Waiting in silence

For God alone my soul waits in silence; from him comes my salvation.
Psalm 62:1
Some notes from Spurgeon's Treasury of David:

To wait upon God, and for God, is the habitual position of faith; to wait on him truly is sincerity; to wait on him only is spiritual chastity. The original is, "only to God is my soul silence." The presence of God alone could awe his heart into quietude, submission, rest, and acquiescence; but when that was felt, not a rebellious word or thought broke the peaceful silence. The proverb that speech is silver but silence is gold, is more than true in this case. No eloquence in the world is half so full of meaning as the patient silence of a child of God. It is an eminent work of grace to bring down the will and subdue the affections to such a degree, that the whole mind lies before the Lord like the sea beneath the wind, ready to be moved by every breath of his mouth, but free from all inward and self caused emotion, as also from all power to be moved by anything other than the divine will. We should be wax to the Lord, but adamant to every other force.

(Spurgeon)

Waiting on God alone:
  • for answers of prayer,
  • for performance of promises,
  • for deliverance from enemies, and out of every trouble.
My soul is silent: not as to prayer, but as to murmuring; patiently and quietly waiting for salvation until the Lord's time come to give it; being subject to him.... resigned to his will, and patient under his afflicting hand: it denotes a quiet, patient waiting on the Lord, and not merely bodily exercise in outward ordinances; but an inward frame of spirit, a soul waiting on the Lord, and that in truth and reality, in opposition to mere form and show. (John Gill)Waiting is nothing else but hope and trust lengthened. (John Trapp)

The Hebrew word used is hymwd dumijah, that is, silent, resting, expecting, reflecting, solicitous, and observing. (Thomas Le Blanc)

"Bear and forbear, and silent be, Tell no man thy misery;
Yield not in trouble to dismay, God can deliver any day."
(Martin Luther)


I wondered because we feel the outpouring of grief into the heart of a friend to be so sweet. At the same time, he who talks much of his troubles to men is apt to fall into a way of saying too little of them to God; while, on the other hand, he who has often experienced the blessed alleviation which flows from silent converse with the Eternal, loses much of his desire for the sympathy of his fellows. It appears to me now as if spreading out our distress too largely before men served only to make it broader, and to take away its zest; and hence the proverb, "Talking of trouble makes it double." On the contrary, if when in distress we can contrive to maintain calm composure of mind, and to bear it always as in the sight of God, submissively waiting for succour from him, according to the words of the psalmist, Truly my soul waiteth upon God.
Agustus F. Tholuck

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