“Return to your resting-place, O my soul, for Jehovah himself has acted appropriately toward you.

9. (a) What did the psalmist mean by saying that every man was a liar? (b) Because of what did he then speak, and was his speech to no avail?

⁹ Having experienced deliverance from the death of his soul and finding himself walking among those living on earth, the psalmist could relax and bid his soul, his own self, to return to its resting-place. There was no more need for him to shed tears of frustration. His feet had not stumbled and precipitated him into death. Once indeed he had been panicky, for he had come to the realization that all human help was of no avail: every man proved to be a liar who said that he could help the apparently doomed psalmist or who did try to rescue him. Mankind seemed a delusion to him. But though he had lost faith in the power of mankind to save him from the menacing death, he still held onto his faith in his God. So he spoke in faith, in expression of his faith. If no one else could help him, his God could. In voicing his faith, he spoke of deliverance by means of God. Such kind of speech did not prove to be false, futile. He was kept from stumbling in a death-dealing fall. So now he determined to “walk before Jehovah in the lands of those living.”

Soon after the final assault upon their existence as made by the earthly agents of Satan the Devil, there will come the occasion when the “chosen ones” and the “great crowd” will be able to say: “Return to your resting-place, O my soul, for Jehovah himself has acted appropriately toward you.”​—Psalm 116:7.

13. During the “war of the great day of God the Almighty,” how does Jehovah ‘act appropriately’ toward his worshipers, as in contrast with their earthly enemies?

¹³ “Acted appropriately”​—in what way? In a way that was appropriate for Jehovah to act toward his faithful worshipers in their dire distress. In the “war of the great day of God the Almighty” he acts in full harmony with his precious promises recorded in his Holy Word for the benefit and security of his obedient servants. “Jehovah is guarding all those loving him, but all the wicked ones he will annihilate.” (Psalm 145:20) In the desperate situation of the “chosen ones” and the “great crowd,” he acts in the way appropriate to their faith, obedience, loyalty and devotion to Him. He “becomes the rewarder of those earnestly seeking him.” (Hebrews 11:6) So he rescues their souls from the death that the earthly enemies would like to inflict upon them. He rescues them from any cause for shedding tears. He rescues them from any stumbling that the enemies would like to cause, resulting in a fall into death. Could anything be more appropriate for Jehovah to do than this, for the vindication of his Word and name and the complete foiling of the vicious enemies? No!

14. (a) Into what kind of earth will Jehovah’s preserved ones emerge, but where else will there also be a cleansing, and how? (b) So as not to miss the purpose of their deliverance, what will Jehovah’s preserved ones determine to do?

¹⁴ For the remnant of God’s “chosen ones” and the “great crowd,” this signifies emerging alive in the flesh from the “great tribulation” in which the entire present “system of things” will be wiped out. Before them will stretch all the lands of the cleansed earth. Not only has the earth been cleansed of all the evildoers by the “great tribulation,” but now there is a cleansing of the invisible spirit realm in the immediate neighborhood of the earth. How? In that the “dragon . . . the original serpent, the one called Devil and Satan,” and all his demon angels are seized, chained, and hurled into an “abyss” from which it is impossible for them to deceive and mislead the nations on earth during the thousand-year reign of Jehovah’s Messiah and all the 144,000 “chosen” ones. What a unique occasion that will be to manifest appreciation! Jehovah’s worshipers had been threatened with lying slain among the dead, but, look! here they are alive! So now they can show determination not to miss the purpose of their being spared from death. Having been rescued just as the psalmist was, they can say, like him: “I will walk before Jehovah in the lands of those living.” (Psalm 116:9) This they now can do with freedom from disturbance, with rest for their souls.