With God we shall do valiantly; it is he who will tread down our foes.
Psalm 108 ends with a shout of confidence. It is a strange kind of confidence: the singer has just said that human help is worth nothing. The last line joins two halves — a people who act bravely, and a God who does the trampling.
A Confession Learned the Hard Way
This closing word is not the boast of people who have never lost. It is the answer of people God had once set aside, who now have nowhere else to look.
Hamilton SmithThe psalm closes with the answer of the godly to the purpose God has openly declared. The same God who in the past had cast them off for their failure is the God they now look to for victory. They have learned that the help of man is worthless, and they look to God alone. So they can say, with complete confidence, "It is He who will tread down our foes."
Weakness Is the Doorway
So the confidence rests on empty hands. One writer says that is where strength starts.
F. W. GrantSurely He will. When did He ever fail those whom everything else had failed? No — out of this complete weakness comes our strength. Here the apostle stands with the poor remnant of Israel. Experience will prove their confidence right: "With God we shall do valiantly; it is He who will tread down our foes."
The same writer explains why the psalm dwells on that weakness:
F. W. GrantThis emphasis on human weakness is not needless. That weakness shuts us up to God for the fulfilling of every hope. It is the creature taking the creature's place, which is, after all, the creature's perfection. Now God on His side is able to come in and act for us.
The One Who Does the Treading
Earlier in the psalm the singer asks who will lead him into Edom. Our verse answers by naming God as the one who treads the enemy down. One writer points to Isaiah for the picture of that treading.
H. L. RossierOnce all the enemies are beaten and the king shouts in triumph over Philistia (Ps. 108:9, cf. Ps. 60:8), the remnant asks who will lead them into Edom (v. 9-10). Isaiah 63:1-6 gives the answer. "Who is this who comes from Edom? … I have trodden the winepress alone, and from the peoples no one was with Me. … For the day of vengeance was in My heart, and My year of redemption had come. … I trampled down the peoples in My anger."
Valour, Not Self-Reliance
There is a way of reading a verse like this that puts us back in charge. It treats God's strength as a supply we draw on for plans of our own. In another psalm the singers say that they will push down their enemies. One writer marks the difference.
F. B. HoleWhat they say is this: "Through You we push down our foes; through Your name we tread down those who rise up against us." The idea is that we win a victory by using the power of God. That is not God's idea for them, and we may say it is never His idea for anyone. God does not put His power at our disposal for us to use as best we can. Instead, we are to be at His disposal, for Him to use us. If God put His power at our disposal, it would leave us in first place, with the job of planning the campaign. No! He has the first place, and the plan of the campaign must be His. Our place is very, very secondary — we are just instruments that He is pleased to use.
The Same Ground for Us
The psalm's enemies were nations. Ours are of another sort, but the answer stays the same.
J. T. MawsonLike Israel of old, so we in our day have strong foes who would keep us from enjoying our God-given blessings. "We do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places" (Eph. 6:12). We may well ask, "Who is sufficient for these things?" Our answer is, "Our sufficiency is from God."
Summary
- Emptied. The song reaches this line only after admitting that human help is worthless. That empty place is where the verse begins.
- Owned. Taking the creature's place is not defeat. It is the creature at its best, and there God comes in and acts.
- Through. The courage is real, but it comes through God. He does not hand us His power for our own campaign; He takes us for His.
- Trodden. The crushing of the enemy is His work alone. The prophet's picture is of One treading the winepress with no one beside Him.
- Ours. Our foes are not flesh and blood, but the sum is the same: no sufficiency in us, all sufficiency in God.