NET – 116:15 The LORD values
the lives of his faithful followers.

AV, RV, RSV, NIV (1984), ESV – ‘Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints.’

Similar NIV (2011), NASB, NRSV and many other translations.

NLT – ‘The LORD cares deeply
when his loved ones die.’

GNB – ‘How painful it is to the LORD
when one of his people dies!’

The Message – ‘When they arrive at the gates of death,
GOD welcomes those who love him.’

NET Translation Note:

‘Heb “precious in the eyes of the LORD [is] the death of his godly ones.” The point is not that God delights in or finds satisfaction in the death of his followers! The psalmist, who has been delivered from death, affirms that the life-threatening experiences of God’s followers get God’s attention, just as a precious or rare object would attract someone’s eye.’

Calvin: Their lives are precious in his sight.  God will not expose them to death casually or uncaringly.  Death may be cheap to those who seek to slay the innocent, but their souls are dear to God.

K&D: God is not uncaring towards the death of his people.  He does not carelessly allow it to come about.  He will not permit them to be torn away from him by death.

Boice: God is close to his people when they stand at death’s door.  He watches over them, makes his presence known to them, and comforts them in the hour of death.  He often intervenes and delivers them from death.  Either way, the Lord knows best.

Other older commentators, such as Matthew Henry and Albert Barnes, understand the verse to mean that the death of the godly is ‘precious’ to the Lord.

Barnes: the death of the godly is ‘precious’ to God because there are great purposes to be accomplished by it.  Such a death removes the individual to glory, testifying to the power of redemption, and to the reality of religion.  Barnes cites the death of Ignatius, Polycarp, Latimer, Ridley, Jerome of Prague, Baxter, Thomas Scott, Halyburton, and Payson.

Spurgeon:

‘They shall not die prematurely; they shall be immortal till their work is done; and when their time shall come to die, then their deaths shall be precious. The Lord watches over their dying beds, smooths their pillows, sustains their hearts, and receives their souls. Those who are redeemed with precious blood are so dear to God that even their deaths are precious to him. The death-beds of saints are very precious to the church, she often learns much from them; they are very precious to all believers, who delight to treasure up the last words of the departed; but they are most of all precious to the Lord Jehovah himself, who view the triumphant deaths of his gracious ones with sacred delight. If we have walked before him in the land of the living, we need not fear to die before him when the hour of our departure is at hand.’

Patrick Pounden (cited by Spurgeon): The death of the saints is precious in the sight of the Lord, because,

• He sees things as they really are, and weighs their happiness from an eternal perspective;
• They are delivered from future evil and suffering.  No more sin, suffering, or death.
• In their death the Lord often sees the finest fruit of the Spirit in their souls.  He sees faith leaning on the promises of God.  He sees hope anchoring the soul on the Saviour, who has gone before.  He sees patience resting in the Father’s will, humility before God’s sovereign hand, and love springing from a grateful heart.
• Their death elicits the tenderness of Christian friends, prompting thanksgiving, sympathetic love, and fervent prayer.  Paul speaks of this communion of saints: 1 Corinthians 12:26 (NET) — ‘If one member suffers, everyone suffers with it. If a member is honored, all rejoice with it.’
• Finally, the death of the saints is precious, because on that day they shall see Jesus face to face.

Harman: This cannot mean that God is pleased when his people die.  Rather, it means that he is not uncaring when they draw near to death.  Their blood is precious in his sight (Ps. 72:14).

Kidner says that the word translated ‘precious’ can either mean:

(a) ‘highly valued’, or,
(b) ‘costly’

He says that the second meaning is more likely here, given that the psalm as a whole celebrates the writer’s deliverance from death.  So JB – ‘The death of the devout costs Yahweh dear.’

Futato:

‘The sense seems to be not that their death is special but that they are so precious that he keeps them from dying.’

Longman agrees that the usual translation (AV and others) seems strangely out of context, and that the correct meaning is that ‘the death of his faithful servants pains God.’

So also deClaisse-Walford:

‘The use of yāqār to describe the death of the LORD’s hesed ones indicates that God does not happily accept the death of any faithful one, but considers life the better alternative and counts each death as costly and weighty.’

Estes also agrees.  In context, the meaning is that the death of his worshipers is costly to the Lord, and he rescues them from it.

The NT, observes Estes, adds an additional dimension:

‘It is evident that in Rom 8:38–39 even death cannot separate God’s people from his love; and in the NT the death of the godly person is viewed as a triumph, not a tragedy, because the Christian who is absent from the body is present with the Lord.’

Mays also compares the finality of death as understood in the OT to the NT hope of life beyond death:

‘The death of the faithful is “costly,” or “grievous” to the LORD, because when they die their praise is silenced and their witness in the land of the living is lost to God. There is an evident tension between these two ways of viewing and speaking about death. If God rescues his faithful from the power of death, how can the realm of death lie beyond the help of God? The psalm as a song of the Old Testament celebrates the deliverance of life from the snares of death, but it is subject to another reading that will emerge in time, a reading in which it speaks of salvation from the final death.’

Allen notes that the present verse is the opposite of the pagan adage: ‘Whom the gods love die young.’  See:

Ezekiel 18:32 (NET) — ‘I take no delight in the death of anyone, declares the sovereign Lord. Repent and live!’

2 Peter 3:9 (NET) — ‘The Lord…does not wish for any to perish but for all to come to repentance.’