We don’t know a lot about the author of this psalm, but what we do know is that his name, Heman, means “faithful” which is so fitting and assuring after reading what he is experiencing. This song was sung by the sons of Korah to the assembly of the Israelites, which, when you read it, makes you think “not quite the modern day worship song.”
Heman lays it out before God - all his troubles, his feelings of isolation and abandonment, his despair and calls out to God the likes of “You did this!” - “You have put me in the depths of the pit”, “You overwhelm me with all your waves”, “You have caused my companions to shun me…” How can Heman lament his agony to the very same person who causes it?
Verse 1 starts with “O Lord, God of my salvation…” Heman knew the story of his people. God’s faithfulness in bringing them out of Egypt. In Exodus 6, God says to Moses, “Moreover, I have heard the groaning of the people of Israel whom the Egyptians hold as slaves, and I have remembered my covenant. Say therefore to the people of Israel, ‘I am the Lord, and I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians, and I will deliver you from slavery to them, and I will redeem you with an outstretched arm and with great acts of judgment. I will take you to be my people, and I will be your God, and you shall know that I am the Lord your God, who has brought you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians.” (v.5-7)
The simple answer is that he, and all the Israelites that sung this together, could lament to God their sorrow, because this same God, the Lord, showed faithful in his promise of redemption. But what about those Israelites in Exodus who had not yet seen redemption happen - how did they respond to Moses when he told them what God was going to do? “They did not listen to Moses, because of their broken spirit and harsh slavery” (v.9). They were so engrossed in their immediate and real despair that the good news of hope and salvation fell on deaf ears. How often this happens still in our own lives. Do we come openly to the Lord with our struggles, because of our hope of salvation or do we close ourselves off to Him because what’s going on now is too hard and too harsh?
Christ, in his flesh, experienced extreme sorrow and sympathizes with our weakness. In Hebrews 5, we read “In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to him who was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverence. Although he was a son, he learned obedience through what he suffered. And being made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him…” (Hebrews 5:7-10).
Stop and think for a moment: Christ, who is our salvation, still learned obedience and he learned it through what he suffered. I pray that we, too, learn obedience through our suffering just like Christ so that we may also “share in his glory” (Romans 8:17). In the words of the writer of Hebrews, “Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need” (Hebrews 4:16).
-Dana Holtkamp