Providential and Internal Depths - The Grace of God

Psalm 23:4–5

[4] Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,

I will fear no evil,

for you are with me;

your rod and your staff,

they comfort me.

[5] You prepare a table before me

in the presence of my enemies;

you anoint my head with oil;

my cup overflows. (ESV)

The depths of the heart

“Some of the ancients, as Chrysostom, suppose this expression to relate to the depths of the heart of the Psalmist 5 but the obvious sense of the place, and the constant use of the word in the Hebrew, will not admit of this interpretation: it is in the plural number, depths. It is commonly used for valleys, or any deep places whatever, but especially of waters. Valleys and deep places, because of their darkness and solitariness, are accounted places of horror, helplessness, and trouble. Psalm 23:4, “When I walk through the valley of the shadow of death;” that is, in the extremity of danger and trouble.

The moral use of the word, as expressing the state and condition of the souls of men, is metaphorical. These depths, then, are difficulties, or pressures, attended with fear, horror, danger, and trouble. And they are of two sorts:

Providential, in respect to outward distresses, calamities, and afflictions, “Save me, O God, for the waters are come in unto my soul.” Psalm 69:1. In the Hebrew, “I stick in the mire of the deep, and there is no standing; I am come into the depths of waters, and the flood overflows me.” It is trouble, and the extremity of it, that the Psalmist thus expresses. He was brought by it into a condition like a man ready to be drowned: being cast into the bottom of deep and miry waters, where he had no firm foundation to stand upon, nor ability to come out; as he further explains himself, verse 15.

There are also internal depths, depths of conscience on account of sin. “Thou hast laid me in the lowest pit, in darkness, in the deeps.” Psalm 88: 6. What he intends by this expression the Psalmist declares in the next words, ver. 7, “Thy wrath lieth hard upon me.” Sense of God's wrath upon his conscience, on account of sin, was the deep he was cast into; so, ver. 15, speaking of the same matter, he saith, “I suffer thy terrors;” and ver. 16, “Thy fierce wrath goeth over me:” which he calls water, waves, and deeps; according to the metaphor already explained.

And these are the deeps that are here principally intended. Augustine says on the place, “He cries out under the weight and waves of his sins.” This the ensuing psalm makes evident. Desiring to be delivered from these depths out of which he cried, he deals with God wholly about mercy and forgiveness; and it is sin alone from which forgiveness is a deliverance. The doctrine also that he preaches, upon his delivery, is that of mercy, grace, and redemption, as is manifest from the close of the psalm; and what we have deliverance by, is most upon our hearts when we are delivered.” - John Owen