As we were singing hymns last Sabbath, the words taken from Psalm 139 struck me more powerfully than they usually do. Psalm 139:7-8 reads, “Where can I go from Your Spirit? Or where can I flee from Your presence? If I ascend into heaven, You are there; If I make my bed in hell, behold, You are there.” What particularly stood out to me was the statement about making a bed in “hell”, as translated in the New King James Version. What is this about? Certainly, the worldly perception of hell being a state of perpetual torture for sinners is not what David refers to, because such a place doesn’t exist. The word used here for “hell” is “Sheol”, a place that references death and the grave. Considering this more nuanced translation, this passage becomes richer in meaning and application in our own lives.
David wrote this psalm to express the wide spectrum of emotion and state of mind that he experienced. As he found himself occasionally elated, as if up to the heights of heaven, he also experienced times so low that it felt like death. Making a bed in the grave describes being in an emotional state void of hope, seeing no escape. In such a place, it feels that death is the only thing that remains. Yet even in this state, David reminds us all that God is there with us.
Jonah too experienced such overwhelming despair when the giant fish swallowed him up that he expressed his condition using the same kind of figurative language. “Then Jonah prayed to the LORD his God from the fish’s belly. And he said: ‘I cried out to the LORD because of my affliction, And He answered me. ‘Out of the belly of Sheol I cried, And You heard my voice’” (Jonah 2:1-2). If a giant fish swallowed me, I too would feel that I had met my final demise! But he doesn’t give up. In the face of what seems to be imminent death, Jonah prayed to God and found Him there to listen.
In the Psalm referenced above, David reminds us that God is always with us, especially when we feel that we are in the deep pit of despair. He knows what we experience. He is always there to give us hope, help, and peace.
I find this to be particularly powerful when considering the kinds of difficult tests and challenges life inevitably brings. We don’t have to worry about being stranded in troubling circumstances because God is right there next to us. He wants to help us. He promises never to forsake us. We can feel emboldened as we face the road of life ahead of us, knowing that we always have Him to guide us in whatever it is that we will experience. The hard times, the good times, and everything in between are times that God shares with us.