What profit is there in my blood, when I go down to the pit? Will the dust praise You? Will it declare Your truth? Hear, O Lord, and have mercy on me; Lord, be my helper! (Psalm 30:9-10)
In the beginning, God formed man from the dust of the earth and breathed the breath of life into him, transforming him from a mound of clay into a living soul. From then until now, the reason God granted any of us the breath of life is for the purpose of serving Him for however many years He has granted us. In that vein of thought, David makes the case for why the LORD should keep him alive in spite of the many attempts by others to end his life. In short, his logic dictates that one can only serve the LORD if he lives; in death a person is no longer able to do anything in service to the LORD — so David pleads, “Why not let me live a bit longer?”
This would seem to be the most literal interpretation of what David was expressing but, as if often the case, there might be a bit more to this that goes a little deeper. The Hebrew word translated as “my blood,” in Hebraic thinking, actually refers to the soul of man, i.e. “the life of all flesh is in the blood.” It seems obvious to me that God breathed life into a mound of dust in order to elevate the lowly dust to a much higher, more spiritual, purpose. Dust alone could not serve the greater purpose of God; in and of itself, dust could not praise God nor declare His truth to others. And so He breathed life (blood) into dust that, as a living soul, man could do much more than what grains of dirt could ever hope to do.
That brings us to this point: there are people who exist and there are people who live, and by “live” I mean, that which God determined when He transformed dust into a living soul. Let’s put it this way: if we live our lives for our own agenda and purpose — if we don’t strive for the higher purpose God intended — then what good was the life God breathed into us? I would argue that this describes those who merely exist as dust. And as David said, “Will the dust praise You? Will it declare Your truth?” On the other hand there are those, like David, who understand that this life is to be dedicated to God’s service, and as long as we are allowed to live, we should declare His truth; we should praise Him before all men.
And so, along with David, we cry out to the LORD for His mercy when we fail and for His help that we might attain the purpose for which we were created. May it be that when the time comes for us to “go down to the pit,” that the life He gave us was well spent in His service; and that the blood Messiah gave on our behalf was not in vain but profited us and our families.
Blessings and Shalom,
Bill
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