Psalm 31 · a question people ask
Is "Into your hand I commend my spirit" a prayer for the hour of death?
In Psalm 31 it is the prayer of someone alive and asking to be rescued. Just before it: "Pluck me out of the net that they have laid secretly for me" (31:4). Then: "Into your hand I commend my spirit. You redeem me, LORD, God of truth" (31:5). Commend is paqad, which Brown-Driver-Briggs gives, among the senses of the form used here, as "commit, entrust" (tap commend). The psalmist goes on praying to live: "My times are in your hand. Deliver me from the hand of my enemies" (31:15). The New Testament has words like these at two deaths. As he died, Jesus said, "Father, into your hands I commit my spirit!" (Luke 23:46); Luke doesn't say whether he was taking up the psalm, and the line to Jesus on this page sets out how that is read. As he was stoned, Stephen called out, "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit!" (Acts 7:59); Acts doesn't cite the psalm either. Matthew tells another cry from the cross in a psalm's own words, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" (Matthew 27:46), which Psalm 22's chapter sets out. So the psalm's words were first spoken in the middle of a life in danger, and the New Testament has words close to them at its end.
The verses
“Pluck me out of the net that they have laid secretly for me, for you are my stronghold. Into your hand I commend my spirit. You redeem me, LORD, God of truth.”
“My times are in your hand. Deliver me from the hand of my enemies, and from those who persecute me.”
“Jesus, crying with a loud voice, said, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit!” Having said this, he breathed his last.”
“They stoned Stephen as he called out, saying, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit!””