The last two verses of Psalm 62 are intended as a summary of what David has been learning, but they also go a step beyond it, as biblical statements often do. Bible truths are seldom mere repetitions or summaries. In this case, David says that he has learned two lessons: namely, that God is strong and that God is loving.
If we are to divide the psalm into three stanzas, marked by the selahs at the end of verses 4 and 8, then the last stanza (vv. 9-12) echoes the first in that each is about both God and man. The first is about God and David's enemies, in that order. The third is about mankind in general and God. So the matter is the same but the order is reversed.
David knew that he was fixed on the rock, and that he would never be shaken. Yes, but still he had to keep trusting, and he knew how variable and weak the faith of a man in God can be. This is what we find emphasized in the second of the psalm's stanzas. David had trusted God. But now he also: 1) encourages himself to continue to trust God (vv. 5-7), and 2) urges the people to trust God too (v. 8).
The first stanza (vv. 1-4) introduces us to the three interacting agents in the psalm: God, the psalmist and the psalmist's enemies. His enemies are trying to throw him down, as I indicated, but David is trusting God who is his "rock," his "salvation" and his "fortress" (v. 2). The critical point is that David is trusting in God only or in God alone.
Do you ever feel like an endangered species? If we are to believe what we read in the papers, there are a lot of endangered species these days, and there are many powerful organizations that have been brought into existence to try to save them. There are endangered whales, endangered seals, endangered plants and animals, even the endangered snail darter that held up a major hydroelectric project in the south for many years. When we are discouraged, depressed or threatened we sometimes feel that we too are one of these endangered species and that we are soon going to be destroyed, wiped out or forgotten.
