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Psalm 31 Bible study: Into your hand
"Into your hand I commend my spirit" (Psalm 31:5) is first the prayer of a man still asking to be rescued, in a psalm that keeps two hands in view: the LORD's, which holds his times, and his enemies' (Psalm 31:15). And its "For I have heard the slander of many, terror on every side" (Psalm 31:13) is, in Hebrew, the same six words that open Jeremiah 20:10.
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“Into your hand I commend my spirit. You redeem me, LORD, God of truth.”
Try it · Did you catch it?
“In Psalm 31, "Into your hand I commend my spirit" comes straight after a prayer to be plucked out of a net.”
Is that in Psalm 31, or not? Make your call.
What's really going on
Two hands
Psalm 31 is titled "For the Chief Musician. A Psalm by David" (31:1). Here is what almost everyone misses: the psalm keeps two hands in view. The first is the LORD's: "Into your hand I commend my spirit" (31:5). The second is the enemy's: "You have not shut me up into the hand of the enemy" (31:8). In 31:15 they stand side by side: "My times are in your hand. Deliver me from the hand of my enemies, and from those who persecute me" (31:15). In Hebrew all four are the same word, yad, "hand" (Brown-Driver-Briggs). The psalmist gives his spirit and his times into the one hand, and asks to be kept from the other.
Where it leads to Jesus
Into your hands I commit my spirit
Psalms 31:5leads toLuke 23:46
When Jesus had been crucified (Luke 23:33), "darkness came over the whole land until the ninth hour" (Luke 23:44). Then "Jesus, crying with a loud voice, said, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit!” Having said this, he breathed his last" (Luke 23:46). The psalm says, "Into your hand I commend my spirit. You redeem me, LORD, God of truth" (Psalm 31:5). The WEB's words are close but not the same (hand and hands, commend and commit), Jesus says "Father", and Luke doesn't name the psalm, so setting the two together is a reading. One reading hears Jesus taking up the psalm's words as he died, giving his spirit into his Father's hands. Another holds that Luke gives Jesus' own prayer to his Father without pointing to any psalm, and keeps the psalm to its own setting, the prayer of one still asking to be rescued (Psalm 31:4), who says, "My times are in your hand" (Psalm 31:15). These notes don't choose between them. This line doesn't make the psalmist Jesus, or the psalmist's troubles (Psalm 31:9-13) his.
Honest questions
Questions people ask about Psalm 31
That was a taste
The rest of Psalm 31 is waiting in Favor
- "Into your hand I commend my spirit"
- "But I"
- From "me" to "all you"
- Psalm 71 opens with Psalm 31's words
- Words Jeremiah and Jonah share
- 9 questions as you read
- 14 more Hebrew words
- A short check at the end
- Your notes, saved as you go
Favor reads the Bible in order, so you'll reach Psalm 31 with everything before it in view. First week free, then $10 a month per person.
The Hebrew word behind it
פָּקַדpaqadsay pa-KAD
Brown-Driver-Briggs: "attend to, visit, muster, appoint", and among the senses of the form used here, "commit, entrust". Strong's: "to visit (with friendly or hostile intent); by analogy, to oversee, muster, charge, care for, miss, deposit, etc.". "Into your hand I commend my spirit" (31:5). The psalmist entrusts his spirit to the LORD's hand. The Psalms have the verb 9 times in Hebrew; Psalm 8 has it in another form and sense: "What is the son of man, that you care for him?" (Psalm 8:4).
For your group
Psalm 31 Bible study questions
- 1"My times are in your hand" (31:15). What part of your life is hardest for you to leave in the LORD's hand right now? What would it look like to pray this line about it?
- 2"I said in my haste, “I am cut off from before your eyes.” Nevertheless you heard" (31:22). Have you ever decided in a hurry that God had stopped listening? What happened after?
- 3The psalmist says, "I am forgotten from their hearts like a dead man" (31:12), and the psalm ends by speaking to "all you who hope in the LORD" (31:24). Who around you might feel forgotten this week, and how could you remember them?
Leading a group? In Favor, everyone reads Psalm 31 during the week and answers these questions privately. Answers stay sealed until you meet, then appear together, and you can print the week's sheet.
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Questions
What is Favor?
Favor is a Bible study app that explains every chapter as you read: the Hebrew and Greek behind the words, the details most readers miss, and how each part of the Bible leads to Jesus. Read on your own, or start a Bible study with friends, family or your church.
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Scripture quotations are from the World English Bible, which is in the public domain. Hebrew and Greek words are checked against the original-language texts and public-domain lexicons. What we believe · Favor home