What Does Psalm 73 Mean? — Spurgeon on Asaph’s Crisis of Faith
⏱ 15 min read
There is a quiet, slightly embarrassed grief inside a faithful Christian life that the Sunday-morning vocabulary has not given a good name to. The grief sits in the chest at half past three in the afternoon on a Tuesday in February — you have done the right things for twenty years, kept the small daily faithfulnesses, raised the children in the way they should go, served at the church, kept your marriage when easier women left theirs, prayed when the praying was hard, given when the giving cost something — and you look up at a life that has not, by any visible measure, prospered in the way the lives of the people who did none of those things have prospered, and a thought you would never say out loud surfaces in the back of your mind: did this cost too much? The neighbour who took the easier road has the easier life. The cousin who left the faith has the comfortable holidays. And you, on the slow road, are tired in a way they do not seem to be. That thought — that quiet, faintly jealous, faintly bitter thought — is the thought Psalm 73 names. It is the secret a faithful woman almost never says to anyone. Asaph said it. The Psalm exists because he said it. And the Psalm is the slow record of what he did with it.
This is the slow read. Charles Spurgeon’s Treasury of David devotes some of its most pastoral pages to Psalm 73 because he understood it as the Psalm of the believer’s hidden crisis — the one that does not announce itself at a prayer meeting because it would be too shameful, the one that runs quietly underneath a faithful exterior for years until it finally breaks the surface. The Everspring Bible Study Workbook for Women is the daily companion to this kind of slow reading, if you would like a place to take Psalm 73 after the article. For now, read slowly. We will walk the Psalm in three movements — the confession of envy, the turning in the sanctuary, and the closing surrender — and listen to Spurgeon at each.
(If the underlying problem is that the faith itself feels structurally weak in a way Psalm 73 has surfaced, Spurgeon’s counsel on how to strengthen faith when it is weak is the practical companion. If the question is whether the thinking underneath the crisis is even allowed, Augustine on faith seeking understanding walks the older permission. And if the question is whether the faithful works of the slow road have been wasted, Wesley’s reading of James is the older theology of the works the Psalm is mourning the cost of.)
What does Psalm 73 mean — the structure of the secret crisis
The Psalm opens with a defensive line. Truly God is good to Israel, even to such as are of a clean heart. Spurgeon notices the word truly. Asaph begins by insisting on something he is, by verse two, about to admit he had nearly stopped believing. But as for me, my feet were almost gone; my steps had well nigh slipped. The whole Psalm is the slow walking-back from the brink the second verse names — the brink of nearly losing faith because the wicked seemed to be doing better than the righteous, and the wages of faithfulness seemed, on a tired Tuesday, to be smaller than the wages of compromise.
The structure of Psalm 73 is the structure of the crisis itself. Verses one to three: the opening admission. Verses four to twelve: the catalogue of what the wicked seem to enjoy (peace in death, no troubles in life, pride as a chain, eyes standing out with fatness — Asaph is precise and slightly bitter). Verses thirteen and fourteen: the therefore — Verily I have cleansed my heart in vain, and washed my hands in innocency. For all the day long have I been plagued, and chastened every morning. The naked confession that the faith may have cost more than it has paid. Verses fifteen to seventeen: the until — until I went into the sanctuary of God; then understood I their end. The turning. Verses eighteen to twenty-eight: the slow understanding that arrives in the sanctuary, ending in one of the most quietly resolved confessions in the whole Psalter — Whom have I in heaven but thee? and there is none upon earth that I desire beside thee.
This is the architecture. The Psalm does not pretend the crisis is small. It walks the crisis all the way through. And the resolution is not a tidying-up of the original problem. The resolution is a changed soul that has been into the sanctuary and come out with the same circumstances and a different orientation toward them.
The first movement — my feet were almost gone
“I was sitting, the other night, meditating on God’s mercy and love, when suddenly I found in my own heart a most delightful sense of perfect peace.”
— Charles Spurgeon, Till He Come
Read it once. Then read it slowly, with the question Asaph is bringing held in your other hand.
Spurgeon is naming the resolution of Psalm 73 in his own quiet vocabulary, but the resolution arrived for him in the same chair Asaph eventually arrived at — the sanctuary, the slow evening sitting with the One whose mercy and love is what the wicked do not have access to and the faithful, finally, do. The peace Spurgeon describes is not the peace of having all the circumstances resolved. It is the peace of having been in the room with Him long enough that the soul has been quietly reordered.
The honest beginning of Psalm 73 is the part the modern Christian woman has often refused to write down. She has been brought up to believe that the jealousy of the wicked is a sin to be repented of, not a feeling to be brought to the page. The Psalm gently corrects her. Asaph wrote the jealousy down. The Psalm exists because he refused to hide the almost gone under a more pious surface. The faith was preserved precisely by being honest about the crisis. The crisis, named on the page, became the door into the sanctuary. Suppressed, the crisis would have remained underground and would, over years, have slowly carried the feet all the way away.
This matters. The Christian woman who is afraid to write down the bitter sentence is the Christian woman whose feet are most at risk of going. The sentence held in is the sentence that erodes the foundations. The sentence named — to herself, to a paper, to Him — is the sentence that opens the door into the sanctuary where it will, slowly, be answered.
My feet were almost gone; my steps had well nigh slipped. Spurgeon notes that Asaph uses the language of near-misses. The faith was not actually lost. The feet were almost gone. The slip was nearly complete. The whole Psalm is the slow walking-back from a brink the believer must have actually stood at, body trembling, to be able to describe with this precision. This is the consolation in the opening of Psalm 73 — the brink is named honestly by a man who did not, in the end, go over it. The brink is survivable. The slip can be walked back from. The Psalm exists because Asaph did walk back from it, slowly, into the sanctuary.
For the modern Christian woman, this is the part that quiets the small frantic question of is my faith failing. Sometimes the feet are almost gone. Sometimes the steps have well nigh slipped. The almost-gone is not the same as gone. The well-nigh is not the same as completed. The Psalm is the record of a faith that was at the brink and was, by grace, walked back from it — and the walking-back is what the next twenty verses describe.
The second movement — until I went into the sanctuary
“He is so prolific of grace, that like the sun which shines as it rolls onward in its orbit, his path is radiant with lovingkindness. He is a swift arrow of love, which not only reaches its ordained target, but perfumes the air through which it flies. Virtue is evermore going out of Jesus, as sweet odours exhale from flowers; and it always will be emanating from him, as water from a sparkling fountain. What delightful encouragement this truth affords us. If our Lord is so ready to heal the sick and bless the needy, then, my soul, be not thou slow to put thyself in his way, that he may smile on thee.”
— Charles Spurgeon, Morning and Evening
Read this one twice, slowly.
The turning of Psalm 73 happens in verse seventeen. Until I went into the sanctuary of God; then understood I their end. The verse is the hinge. Up to verse sixteen the Psalm is dominated by what the wicked enjoy. From verse seventeen on, the Psalm is dominated by what the faithful possess. Nothing in the external circumstances has changed. The wicked are still apparently prospering. Asaph is still on the slow road. The change is interior — and the change happened in the sanctuary.
Spurgeon’s image of virtue evermore going out of Jesus is the same theology the sanctuary verse names. The sanctuary is not a magical room. The sanctuary is the place where the grace that is evermore emanating is received by the soul that has put itself in its way. Asaph went into the sanctuary, and the grace that had been emanating the whole time he was outside it finally reached him — and the understanding of verse seventeen is the slow interior reordering that happens to a soul that has been still long enough to receive what was already in the room.
Then understood I their end. The understanding is not a triumphant gotcha over the wicked. It is the slow recognition that the end of the wicked is not what their middle suggests. The Christian who is on the slow road sees, in the sanctuary, that the apparent prosperity of the easier road is a partial picture — the middle of a story whose ending Asaph could not see from outside the sanctuary. Inside the sanctuary, with the longer view that the light of the heart affords, the catalogue of verses four to twelve is suddenly read in a different key. The peace in death of the wicked is not the same as the peace of the kept soul. The pride as a chain is not the same as the dignity of the saved. The fatness of the eyes is not the same as the gladness of the heart of one continually with Thee.
This is the part the modern Christian woman has often missed because she has been trying to think her way out of the crisis. The crisis is not solved by thinking harder. The crisis is solved by going into the sanctuary. Spurgeon’s be not thou slow to put thyself in his way is the same instruction. The grace is emanating. The understanding is in the room. Your job is not to manufacture the resolution. Your job is to get into the room. The five minutes in the chair tonight. The verse read slowly before the phone. The half-page in the workbook before bed. These are the daily entering of the sanctuary — not the building, but the interior sanctuary the modern Christian woman can step into in the chair at the kitchen table when the household is asleep.
The slow somatic the Psalm asks for
Pause for a moment, here in the middle of the Psalm. The teaching has a body to it, and the body is where until I went into the sanctuary becomes translatable into a real Tuesday afternoon.
Sit somewhere quiet. Place both hands, lightly, on the chest — one palm flat over the breastbone, the other resting on top of it. Feel the small weight of your own hands. The jealous, bitter thoughts that the Psalm names tend to gather in the body just under that breastbone, in the slight tightness of the upper chest. Take one slow inhale. On the exhale, let the chest under your palms drop by a small amount — not by trying to relax, but by letting the small ongoing effort to hold yourself up be released. Notice if anything loosens beneath the hands. Stay there for a slow count of five. The jealousy does not have to leave. It just has to be held — by the hands, by the breath, by the sanctuary the body is making for itself in this small minute.
That small holding, repeated once a day for a week, is the body’s version of until I went into the sanctuary. The body that holds itself in the bitter chest is the body still outside the sanctuary. The body that lets the chest drop under the held hands is the body that has stepped into it. Psalm 73 is not asking you to feel less bitter. It is asking you to bring the bitterness into the sanctuary with you — and to discover, in the bringing, that the bitterness loosens its grip when it is no longer being suppressed.
The Everspring Bible Study Workbook for Women is built around this kind of small daily settling into a single Psalm. One short passage. Room for the honest sentence — the almost gone sentence, the bitter sentence, the sentence Asaph wrote down. The workbook does not demand more than a tired woman can bring on a slow Tuesday. It is the daily entering of the sanctuary — the chair, the verse, the hands on the chest, the slow letting-down into the interior room where the grace that is evermore going out can find the soul that has put itself in its way.
The third movement — whom have I in heaven but thee
“‘Come, then, my Lord, and give me Thy love with Thy grace.’ Take good heed, Christian, that thine own heart is in right tune, that when the fingers of mercy touch the strings, they may resound with full notes of communion.”
— Charles Spurgeon, Till He Come
Read it slowly. Twice.
The end of Psalm 73 is one of the great closings of the Psalter. Nevertheless I am continually with thee: thou hast holden me by my right hand. Thou shalt guide me with thy counsel, and afterward receive me to glory. Whom have I in heaven but thee? and there is none upon earth that I desire beside thee. The Psalm that opened with the almost gone closes with the continually with thee. The crisis has been walked through. The sanctuary has done its work. And the man who, at verse two, was nearly slipping is, at verse twenty-three, held by his right hand.
The word nevertheless in verse twenty-three is one of the most loaded words in the Hebrew Bible. Nevertheless — in spite of the catalogue, in spite of the bitterness, in spite of the plagued every morning, in spite of all of it — I am continually with thee. The continually-with-thee was true the whole Psalm. Asaph did not become continually with thee in verse seventeen. He realised he had been continually with thee the whole time. The sanctuary did not give him a new God. The sanctuary gave him the recognition of the God who had been holding his right hand even at the brink.
Spurgeon’s image of the heart in tune holds the closing of the Psalm. The fingers of mercy touch the strings. The soul that has come through the crisis and arrived at the whom have I in heaven but thee is the soul whose heart is, finally, in tune for the mercy that has been operating the whole time. The crisis itself was the tuning — the slow, painful adjustment of the strings that the easier road would never have required, but that the slow road has, by grace, produced.
Whom have I in heaven but thee, and there is none upon earth that I desire beside thee. This is not the resolution of a man who has been given the wicked’s comforts in addition to his faith. This is the resolution of a man who has been into the sanctuary and emerged with the understanding that the comforts the wicked have are not, in fact, the thing he wanted. He wanted thee. He wanted continually with thee. He wanted the held right hand. The bitter catalogue of verses four to twelve has been quietly displaced not by an argument but by a recognition — that the only thing in heaven or on earth that he ultimately desires is the One who has been holding him.
What does Psalm 73 mean for the woman whose feet are almost gone. It means write the bitterness down. Go into the sanctuary — the chair, the small room, the five quiet minutes — and bring the bitterness with you. Stay there long enough for the grace that is evermore going out to find the soul that has put itself in its way. The understanding will come. Not as an argument. As a recognition. Nevertheless I am continually with thee. The hand has been holding you the whole time the bitterness was running underneath the surface. The sanctuary is the room where the recognition becomes available.
A year of slow Psalm 73 will not change the circumstances that started the crisis. The neighbour will still have the easier holidays. The cousin will still have the comfortable life. The slow road will still cost what it costs. What changes is the interior weather in which the catalogue is read — the chest that drops under the held hands, the nevertheless that surfaces unbidden in the kitchen at half past three, the slow recognition that the continually with thee has been the actual currency of the slow road the whole time, and the wicked’s apparent prosperity is, in the longer view the sanctuary affords, the thinner gift after all.
The boat is anchored. The waves of bitterness still come. The Psalm does not promise no waves. It promises a held right hand underneath the waves — and a sanctuary you can enter, today, in the chair, where the holding becomes available to be felt again.
(The other slow reads in this Spurgeon series sit at Psalm 23 — Spurgeon’s Treasury walk and Psalm 91 — Spurgeon on the shelter of the Most High.)
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A daily home for the practice
The slow practice we just walked has its 140-day form in Bible Study Workbook for Women. Each day, a short passage and room for the honest sentence — the small daily anchor that holds the bitter heart in the sanctuary until the nevertheless surfaces of its own accord.
The Everspring Bible Study Workbook for Women carries Spurgeon’s slow vocabulary — the almost-gone feet, the sanctuary that re-orders the catalogue, the held right hand of the continually with thee — into a daily companion built for the woman whose secret jealousy is ready, at last, to be brought into the room where it can quietly be answered.
