By Jeremy Bell
I am going to share my personal study on Psalm 116 using groupings from my motif analysis. I have taken these groupings of the Psalm and put them together. So, the entirety of the Psalm will be posted, but these groupings will present the text in a different order. Groupings are color coded in my book, Psalms in Motif Visualization.
Robert Robinson
Robert Robinson was a preacher, a theologian, and hymn writer. He was born in 1735 in Norfolk. While still a boy his father died, and his mother raised him in poverty. Though he was inclined to books and reading, he started the course to become a barber as that was all he could afford. While hanging out with his friends, getting drunk, and getting a fortune telling lady drunk, she told him a fortune. It was that he would live to see his children and grandchildren. This drove him to consider his future and he became a bigger reader. He began to interact with preachers and heard George Whitfield preach ‘The Wrath to Come’. He was so moved and driven; he became a believer in Christ Jesus by age 20.
Robert Robinson began preaching. During his life he preached for the Methodists, Independents, and Baptists. He authored many documents that were published. But likely the most long-lasting and likely popular thing he wrote was the hymn, Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing.
Come, Thou Fount of every blessing,
Tune my heart to sing Thy grace;
Streams of mercy, never ceasing,
Call for songs of loudest praise.
Teach me some melodious sonnet,
Sung by flaming tongues above.
Praise the mount, I’m fixed upon it,
Mount of Thy redeeming love.
This first verse reminds me of the covenant of God. God told Abraham, ‘I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse, and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you’. This is a fount of blessing from a gracious God. Abraham did nothing for this blessing, He simply trusted God to deliver. Most of us likely don’t imagine Abraham singing about it. He might have, but usually we think of David.
Here’s what God told David, ‘The Lord declares to you that the Lord himself will establish a house for you: When your days are over and you rest with your ancestors, I will raise up your offspring to succeed you, your own flesh and blood, and I will establish his kingdom. He is the one who will build a house for my Name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. I will be his father, and he will be my son. When he does wrong, I will punish him with a rod wielded by men, with floggings inflicted by human hands. But my love will never be taken away from him, as I took it away from Saul, whom I removed from before you. Your house and your kingdom will endure forever before me; your throne will be established forever.’
More from Robert Robinson
Sorrowing I shall be in spirit,
Till released from flesh and sin,
Yet from what I do inherit,
Here Thy praises I’ll begin;
Here I raise my Ebenezer;
Here by Thy great help I’ve come;
And I hope, by Thy good pleasure,
Safely to arrive at home.
As much as we can hear music in David’s Psalms, we can hear David’s’ voice in this next verse. God made a vow to David after some big sins. Sins that included murder and adultery. But David trusted in God for his forgiveness and salvation and believed Him. It wasn’t that David could keep the vows he made to his God; it was that His God could keep the vows He made to David.
Jesus sought me when a stranger,
Wandering from the fold of God;
He, to rescue me from danger,
Interposed His precious blood;
How His kindness yet pursues me
Mortal tongue can never tell,
Clothed in flesh, till death shall loose me
I cannot proclaim it well.
Robert Robinson, Abraham, and David knew God. This is because God called them while they were sinners, while they were strangers. They responded and ran to hide under His wings. They were compelled to tell others about the God the loved. And God used them, saving them from many dangers, even death, separated from Him for eternity. They also knew they had daily promptings to defy God, mistrusting Him, and pursuing a path that would leave them empty and hopeless. They practiced remembering that God hears and delivers.
O to grace how great a debtor
Daily I’m constrained to be!
Let Thy goodness, like a fetter,
Bind my wandering heart to Thee.
Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,
Prone to leave the God I love;
Here’s my heart, O take and seal it,
Seal it for Thy courts above.
If God has sealed the heart, by a persons’ faith in His son Jesus, vows are unbroken. Jesus lived, died, and lives again because of the constant breaking of vows committed by people. His blood covers the stains of those broken vows when people repent and put their faith and trust in Him. Like Abraham and David did. Like Robert Robinson did.
O that day when freed from sinning,
I shall see Thy lovely face;
Clothèd then in blood washed linen
How I’ll sing Thy sovereign grace;
Come, my Lord, no longer tarry,
Take my ransomed soul away;
Send thine angels now to carry
Me to realms of endless day.
When I post for Audio Visualization, my goal is to highlight the patterns and intent over strict translation. I have recognized motif patterns and regrouped the motifs together. I hope it gives fresh encouragement, but I strongly recommend the Psalm to be read as is for proper understanding. Psalm 2, in motif audio visualization:
[ Psalm 116 ]
Grouping A
I love Yahweh, because he listens to my voice,
and my cries for mercy.
Because he has turned his ear to me,
therefore I will call on him as long as I live.
Yahweh is gracious and righteous.
Yes, our God is merciful.
Yahweh preserves the simple.
I was brought low, and he saved me.
Grouping B
The cords of death surrounded me,
the pains of Sheol got a hold of me.
I found trouble and sorrow.
Then I called on Yahweh’s name:
“Yahweh, I beg you, deliver my soul.”
Return to your rest, my soul,
for Yahweh has dealt bountifully with you.
For you have delivered my soul from death,
my eyes from tears,
and my feet from falling.
I will walk before Yahweh in the land of the living.
What will I give to Yahweh for all his benefits toward me?
I will take the cup of salvation, and call on Yahweh’s name.
Precious in Yahweh’s sight is the death of his saints.
Yahweh, truly I am your servant.
I am your servant, the son of your servant girl.
You have freed me from my chains.
I will offer to you the sacrifice of thanksgiving,
and will call on Yahweh’s name.
Grouping C
I will pay my vows to Yahweh,
yes, in the presence of all his people.
I will pay my vows to Yahweh,
yes, in the presence of all his people,
in the courts of Yahweh’s house,
in the middle of you, Jerusalem.
Praise Yah!
Grouping D
I believed, therefore I said,
“I was greatly afflicted.”
I said in my haste,
“All people are liars.”
Unfaithful
Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it,
Prone to leave the God I love;
Robert Robinson did live a long life. He wandered away from the Baptists, the Methodists, the Independents, and began to entertain the ideas of Unitarianism. The problem of wandering was not that he wandered from denominations, the problem was his movement away from personal relationship with God. Unitarians believe that Jesus was inspired by God in his moral teachings and that he is a savior, but not divine. Besides obvious and serious problems with the Unitarian position, the tragedy is the removal of a personal savior. Jesus is removed from the one God as a different unique entity. The Unitarian position brings the ‘holy’ of the One God, the One Savior, and the One Sone, to the unholy equality of other moral men and their beliefs in salvation.
Unverified Story
It has been reported that later in his life, Robert Robinson was traveling in a stagecoach one day. He was sharing the coach with a young woman he did not know, and she did not know him. The woman was humming, sometimes singing, ‘Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing’. She expressed how much of an encouragement it was to her. Robert tried diligently to get her to change the subject. She would not. Finally, he said, with tears in his eyes, “Madam, I am the poor unhappy man who composed that hymn, many years ago. And I would give a thousand worlds, if I had them, to enjoy the feelings I then had!” Gently, she replied, “Sir, the ‘streams of mercy’ are still flowing.”
One Way
God never left salvation open for many paths that seemed right to men. He has always been clear; He alone is the salvation of men. Christians are not exempt from tasting the dust of death. They weep, they endure trouble and sorrow. When they endure these things, they are reminded to cry out to God. Jesus, the one who established relationship and maintains it, between God and us. When we cry out, He hears, He delivers. He binds our wandering feet when we are prone to wander. He seals our hearts when we give them. If Jesus is the nature of man and not divine, then we only hope in the nature of death. But if Jesus is God; if Jesus is divine and not A way of salvation but THE way of salvation, then we have reliable hope in the Nature of Joy.
Resources and Notes
All scripture in this article is from the WORLD ENGLISH BIBLE (WEB). The World English Bible (WEB) is a Public Domain (no copyright) Modern English translation of the Holy Bible. The World English Bible is based on the American Standard Version of the Holy Bible first published in 1901, the Biblia Hebraica Stutgartensa Old Testament, and the Greek Majority Text New Testament.
For more related to this blog, check out my post on Practical Steps to Worship God in Spirit and in Truth.
This is a reliable translation, but it is always good to read other translations as well. Biblegateway.com has a multitude of translations to read from. It is a great resource.
Another great resource is Biblehub.com. There are multiple translations, commentaries, and so much more. Great research can be done on this platform.
One more I use regularly is Gotquestions.org. This is a great site to answer questions and find threads of related questions.
There are many resources. The key is that God wants relationship directly with you, the individual. His primary source for revealing who He is and growing in intimacy is His word, the scriptures. Don’t just read for instruction. Analyze and read for understanding. Explore, ask questions, and be transformed in Jesus every moment you possibly can. There is no dispute this is a key desire of God. People are brough to the Father, in the Son, by the power of the Holy Spirit. This… This is the Nature of Joy.
Jeremy is an author, musician, and business intelligence manager. His mission is to equip and encourage those in Christ, to equip and encourage others in Christ. Jesus, Christ, is the Nature of Joy and melody of the heart. Jeremy unites business analytics (business intelligence), songs, and Scripture for Christian living in the power of the Holy Spirit.