Psalm 31 - "Into Your Hands I Commit My Spirit"

What is the meaning of Psalm 31?                          Commentary by Dennis Edwards

A verse from Psalm 31 appears in Luke 23:46 when Jesus quotes, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.” But the entire psalm provides appropriate imagery for Jesus' passion. The psalm can be used and has been used as a prayer when suffering under unjust persecution.

During the persecution of the early Anabaptist, like the Swiss Brethren, the Amish, and the Mennonites, some 500 years ago in Europe, many people were martyred for their faith. One such martyr quoted Psalm 31 as he was burnt at the stake by other “Christians,” for his differing view on when baptism should occur. Some believed baptism should occur shortly after birth, while others believed it should only be done at the age of understanding. George of the House of Jacob, commonly known as George Blaurock, was a former Catholic priest. He wrote the following Hymn during the last three weeks of his life, before being burnt as a heretic.

“Lord God, how do I praise You, from hence and evermore, that real faith You did give me, by which I may know You. Forget me not, O Father, be near me evermore; By Your Spirit shield and teach me, that in afflictions great, Your comfort I may ever prove, and valiantly may obtain, the victory in this fight.”

Since Jesus’ last words, “Into Your hand I commit My spirit,” are found in Psalm 31, many of the commentators from the 1800s considered the psalm to be applicable to Jesus’ suffering during His passion. As we read it, we can visualize it as such, and it can be appropriate for any true believer suffering under religious persecution.

Psalm 31:1-3 In thee, O Lord, do I put my trust; let me never be ashamed: deliver me in Your righteousness. Bow down Your ear to me; deliver me speedily: be my strong rock, for a house of defence to save me. For You are my rock and my fortress; therefore, for Your name's sake lead me, and guide me.

Jesus is the Rock which the builders rejected that has become the chief cornerstone. However, Jesus Himself could have found comfort in the words of the psalm which can be applied to His suffering. He may have prayed or recited it Himself in the Garden of Gethsemane.

Psalm 31:4-5 Pull me out of the net that they have laid privily for me: for You are my strength. Into Your hand I commit my spirit: You have redeemed me, O Lord God of truth.

In Matthew 27:50, as Jesus died, we find, “…, when He had cried again with a loud voice, (He) yielded up the ghost.” Luke clarifies what the cry was in Luke 23:46, “And when Jesus had cried with a loud voice, he said, Father, into Your hands I commend My spirit: and having said thus, He gave up the ghost.”

Psalm 31:6-8 I have hated them that regard lying vanities: but I trust in the Lord. I will be glad and rejoice in Your mercy: for You have considered my trouble; You have known my soul in adversities; And have not shut me up into the hand of the enemy: You have set my feet in a large room.

We see the psalmist speaking faith and trusting God, praising God, in spite of the difficult situation he is facing. We find Jesus acting the same throughout His passion. Many Christian martyrs, as a result, have been able to follow Jesus’ example in their own time of trial.

Psalm 31:9 Have mercy upon me, O Lord, for I am in trouble: my eye is consumed with grief, yea, my soul and my belly.

We can visualize Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane using such words as we find in Psalm 31 and other such psalms as He sweat blood in prayer.

Luke 22:44-46 “And being in agony He prayed more earnestly: and His sweat was as it were great drops of blood falling to the ground. And when He rose up from prayer, He found them sleeping for sorrow, and said unto them, Why do you sleep? Rise and pray, lest you enter into temptation.”

Psalm 31:10 For my life is spent with grief, and my years with sighing: my strength fails because of my iniquity, and my bones are consumed.

Jesus was “despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from Him; He was despised, and we esteemed Him not. Surely, He has borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem Him stricken of God, and afflicted,” Isaiah 53:3-4.

Jesus, however, had no iniquity of His own. “But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon Him; and with His stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned everyone to his own way; and the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.” “For the transgressions of My people was He stricken,” Isaiah 53:5-6,8b.

Jesus Himself was without sin. Therefore, Jesus’ soul was the perfect offering for our sins, because His soul was sinless. God made Him bare or carry our sin. He bore our iniquities on the cross. Isaiah’s prophecy says, “God saw the travail of His soul and was satisfied.” For without the shedding of blood there can be no remission of sin, Hebrews 9:22. For it is the blood that makes atonement for the soul, Leviticus 17:11. (Animal sacrifice in the Old Testament were a foretelling of what Christ would do)

Jesus said at the last supper when he gave the cup for His disciples to drink that, “This is my blood of the New Testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins,” Matthew 26:28. We are cleansed from our sins through Jesus’ death on the cross to all those that believe. “For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous, Romans 5:19.  “For He (God) has made Him (Jesus) to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him”, 2 Corinthians 5:21. We that believe have put on Christ and are covered with His righteousness, the righteousness which is by faith, to those that believe, Romans 4.

However, during our own moments of testing, the Enemy will bring our sins before us and try to persuade us that God has abandoned us. He will tell us that our sins are too great to be forgiven, and therefore, we can’t procure God’s mercy. If we believe his lies, we will fall into despair. Jonah wrote, “They that observe (or believe) lying vanities (the Devil’s lies) forsake their own mercy,” Jonah 2:8.

Don’t listen to those lies. God’s mercy endures forever to those that seek for it. Be like Jonah and offer the sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving. Our salvation is of the Lord. We can’t do it in our own strength. We are not strong enough. Jesus has done it for us. All we have to do is believe and receive, and we shall be saved and have victory!

Psalm 31:11 I was a reproach among all my enemies, but especially among my neighbours, and a fear to my acquaintance: they that did see me without fled from me.

Again, we see with Jesus, His disciples fleeing and hiding in the face of His capture by the Jewish authorities. Peter denies he knows Jesus three times. Only the young Apostle John appears at the cross with the women at Jesus’ death.

Psalm 31:12 I am forgotten as a dead man out of mind: I am like a broken vessel.

In Psalm 22:14-15, we find the prophetic picture of Jesus on the cross.

“I am poured out like water, and all My bones are out of joint: My heart is like wax; it is melted in the midst of My bowels. My strength is dried up like a potsherd; and My tongue cleaves to My jaws; and You have brought Me into the dust of death.”

When suffering persecution, we can feel lost and disorientated, weak and discouraged. We can even lose faith.

Psalm 31:13 For I have heard the slander of many: fear was on every side: while they took counsel together against me, they devised to take away my life.

The Jewish leaders conspired against Jesus and had Him condemned to death by the secular Roman authorities.

Mark 11:18 “And the scribes and chief priests heard it, (that Jesus had cast the moneychangers out of the temple compound), and sought how they might destroy Him: for they feared Him, because all the people were astonished at His doctrine.”

Luke 20:19-20 “And the chief priests and the scribes the same hour sought to lay hands on him; and they feared the people: for they perceived that He had spoken this parable, (about the vineyard the wicked husbandmen), against them. And they watched Him, and sent forth spies, which should feign themselves just men, that they might take hold of His words, that so they might deliver Him unto the power and authority of the governor.”

After Jesus’ resurrection, Peter convicts the men in Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost: “Him (Jesus of Nazareth), being delivered by the determined counsel and fore-knowledge of God, you have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain,” Acts 2:23.

Psalm 31:14-15 But I trusted in You, O Lord: I said, You are my God. My times are in Your hand: deliver me from the hand of my enemies, and from them that persecute me.

Jesus may have prayed Psalm 31 in His moments of despair in the Garden of Gethsemane. Our times are also in God’s hands. Whether He delivers us from our enemies during the days of Great Tribulation, or not, we will follow our Christian predecessors, and Jesus’ example, and not deny our faith. We will commit our times and our lives into God’s hand, and let His will be done, rather than our own.

Psalm 31:16 Make Your face to shine upon Your servant: save me for Your mercies' sake.

God’s Holy Spirit will come and strengthen us, just as Jesus was strengthen by an angel in His moment of trial and affliction.

Luke 22:43 “And there appeared an angel from heaven, strengthening Him.”

When Stephen was brought before the council for questioning, which would end up in his death, “all that sat in the council, looking steadfastly on him, saw his face as it had been the face of an angel,” Acts 6:15. As the stoned Stephen, he called upon God, saying, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit, and lay not this sin to their charge,” Acts 7:59-60.

Psalm 31:17-18 Let me not be ashamed, O Lord; for I have called upon You: let the wicked be ashamed, and let them be silent in the grave. Let the lying lips be put to silence; which speak grievous things proudly and contemptuously against the righteous.

Jesus said, “For whosoever is ashamed of Me and of My words, of him shall the Son of man be ashamed, when He shall come in His own glory, and in His Father’s, and of the holy angels,” Luke 9:26.

Psalm 31:19 Oh how great is Your goodness, which You have laid up for them that fear You; which You have wrought for them that trust in You before the sons of men!

We can count of God’s faithfulness. “Whosoever therefore shall confess Me before men, him will I confess also before My father which is in heaven,” Matthew 10:32.

Psalm 31:20 You shall hide them in the secret of Your presence from the pride of man: You shall keep them secretly in a pavilion from the strife of tongues.

When Jesus is speaking to the churches in the book of Revelation, He promises a special blessing on those with little strength of their own, who keep His word, and do not deny His name, Revelation 3:8. He says to them,

Revelation 3:10 “Because you have  kept the word of My patience, I also will keep you from the hour of temptation, which shall come upon the world, to try them that dwell upon the earth.”

In another Psalm of David, we see a similar thought.

Psalm 27:5 “For in the time of trouble He shall hide me in His pavilion: in the secret of His tabernacle shall He hide me; He shall set me up upon a rock.”

Jesus Himself is that rock on which we are set. He will keep us from the “pride of man.”

One commentator translates “pride of man” as the “conspiracies of men.” The evil men who conspire against the just and true, and with their words they condemn them.

Jesus will keep us from the “strife of tongues,” which sounds similar to the “confusion of tongues,” which took place at Babel in Genesis 11. Today, we see Babel resurrected in Babylon the Whore of Revelation 17-18, the world-wide mercantile city system of the last days. God’s word admonishes,

Revelation 18:4b “Come out from her, my people, that you be not partakers of her sins, and that you receive not of her plagues.”

Psalm 31:21 Blessed be the Lord: for He has showed me His marvellous kindness in a strong city.

The “strong city” is the heavenly city, the holy city, New Jerusalem, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. That’s the city of God which awaits those that are faithful unto the end. 

Hebrews 11:16b “Wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God for He has prepared for them a city.

Revelation 21:2-3 “And I John saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride for her husband. And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people, and God Himself shall be with them, and be their God.”

Psalm 31:22 For I said in my haste, I am cut off from before Your eyes: nevertheless, You heard the voice of my supplications when I cried unto You.

Jesus was seemingly cut off from the land of the living. God did not save Him on the cross. Elijah did not appear and take Him down and rescue Him. However, in the Old Testament, we see that God was satisfied with the travail of Jesus’ soul, for He bore our iniquities and justified us before God, Isaiah 53:11. Even in seeming defeat, Jesus has gotten us the victory. In the New Testament we read,

1 John 3:8b “For this purpose was the Son of God manifested, that He might destroy the works of the devil.” “That through death He might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil. And deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage,” Hebrews 2:14b-15.

Psalm 31:23-24 O love the Lord, all you His saints: for the Lord preserves the faithful, and plentifully rewards the proud doer. Be of good courage, and He shall strengthen your heart, all you that hope in the Lord.

The psalmist admonishes us to keep the faith, to fight the good fight, to be of good courage, to faint not, to be strong. We can do all things through Christ Jesus who strengthens us. He is our blessed hope.

Titus 2:13-14 “Looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ; who gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto Himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works.”

Philippians 1:6 “Being confident of this very thing, that He that has begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ.”

1 Thessalonians 5:8-9 “But let us who are of the day, be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love; and for a helmet, the hope of salvation. For God has not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Hold on to your crown, beloved! “Behold, I come quickly: hold that fast which you have, that no man takes your crown.” “Be faithful unto death, and I will give you a crown of life.” Revelation 3:11, & 2:10b.