“There are many who say, “Who will show us some good? Lift up the light of your face upon us, O Lord!”” -Psalm 4:6
As is so often the case for a leader, there are dangerous enemies without (as we have been considering in these Psalms) and discontent, discouraged, and even disgruntled folks within. But what can be a better good than the light of God’s face shining upon his people as was promised in Aaron’s blessing upon God’s covenant with Israel (Numbers 6:22-27), and as is recounted in our Christian benediction.
Moreover, in Christ, who is both ours and David’s king, the good we receive is the renewal of God’s image impressed (or shined) upon us through the new birth. As St. Augustine astutely noted,
“For man was made after the image and likeness of God, which he defaced by sin: therefore it is his true and eternal good, if by a new birth he be stamped. And I believe this to be the bearing of that which some understand skilfully; I mean, what the Lord said on seeing Cæsar’s tribute money,* Render to Cæsar the things that are Cæsar’s; and to God the things that are God’s. As if He had said, in like manner as Cæsar exacts from you the impression of his image, so also does God: that as the tribute money is rendered to him, so should the soul to God, illumined and stamped with the light of His countenance.”1
1 Augustine of Hippo, Expositions on the Book of Psalms: Psalms 1–150, vol. 1, A Library of Fathers of the Holy Catholic Church (Oxford; London: F. and J. Rivington; John Henry Parker, 1847–1857), 21–22.