Psalms 25:16: “Turn thee unto me, and have mercy upon me; for I [am] desolate and afflicted.”
David is crying out to God because he is desolate. The word desolate is yachad. Curious but that second Yod makes this word an adjective, not a noun or verb. It means to be united, to be one, to be joined together as one. Hence it has the idea of solitude. In the ancient Persian it means the only one. It is followed by the word ‘ani which is rendered in the KJV as afflicted but actually means to be mentally depressed which is an affliction.
Depression is an old as the time itself. Many great men and women in history suffered from depression. In fact it was their depression that actually led them to accomplish some of the great things they did. Over one fourth of the Presidents of the United States were said to suffer from depression, even our greatest President Abraham Lincoln suffered from depression. He used to call it his hypo.
I am no psychologist but we all know there are many reasons for depression. Some of it is a chemical imbalance. Abraham Lincoln was taking a certain medication which has been proven to increase one’s depression rather than cure it. Some depression comes from just the circumstances of life, loss of a job, a friend, the death of someone close. Once circumstances change or new friendships are formed the depression leaves. Some depressions are spiritual and even demonic. It would be wrong to say that all depression springs from the same seed.
I believe that is why the author of this Psalm, whom I believe is David, makes yachad loneliness an adjective to modify ‘ani affliction or depression. He is giving the reason for his depression. It is not a chemical problem, it is not a demonic spirit it is a loneliness depression. As an adjective he is not saying that he is lonely and depressed but that he is depressed because he is lonely.
The word yachad describes this state of loneliness as a feeling of isolation, solitude. A feeling that no one understands what you are going through and all their advice only makes things worse. Many of know what loneliness is like, I don’t have to describe it to you. For me it can be physically painful. It can be waking up in the middle of the night crying. I remember as a youth leader I took a group of teenagers on a retreat. One teenager was just unable to mix. He was a foster child and the others shunned him because he was so backward. He tried to join in the group but he was always the odd one out, the square peg in the round hole. That night I heard a horrible scream. I ran out and found this young guy on the ground sobbing. I asked what was wrong and he said: “It is so lonely.” Loneliness can make you scream, it hurts, causes you to despair of life itself. Loneliness is a leading cause of suicide. Then when people try to be your friend it is because they pity you and that makes it even worse and you are on a downward spiral.
I believe this is what David was experiencing. If you have ever been lonely, I mean intensely lonely that it causes to be depressed, so depressed that you can hardly get out of bed in the morning and you don’t even have enough strength to brush your teeth. You have chest pains and find yourself hoping and praying you are having a heart attack, then you can understand the loneliness that David must have felt when he cried out to God in this Psalm.
His plea to God to relieve him and comfort Him in His loneliness was to ask God for two things, for God to turn to him and have mercy on him. Every translation except one says turn to me. The Hebrew uses the word panah which means to turn toward. It is the same word where we get the word for face or presence pani. In its Semitic root it is used to make one’s presence known. David is asking God not to turn to him or return to him, he knows God will never leave him nor forsake him, but at this moment what he needs is to feel the presence of God.
Secondly he asks for mercy or chanan in the Hebrew which is to be favorable to or accepting. In other words he just doesn’t want God show His presence but to show it in a way that he feels accepted, wanted and cared for. I know what that sweet presence of Jesus, that warm assurance in the middle of the night when I feel so lonely, I know what it means to be loved by Jesus and to no longer feel lonely.
Andre Crouch said it best in his song:
I’ve been to a lot of places
I’ve seen a lot of faces
Yet, there’s times I felt so all alone,
But in my lonely hours,
Yes, those precious lonely hours
Jesus lets me know that I am His own.
I heard Andre Crouch tell a story on television years ago how after a concert he went to his dressing room and wept out of loneliness. He cried out to God how he longed to have someone just tell him he was really doing God’s will and if he could just have someone rub his feet.
Suddenly there was a knock at his door and his manager said someone was trying to reach him; he had a song he wanted to share. Andre moaned, no he didn’t need another song writer pitching his song, but his manager insisted that it wasn’t like that, that maybe he should give this guy a few minutes. An elderly man walked in and said God wanted him to hear an old hymn that was written a hundred years earlier. He read the hymn which spoke of enduring great hardships for the sake of the Lord and to keep on enduring. Then the man said: “I have no idea why I am doing this, God just told me to do this.” He filled a pan of water and as he kept repeated over and over “I don’t know why, but God told me to do this.” He removed Andre’s shoes and socks and began to wash his feet.
I believe that is what David wanted in this Psalm, it is what I want when I cry out to God in loneliness, not to have my feet washed, but to just have some assurance that He does love me and although all my friends forsake me, He will never leave me nor forsake me.
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