"The Last Line"

Imagine how different the world would be if there was a constant elevator soundtrack of people singing quietly, resolutely, faithfully, “I give you thanks, O Lord, with my whole heart …”

“David and his harp” by Marc Chagall

Psalm 138

August 23, 2026

Dr. Todd R. Wright

The enthusiasm is evident from the first line – this is a song of exuberant praise!

There are no punctuation marks in the original Hebrew, but the content begs for exclamation marks to be littered throughout it, like a yard full of dandelions!

Just listen to the first rush of words:

“I give you thanks with my whole heart;

I sing your praise;

I bow down… and give thanks for your steadfast love and faithfulness!”

It would be easy to hear those words and assume that the singer lives on the sunny side of life.

I don’t think that is necessarily true.

Poet and author, Joyce Rachelle agrees:

“The praise and glorification of God doesn't exclusively spring from deep and untroubled [days]; it is in spite of – and even because of – deep and troubled circumstances.”

Let’s dig in!

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This psalm is attributed to David, along with 72 others.

I like to imagine him singing and playing his harp like Jimi Hendrix – “with thumb-over chord embellishments, double-stop hammer-ons, and heavy sonic distortion”  – a style bursting with joy!

When David says, “On the day I called, you answered me, you increased the strength of my soul,” we don’t know which day he means.

Maybe a day early in his life when he was pursued by Saul in the wilderness of En-gedi;

maybe when he was finally anointed king over all of Israel;

maybe late in life when his own son, Absolom, was leading a rebellion against him.      

Whatever day it was, God answered him and David was grateful! So grateful that he is convinced that all the other kings of the earth will join in praising the God of Israel.

Maybe you picture David singing with his allies;

Maybe he recruits his enemy kings;

Or maybe he commits to telling those kings who will follow him of the God who saves.

The interesting thing is that even though David is celebrated as the greatest king in Isreal, he is, in this psalm, full of humility and completely vulnerable, not boastful or brash.

He gushes, “Though I walk in the midst of trouble, you preserve me against my enemies; you stretch out your hand and deliver me.” (It sounds like a re-work of Psalm 23.)

He knows that he did not deliver himself – only God could do that!

He knows that God’s act was a sign of grace, not a reward for perfection.

He knows that despite the corrupting temptation of power, God models of how to truly use it.

Stan Mast runs with that idea: “Imagine” he writes, “how different the world would be if all leaders were to begin each day with Psalm 138. Rather than puffing up their chests with their own self-importance, what if everyone in power said, ‘I will praise you, O Lord, with all my heart; before the gods, (that is, all the other leaders and the divinities they [worship]), I will sing your praise?’”

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But the brilliance of this psalm, and David as a writer, is its anonymity, its pliability. He leaves the details out, the self-references blurry. It could be written, or prayed, by anyone.

It could be you praising God, with your whole heart, for …

your kids lined up for a picture on their first day of a new school year;

or a job interview after months of rejection;

or the physical therapy that is finally giving you some relief after a painful surgery.

It could be you crying out to God for help …

when the biopsy results are … “complicated”;

or your spouse no longer remembers your name;

or your teenager is suffering from depression and nothing you do seems to help.

And it could be you modeling humility and gratitude and faith to others …

during your shift volunteering;

or at your job;

or while waiting in line.

Imagine how different the world would be if there was a constant elevator soundtrack of people singing quietly, resolutely, faithfully, “I give you thanks, O Lord, with my whole heart …”

Imagine how different it would be if we were all able to live, confident that, in seasons of overflowing blessing and seasons of drought, God is at work fulfilling the Lord’s purposes for us!

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As I said at the beginning of the sermon, the enthusiasm is evident from the first line …

But then there is the last line, and if we are paying attention, it shocks us!

Eugene Peterson translates it in the Message as “Don’t quit on me now!”

The psalmist has spent the whole psalm expressing nothing but confidence in God – in God’s faithfulness; in God’s wisdom; in the way, despite God’s place high above, God notices those in the shadows, those on the margins. And then, suddenly, there is this plea to not abandon him.

Scott Hoezee gives voice to our confusion:

“It’s almost as though the writer is saying, ‘You know all that great stuff I just wrote about you? Well, please don’t stop being that way!’

But the whole premise of this song is that God never stops his loving care, his faithfulness,

his presence in all seasons of life. God does not change. God’s care extends forever.

So then why is the final line a request for God to not stop being who the rest of the psalm describes God to be? Did a doubt suddenly pop into the writer’s mind?”

If David doesn’t doubt God’s reliability, how’d the last line make it through the editing process?

You know about the need to edit what you have written, right?

Think back to your first grade-school love poem. Maybe something like this:

“Roses are red, violets are blue.

You look like a monkey; you smell like one too!”

But then you reflected on it and wisely realized that changes were necessary:

Violets are more purple than blue. But then that throws off the whole rhyme, and well …

One scholar writes,

“You have to think those who composed the psalms did something similar, editing, tinkering, adjusting the language, taking some things out and adding other lines instead.

[So] that line did not need to stay. In subsequent revisions the poet could have thought, ‘Well, that’s not a great way to end such a confident song. The prior line, ‘Your love, Lord, endures forever’ is a much nicer ending anyway.’

But no. That last plaintive line stayed. It survived the editing and revising process.

The Hebrew Psalter as we now have it was arranged and edited by someone — or by several people — who also redacted and edited a bit. They also could have removed that line.

Such edits also happened over time in the transmission of Scripture. We know in the history of biblical manuscripts when monks and others made copies of copies of copies, that at times they editorialized a bit too, smoothing out the wrinkles on some of the more difficult sayings. This is why one of the cardinal rules in trying to determine what the original text said when you have multiple copies of the same passage that do not all match, is that you go with the more difficult one because the harder the text is, the closer it is to the original, probably.”

So if that last line survived David’s self-editing and all the subsequent editing, it has to be there for a reason.

I think it’s there because this psalm is not pure theology, but a person’s prayer, raw and real.

A person who wants to believe. A person who knows who God is and how God has acted

toward them. But a person who still falls prey to doubt. Not so much doubt in God, but a doubt that they are worthy of God’s great favor and faithfulness.

Perhaps you know what that is like.

If you do, please loop back to the first line.

Give thanks to God with your whole heart for the grace you have experienced, repeatedly. Then join in the chorus of others who are singing God’s praises. Their faith will carry you through until you can believe it too! Amen

“David and his harp” by Marc Chagall

See Google’s AI overview of his playing style

See 1 Samuel 24, 2 Samuel 5, and 2 Samuel 15 for the full stories

From his reflections on the text for cepreaching.org, 6/10/18

From his reflections on the text for cepreaching.org, 8/23/26

Ibid.