Thoughts on Psalm 41

The Blessing and Suffering of the Godly

To the Chief Musician. A Psalm of David.

41 Blessed is he who considers the poor;
The Lord will deliver him in time of trouble.
² The Lord will preserve him and keep him alive,
And he will be blessed on the earth; You will not deliver him to the will of his enemies.
³ The Lord will strengthen him on his bed of illness;
You will sustain him on his sickbed.

The Lord delivers, preserves, keeps, strengthens, and sustains those who are sick.

⁴ I said, “Lord, be merciful to me;
Heal my soul, for I have sinned against You.”
⁵ My enemies speak evil of me:
“When will he die, and his name perish?”
⁶ And if he comes to see me, he speaks lies;
His heart gathers iniquity to itself;
When he goes out, he tells it.

This is all our stories.

⁷ All who hate me whisper together against me;
Against me they devise my hurt.
⁸ “An evil disease,” they say, “clings to him.
And now that he lies down, he will rise up no more.”
⁹ Even my own familiar friend in whom I trusted,
Who ate my bread,
Has lifted up his heel against me.

The inevitable suffering of the Godly: once on the side of Jesus, many will align against us.

¹⁰ But You, O Lord, be merciful to me, and raise me up,
That I may repay them.
¹¹ By this I know that You are well pleased with me,
Because my enemy does not triumph over me.
¹² As for me, You uphold me in my integrity,
And set me before Your face forever.

We have integrity only because God upholds us and sets us before Himself. It’s all God.

¹³ Blessed be the Lord God of Israel
From everlasting to everlasting!
Amen and Amen.

I’m not sure how often the Bible says Amen twice, but I doubt it is much and here is one of those times.