"Desperation"

"For in death there is no remembrance of Thee: in the grave who shall give Thee thanks?" (Psalms 6:5) If you did not quite get the refreshing point of yesterday's post, I am sorry for my lack to communicate that point well enough; however, if you did understand the point that I was making, then you should know how critical that it is to make it count!!! Which is where we find David at this point; being desperate to get it right, because there are no guarantees on having another day to try again! It's really not that hard to understand what David is saying in the verse above; unlike yesterday, and my wild interpretations; heck, he could have just been saying, Hurry up Lord, and save my soul, for Your mercies sake! But that would have just taken all the experience out of the whole process. Here, David is speaking of death as being the end of chances to get things right; and for David, death was always a possibility, because he had a whole lot of enemies; both outside, and inside the camp. But nonetheless, let's take a look at what David is saying, and see if we can gain any inspiration from these words; heck, who knows, we might even get a little desperate ourselves! First and foremost, is the word "death", which actually means DEATH, personified!!! But if we back up just a little to the first would used, we see the word "For", which tells us to look back to his previous statement that he made, which was, "oh save me for Thy mercies sake". In this we find David's desperation, "For in death there is no remembrance of Thee". But the thing that really makes my point, is the meaning of the word "remembrance" when it comes to this Psalm, because this word is a noun, and it comes from the verb 'Zakhar'. It is the word 'Zekher', and it means a remembrance, memory; memorial, commemoration; fame, name, praise; invocation. This verbal noun contains almost the same large range of meanings resident in the verb 'zakhar'. It is the permanent notice, the conscious effort to remember. However, within the context of this Psalm, the word 'Zekher' speaks of praise and celebration; which means a reason to celebrate or give praise. This goes back to what I was saying yesterday, about God's mercy not getting the recognition that it deserves, in "save me for Thy mercies sake". We can quibble all day long about what the word "remembrance" might mean, but we all know that hell is full of torment, and much of that torment comes from remembering and knowing what you did not do!!! Therefore, remembering God is not what David is speaking about; but let's take a little look at the next portion of this verse, and see if that paints a better picture for us; shall we? Between these two statements we have a 'colon', which is to be thought of as a gate, inviting one to go on; an example would be, "There is only one thing left to do: confess while you still have time!" The word that we should pay attention to is the word "thanks", as in, "in the grave who shall give Thee thanks?" David is still speaking about death, but he is just putting it in the position of the grave; and if you can try and envision your hands lifting up from the grave to give thanks; well, that is about the same chance you will have to confess from there also...