John Calvin Commentary Psalms 17:15

"As for me, I shall behold thy face in righteousness; I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with [beholding] thy form." — Psalms 17:15 (ASV)

Having with anguish of heart declared before God the troubles that afflicted and tormented him, so that he would not be overwhelmed with the load of temptations pressing upon him, he now takes, as it were, the wings of faith and rises to a region of undisturbed tranquility, where he can behold all things arranged and directed in proper order.

In the first place, there is here a tacit comparison between the well-regulated state of things that will be seen when God by his judgment will restore to order those things that are now embroiled and confused, and the deep and distressing darkness that is in the world, when God keeps silence and hides his face.

In the midst of those afflictions that he has recounted, the Psalmist might seem to be plunged in darkness from which he would never obtain deliverance. When we see the ungodly enjoying prosperity, crowned with honors, and loaded with riches, they seem to be in great favor with God.

But David triumphs over their proud and presumptuous boasting. Although, to the eye of sense and reason, God has cast him off and removed him far from him, yet David assures himself that one day he will enjoy the privilege of intimately beholding him. The pronoun I is emphatic, as if he had said: The calamities and reproaches that I now endure will not prevent me from again experiencing fullness of joy from the fatherly love of God manifested towards me.

We should carefully observe that David, in order to enjoy supreme happiness, desires nothing more than to always have the taste and experience of this great blessing: that God is reconciled to him. The wicked may imagine themselves to be happy, but as long as God is opposed to them, they deceive themselves in indulging this imagination.

To behold God’s face, is nothing other than to have a sense of his fatherly favor, with which he not only causes us to rejoice by removing our sorrows, but also transports us even to heaven. By the word righteousness, David means that he will not be deprived of the reward of a good conscience.

As long as God humbles his people under manifold afflictions, the world insolently mocks their simplicity, as if they deceived themselves and wasted their efforts in devoting themselves to cultivating and practicing purity and innocence.

David is here struggling against this kind of mockery and derision, and in opposition to it, he assures himself that there is a reward stored up for his godliness and uprightness, provided he continues to persevere in his obedience to the holy law of God. As Isaiah, similarly, (Isaiah 3:10) exhorts the faithful to support themselves with this consideration: it shall be well with the righteous: for they shall eat the fruit of their doings. However, we should not think from this that he represents works as the cause of his salvation.

It is not his purpose to discuss what constitutes the meritorious ground on which he is to be received into the favor of God. David only lays it down as a principle that those who serve God do not lose their labor. For although God may hide his face from them for a time, he still causes them again in due season to behold his bright face and compassionate eye beaming upon them.

I shall be satisfied. Some interpreters, with more subtlety than appropriateness, restrict this to the resurrection at the last day, as if David did not expect to experience in his heart a blessed joy until the life to come, and suspended every longing desire for it until he would attain that life.

I readily admit that this satisfaction of which he speaks will not in all respects be perfect before the final coming of Christ. But as the saints, when God causes some rays of the knowledge of his love to enter their hearts, find great enjoyment in the light communicated in this way, David justly calls this peace or joy of the Holy Spirit satisfaction.

The ungodly may be at their ease and have an abundance of good things, even to bursting. However, their desire is insatiable, or they feed on wind—in other words, on earthly things—without tasting spiritual things, in which there is substance. They may also be so stupefied by the pungent remorse of conscience with which they are tormented that they do not enjoy the good things they possess. Consequently, they never have composed and tranquil minds but are kept unhappy by the inward passions that perplex and agitate them.

It is therefore the grace of God alone that can give us contentment and prevent us from being distracted by irregular desires. David, then, I have no doubt, here alludes to the empty joys of the world, which only starve the soul while they sharpen and increase the appetite all the more. He does this to show that only those who seek their happiness in the enjoyment of God alone are partakers of true and substantial happiness.

As the literal rendering of the Hebrew words is, I shall be satisfied in the awaking of thy face, or, in awaking by thy face; some, preferring the first interpretation, understand the awaking of God’s face to mean the breaking forth, or manifestation, of the light of his grace, which before was, so to speak, covered with clouds.

But to me it seems more suitable to refer the word awake to David, and to view it as meaning the same thing as obtaining respite from his sorrow. David had indeed never been overwhelmed with stupor; but after a lengthy period of fatigue from the persecution of his enemies, he must certainly have been brought into such a state as to appear sunk in a profound sleep.

The saints do not sustain and repel all the assaults made upon them so courageously that they do not, because of the weakness of their flesh, feel languid and feeble for a time, or terrified, as if they were enveloped in darkness. David compares this perturbation of mind to a sleep.

But when the favor of God will again have arisen and shone brightly upon him, he declares that then he will recover spiritual strength and enjoy tranquility of mind. It is true, indeed, as Paul declares, that as long as we continue in this state of earthly pilgrimage, we walk by faith, not by sight. But as we nevertheless behold the image of God not only in the mirror of the gospel but also in the numerous evidences of his grace that he daily shows to us, let each of us awaken himself from his lethargy, so that we may now be satisfied with spiritual happiness, until God, in due time, brings us to his own immediate presence and causes us to enjoy him face to face.