Psalm 119:25 NKJV
25
My soul clings to the dust;
Revive me according to Your word.
My Thoughts
When David speaks of his soul “clings to the dust”, the first thought goes to being near death, but after reflecting on this, could it be that he was speaking of the sin that clings to us from being in a fallen world? The dust that drags us down if we don’t stay in communication with God through seeking him in His word, meditating on His word, and depending on the Holy Spirit to lead and guide us through the valleys?
In Psalm 119:25, David expresses a profound sense of despair and spiritual need, feeling as though his soul is clinging to the dust, symbolizing mourning, humiliation, and a state close to death. He seeks revival, pleading for God to “quicken” him according to His word, indicating that spiritual renewal (quickening) comes through divine intervention of seeking God in His Word. Commentaries emphasize the theme of seeking life and strength from God amid earthly distractions and the significance of God’s word in rejuvenating the soul.
Note: Psalm 119 is an acrostic pattern. There are 22 letters in the Hebrew alphabet; each of the 22 sections is given a letter of the Hebrew alphabet, and each line in that section begins with that letter. Today, we’re looking at verse 25, which is in the 4th section, which is called ד DALETH. According to the hebrews4christians.com website, the letter Daleth is the 4th letter of the Aleph-Bet, having the numeric value of four. The pictograph for Dalet looks something like a closed (hanging) tent door. The bent shape of the valet symbolizes a needy person who is bent over; the meaning of the word Daleth is poor or impoverished, and it represents the lowliness of possessing nothing of one’s own. As a door, Daleth also symbolically represents the choice to open ourselves to the hope of our dreams or to remain closed off and alienated.
…..Bill
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Commentaries:
Matthew Henry
I. David’s complaint. We should have thought his soul soaring to heaven, but he says himself, My soul not only rolls in the dust, but cleaves to the dust, which is a complaint either,
1. Of his corruptions, his inclination to the world and the body (both which are dust), and that which follows upon it, a deadness to holy duties. When he would do good evil was present with him. God intimated that Adam was not only mortal, but sinful, when he said, Dust thou art, Gen. 3:19. David’s complaint here is like St. Paul’s of a body of death that he carried about with him. The remainders of in-dwelling corruption are a very grievous burden to a gracious soul. Or,
2. Of his afflictions, either trouble of mind or outward trouble. Without were fightings, within were fears, and both together brought him even to the dust of death (Ps. 22:15), and his soul clave inseparably to it.
II. His petition for relief, and his plea to enforce that petition: “Quicken thou me according to thy word. By thy providence put life into my affairs, by thy grace put life into my affections; cure me of my spiritual deadness and make me lively in my devotion.” Note, When we find ourselves dull we must go to God and beg of him to quicken us; he has an eye to God’s word as a means of quickening (for the words which God speaks, they are spirit and they are life to those that receive them), and as an encouragement to hope that God would quicken him, having promised grace and comfort to all the saints, and to David in particular. God’s word must be our guide and plea in every prayer.
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Charles Spurgeon
“My soul cleaveth unto the dust.” He means in part that he was full of sorrow; for mourners in the east cast dust on their heads, and sat in ashes, and the Psalmist felt as if these ensigns of woe were glued to him, and his very soul was made to cleave to them because of his powerlessness to rise above his grief. Does he not also mean that he felt ready to die? Did he not feel his life absorbed and fast held by the grave’s mould, half choked by the death dust? It may not be straining the language if we conceive that he also felt and bemoaned his earthly-mindedness and spiritual deadness. There was a tendency in his soul to cling to earth, which he greatly bewailed. Whatever was the cause of his complaint, it was no surface evil, but an affair of his inmost spirit; his soul cleaved to the dust; and it was not a casual and accidental falling into the dust, but a continuous and powerful tendency, or cleaving to the earth. But what a mercy that the good man could feel and deplore whatever there was of evil in the cleaving! The serpent’s seed can find their meat in the dust, but never shall the seed of the woman be thus degraded. Many are of the earth, earthy, and never lament it; only the heaven-born and heaven-soaring spirit pines at the thought of being fastened to this world, and bird limed by its sorrows or its pleasures.
“Quicken thou me according to thy word.” More life is the cure for all our ailments. Only the Lord can give it. He can bestow it, bestow it at once, and do it according to his word, without departing from the usual course of his grace, as we see it mapped out in the Scriptures. It is well to know what to pray for,—David seeks quickening: one would have thought that he would have asked for comfort or upraising, but he knew that these would come out of increased life, and therefore he sought that blessing which is the root of the rest. When a person is depressed in spirit, weak, and bent towards the ground, the main thing is to increase his stamina and put more life into him; then his spirit revives, and his body becomes erect. In reviving the life, the whole man is renewed. Shaking off the dust is a little thing by itself, but when it follows upon quickening, it is a blessing of the greatest value; just as good spirits which flow from established health are among the choicest of our mercies. The phrase, “according to thy word,” means—according to thy revealed way of quickening thy saints. The word of God shows us that he who first made us must keep us alive, and it tells us of the Spirit of God who, through the ordinances, pours fresh life into our souls; we beg the Lord to act towards us in this, his own regular method of grace. Perhaps David remembered the word of the Lord in Deu 32:39, where Jehovah claims both to kill and to make alive, and he beseeches the Lord to exercise that life-giving power upon his almost expiring servant. Certainly, the man of God had not so many rich promises to rest upon as we have, but even a single word was enough for him, and he right earnestly urges “according to thy word.” It is a grand thing to see a believer in the dust and yet pleading the promise, a man at the grave’s mouth crying, “quicken me,” and hoping that it shall be done.
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Enduring Word
My soul clings to the dust: The psalmist used a strong image to say that he felt near death in his current crisis; dust was the place of death, the place of mourning, and the place of humiliation.
Revive me according to Your word: From this low place, the prayer for revival came. The psalmist asked for life and vitality to be restored, and he asked that it happen according to Your word.
Revival comes from a sense of spiritual need and lowliness. True revival – in the Biblical and historical sense – is marked by a shamed awareness of sin and an urgency to confess and make things right (mentioned in Psalm 119:26).
According to Your word shows us that God uses His word in bringing revival. Works that claim to be revival can be measured according to His word.
(David Guzik)
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Albert Barnes
My soul cleaveth unto the dust – This commences a new division of the psalm, in which each verse begins with the “fourth” letter of the Hebrew alphabet – Daleth (ד d), equivalent to the English “d.” There is nothing in the sense to separate it from the other parts of the psalm. The word rendered “cleaveth” means to be glued to; to stick fast. It has the sense of adhering firmly to anything, so that it cannot easily be separated from it. Compare the notes at Psalms 63:8. The word “dust” here may mean either the earth, and earthly things, considered as low, base, unworthy, worldly; or it may mean the grave, as if he were near to that, and in danger of dying. DeWette understands it in the latter sense. Compare Psalms 44:25; Psalms 22:29. Yet the word cleave would hardly suggest this idea; and the force of that word would be better represented by the idea that his soul, as it were, adhered to the things of earth; that it seemed to be so fastened to them – so glued to them – that it could not be detached from them; that his affections were low, earthly, groveling, so as to give him deep distress, and to lead him to cry to God for life and strength that he might break away from them. This expresses what is often felt by good people, and thus presents one of the forms of religious experience. Compare Romans 7:14-15.
Quicken thou me – Cause me to live; give me vigor and strength to break away from this which binds me fast, and to rise above these low propensities.
According to thy word – That is, either according to thy promises made to thy people to aid them when they are in distress; or, according to the principles of thy word, that I may live as thy word requires. Who has not found his soul so cleaving to dust-to earth-to worldly things-as to feel himself degraded by it, and to lead him to cry out with earnestness that God would give him strength, life, vigor, that his soul might rise to better things?
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John Gill
DALETH. My soul cleaveth unto the dust,…. Either to the dust of death, having the sentence of it; being almost in despair of life, upon the brink of the grave seemingly, and free among the dead: or in a very low estate of mind, in great dejection and humiliation, rolling himself in the dust, and putting his mouth in it; if there might be any hope of deliverance; but despairing of it, unless the Lord appeared; or finding a proneness in him to the corruption of nature, the body of sin and death, which was very powerful and prevalent, ensnaring and captivating; and particularly to worldly things, comparable to dust, for their lightness, emptiness, and unprofitableness; which often have an undue influence on good men, and to which their affections are too much glued; and which greatly affect the exercise of grace and religious duties, and bring a deadness upon the soul, and make the following: petition necessary:
quicken thou me according to thy word; such who are quickened together with Christ, and who are quickened by his Spirit and grace, when they were dead in trespasses and sins, have often need to be quickened again, and to have the work of grace revived in them; which is done when grace is drawn forth into lively exercise, and which is necessary to the performance of duty; and this is done both by means of the word of God, which, as it is used for the quickening dead sinners, so for the reviving of drooping saints; see Psalm 119:50. And according to his word of promise, who has promised never to leave his people, nor forsake the work of his hand, but perform it until the day of Christ; Jarchi and Kimchi think reference is had to the promise in 2 Samuel 12:13; and Aben Ezra to Deuteronomy 32:39.
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Miscellaneous Quotes
“My soul cleaveth unto the dust.” The Hebrew word for “cleaveth” signifies “is joined,” “has adhered,” “has overtaken, “has taken hold,” “has joined itself.” Our soul is a polypus: as the polypus readily adheres to the rocks, so does the soul cleave to the earth; and hardly can it be torn from the place to which it has once strongly attached itself. Though thy soul be now more perfect, and escaping from the waters of sin has become a bird of heaven, be not careless; earthly things are birdlime and glue; if you rub the wings against these thou wilt be held, and joined to the earth.—Thomas Le Blanc.
“Quicken thou me.” This phrase occurs nine times, and only in this Psalm. It is of great importance, as it expresses the spiritual change by which a child of Adam becomes a child of God. Its source is God; the instrument by which it is effected is the word, Psa 119:50.—James G. Murphy.
“Quicken thou me according to thy word.” By thy providence put life into my affairs, by thy grace put life into my affections; cure me of my spiritual deadness, and make me lively in my devotion.—Matthew Henry.
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Cross-References
Psalm 119:37 (KJV )
37 Turn away mine eyes from beholding vanity;
And quicken thou me in thy way.
Psalm 119:149 (KJV )
149 Hear my voice according unto thy lovingkindness:
O Lord, quicken me according to thy judgment.
Psalm 119:154 (KJV )
154 Plead my cause, and deliver me:
Quicken me according to thy word.
Psalm 119:93 (KJV )
93 I will never forget thy precepts:
For with them thou hast quickened me.
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Closing Thoughts
“To you, O men, I call, And my voice is to the sons of men. O you simple ones, understand prudence, And you fools, be of an understanding heart. Listen, for I will speak of excellent things, And from the opening of my lips will come right things; For my mouth will speak truth; Wickedness is an abomination to my lips. All the words of my mouth are with righteousness; Nothing crooked or perverse is in them. They are all plain to him who understands, And right to those who find knowledge. Receive my instruction, and not silver, And knowledge rather than choice gold; For wisdom is better than rubies, And all the things one may desire cannot be compared with her. Proverbs 8:4-11 NKJV
ד DALETH – Speaks of Devoted, Determination and Dependence upon.
25
My soul clings to the dust;
Revive me according to Your word.
26
I have declared my ways, and You answered me;
Teach me Your statutes.
27
Make me understand the way of Your precepts;
So shall I meditate on Your wonderful works.
28
My soul melts from heaviness;
Strengthen me according to Your word.
29
Remove from me the way of lying,
And grant me Your law graciously.
30
I have chosen the way of truth;
Your judgments I have laid before me.
31
I cling to Your testimonies;
O Lord, do not put me to shame!
32
I will run the course of Your commandments,
For You shall enlarge my heart.
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