Introduction
This psalm-song’s title tells us that it speaks of a glorious thing, of the dedication of the house of the Lord, of the dedication of the place where the incomparable God who cannot be contained by the heaven of heavens shall dwell. And yet it is a highly personal psalm: full of the use of the first person pronoun throughout: “I”, “me” and “my”; it is a psalm-song occupied with David’s personal experience of illness, of the Lord’s anger toward him, of the Lord hiding his face from him and of David’s cries for healing. What do these personal, challenging experiences have to do with dedication of the Lord’s dwelling place?
One thing for sure can be concluded from these matters, a challenge to each one of us. Whatever the circumstances of our lives, whether we are being restored from illness or wrestling with sin or any other suffering, what is each one of us doing to contribute to the dedication of the Lord’s house, whose house we are if we hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing of the hope firm to the end? We ought to mark this point: not what is he or she doing or what are they doing to dedicate this house, but what am I doing? In this psalm-song we discover help in facing this challenge, so that we can overcome whatever would prevent us.
Setting
Psalm 30 is a psalm-song. Exposition shows that this psalm-song is set at a time soon after the declaration of the covenant of promise to David through Nathan the prophet (2 Samuel 7; 1 Chronicles 17). Analysis also shows that David, through the psalm-song, reflects back on experiences he suffered after he attempted and failed to bring up the ark of God to the city of David (2 Samuel 6; 1 Chronicles 13; 15). We shall see that he learned of the “dedication of the house” (Ps 30:t) within the context of distressing yet eventually joyful experiences.
What is this exposition? We start with some preliminary work to explore the experiences on which David reflects in the psalm-song, and move on to its chronological setting after the declaration of the covenant of promise.
It is evident from Psalm 30 that one of the experiences the prophet David remembers, when giving voice to this psalm-song, is his cry to the Lord for healing from a life-threatening illness. The cry to the Lord is seen twice:
…I cried to [the Lord]… (Ps 30:2)
I cried to you, O Lord, and to the Lord I made supplication.[1] (Ps 30:8)
That this cry of David is out of a life-threatening illness is also seen twice:
O Lord my God, I cried to you and you have healed me… you have brought up my soul from the grave; you have kept me alive that I should not go down to the pit. (Ps 30:2-3)
I cried to you, O Lord… what profit is there in my blood when I go down to the pit? Shall the dust praise you? (Ps 30:8-9)
The expression “healed” (rp’) (Ps 30:2) helps us determine with certainty that this is an illness with which David was afflicted and not some other threat to his life. A number of psalms illustrate this, as tabulated below:
| Psalm | Comments |
| 6:2 “heal me” | David seeks healing from weakness and vexed bones (6:2) and from weariness and night sweats (6:6). |
| 41:4 “heal my soul” | David seeks healing from his bed of languishing and sickness (41:3), a circumstance his enemies refer to as an evil disease (41:8) |
| 103:3 “heals” | David explicitly says here that the Lord “heals all your diseases” (103:3). |
These contexts of the use of “heal” clearly speak of the symptoms of illness or of illness itself. That David’s illness of which he speaks and out of which he cried to the Lord was life-threatening is abundantly clear from his talk of the grave, of being kept alive, and of asking what profit there is in his blood since dust cannot praise the Lord.
When did David experience this life-threatening illness? Again it is evident from the psalm-song that this was when David was the subject of the Lord’s anger, when the Lord had hidden his face from him. This is seen in the following extracts from the psalm-song:
…[the Lord’s] anger endures but a moment (rg‛)… (Ps 30:5)
…[the Lord] did hide (str) his face (pnh), and I was troubled. (Ps 30:7)
Isaiah’s later use of this psalm-song to prophesy comforting words to the Lord’s people neatly demonstrates to us the reason why the Lord was angry with David and why he had hid his face from him; this was because of some sin or sins committed by David:
For a small moment (rg‛) have I forsaken you; but with great mercies will I gather you. In a little wrath I hid (str) my face (pnh) from you for a moment (rg‛); but with eternal kindness (hsd) will I have mercy on you, says the Lord your redeemer. (Isa 54:7-8).[2]
The context of Isaiah’s prophecy to the people is introduced and set much earlier: “cry to [Jerusalem] that… her iniquity is pardoned; for she has received of the Lord’s hand double for all her sins” (Isa 40:2). Thus, it is evident that the reason the Lord was angry with David and had hidden his face from him was, like Jerusalem, “because of [his] iniquities” (Isa 64:7); we shall explore what David’s sin or sins specifically were when we perform more detailed exposition of the whole psalm-song.
It is plain that David perceived his life-threatening illness to be the chastening hand of the Lord against his sin or sins. This is reflected in his use of “heal” (Ps 30:2) which, apart from its use of being healed from sickness and disease as noted above, is also used to speak of being healed from sin (Ps 41:4), from hardness of heart (Isa 6:10), from the wages of sin (Is 53:5), from stubbornness (Isa 57:18-19) and from backsliding (Jer 3:22; Hos 14:4). Thus, in using “heal” David closely associates his illness with his sin. Such an association is seen further when we see man’s illnesses used as a figure of sin. This figure is seen abundantly in our Lord’s miracles of healing; for example: ““whether it is easier to say to the sick of the palsy, Your sins are forgiven you; or to say, Arise, and take up your bed, and walk?…” (Mark 2:9).
That David perceived his life-threatening illness to be the chastening hand of the Lord against his sin is also seen from his statement that he was “troubled” (bhl) when the Lord hid his face from him (Ps 30:7). David here employs the same expression in his description of his illness that we have already considered from Psalm 6. He says there: “Have mercy on me, O Lord, for I am weak; O Lord, heal me, for my bones are vexed (bhl). My soul is also sore vexed (bhl)” (Ps 6:2-3). Since “troubled” (bhl) is an expression used to describe both illness and the trouble David experienced because the Lord hid his face from him, it is clear that David sees the life-threatening illness in Psalm 30 to be a direct consequence of the Lord’s chastening intervention in his life, and that because of his sin. Just as the “dukes of Edom” were to be “amazed” (bhl) (Exod 15:15) at the judgments of the Lord on behalf of his people’s inheritance, so David became the subject of the Lord’s judgments by his life-threatening illness.
The chastening of the Lord manifest in David’s life-threatening illness showed to David, through the troubling of his mind, that his illness was a figure of a more serious sickness, sin’s wages, from which only the suffering servant’s stripes can heal us (Isa 53:5) which, through his repentance, remission of sins that were past was accomplished.
When did David suffer the chastening of a life-threatening illness because of the Lord’s anger at his sin or sins, and out of it cry to the Lord for healing? Anticipating the preliminary exposition regarding the chronological setting of the psalm-song, that it is soon after the declaration of the covenant of promise, we need to seek an incident predating this declaration. And we are helped in this search by another aspect of the experiences that David remembers in the psalm-song. This is seen in one of the ways David describes his recovery from his life-threatening illness: “you have turned for me my mourning into dancing” (Ps 30:11). When did David emerge from a period of mourning, during which, as Psalm 30 tells us, he was struck with a life-threatening illness, to dancing?
Of course, the circumstances of the bringing up of the ark of God to Jerusalem cry out to us that this is the situation in which David’s experiences took place. During David’s first, failed attempt to bring up the ark of God, the Lord’s “anger” (2 Sam 6:7; 1 Chron 13:10) was shown by his “breach upon Uzzah” (2 Sam 6:8; 1 Chron 13:11); and David later concludes this was because they “did not seek [the Lord their God] according to judgment” (1 Chron 15:13). But it was not just Uzzah that was breached; it is evident that David also suffered breach, the life-threatening illness described in Psalm 30, and David himself bears witness to this when he speaks in preparation for bringing up the ark of God the second time: “the Lord our God made a breach upon us, for that we did not seek him according to judgment” (1 Chron 15:13). David had sinned in not seeking the Lord according to judgment when first bringing up the ark and in his displeasure at the Lord’s righteous judgment, and he was breached with a life-threatening illness for his chastening. It is evident then that this life-threatening illness from the Lord’s chastening hand occurred during the three months the ark abode in the house of Obed-edom the Gittite (2 Sam 6:11; 1 Chron 13:14). Following David’s healing, of which the psalm-song speaks, David brought up the ark, as he recalls in Psalm 30, “leaping and dancing” (2 Sam 6:16) and “dancing and playing” (1 Chron 15:29).
We see, therefore, that the life-threatening illness, out of which David describes himself in this psalm-song as crying to the Lord and being healed so that his mourning was turned into dancing, refers to David’s distressing, yet eventually joyful experiences recorded in 2 Samuel 6 and 1 Chronicles 13 and 15. What then about the chronological setting of the psalm-song?
Chronology
We begin discovery of the chronological setting for the psalm-song from a consideration of its title and, in particular, by determining the identity of the house. Is the house, whose dedication to which the title refers, David’s “house” (1 Chron 14:1) or the “house” which David’s seed would build as appointed by the Lord (2 Sam 7:13; 1 Chron 17:12)? The evidence is that it is the house of the Lord, and there are at least two principal reasons for concluding this.
The first is to note how the use of “house” in the psalm-song’s title builds upon a weighty mention of the Lord’s house, the sanctuary where he would dwell, in the psalms immediately preceding Psalm 30. Note the following details:
| Psalm | the Lord’s house or dwelling place |
| 26:8 | “the habitation of your house and the place where your honour dwells” |
| 27:4,5,6 | “the house of the Lord… his temple… his pavilion… his tent… his tent” |
| 28:2 | “your holy oracle” |
| 29:9 | “his temple” |
Thus, when Psalm 30 opens with a title referring to “house”, the progress of thought in this series of psalms[3] leads us to conclude that it is a reference to the Lord’s house.
The second reason for reaching this conclusion relates to majority scriptural usage of the expression “dedication” (hnkh Ps 30:t) which, along with its related verb, hnk, is used of the dedication of a variety of things. This includes dedication of the wall of Jerusalem (Neh 12:27), of a man’s new house (Deut 20:5) and of the instruction of a child (Prov 22:6). But the prevalent use of these expressions concerns the dedication of God’s sanctuary or its parts: of the altar of the tent of the congregation (Num 7:10,11, 84, 88); of the altar of Solomon’s temple (2 Chron 7:9); and of the house of the Lord (1 Kgs 8:63; 2 Chron 7:5).
Further evidence for identifying the house referred to in this psalm-song’s title as the house of the Lord will be seen as we progress. But let us note now that the title of Psalm 30 indicates that it was revealed after Nathan was sent to David, telling him that the Lord would be the father of the seed of David who was to build a house for the name of the Lord; that it was given quite soon after this promise will become clearer as we expound the psalm-song further.
This chronology, with its conclusion that the dedicated house referred to in the title of Psalm 30 is the Lord’s house, serves to highlight a seeming incongruity: what has David’s earlier experience of recovery from illness, the result of the chastening of the Lord against his sin committed at the failed first attempt to bring up the ark, got to do with the dedication of the house of the Lord? What has a prior, deeply personal experience got to do with a work of magnificence that would result in all the earth knowing there is a God for Israel? It is to this seeming incongruity that we now turn our attention.
Dedication
To sharpen our appreciation of what took place when David received the promise of God through Nathan the prophet, consider how David might have reacted. He was told that his own desire to build a house for the name of the Lord God of Israel, though he “did well that it was in [his] heart” (1 Kgs 8:18), would not be accomplished. Rather, it was “[his] son that shall come forth of [his] loins” (1 Kgs 8:19) who would perform the work. What would David have felt about his thwarted desire? Would he have felt disappointment? Certainly we, of like flesh and blood, could understand it if this were the case. But what did David do in response to this? It is clear from the exposition that follows that David reflected back upon his earlier painful experience, out of which he had emerged joyously, and determined from discoveries in the scriptures he made then that there was much he could and would do for the house of the Lord, even though it was not his to build. Let me explain.
When David suffered his life-threatening illness at the hand of the Lord during the three months that the ark continued in the house of Obed-edom, how was he occupied during this time? Did he just languish, self-pityingly, on his sick-bed? It is clear from the fact that it is David who provides instruction to the Levites on how the ark should be brought up to the city of David, as they prepared for the successful second attempt, that he had spent some of his time during his illness searching scripture for answers; on a couple of occasions he gives voice to the conclusions that he, in fellowship with God, had reached through exposition of the relevant scriptures:
…none ought to carry the ark of God but the Levites, for them has the Lord chosen to carry the ark of God, and to minister to him for ever. (1 Chron 15:2)
…you are the chief of the fathers of the Levites: sanctify yourselves, both you and your brothers, that you may bring up the ark of the Lord God of Israel to the place that I have prepared for it… because you did not do it at the first, the Lord our God made a breach upon us, for that we sought him not after judgment. (1 Chron 15:12, 13)
The performance of this instruction from David’s renewed understanding is clear from what happened:
And David assembled the children of Aaron, and the Levites… (1 Chron 15:4)
And the children of the Levites bare the ark of God upon their shoulders with the staves thereon, as Moses commanded according to the word of the Lord. (1 Chron 15:15)
So what scriptures from the hand of Moses had David studied during the three months when he was afflicted with his life-threatening illness? The charge laid upon the Levites of bearing the ark is stated twice in Numbers:
And when Aaron and his sons have made an end of covering the sanctuary, and all the vessels of the sanctuary… the sons of Kohath shall come to bear it… these things are the burden of the sons of Kohath in the tent of the congregation. (Num 4:15)
But to the sons of Kohath he gave [no wagons] because the service of the sanctuary belonging to them was that they should bear upon their shoulders. (Num 7:9)
Thus was David able to instruct the people about how to bear the ark of God during their second attempt at bringing it up to the place David had prepared for it. In this we receive instruction about our own conduct, of course. Here was a prophet (Acts 2:30), upon whom the spirit of the Lord had come (1 Sam 16:13) so that the spirit of the Lord spoke by him (2 Sam 23:2); yet he was required, just like us, to search the scriptures to seek out God’s instructions about how to behave in the house of God. Not only so, but here was a man who acknowledged that he had been stricken with a life-threatening illness by the chastening hand of the Lord; and what did he do during this time? He read and expounded the word of the Lord, out of which he was able to provide instruction for the whole house of Israel.
But how does this bear upon the seeming incongruity of David in this psalm-song relating the dedication of the house of the Lord to his own anguished experience? How does this bear upon understanding David’s reaction to being told his own desire to build a house for the Lord’s name was not his to accomplish? The first point of note is that it is plain that David learned about what he could do, to contribute to the house to be built by his son, during these same earlier meditations upon the scriptures. This is immediately obvious when we note that the first four uses of the expression “dedication” (Ps 30:t) are found in one of the passages he evidently had researched, Numbers 7:
…the princes offered for dedicating (hnkh) of the altar in the day that it was anointed… the Lord said to Moses, they shall offer their offering, each prince on his day, for the dedicating (hnkh) of the altar. (Num 7:10, 11)
This was the dedication (hnkh) of the altar, in the day when it was anointed, by the princes of Israel… (Num 7:84)
This was the dedication (hnkh) of the altar, after it was anointed. (Num 7:88)
Obviously then, when David was told that his desire to build a house for the name of the Lord God of Israel would not be his to fulfil but that it would be accomplished by his “son that shall come forth of [his] loins” (1 Kgs 8:19), he remembered the Numbers 7 context he had studied during his chastening illness. This remembrance was that even though a particular ministry in the tent of the congregation was not the portion of the princes of Israel (Num 7:2), David like them could make provision for the ministry of the building of the house that was appointed to Solomon; in David’s case, dedication of the house through preparation of abundance of offerings. Indeed, we see in the narrative of David’s preparation of things for the house of the Lord very many references to Numbers 7, all of which serve to reinforce this point; we see also that David encourages the princes of Israel of his day to participate in this work of dedication of the house of the Lord, in the same way the princes of Israel in Numbers 7 had offered things for the dedication of the altar.
In passing, it should be mentioned that the identification of these things that David prepared for the house of the Lord with the “dedication (hnkh) of the house (Ps 30:t)” is reinforced by another matter. This is the mention of the bringing in by Solomon of “the things which David his father had sanctified, the silver, and the gold, and the vessels… among the treasures of the house of the Lord” (1 Kgs 7:51; 2 Chron 5:1), in the context of which Solomon “dedicated (hnk) the house of the Lord” (1 Kgs 8:63; 2 Chron 7:5).
Truly, as scripture later records, “David prepared abundantly before his death” (1 Chron 22:5). And it is evident he commenced this work in earnest soon after he received the good news of the covenant of promise through the mouth of Nathan. This is seen in a summary of things David dedicated to the Lord, recorded in the history of his victories immediately subsequent to the giving of the covenant:
[Joram] brought with him vessels of silver, and vessels of gold, and vessels of brass; which also king David did sanctify (qdš) to the Lord, with the silver and gold that he had sanctified (qdš) of all nations which he subdued; of Syria, and of Moab, and of the children of Ammon, and of the Philistines, and of Amalek, and of the spoil of Hadadezer. (2 Sam 8:10-12; see also 2 Sam 8:7-8; 1 Chron 18:7-11).
It is evident, from the mention of the sanctification of spoil from at least Amalek (1 Sam 27:8; 30:20) and the Philistines (2 Sam 5:17-25), against whom wars had taken place earlier than the giving of the covenant of promise and before David’s life-threatening illness, that some of the vessels summarised in 2 Sam 8:10-12 were able to be taken by David immediately, so that the dedication of the house could commence contemporaneously with the revelation of the psalm-song. This more narrowly determines the chronological setting of Psalm 30 to be at the conclusion of 2 Samuel 7 (1 Chronicles 17) or the beginning of 2 Samuel 8 (1 Chronicles 18).
We can now determine at least one answer to the seeming incongruity between the title of Psalm 30 and its content. One connection between the dedication of the house of the Lord and David’s experience during his life-threatening illness is that it was during his meditations on scripture at that time that he learned about the opportunity for this dedication of the Lord’s house. He hadn’t just languished self-pityingly on his sick-bed, but had diligently given his heart and mind to understanding the Lord’s judgments about how to behave when bringing up the ark of the covenant of the Lord. And more than this, his workmanship in the scriptures yielded also this fruit: he learned what he could do for the dedication of the magnificent house which was not his to build.
There is a powerful lesson in this for us, of course. Perhaps at times we feel barred or thwarted in a service for the ecclesia we believe we can perform? How does our reaction to such circumstances compare with the scripturally based response of David that led to him abundantly preparing for the house his son would build? But there is another aspect to the relationship between David’s deeply personal experience of some time earlier and the work of magnificence that would result in all the earth knowing there is a God for Israel. We see what this is by taking a closer look at a couple of other aspects of the psalm-song.
What profit in my blood?
The way a number of English language versions render the title of Psalm 30 is to present this psalm-song as having been written for use at the dedication of the house, presumably, in the first instance, once Solomon had completed it. For example:
A Psalm and Song at the dedication of the house of David (KJV)
A PSALM OF DAVID. A SONG AT THE DEDICATION OF THE TEMPLE (ESV)
A Psalm; a Song at the Dedication of the House. A Psalm of David (NASB)
A psalm– a song used at the dedication of the temple; by David (NET)
The NET is clearly the most explicit in this interpretation but is this interpretation correct? It is evident from the fact that “at” in the KJV rendering is italicized (marking it as an interpretive insertion by the translators, not rendering any equivalent Hebrew), that “used at” in the NET is an even greater embellishment. On the other hand, my rendering of the title, partly portrayed in the title of this exposition, is not only a possible translation of the Hebrew but does not require any interpretive embellishments. My full rendering is as follows, with the Hebrew represented beneath:
| a psalm-song | of dedication | of the house, | of David |
| mzmwr šyr | hnkt | hbyt | Ldwd |
One reading of this is that the psalm-song is, itself, that which accomplishes dedication of the house (as opposed to being used at the time of the dedication). But we have already seen that the dedication was accomplished by king David in his abundant preparations; so, if such a reading is correct, how can this psalm-song be said to accomplish the dedication of the Lord’s house?
When David cried to the Lord and made supplication he said: “what profit is there in my blood, when I go down to the pit? shall the dust give thanks (ydh) to you? shall it declare your truth?” (Ps 30:8-9). It is obvious from this that a concern that tortured David’s mind during his life-threatening illness was that an early death would cut off his ability to give thanks to the Lord. This aspect is reinforced from his mention of giving thanks to the Lord two other times in this psalm-song. The first is seen when David addresses the merciful ones and instructs them to “give thanks (ydh) for the remembrance of [the Lord’s] holiness” (Ps 30:4). The final instance brings the psalm-song to a glorious conclusion: “O Lord my God, forever I will give thanks (ydh) to you” (Ps 30:12). In this close we have presented to us David’s resolution of the problems confronting him, out of which the Lord healed him and turned his mourning into dancing: David, forever, would give thanks to the Lord, and this he proceeded to do, in part through the preparation he made for the house of the Lord. We see this portrayed several times in the narrative about David’s dedication, by the association of giving thanks to the Lord with the preparation of things for the house his son would build[4]:
For by the last words of David the Levites were numbered from twenty years old and above: because their office was to wait on the sons of Aaron for the service of the house of the Lord… and the work of the service of the house of God;… And to stand every morning to thank (ydh) and praise the Lord, and likewise at even. (1 Chron 23:27-30)
Moreover David and the captains of the host separated to the service of the sons of Asaph, and of Heman, and of Jeduthun, who should prophesy with harps, with psalteries, and with cymbals… which prophesied according to the order of the king… who prophesied with a harp, to give thanks (ydh) and to praise the Lord. (1 Chron 25:1-3)
Now therefore, our God, we thank (ydh) you, and praise your glorious name. (1 Chron 29:13).
From this we see that David’s closing words, “O Lord my God, forever I will give thanks (ydh) to you” (Ps 30:12), are the dedication of David’s heart and mind to the service of the house of the Lord, to his preparation for its glorious magnificence. It is in this sense then that we can perceive the title’s meaning: this psalm-song dedicates David to the dedication of the Lord’s house; this psalm-song, in which David rejoices that he had not gone to dust (Ps 30:9), that he had been liberated from the snare of the devil who would have taken him captive, becomes David’s self-dedication to accomplish the house’s dedication by which he set about, forever, to “give thanks” (Ps 30:12).
We see instruction in these matters for our learning. David had sinned in his displeasure at the Lord’s righteous judgment, and he was breached with a life-threatening illness for his chastening. As we shall see, this psalm-song contains within it David’s confession of his sin and thereby his path to the Lord’s forgiveness. Thus, Psalm 30 shows that marvellous things can be built from true repentance from sin and from the grace of God in forgiveness; true repentance from sin and the grace of God in forgiveness become for David the foundation of greatness of thankfulness in service. As the apostle Paul was later to say: “I am the least of the apostles… not meet to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God I am what I am: and his grace which was bestowed upon me was not in vain; but I laboured more abundantly than they all: yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me.” (1 Cor 15:9-10).
Of course, David could accomplish this dedication only because his restoration to the Lord’s fellowship was complete; there was no imposition on him of a period of inactivity as part of his process of restoration; there was no requirement upon him not to instruct the merciful ones to “give thanks for the remembrance of [the Lord’s] holiness” (Ps 30:4) because of the recentness of his sin for which the Lord had hidden his face from him. Rather, the outpouring of his gratitude at the Lord’s healing was given course for full expression: truly, fully, he was restored. It behoves us to reflect on these things and consider how our personal attitudes and ecclesial practice compares when restoring in the spirit of meekness one who has been overtaken in a transgression (Gal 6:1). It is also evident that, whenever any one of us sins and seeks restoration through repentance and forgiveness, notwithstanding the merciless judgments of others, we ought to be as open and honest about our sins and the place of repentance as was David so that, with him, we might instruct others.
Conclusion
We can now discern the significance, for Psalm 30, of the second part of this psalm’s genre, that it is a psalm-song. “Song” (šyr, Ps 30:t) is associated with release from the captivity of a darkened understanding due to alienation from the life of God into a new captivity, a captivity of the new man created in righteousness and true holiness. In this specific situation, the release spoken of is the deliverance of David from the sin or sins which he had committed when he was displeased at the Lord’s righteous judgments. Indeed, that David had truly been delivered from the devil’s snare, by which he would have taken him captive (2 Tim 2:26), was further vouchsafed to him a short time later, and figuratively fulfilled, when the Lord delivered David and his people from their enemies’ threats of captivity: “the Lord had given [David] rest round about from all his enemies” (2 Sam 7:1). This is a matter which was further reassured to David when the Lord made promise about a house that God’s son would build:
Moreover I will appoint a place for my people Israel, and will plant them, that they may dwell in a place of their own, and move no more; neither shall the children of wickedness afflict them any more, as beforetime… and have caused you to rest from all your enemies. Also the Lord tells you that he will make you an house. (2 Sam 7:10-11).
The deeply personal experience of David, including his release from the snare of sin, is celebrated in this psalm-song but, since this release was the foundation of something more, of the dedication of the house, another matter takes precedence, the singing of praises. Thus can we also now discern the significance, for Psalm 30, of the first part of this psalm’s genre, that it is a psalm-song. That Psalm 30 is first a psalm, a song of praise, celebrates the fact that a direct consequence of David’s deliverance from sin and restoration to God’s fellowship is that he could accomplish the dedication of the house. And because of this he twice speaks about the singing of praises to the Lord:
“sing praises (zmr) to the Lord” (Ps 30:4)
“glory shall sing praises (zmr) to you” (Ps 30:12)
These expressions of singing praise are, structurally, a primary theme of this psalm-song; a direct outcome of David’s deliverance from the captivity of sin is that he speaks of singing praises to the Lord. Singing praises to the Lord is a fundamental function of the Lord’s house.
[1] Actually, we shall see as the exposition progresses that this expression should be rendered taking account of the Hebrew imperfect, but this will be seen not to alter the argument presented here.
[2] [Ed. AP]: An alternative view is that the sin in Hezekiah’s case was in relation to the matter of the Babylonian envoys but the sickness involved is metaphorical (Isa 57:17).
[3] Paul’s reference to (what we still know as) Psalm 2 as “the second psalm” (Acts 13:33) is a simple illustration showing that the psalms are presented in a specific order by prophetic design.
[4] We also see David giving thanks to the Lord immediately after being healed, showing that he lost no time in fulfilling his resolution. “Giving thanks (ydh)” is found comprehensively in and around David’s psalm which he first gave to Asaph when the ark of God was successfully brought up to Jerusalem as follows: 1 Chron 16:4, 7, 8, 34, 35, 41. Note that these uses of ydh plus the three mentioned in the body of the exposition plus an instance in 2 Sam 22:50 comprise all the uses of this term in the historical narrative of David’s life.
The Origin of the Organic World – Part One