Precious is the Death of His Saints

When faced with crisis and potential death, Psalm 116 is a powerful psalm to feed upon and pray into:

1. I love the Lord, because He has heard my voice and my supplications.
2. Because He has inclined His ear to me, therefore I will call upon Him as long as I live.
    
3. The pains of death surrounded me, and the pangs of Sheol laid hold of me; I found trouble and sorrow.
4. Then I called upon the name of the Lord: "O Lord, I implore You, deliver my soul!"
    
5. Gracious is the Lord, and righteous; yes, our God is merciful.
6. The Lord preserves the simple; I was brought low, and He saved me.
7. Return to your rest, O my soul, for the Lord has dealt bountifully with you.
    
8. For You have delivered my soul from death, my eyes from tears, and my feet from falling.
9. I will walk before the Lord in the land of the living.
10. I believed, therefore I spoke, "I am greatly afflicted."
11. I said in my haste, "All men are liars."
     
12. What shall I render to the Lord for all His benefits toward me?
13. I will take up the cup of salvation, and call upon the name of the Lord.
14. I will pay my vows to the Lord now in the presence of all His people.
     
15. Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints.
     
16. O Lord, truly I am Your servant; I am Your servant, the son of Your maidservant; You have loosed my bonds.
17. I will offer to You the sacrifice of thanksgiving, and will call upon the name of the Lord.
     
18. I will pay my vows to the Lord now in the presence of all His people,
19. In the courts of the Lord’s house, in the midst of you, O Jerusalem.
     
    Praise the Lord!

A personal point of stumbling: Although this is a song of praise for being delivered from death, when I came to verse 15, it struck me as being out of place with the rest of the psalm. King David builds a narrative of being raised up and restored, then all of a sudden here's a verse we use at funerals when someone dies! I didn't get it. I actually skipped over it when I prayed into critical situations because it seemed contradictory. I didn't want to be endorsing or agreeing with death. Lol. In this context, though, I figured there must be more than what I thought was being implied when I read the verse by itself - that God likes our death, likes us to die?! After a few days of this dilemma, I went to Matthew Henry to hear his take and wasn’t disappointed. In essence, his comments state the death of each saint is so precious to the Lord that it never occurs as mere happenstance. No one can take us nor can we will it easily; it never flies under His radar. Of course, that reminds me of Jesus declaring we are of more value than many sparrows; therefore, do not fear (Matt 10:29-31). Our death is so precious to Him, He guards our life!

Here's Matthew Henry’s rich commentary (it's worth reading a few times):

(Ps. 116:15): "Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints," so precious that he will not gratify Saul, nor Absalom, nor any of David’s enemies, with his death, how earnestly soever they desire it. This truth David had comforted himself with in the depth of his distress and danger; and, the event having confirmed it, he comforts others with it who might be in like manner exposed. God has a people, even in this world, that are his saints, his merciful ones, or men of mercy, that have received mercy from him and show mercy for his sake. The saints of God are mortal and dying; nay, there are those that desire their death, and labour all they can to hasten it, and sometimes prevail to be the death of them; but it is precious in the sight of the Lord; their life is so (2 Kgs. 1:13); their blood is so, (Ps. 72:14). God often wonderfully prevents the death of his saints when there is but a step between them and it; he takes special care about their death, to order it for the best in all the circumstances of it; and whoever kills them, how light soever they may make of it, they shall be made to pay dearly for it when inquisition is made for the blood of the saints (Matt. 23:35). Though no man lays it to heart when the righteous perish [Is. 57:1], God will make it to appear that he lays it to heart. This should make us willing to die, to die for Christ, if we are called to it, that our death shall be registered in heaven; and let that be precious to us which is so to God.

Side note bonus: I skimmed what Matthew Henry had to say about the entire psalm. One other thing grabbed me - his thought on the end of vs. 3, "I found trouble and sorrow." MH points out that we can amplify our own trials, as we well know. God forbid! He expresses it so eloquently that I couldn't resist sharing it with you, too:

"I found trouble and sorrow"; not only they found me, but I found them. Those that are melancholy have a great deal of sorrow of their own finding, a great deal of trouble which they create to themselves, by indulging fancy and passion; this has sometimes been the infirmity of good men. When God’s providence makes our condition bad let us not by our own imprudence make it worse.

Amen!

  - Elese