Psalm 30

I will extol You, O Lord, for You have lifted me up,
And have not let my foes rejoice over me.
² O Lord my God, I cried out to You,
And You healed me.
³ O Lord, You brought my soul up from the grave;
You have kept me alive, that I should not go down to the pit.

⁴ Sing praise to the Lord, you saints of His,
And give thanks at the remembrance of His holy name.
⁵ For His anger is but for a moment,
His favor is for life;
Weeping may endure for a night,
But joy comes in the morning.

⁶ Now in my prosperity I said,
“I shall never be moved.”
⁷ Lord, by Your favor You have made my mountain stand strong;
You hid Your face, and I was troubled.

⁸ I cried out to You, O Lord;
And to the Lord I made supplication:
⁹ “What profit is there in my blood,
When I go down to the pit?
Will the dust praise You?
Will it declare Your truth?
¹⁰ Hear, O Lord, and have mercy on me;
Lord, be my helper!”

¹¹ You have turned for me my mourning into dancing;
You have put off my sackcloth and clothed me with gladness,
¹² To the end that my glory may sing praise to You and not be silent.
O Lord my God, I will give thanks to You forever.

O Lord, You brought my soul up from the grave

The Septuagint doesn’t do much to elucidate this odd phrase, ψυχήν is the normal word for “soul” and God brings it out of αἵδης, the grave or death is a good definition for it here, but it is the word Hades. I just finished writing a Latin commentary about turning things backward and drawing things up from hell, so that’s what’s on my mind right now. Now, I don’t think that the psalmist was literally dead, but he was sick, and sickness was associated with sin to them. Therefore, the sickness was leading him to a literal death while his sin was leading him to a metaphorical one. But, God’s power is infinite, and He dragged the psalmist away from sin and death.

Weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning

This is one of my favorite verses in the whole Bible. I also love Ecclesiastes 3 (“To everything there is a season…”). It has to do with the ever-changing, cyclical nature of the world. Here, too, God has the power to change things. Joy is the opposite of weeping; it gets turned backward from something negative to something positive, just like God pulled the psalmist from near-death to life.

You have turned for me my mourning into dancing

Again, God is turning mourning to its opposite, dancing. Mourning is the absolute saddest thing you can be doing, but dancing is just about the happiest. If you ever live in a town that bans dancing remember this—“And it was King David- King David, who we read about in Samuel. And what did David do? What did David do? What did David do? ‘David danced before the Lord with all his might leaping and dancing before the Lord.’” (I’m sorry, I just love this part of Footloose so much. It makes me giggle.)

O Lord my God, I will give thanks to You forever

Because God has this amazing power of turning things backward for us, we should give Him our praise and thanks. Sometimes it seems like situations just clear up on their own, but God always has a hand in it. So, next time you’re so happy that you break into spontaneous song and dance, just remember that God is the one who has the power to turn situations backward, from bad to good.