Psalm Shorts: Psalm 4

Sleep prayers, righteous anger, and God's smile hugs, all covered in this Psalm Short digging into Psalm 4, Answer Me When I Call to the Choir Master with Stringed Instruments, A Psalm of David.

Many of us were taught, implicitly or explicitly, that the key to a peaceful night's sleep is to first fix whatever is wrong. Resolve conflict, remove threat, then rest.

Written by David during a time when he had every reason to sleep with one eye open, this evening psalm closes with one of the remarkably beautiful lines of Scripture: "In peace I will both lie down and sleep, for you alone, O Lord, make me dwell in safety." The Hebrew here is precise. The word for lying down describes an intentional act of surrender. The word for sleep describes full unconscious vulnerability. David isn't describing a situation that has improved. He's describing an internal reorientation that precedes any change in circumstances.

The psalm also contains a surprising permission slip: "Be angry and do not sin." Not suppress or apologize for your anger. We may be angry, agitated, fearful, unsettled. Emotion itself isn't the problem. Paul quotes this exact verse in Ephesians 4, writing to a community about living together without letting anger corrode the bonds between them. Don't let the sun go down on it, he says — which is to say, don't carry it into the night, don't let it become a place you live. Both texts are pointing toward the same thing: the path from distress to peace isn't the elimination of hard feelings, but learning where to take them before you close your eyes.

Transcript

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All right, welcome back. Today we're doing another Psalm short. We're talking about Psalm 4. It is called Answer Me When I Call to the Choir Master with Stringed Instruments, A Psalm of David. So this is written by David. So I'm gonna go ahead and read it before we deep dive some cool little tidbits about Psalm 4. Great. Answer me when I call, O God of my righteousness. You have given me relief when I was in distress. Be gracious to me and hear my prayer. O men, how long shall my honor be turned into shame? How long will you love vain words and seek after lies? But know that the Lord has set apart the godly for himself. The Lord hears when I call to him. Be angry and do not sin. Ponder in your own hearts, on your beds, and be silent. Offer right sacrifices, and put your trust in the Lord. There are many who say, Who will show us some good? Lift up the light of your face upon us, O Lord. You have put more joy in my heart than they have when their grain and wine abound. In peace I will both lay down and sleep. For you alone, O Lord, make me dwell in safety. I like that Psalm. Yeah, so that is Psalm 4. And it's a little bit more, maybe um, it's introducing some new pieces that we haven't seen in one, two, or three yet. Because he's really talking about his honor being turned to shame. It's like some kind of heavy words, right? Yeah, it also feels really personal where a lot of them so far have been more here's what's happening or here's the state of the world. It feels a lot more personal, how to find comfort and peace. Totally. And psalm three, like you had asked last week, if they sometimes pair together. So Psalm 3 is known as a morning psalm, and Psalm 4 is more of like the evening one. So they pair together. We have a morning and an evening contrast. And so Psalm 3 does have some similar themes as we talked about. He's like, There's foes rising against me. Answer me when I call. So Psalm 4 is almost like an answer to some of the issues he's bringing up in Psalm 3. And also, I the end of Psalm 4, in peace, I will both lay down and sleep for you alone, O Lord, make me dwell in safety. I say that every night. And I guess a lot of people do this is like an evening prayer because he does mention bed also. Oh, you say that every night? Yeah, just that little bit. Because it's so cool. In peace, I will both lay down and sleep for you alone, make me dwell in safety. So he's basically saying, like, at the end of the day, the Lord is what makes us safe. Yeah. You know, and that's that room is for him. Does both lay down and sleep mean lay down and also go to sleep? Is that what that's saying? I will both lie down and sleep. I know it's interesting, like that phrasing. Like, so you won't lie down but then be stressed out or scared. You'll also go to sleep. Right. So in this phrasing, which is as they say, one of the great sleep verses in the Bible, in Hebrew, this emphasizes completeness. So lying down, sleep, peace, and safety. He's not saying danger has vanished, but he's saying circumstances have almost changed. So it's it's God alone, right? But in terms of lying down, lie down word, shakhav, means to lie down, to recline, to rest. This word is used all throughout the Old Testament for ordinary sleep and rest. Okay. So I I think it's probably the more literal word. It's a sense of intentionally settling oneself down. And the word for sleep here, yeshin, is the actual state of sleep itself. So that is cool. So it is literal. Like when I am physically resting and sleeping, the Lord is the one who provides me safety. Okay. That makes sense. Because I guess, especially if David was on the run, you might lay down and not feel safe enough to actually get good sleep. You might be kind of like on guard or listening, like being waken up by every little noise. Well, and it's interesting too because it's not, it is purposeful to say lie down and sleep. He's saying it's not just in rest. Right. Like I'm not just gonna go to bed. I'm actually really resting. You know, it's kind of a different Because he is safe in the Lord. Yeah, exactly. So completely in peace, I surrender myself in a very vulnerable state. Sleep is very vulnerable, but it's okay because you'll give me safety. So I like that a lot. But also, it's not that danger has disappeared completely, right? And so it's like the peace comes before the circumstances changed. And I think that's a theme throughout the Bible, right? Is like trusting. Yeah. There's still it's not the danger went away and now I can sleep. Right. It's that peace is not the absence of conflict, it's being able to be at peace in conflict and danger. Yeah. Whatever happens around me, I'm safe in God. Totally. It's almost like he wants us to first transform our thinking around it before there's a physical change outside of us of safety. He wants to be no internally seek out safety. That makes sense. Really, our earthly safety is secondary to eternal safety in God. Totally, which is like a bigger thing, right? Of wealth, power, control. Right. None of that. And I think our brains think I need to be safe right now. And we think physical safety and survival. Totally. I think what God tells us is that that is actually just like an instant. Yeah. And so if you're safe with God, yeah, you still have survival instinct. But I think where peace comes from is being able to know that you're safe, even if your earthly life is threatened. Absolutely. Yeah. So really it's not provision, but God Himself. Because you could have all the money in the world and pay for a bunch of guards, but still they're not immortal. They could easily perish too, right? There's not true safety. It might be a thought of safety or a feeling of safety, but it's not real, right? Right. But God's is real. I like that because it is a really good end to your night. So, you know, I the only prayer I say at night or at bedtime is the Lord's prayer. Yeah. When I was growing up, we would sometimes do when I was really young the prayer that was like, as I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep. For if I die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take. Okay. As like a five or six-year-old, yeah, I didn't like that. It terrified me. It's kind of like take my soul. Like you're laying down to go to bed and praying about what's gonna happen, what you want to happen if you die in your sleep. Totally. So it didn't really resonate if you're like six. Yeah, it didn't make me feel close to God or protected or safe or anything. It just made me think about so am I gonna die tonight while I sleep? Or so I think as I got older, I've never actually done sleep prayers because I just have that association to that early sleep prayer that actually scared me. Yeah. Well, this is a maybe a good intro. I like it, yeah. And the Lord's prayer too. Yeah, you know, both are comforting. But I like that this one is specifically lie down and rest and sleep. And it is like sh brief. It's a very like powerful, a lot of power in a brief amount of space. Yeah. And this is also it's intended for musical worship with stringed instruments, which is cool. Can you imagine if you were going to bed and you're like grabbing your violin? I would love that. Amanda, you can learn the violin. Come put me to sleep to Davidic songs. I'm all here we go. While you violin me. And Psalm Four. Exactly. Um, but like all Psalms, there's a flow that you'll see similarly in others where it starts with distress and conflict, and then there's this middle ground of reflection, and then you have the trust and the peace. Yeah. In God, right? So it turns from, oh my gosh, what is happening? I'm in distress. And then it's like, well, actually, wait, let me check myself for a moment. As we do, like, oh, maybe I could pray right now. You don't maybe know that at first, and then you're like, oh, now I feel peace because I've prayed. So yeah, this one does feel a little more at peace typically than the laments, though, because the laments is almost like I'm in so much distress, I can't do anything but yeah, cry out to God and like get all of the morning off my chest. And then at the end, you just have to be like, but I trust you with it. Yep. This one feels a little more like, even though I'm in distress, here's what I can do, then rest in that peace. Like it does feel like it has more closure. Yeah. Then really a lament is sort of ends on, but God is in your hands. Totally. Yeah. And so it is known as a lament psalm or a song of trust. And again, like I said, an evening prayer, one of any of those three. And so, like, we were talking about with messianic threads. So this is not a messianic psalm, but like all things in the Bible, it points towards Jesus and even just like certain phrases. It strongly points towards a righteous sufferer pattern that's fulfilled in Christ. So it's more like themes that are later echoed in Jesus. Okay. Which is false accusations, trust in the Father, peace amid danger, prayer at night, resting securely in God. So it's more of like an emotional tie, I think. It's anticipating many later gospel moments, right? So it's more of a thread rather than a direct, oh, this is gonna happen. Yeah, that makes sense. It's themes, yeah. Um, even I think it said in the Lord alone, and Jesus was only safe in God. He was betrayed by even disciples. Exactly. It's like at the end of the day, even Peter, right? Like no human could offer any type of safety. All the people that he followed, everyone. Or a type of safety that actually matters. At the end of the day, yeah. God was actually the one to resurrect. Yeah. Remember, they tried to, they like sliced a guard's ear. Right. And Jesus was like, that's enough. Jesus was like, that was not like they were trying to protect him, but yeah, that wasn't even, it wasn't even that it wasn't good enough. Jesus was like, just stop. That was not the protection that he needed. Totally. Yeah, it was Peter that cut the ear. He cut Malchus's ear. But yeah, no, exactly right. Like you can try all the things that you want to try. Yeah. But at the end of the day, it's God who's gonna He resurrected him. He's the one who actually brought him to safety, ultimately. Right. There's also this cool idea of God creating room within distress. So God's bringing spaciousness, relief, and stability. But again, this piece kind of starts internally before our outer circumstances change. Does that mean room through because of the distress or in spite of it? Hmm. Yeah, I think it's an idea of God making space in narrowness. So it's in spite of, don't you think? Or maybe it's both. Maybe both, because I know that for me, sometimes it's almost I don't want this to be the case, but I almost have to be in distress for things to progress. See Job. No. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, absolutely. Not to say that you have to suffer to be able to connect to God. I was just wondering if that's getting at when you're suffering, I'm making space. Yep. Or is it because you're suffering, I'm gonna make space? Like And I think he's just always making space, just in general. It's kind of the idea of you could learn the same lesson in the Garden of Eden as you could in the wilderness. They both have opportunities for growth, and he's always there in either circumstance, but depending on what's around you, it may look different. Yeah. Like the support is always there, and he's always giving us room, but maybe based on the circumstance, it'll just seem a little different. Oh, yeah, and I also like this. So David is saying that there are reasons to be angry, but don't take it so far that you sin. Yes. I was gonna, I was hoping you would go there because he said, be angry and do not sin. And I was like, Yep, yes, let's talk about that. And I'm reading from the ESV, by the way, also. And so be angry is also sometimes written as or be agitated. So same idea, right? Yeah. It's almost allowing permission of this is actually a very natural human reaction to feel upset and mad and angry. He's not saying don't be angry, right? He's saying don't let it take it to the point where you are now sinning, you are now doing the things that you shouldn't be doing. Yep. And agitation, I think, can include like fear, irritation, excitement, all kinds of other things too. So it's like a very heightened emotional state. Totally. And God is not saying stop being emotional. He's saying feel your emotions. Yeah. And then do not sin, which is very interesting to me. Cause sometimes you learn exactly stop being mad. Yep. Stop being anxious. There's nothing to be anxious about pretty much any emotion that's not neutrality or happiness in a lot of people's upbringings has been like, oh, don't feel that. Right. Oh, you shouldn't feel anxious. Don't feel that. And if you do, if you felt angry, you need to essentially apologize for that anger. Right. Give it to God because you're sinning. Stop. Which is really interesting here. He's saying literally, be angry. But however, do not let that consume you. I feel like it's like a fire almost. Yeah. You know? Yeah. And that comes back to when God is described. There's a lot of like love language and how God is described. But then he is, God is not this and he is not this and he is not this. And then it says he is slow to anger. We've talked about that before because it doesn't say he is not angry. It says he's slow to anger, which if we're created in his image, that implies that we are going to feel anger. Yeah, we're reflecting him, right? We're made in his image. We're gonna feel anger. But there's a concept of righteous anger, which means your anger is coming from you're trying to align with what's righteous. Yep. And in this world, righteous means aligned to God's word. Totally. And so if we're trying to follow God's word and you have things happening that are directly threatening that, yeah, you can get angry. And I think slow to anger is the key because it doesn't mean just somebody says something and I'm mad. But it means if you have that calm and grounded, yeah, I'm not walking around angry. But if I'm trying to help or fix something that is broken or wrong, and I'm getting sort of aggressed back, totally, eventually that anger's gonna build. Totally. And I think God is actually telling us that's okay. Yeah, and it's that's not the bat, that's not the problem. Right. The problem is then what we do with it. It's like, are you now, once you're angry, what's the path you take? It's almost like this precipice moment. And if you look at what it says next, it says, be angry and do not sin, ponder in your own hearts on your beds, and be silent. Offer right sacrifices and put your trust in the Lord. So essentially it's saying, Yeah, be angry, take it to God. Yep. Be silent to me means take a pause. It's not reactionary, right? It's purposeful in how you act after that. And another cool thing about this be angry and do not sin part, it's later quoted in Ephesians. Ephesians 4 through 26. So I'm gonna actually gonna back up and read 25 as well, 25 through 27. And this is ESV. Therefore, having put away falsehood, let each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor, for we are members one of another. Be angry and do not sin. Do not let the sun go down on your anger, and give no opportunity to the devil. So basically saying your anger is justified, but there's a moment where the devil could really turn that anger into something sinful. Like that's a moment that he could slip in unawares. So God is wanting you to essentially give over your anger to him as you're going to sleep. Yeah. That's pretty cool. It's really cool also because so that's Paul, right? So this is obviously David in Psalm 4. And then later in Ephesians is Apostle Paul. Again, there's so many beautiful connections that you could easily miss in the Bible. But Psalm 4, as we said, is an evening psalm ending in peaceful sleep. And what does Paul say in that part of Ephesians? He says, Don't let anger remain overnight. Yeah. So I think it's very intentional. So you hear that a lot. Don't go to sleep angry, or don't go to bed angry. But I think often we use that to say we have to resolve our conflicts with each other before we go to bed. So if you're married and you're in an argument, you have to end up so that neither one of you is angry before you go to bed. Right. Guess what? Sometimes you'll be up all night. Yeah, it's it's more like first take it to God and take a peaceful minute. Yeah. What God is telling us, I think, is it's not actually about resolving our anger with each other. It's if you are angry when you lay down, that's okay. Feel your anger. Yeah. But then give it to God, and then that's where you find peace. Or even this idea of like, if you had a conflict with a spouse and they're like, don't go to bed angry, maybe you instead of storming off in different directions, it's a matter of, hey, we're not going to resolve this right now. Let's go pray on this and like we'll talk again in the morning. That's okay too, right? To say, I don't think this is resolvable right now in this space, but um, that's okay too. Yeah. So I think that's interesting that Paul, I'd be curious now to read if Paul is entirely mimicking this psalm. In Ephesians 4, Paul is teaching believers how to live in a community without letting emotional reactions destroy unity. Yeah. Which is not directly saying that in Psalm 4, but in a way it's saying, let's not let our anger get to sin, because that could destroy unity, I think. Now that you are a new person through Jesus, here's what your relationships with other people look like. He addresses the anger. He also, that passage, verse 30, you and I just talked about this verse where it says, Do not grieve the Holy Spirit. Yeah. So we dug into that, saying that doesn't mean don't mourn the Holy Spirit. It means don't offend the Holy Spirit, basically. And so that's similar to saying, and don't sin. So he's saying feel your anger, but then don't do the things that upset the Holy Spirit. Yeah, exactly. Well, which I think is exactly when unresolved anger evolves into bitterness, vengeance, fractured relationships. So it's more of the unresolved anger that is central here versus anger itself. Yeah, exactly. Paul specifies even let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths and let the thief no longer steal. So he's he's literally saying, don't do the things that you often feel like doing when you have and it's not just simple anger like someone made you mad, right? It's you might be living under a really horrible neighbor. And Paul is saying that doesn't mean yeah, you steal from them. Right. So yeah, and so I guess the kind of lesson learned in this part of it is that the danger in itself is not in any emotion. Right. It's the danger is when you dwell in that emotion and live in it to the point where you can't see out of it. And what Paul is saying is that gives opportunity to the devil. Exactly. And what the Psalm 4 is saying is to just turn it over to God and that you're safe with God. Totally. So that's really nice. Yeah. I also like the verse, lift up the light of your face upon us. Lift up the light of your face upon us. Yeah. That's kind of a cool phrase. I feel like I would expect that phrase to be more like shine down on us. So what does that mean? Lift up the light of your face. Lift up the light of your face upon us. Lift up the light. That is interesting. I I never thought about that before. I want to see what the vocabulary vocabulary used there is. And I know the one for the face or your face, Paneka. And face in Hebrew culture, someone's face represents presence, attention, like a closeness. Face is kind of like a bigger idea than just like a nose and two eyeballs. Okay. If a king turned his face towards someone, it meant acceptance, blessing, and protection, right? So I'm looking at the word Nessa, which is what we've translated here to lift up. Okay. So I think it's another one of those instances of the translation is leading us to a literal thought or image that we sometimes have. Yeah. So we've thought of God as being up in the heavens or in the sky. Yeah. And so when you talk about his light on us, you just naturally imagine it coming down. The word NASA or Nessa, it means something bigger. And it means sort of bringing it to you. So there's the idea of lifting your face, which we've learned a little bit about. God will lift the head. And that basically means rather than being head bowed, you're lifting up your chin. And that's like a glory moment. Yeah. And then it's also associated with a smile. And so I think it's less of God's light is going to come down from heaven and be on us. And it's more saying that we want God to smile upon us. Right. It's like sometimes I think I I the words are so literal. I'm like, lift up the light. So lift up must mean a direction of up. And it's like, yeah. No, it's that's not actually what it means. That's it's actually just saying, let your light be on us. Totally. And another cool thing about this phrase, too, it strongly echoes the priestly blessing in Numbers 624, where it says, The Lord bless you and keep you, the Lord make his face shine upon you and be gracious to you. Okay. The Lord lift up his continence upon you and give you peace. So there's an intentionality. I think there's a mirroring here. Cool. And the Israelites really saw God as being with them and not up somewhere else. That's a good point. So that idea of like God smiling. I don't think it was ever about a direction. And for us, it feels directional because it feels like he's up and we're down. I mean, to be fair, when they were in the desert for 40 years, he was on a cloud, like chilling. Right. But he was also that. But he was also in the ark in the in the temple. Yeah. And he is literally everywhere. But yeah, I mean, I think, yeah, sometimes it's we're so we're just too little our our human brains wants to connect everything so literally. Right. So we can make an image of it, you know? We can kind of comprehend. But I think that I think that's an important adjustment to the image, right? That God is not billions and billions of miles away and he can send like sun rays down to hit our faces. It's not that at all. He's actually everywhere and all around us. And so if the image is more of God's smiling, is like God's smile is coming around me. Ooh. That's better, right? A smile hug. Of like he's sending me gamma rays of happiness. It's a difference of relational and not. Yeah. Like if someone's just shooting you, it's almost like you said in the Hunger Games, they're throwing you little treatsies on a little drop of parachute. Like some random person sent me a little parachute of a gift. Yeah. Versus me coming to your home, hugging you, embracing you, and giving you a gift. Right. It's like just a very different mechanism, I think. Yeah. And they're both good. The gift is good. Yeah. They need to have their salve in the Hunger Games too. So yeah, I mean, that's the general gist of Psalm 4. I mean, we talk about it all day, right? Yeah, but this one feels more intimate and personal to me. Yeah. Where even the lament psalm of Psalm 3 felt more crisis. And this feels like you hear a lot that God is relational and that we have personal relationships to God. And this one feels like it's getting at that. Yeah. Well, yeah. And at the end of the day, this, like so much of the Bible, is a nearness to God, is the real source of peace. Kind of like your your smile hug. At the end of the day, that is where peace really comes. So thank you for chilling with us on Psalm 4. And I hope everyone stays salty. Thanks for listening.