Psalms 116:12

Psalms REQUITING GODPsalm 116:12 - Psalm 116:13 . There may possibly be a reference here to a part of the Passover ritual. It seems to have become the custom in later times to lift high the wine cup at that feast and drink it with solemn invocation and glad thanksgiving. So we find our Lord taking the cup-the ‘cup of blessing’ as Paul calls it-and giving thanks. But as there is no record of the introduction of that addition to the original Paschal celebration, we do not know but that it was later than the date of this psalm. Nor is there any need to suppose such an allusion in order either to explain or to give picturesque force to the words. It is a most natural thing, as all languages show, to talk of a man’s lot, either of sorrow or joy, as the cup which he has to drink; and there are numerous instances of the metaphor in the Psalms, such as ‘Thou art the Portion of mine inheritance and of my cup, Thou maintainest my lot.’ ‘My cup runneth over.’ That familiar emblem is all that is wanted here. Then one other point in reference to the mere words of the text may be noticed. ‘Salvation’ can scarcely be taken in its highest meaning here, both because the whole tone of the psalm fixes its reference to lower blessings, and because it is in the plural in the Hebrew. ‘The cup of salvation’ expresses, by that plural form, the fulness and variety of the manifold and multiform deliverances which God had wrought and was working for the Psalmist.

His whole lot in life appears to him as a cup full of tender goodness, loving faithfulness, delivering grace. It runs over with divine acts of help and sustenance. As his grateful heart thinks of all God’s benefits to him, he feels at once the impulse to requite and the impossibility of doing so. With a kind of glad despair he asks the question that ever springs to thankful lips, and having nothing to give, recognises the only possible return to God to be the acceptance of the brimming chalice which His goodness commends to his thirst. The great thought, then, which lies here is that we best requite God by thankfully taking what He gives. Now I note to begin with-how deep that thought goes into the heart of God. Why is it that we honour God most by taking, not by giving? The first answer that occurs to you, no doubt, is-because of His all-sufficiency and our emptiness. Man receives all. God needs nothing. We have all to say, after all our service, ‘Of Thine own have we given Thee.’ No doubt that is quite true; and rightly understood that is a strengthening and a glad truth. But is that all which can be said in explanation of this principle? Surely not. ‘If I were hungry I would not tell thee; for the world is mine and the fulness thereof,’ is a grand word, but it does not give all the truth.

Psalm 116:12-14 . What shall I render unto the Lord — Yet, notwithstanding all my dangers, and my distrust of God also, he hath conferred so many and great blessings upon me, that I can never make sufficient returns to him for them. I will take the cup of salvation — Or of deliverance, as Bishop Patrick renders ישׁועות , thus interpreting the clause: “I will call my friends together to rejoice with me, and taking the cup, which we call the cup of deliverance, (because, when blessed and set apart, we are thus wont to commemorate the blessings we have received,) I will magnify the power, goodness, and faithfulness of God my Saviour before all the company.” The phrase is doubtless taken from the common practice of the Jews in their thank-offerings, in which a feast was made of the remainder of the sacrifices, and the offerers, together with the priests, did eat and drink before the Lord; and among other rites, the master of the feast took a cup of wine into his hand, and solemnly blessed God for it, and for the mercy which was then acknowledged, and then gave it to all the guests, who drank successively of it. According to Dr. Hammond, this cup, among the Jews, was two-fold; one offered in a more solemn manner in the temple, Numbers 28:7 , the other more private in families, called the cup of thanksgiving, or commemoration of any deliverance received. This the master of the family was wont to begin, and was followed by all his guests.

On festival days it was attended with a suitable hymn, such as that sung by our Lord and his disciples on the night when he advanced that cup into the sacrament of his blood, which hath ever since been to Christians the cup of salvation; and which all penitents should now receive in the church of Christ, with invocation, thanksgiving, and payment of their vows made in time of trouble.