Nevertheless, I am continually with you; you hold my right hand.
Asaph, who wrote this psalm, has just admitted that his bitter thoughts about the wicked left him ignorant and brutish before God. Then one word turns everything: nevertheless. The man who almost slipped finds that God held him the whole time.
The Turn in "Nevertheless"
The word joins what Asaph found in himself to what he found in God.
F. B. HoleBut God did not leave Asaph to grovel before Him as a beast. Along with this crushing sense of his own folly and ignorance, he got a sight of the grace and glory of God. "Nevertheless," he says, "I am continually with You: You have held me by my right hand." Despite all that he was, and all he had learned about himself, God took him by his right hand. He lifted him up and set him always in His own high company. This was astonishing grace.
Asaph did not reason this out in his distress. He learned it in one place, and learned there how to take his troubles.
Frederick W. GrantBut all must learn this where the Psalmist did, in the sanctuary. And there we learn to welcome God's correction, not only to recognise it.
Continually With You
"Continually" covers the bad stretch too — the bitter thoughts, the comparisons with the wicked, the near-slip.
Hamilton SmithNever are we more ready to learn the goodness of His heart than when we have discovered the badness of our own hearts. So the Psalmist's thoughts move away from all that he had been before God, to delight in all that God was for him. He can say, "I was as a beast before You, nevertheless I am continually with You." When hot and bitter thoughts were raging in his heart, even then he was the object of God's unwearied care. He says, as it were, "God was out of my thoughts, but I was never out of His thoughts" — "I am continually with You."
The Hand That Did Not Let Go
Two hands appear in the psalm: the one that almost gave way, and the one that never did. These writers quote an older translation throughout: here it reads "You have held me by my right hand," where the ESV has "you hold my right hand."
Hamilton SmithHe not only had a place in the heart of God. God's hand also held him, for he can say, "You have held me by my right hand." I wandered, I behaved like a brute, I let go of His hand, but never did He let go of mine. I nearly slipped — yes, truly, I should have slipped altogether — but He held me by my right hand. His heart of love set me as an object before Him, and His hand of power held me fast.
That grip held while Asaph was moving toward the edge, and it did more than stop a fall.
James BoydHe was drawing nearer and nearer to the edge of that terrible cliff. Many a mighty man has fallen over it never to rise again. Yet his hand was in the grasp of the almighty God, who had determined that not a hair of his head would perish… Then the blessed God, who held him in the grasp of love, drew him near to Himself in the sanctuary. There, in a moment, he learned the awful distance to which unbelief had carried him.
Why the Godly Are Chastened
Earlier in the psalm Asaph complained that he was struck all day long while the wicked went untouched. Verse 23 gives him the reason.
Frederick W. GrantSuppose the wicked are "not in trouble as other men, neither are they plagued as other men." Suppose that I, on the other hand, can say, "all the day long have I been plagued, and chastened every morning." Here is the meaning of it: "I am continually with You; You have held me with Your right hand." What a blessed reason! What a glorious compensation!… The presence of the Holy One with us must mean discipline; but it is a Father's discipline of the "son in whom He delights."
A Past That Guarantees the Future
God did the holding, not Asaph. So the rest of the road rests on the same hand.
Hamilton SmithHe learned with great delight all that God had been for him in the past, in the day when his feet had almost slipped. So he can look forward with complete confidence to all that God will be for him in the future. He can say at every step of the pilgrim journey, "You shall guide me with Your counsel." I need not weary my heart trying to unravel all the puzzling questions of my path through this evil world. God Himself will guide me. And at last, when the journey ends, when man's small day is done and the day of glory dawns, "You will receive me."
Summary
- Nevertheless — one word sets what Asaph was against what God is. Finding the badness of his own heart opened the way to learn the goodness of God's.
- Continually — the nearness had no gaps. God was out of Asaph's thoughts, but Asaph was never out of God's.
- Held — he let go; God did not. Love set him before Him, and power kept him from the fall he would otherwise have taken.
- Chastened — the blows he resented were proof of the same nearness. Being with the Holy One means discipline, and it is a Father's discipline.
- Guided — the hand that held him through his worst thinking will guide him now and receive him at the end.