Psalms 71:20–21

In Psalm 71:20–21, the aged psalmist, having traversed a lifetime of bitter afflictions, addresses God directly with an audacious confidence: the very One who permitted the troubles is the One who will restore, revive, and crown His servant with renewed honor. These verses form the climax of a psalm saturated in lifelong trust, culminating not in resignation but in bold expectation of divine reversal. The movement is from the depths of the earth to the heights of honor — a pattern that Catholic tradition reads as a figure of death and resurrection.

Verse 20: "You, who have shown us many and bitter troubles…"

The verse opens with a direct, intimate address to God — "You" — that is theologically significant in itself. The psalmist does not attribute his troubles to fate, to enemies alone, or to impersonal suffering; he addresses God as the agent, or at minimum as the one who has permitted and shown these troubles. The Hebrew verb (ra'ah, "to cause to see" or "to show") implies that God has not merely allowed suffering to happen in the shadows but has, in some sovereign sense, presented it — held it before the psalmist's experience as a teacher holds a lesson before a student. The troubles are described as both many (rabbôt) and bitter (ra'ôt), suggesting not a single trial but a cumulative, life-long weight. This is the frank, unvarnished prayer of a man at the end of his years (see vv. 9, 18) who refuses to spiritually sanitize his biography.

The phrase "will revive me again" (which immediately follows in the full verse in most complete translations — the RSVCE reads: "you who have made me see many sore troubles wilt revive me again") is the hinge on which the entire verse turns. The psalmist's confidence is not naïve; it is forged precisely through, not despite, the record of prior affliction. Because God has been present even in the bitter seasons, He can be trusted to act again. The Septuagint renders "revive me again" with anastēseis me — a word freighted with resurrection overtones, meaning literally "you will raise me up again."

The clause "from the depths of the earth you will bring me up again" (v. 20b in fuller texts) completes the image: tehomot ha'arets, the depths/deeps of the earth, is the language of Sheol, of death itself. The psalmist is not speaking only of illness or social disgrace but of an experience so severe it felt like dying — or, in the typological sense, of death proper. This is the language the early Church immediately recognized as prophetic.

Verse 21: "Increase my honor…"

Verse 21 moves from petition for mere survival to a bolder ask: restored greatness and comfort. The word for "honor" or "greatness" (g'dullatî) speaks of dignity, stature, and renown before others. This is not vainglory; it is the prayer of one who understands that restoration must be visible to be a full witness to God's faithfulness. A restoration that no one sees cannot serve as testimony. The second half — "and again comfort me" — shows that the psalmist also desires interior renewal: the Hebrew nhm (to comfort, to console) is the same root used for the Messianic consolation in Isaiah 40:1 ("Comfort, comfort my people"). The psalmist is asking for the Messianic comfort — that God Himself will be his comforter.

Catholic tradition brings a uniquely layered reading to these verses by holding together, without collapse, three simultaneous senses of the speaker: the historical psalmist (likely David in old age, or composed for the king), the prophetic voice of Christ, and the ecclesial voice of every baptized believer.

The Catechism teaches that "the Psalms are both a mirror of God's marvels in the history of his people and a prophecy of the mystery of Christ" (CCC 2586). Psalm 71:20–21 is a luminous instance: the movement from bitter troubles to revivification from the earth's depths maps precisely onto the Paschal Mystery — Passion, Death, Resurrection, and Glorification.

St. Thomas Aquinas, in his Commentary on the Psalms, notes that God's permission of suffering is never punitive alone; it is always pedagogical and purgative, ordered toward a greater good and a more radiant restoration. The "increase of honor" is therefore not an afterthought but the telos — the end point — of the entire trial.

The Church's tradition of suffering as participation (see Col 1:24; CCC 1508) means the contemporary Catholic can pray these verses not merely as petition but as act of faith in the structure of reality: that the Paschal Mystery is not a one-time historical event but the shape of all Christian existence. Pope John Paul II's apostolic letter Salvifici Doloris (1984) explicitly teaches that human suffering "reaches its full meaning" only in union with Christ's Cross and Resurrection — a direct theological context for verse 20's "bitter troubles" that God shows, not hides.

The Comfort requested in verse 21 points to the Holy Spirit, the Paraclete — the Comforter — whose role as the interior restorer of the believing soul is central to Catholic pneumatology (CCC 692, 1520).

These two verses offer a profoundly counter-cultural spiritual posture for today's Catholic: the practice of naming suffering to God honestly while simultaneously anchoring hope in His demonstrated faithfulness. In an era of therapeutic religion that often either minimizes suffering ("just pray more") or despairs in it ("God must not care"), Psalm 71:20–21 charts a third way — the way of the saints.

Concretely, Catholics in situations of chronic illness, prolonged unemployment, broken relationships, or spiritual aridity can pray verse 20 as a form of contemplative honesty — literally pointing back at their own history of pain and saying to God, "You have seen all of this; You permitted it; now act." This is not complaint but covenant speech, the language of a soul that knows God closely enough to be blunt with Him.

Verse 21's petition for increased "honor" can be prayed for others as well as oneself — for the elderly person stripped of dignity by illness, for the abuse survivor whose reputation was destroyed, for the faithful priest or bishop publicly humiliated. It is a prayer that restoration be visible, that the world might see what God does with the broken. Catholics can incorporate this pair of verses into Lauds or personal Lectio Divina especially during Lent and times of personal trial, letting the psalmist's bold faith become their own voice before God.