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By the end of this prayer of wrestling, David finally has the strength to claim victory over his lying enemies.
1a To the chief Musician on Neginoth upon Sheminith, A Psalm of David.
As with the previous Psalm 5, the initial notes in Psalm 6 are offered to the choirmaster or "musician," whose name stands for the "victory" that David seeks over his enemies. Much ink has been spilled over the meaning of the word "Sheminith" (the "eighth) that may refer to an eight-stringed harp. Yet Christians have inevitably thought of this word "mystically" as the famous "eighth day" of the new kingdom when our toil and death in this old world of seven days is finally over. Although we cannot be sure about the "eighth," we can be sure that Psalm 6 continues the previous Psalm's "theology of the cross" by reminding us that redemption is not our work, but God's alone—and a mighty and violent work it is. Meanwhile, as the Lord works our redemption, we patiently suffer the end of the old Adam in the sure and certain hope of the resurrection.
1b O LORD, rebuke me not in thine anger, neither chasten me in thy hot displeasure.
David had just received the chastening of God's "hot displeasure": the harshest lesson known to man. No suffering in this world is greater than David's cry: "Rebuke me not in thine anger!" Luther says that only one other person in all of Scripture received the Lord's same "hot displeasure" when Christ rebuked the Syrophoenician Woman: "It is not right to take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs!" (Matt. 15; Mark 7) Who can stand before God with that kind of rebuke? Only her faith in a miraculous promise could topple such hot wrath, and likewise, King David would defeat God's anger by standing on this promise, a promise that lives above and beyond all known laws.
Each Psalm has what Luther called "various and particular designs and experiences" that we cannot overlook by simply saying that God is "angry." He is hot, and when he unleashes the law's condemnation, it is not a teacher slapping your hand with a ruler but an unbearable death that David surely deserved as the greatest sinner ever (until Martin Luther, according to Luther himself). To feel God's hot wrath is not merely an external suffering like thirst or hunger; it is the inward suffering of the Spirit that Paul especially calls "the conscience." It alone causes "wrestling" as Jacob wrestled with God in the Jabbok River (Gen. 32:34) or Rachel wrestled with her sister (Gen. 30:8), in which death and hell are nothing compared to knowing exactly what God thinks of you and your sin. Luther calls this state by the mystical name, "extreme ecstasy (excess)," which means to be outside and above all everyday, temporal life "wrestling as it were, with God himself."
The theology of the cross that we learned from Psalm 5 describes this unbearable grief as the same borne by Christ in the words of Isaiah 53: "he hath borne our griefs and carried our sorrows." That is Excess! Extreme Ecstasy! Do not imagine that Jesus did not feel it just as the Syrophoenician woman and David did—only Christ bore the sins of the entire world, not only those of David or the woman of faith. No wonder Jesus called out to his Father, "My soul is exceedingly sorrowful, even unto death" (Matt. 26:38).
2 Have mercy upon me, O LORD; for I am weak: O LORD, heal me; for my bones are vexed.
Who can understand this vexation unless he has undergone it? David is weak! When the attack is in the conscience, it feels as if it has invaded the marrow of the bone. Job experienced that very thing, as did Hezekiah when Isaiah declared:
'Set your house in order! You shall now die!'…Then Hezekiah turned his face to the wall and prayed to the Lord, 'Remember now, O Lord, I implore you, I have walked before you in faithfulness with a whole heart'…And Hezekiah wept bitterly (Isa. 38:1-3).
Luther notes that his favorite mystical monk, John Tauler, often preached on this attack by God that goes through the ear into the heart, soul, or conscience. It is called anfechtung in German, and David has now come under its suffering. He feels the wrath of God upon him fiercely—but does not beg for justice. He does not refuse the attack but knows, as Hezekiah did, that there is no complaint he can make before God in this case, so he pleads only "faith" in a promise given to him elsewhere. He accepts the justice of God's wrath and asks for "mercy" or "graciousness" outside the law. Jeremiah also learned this harsh difference between justice and justification: "O Lord, rebuke me, but with justification: not in thine anger, lest thou bring me to nothing" (Jer. 10:24). Scripture has many names for this ultimate tribulation: "the day of visitation" or "day of beholding"—as when God only "looked upon" the army of the Egyptians and terror ensued (Ex. 14:24).
This is the doctrine of Psalm 6: to learn how to flee from God to God.
So, where does one flee in the "beholding" moment, the "day of visitation" of our God? Against all impossibilities, to the angry God himself: "No one else can heal these bones that you, O Lord, have broken." This is the doctrine of Psalm 6: to learn how to flee from God to God. As with David, the trick is the peculiar word you draw from God's mouth. There is only one God (the very one in hot anger at me). Yet it is precisely this God who has mercy while I am yet sinful. David's doctrine in Psalm 6 was later used by Jeremiah in Lamentations 3:24: "The Lord alone is my portion, says my soul, therefore (!) I will hope in him…" God is in hot anger with me, but he is also my only God—my only portion—so I address his displeasure in faith: I trust him and wait for salvation—even when he remains silent for a time. Peter said the same straight to the face of Christ, "Lord, to whom shall we go? Only you have the words of eternal life" (John 6:68).
3 My soul is also sore vexed: but thou, O LORD, how long?
Paul calls this "the unutterable groan of the Holy Spirit" (2 Corinthians 5:2) while we are in "this tent awaiting our heavenly dwelling." This Psalm's doctrine is only learned by experience—it is undergone rather than learned by taking notes—so that the soul is "sore vexed" or greatly troubled. We say that the "cross is undergone," and from its tribulation, we learn who we are (weak and dying under God's wrath) and who God is. God is the one who is angry at my sin, yet who alone has mercy. This is none other than "bitterness," and its great distress is "the sensation of death." Many times, people have told me on their deathbeds that they are not afraid of death, so I know immediately that they have not sensed it. When you have a vexed soul (a troubled conscience that feels God's wrath), you go only to him and ask that the ordeal end. Of course, David's next question is the prayer of faith: "How long, O Lord?" The answer is "Not long!" but even the greatest faith feels it is an eternity.
4 Return, O LORD, deliver my soul: oh save me for thy mercies sake.
No, salvation is not by a power in you or by help from above—our redemption is only by God's utter mercy apart from any work David could or would do.
The power of hope is greater than the "vexation" of God's wrath. Hope sets nothing before its eyes but God's tender mercy. This hope refuses to look at one's own body and its sins but declares our new doctrine most clearly: "Never mind that I am unworthy of deliverance—you are more than worthy of being praised, loved, and trusted into eternity." Even evil Manasseh, king of Judah, learned this: "For thou shalt save me according to thy great mercy, and I will praise thee always all the days of my life…" (Prayer of Manasseh 1:15). Luther said in this one blow, David silenced all the endless prating of theologians about gaining heaven. Like the Scottish through "works of congruity" (salvation by the power of your good, created nature) or the Italians' "works of condignity" (only by God helping a sinner). No, salvation is not by a power in you or by help from above—our redemption is only by God's utter mercy apart from any work David could or would do.
5-7 For in death there is no remembrance of thee: in the grave, who shall give thee thanks? I am weary with my groaning; all night I flood my bed with tears, I drench my couch with weeping. My eyes are worm-eaten because of anger; it waxes old because of all my enemies.
Ha! David threw a bone to God, "What good am I dead? Dead men neither remember you nor give thanks to you." As if God waited for things like that! Imagine God wanting to keep a sinner alive to worship him or remember him! No wonder Christ later gave his Supper this way: it is not your deed of "eucharist" (thanksgiving) or even your liturgy that would "remember" me as God (as if I would vanish like Zeus or Aphrodite if people stopped sacrificing to me). How do you "remember" God? Jesus said, "Do this in remembrance of me!" Do what? Eat my body given for you, and drink my blood poured out for you. It is not what you give to me, but what I am giving to you, that is "my mercy." Do you want to know what the hell is like? It is like David listening to himself forever, bitching and complaining about life being unfair! Imagine having yourself alone to listen to all day. Then, at night, you flood your bed with tears, and the next day, do the same. This "waxes old" quickly while all you can think is that my enemies have won! You are worm-eaten by anger.
8-9 Depart from me, all you workers of iniquity; for the Lord has heard the voice of my weeping. The Lord has heard my supplication: the Lord has received my prayer.
Finally, we see how David got into this state under God's hot displeasure in the first place. He had stopped hearing God's word in his ear and listened to "the workers of iniquity" who told him either that he was a really great man, or that he was such a failure and ignoble that he thought of nothing else than his own death according to his own works. "Get out," David shouts to himself, "No more listening to myself; I want only my Lord in my heart." That new heart can only open when God hears my voice, my weeping, and I am no longer talking to myself. Then I am like David: I stop approaching the Lord with my list of faults or accomplishments and weep in humility that the angry Lord will nevertheless hear my prayer. And look! He has! David's hope is not in a "maybe" but in a "has heard" and in a "has received." It is done! This is David's "Amen," which we have learned from Luther's Small Catechism is the very word of faith that declares, "Yes it shall be so!"
10 Be ashamed my enemies! Be vexed. Be greatly troubled! Return and Be Shamed—Suddenly!
What happens after the "Amen" of your prayers of wrestling? What is left once you have claimed God's promise and said: "Yes, it shall be so!" There is one more luscious thing: faith takes God's merciful promise and turns to its enemies to command them into submission. David uses all "jussive" verbs whose "mood" is a command from the very mouth of God. By the end of this prayer of wrestling, David finally has the strength to claim victory over his lying enemies. No more listening to myself! Be ashamed, my enemies! You troubled my conscience with your sucking up to me and your tearing down of me, but now let these "hot" words resound in your conscience as they once did mine: "Go back to your dens and lairs and be ashamed!" And do you know what? This will happen without your will or resistance—it happens by God's almighty command and power: suddenly!
