Bible Commentaries

GOD’S PROTECTION OF THE HELPLESS IN SLEEP

‘I laid me down and slept; I awaked; for the Lord sustained me.’

Psalms 3:5

‘I laid me down and slept; and awaked.’

I. If we stopped at that point, hundreds of millions could make this announcement every day.—It is a fact so common that no one records it, and no one communicates it. When night comes, work ceases and rest begins. Business, pleasure, even trouble gradually pause, and the earth is quiet until we rise again, and the round goes on once more.

II. But the text does not stop at that point.—It goes a step further, and a long step. It adds, as a reason why we sleep in peace and rise up in safety, this further fact, ‘for the Lord sustained me.’ This also is a truth well known, though too little thought of. While I walk consciously independent through the day, He it is Who is all the while supporting me; in my absolute dependence when I lie down to rest, He it is Who keeps my helpless hours; and when I rise up again, I do so because ‘the Lord sustained me.’

III. So let us enter upon another year, and be grateful for His mercies which have so long been given to us.—Let us count up, discover, and consider these many mercies until our heart warms into some honourable and loving recognition of this care which is never tired of us and never leaves us. He devotes Himself to make us happy, and His happiness is to do us good, to see us good, and to find us grateful. We may feel confident from the past that God will take care of us in the future. We cannot be sure we shall have all smooth days; but we may be sure, after the most troubled ones, that God’s love will come to us, and whatever hard things we have to do or bear, our experience will still be, as Christians, ‘I laid me down and slept; I awaked; for the Lord sustained me.’

IV. And still, when the time His love has measured out for us has ended, the prospect spreads beyond, a new hope rises for the faithful child of God—‘I will say unto the Lord, Thou art my Hope and my Stronghold; my God, in Thee will I trust.’ Still our trust may say, ‘Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for Thou art with me.’

Canon Crosse.

Illustration

‘The elevated tone of the Psalmist’s faith is very remarkable. Amidst the ill-treatment to which the Psalmist had been subject there is no anger; peace passing all understanding is his. It is not the frozen peace of indifference. He is the subject of popular hatred and misrepresentation, but he calls for no revenge. His trust is firm in the protection of God, self is a minor consideration, and the cursing he receives is but answered by blessing. Devout men, knowing the sinfulness of the human heart, might well consider that so lofty an attitude was that of the Son of Man. This little poem, which on cursory consideration does not coruscate with imaginative beauties, reveals to careful study much of the calm, true light of heavenly things.’