boys, typically, in his father’s vocation.  This is a small mention in this psalm and I don’t mean to make too much out of it but it is a nice reminder that people who serve God faithfully very often do so because they grew up with a good role model in a mother.

Another striking feature to the very end of Psalm 86 comes in the final verse when the psalmist—having praised God to the skies for his faithfulness and compassion and his ability to deliver his people from the likes of the very enemies who are currently making his life a misery—asks God to give him some kind of sign of God’s goodness.  And surely most of us can relate to that kind of prayerful petition.

We have all been there in our prayers.  “Are you there, God?  Are you listening?  Do you see how unfairly I am being treated at work these days?  Could you just give me a sign, something to encourage me?  Anything will do!”  Sometimes when we offer up such requests, it does seem God comes through.  Some while back I was feeling discouraged (as sooner or later we all feel) and so asked God for something to give me a boost, something to indicate what I have been doing all my life matters.  And that day I got two out-of-the-blue messages from people who sent me precisely that kind of encouraging sign.  One was even about how helpful a certain person (who I did not know well if at all) found a book I had written almost 30 years earlier.

In the grand scheme of things such signs are little things but in the moment they feel anything but small or insignificant.  Of course, requests for an encouraging sign that God is with us do not always come when we ask for them.  Or they come but only very slowly and on a timeline we wish we could speed up.  But the point is that it is interesting to see that even the authors of the psalms and other biblical figures—who we might tend to see as stalwarts of the faith with much stronger faith than our own—needed a boost of divine encouragement once in a while same as everybody else.

But in Psalm 86 that request for a sign as well as everything else the psalmist prays about in this poem is all premised on the character of Israel’s God.  God is compassionate, which implies he both sees us in our distress and identifies with us in our distress and this becomes the launching pad for divine action.  And of course at the end of verse 15 God is praised yet again for his chesed, that uber-rich Hebrew word that peppers the Scriptures (and certainly the Psalms).  This is God’s fundamental disposition of lovingkindness, of mercy, of faithful love, of what in the New Testament will be termed God’s “grace.”

In last week’s Psalm sermon commentary on Psalm 65, we pointed out that Israel was never a fertility cult even though Israel did see the growing of crops and the provisioning of God’s people with sufficient food to eat as gifts of divine providence.  This week we can note that unlike any number of other religions in history—including ones active in the Ancient Near East during Israel’s time—the God at the center of the faith was not firstly an angry God who over and again needed to be appeased.  Israel’s Yahweh did not have an itchy trigger finger ready to blast away at a moment’s notice (or without a moment’s notice!).   Israel’s God was not churlish but full of chesed and all of that loving goodness is what was always available.  God was never quick to lash out but this God was always quick to lavish love.

If we ask God for a sign and if we have hope such a sign of God’s goodness might actually come, it is because of God’s loving character first and foremost.  That is the finest takeaway of many psalms including most certainly Psalm 86.

Illustration Idea

Many of us are familiar with the famous showdown on Mount Carmel as recorded in 1 Kings 18.  The contest was Yahweh vs. Baal and in Yahweh’s corner was the prophet Elijah while in Baal’s corner there were all kinds of priests and shamans and who all not.  Fire needed to be sent down from heaven to consume an offering on an altar.  And as we remember, the priests of Baal went crazy in their fervent praying and shouting and bellowing to Baal to show up.  They danced.  They cut themselves.  They went nuts.  Meanwhile Elijah sat on the sidelines sipping from a drink with a little umbrella sticking out of it and being ever-so-amused by it all.  In the end, when it was clear Baal was going to be a no-show, Elijah as good as glanced heavenward and said “Go.”  And God went.  Boom!  A fire came down that consumed everything in a blinding flash of heat and light.

Elijah’s calm repose in that story is the posture of a man who believes in the fundamental faithfulness and goodness of his God.  You don’t have to yell and scream to get his attention.  You don’t have to try to appease him first or this God may well stay angry at you or be indifferent toward you.  No, Israel’s God was full of chesed, and the peaceful repose of Elijah—like that of the author of Psalm 86—displays this firm belief.