Psalm 116:3-4

Psalm 116:3-4

Lord save me!

There was, undoubtedly, a common practice in force when the Psalms were written, of binding prisoners and captives with cords. Presumably these were made of rope, or maybe manacles of iron, but the result was that the offender hade no chance of escape. They would be tightly bound and incapable of making a break for freedom. The psalmists describe the cords of death and of the grave in this dramatic language, once bound you will never be free, the cords are both inevitable and terminal, those who are fastened by them recognise their fate! The moment of death itself can be a welcome relief but the ever-tightening grip that it holds over those who are still alive and breathing, is terrifying. Our psalmist was “overcome by distress and sorrow.” We often speak of a quick death as being a rather charmed way to leave this world, as compared to those poor souls who spend endless days, weeks, even months, slowing slipping away as the cords tighten themselves around their mortal bodies. To experience this process is humiliating, undignified and a chastening way to end one’s life. 

So dismal is the description of death here that we must also include verse 4, our victim can no longer bear the weight of his suffering alone and he calls on the name of the Lord; “Lord save me!” Sometimes, the salvation of the Lord can simply be that He ends life and thus terminates the suffering. In this instance, the victim cries out to be saved from death and the grave and granted an extension to his life. Whichever way we look at it, the Lord Himself has the final say about our destiny, this does not just apply to believers in Him but to all human life. What a cry this is, a cry of desperation that recognises that there is only one being in the entire universe who can save us from the inevitability of death and the grave. It is the Lord!