Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Psalms 71:16
I will go in the strength of the Lord GOD: I will make mention of thy righteousness, [even] of thine only.
16. I will go &c.] Better, I will come with the mighty acts of the Lord Jehovah, bringing them as my theme for praise. Cp. Psa 106:2. The A.V. would at any rate require the singular, which is however read by the LXX and some other Versions.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
I will go in the strength of the Lord God – In my future journey through life; in my trials; in my duties; in my conflicts; in my temptations. Admonished in the past of my own weakness, and remembering how often God has interposed, I will hereafter lean only on his arm, and not trust to my own strength. But thus leaning on his arm, I will go confidently to meet the duties and the trials of life. If one has the strength of God to lean on, or can use that strength as if it were his own, there is no duty which he may not discharge; no trial which he may not bear. The Hebrew here is, I will come with the mighty deeds (more literally, strengths) of the Lord God. The word is used to denote the mighty acts of Yahweh, in Deu 3:24; Psa 106:2; Job 26:14. DeWette proposes to render this, I will go in the mighty deeds of Yahweh; that is, I will sing of his mighty deeds. Rosenmuller explains it, I will go into the temple to celebrate his praise there; that is, I will bring the remembrance of his mighty acts there as the foundation of praise. So Professor Alexander explains it. It seems to me, however, that our translation has expressed the true idea, that he would go in the strength of God; that he would rely on no other; that he would make mention of no other. Old age, trials, difficulties, arduous duties, were before him; and in all these he would rely on no other strength but that of the Almighty.
I will make mention of thy righteousness, even of thine only – Of thy just and holy character. I will allude to nothing else; I will rely on nothing else as the foundation of my hope, and as my encouragement in the duties and trials of life.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Psa 71:16
I will go in the strength of the Lord God: I will make mention of Thy righteousness, even of Thine only.
God the source of the ministers strength
I. What is the help the minister requires?–the strength of the Lord God.
1. Not human strength, that is but weakness. What was Isaiahs comfort but this, Surely shall we say, In the Lord have I righteousness and strength? And so with Paul. And he bids Timothy, Be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus.
2. What is this strength? Not mere physical ability, nor mental might. For many who have no splendour of intellect are greatly used of God. When some one complained to his bishop of good and holy Mr. Rogers of Frome that his style of preaching was so at random, the bishop replied, Ah, complain not about his style; Mr. Rogers charms more souls to Christ with his wild notes, than we do with all our set music. No; the strength which ministers require is that of the Spirit of God (Joh 15:26-27). And though we may not have His miraculous influence, yet we may and must have His instructing, His Christ-glorifying, His witnessing, His comforting, His holy, influence. This is the ministers strength, and none can withstand it.
3. But how do ministers go in this strength? By realizing it as secured to them by the covenant of grace, the blood of Christ and His intercession. And by depending upon it. The minister must not depend upon any one else, whether upon great men or small, and least of all upon himself.
4. Where will he go? In the path of communion with God. In the fields of conflict with spiritual wickedness. In the privacy of domestic life. I will walk within my house with a perfect heart. In the path of active duty.
II. The subject of the ministers boasting. I will make mention of, etc. It is the righteousness of Christ that he is to make mention of–
1. To God as the ground of his confidence.
2. To himself as the spring of his comforts. This supplies all his needs. As guilty, lost, empty, condemned, weak, dying.
3. To others as the hope of salvation. I am determined to know nothing among you save Jesus Christ, and Him crucified.
4. With the multitude of the redeemed, as the matter of his joy.
Conclusion.
1. Aim to adopt this resolution as your own.
2. Assist your minister in his endeavour to carry it out. Come and pray unitedly and help me in all works of mercy. Lot there be no drones here, but all at work for Christ. (James Sherman.)
Faiths firm resolve
I. His resolve. I will go.
1. He will not sit still.
2. He will go to warfare.
3. He will go forward and make progress in Divine things.
4. He will go to suffering with holy resignation.
II. His reliance. In the strength of the Lord God.–
1. He will go glorying in strength already received.
2. Relying upon a strength which did not alter.
3. In a power which sanctified his going.
4. He is confident as to the sufficiency and adaptation of Gods strength to every trial or work to which he may be called; for the Hebrew, being plural, hints at this.
I will go in the strengths of the Lord God. If I shall require mental vigour, God can give it me. If I shall want physical strength, He can give it me. If I shall need spiritual power, He can give it me. If the particular demand is a clear sight, that I may detect and baffle the cunning of the enemy, He can give it me. If I require courage and quick resolve, He can give them me. If my special need be firmness of mind in the day of temptation, He can give it me. If it be a patient temper, He can give it me. Nothing is wanted by a believer, but that which the strength of God supplies when it is needed. As our days our strength shall be. We shall find the supply always equal to the demand.
III. His message. I will make mention, etc. Bear your testimony to the righteousness of God in providence. Stand to it that the Lord never does wrong. He is never mistaken; but whatever He ordains is, and must be, unquestionably right. Bear witness, next, to His righteousness in salvation; that He does not save without an atonement; that He does not put away sin without being strictly just; that He does by no means spare the guilty, but has laid on Christ that which was due to human sin, that He might be just and the justifier of him that believeth. Declare the righteousness of God as to a future state. Declare that whatever Scripture speaks of the ungodly is true, and that God is righteous in it. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
The Christians duty and dependence
I. His purpose of holy walking, of going forward, and persevering in the way of his duty.
1. A serious and deliberate choice of the ways of God.
2. A constant jealousy over his heart.
3. I will go, though a cloud should hang over my head the whole way.
4. I will go, let the duties I am called to perform be ever so arduous, or the difficulties ever so discouraging that lie in my way; I must look for them from without and from within, that will put all my resolution to the trial.
5. I will go, if I should go singly and alone. There is no co-partnership here; every man must trade upon his own bottom.
6. I will go, therefore, directed in every step by the infallible standard–The scriptures of the inspiration of God.
7. I will go–I will go instantly, without admit-ring one excuse, were it but for a moment, for postponing my present purpose to a more convenient season.
8. I will go–endeavouring to make daily progress. Counting not myself to have attained, etc.
II. His ground and dependence.
1. Almighty strength was the psalmists sole reliance; and it must be mine, or in vain are all my best efforts. Amidst all my attainments, no less than all my weaknesses, and all my fears, I will eye a superior power. In the one ease, I will review and acknowledge the Divine bounty with the warmest sentiments of gratitude and dependence; in the other, I will pour forth my plaint, and offer my humble but fervent suit, expecting no relief nor aid from any other quarter.
2. I will make mention of Thy righteousness, as including in it the holiness and purity of Thy nature, It is the invariable measure of Thy moral administration; it is the centre of union, and gives, as it were, stability to all Thy other perfections. (Thomas Gordon.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 16. I will go] abo, I will enter, i.e., into the tabernacle, in the strength or mightinesses of Adonai Jehovah, the supreme God, who is my Prop, Stay, and Support.
I will make mention of thy righteousness] I will continually record and celebrate the acts of thy mercy and goodness. They are without number, (Ps 71:15,) and of these alone will I speak.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
I will not sit down in despair, but I will go on or proceed in my business courageously and cheerfully, in making necessary provisions for my own defence; relying only upon thy strength, and not upon my own military preparations.
Make mention; partly to praise and celebrate it, and partly to support and comfort myself with the remembrance of it.
Of thy righteousness; either,
1. Of thy mercy and goodness. Or rather,
2. Of thy faithfulness in making good all thy promises to me, as this word is commonly used in this book. Of thine only; not of my subjects and friends, who are false and perfidious to thee and to me; nor of my own; for I have been most unfaithful to thee, and have broken my covenant with thee.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
16. in the strengthor,relying on it.
thy righteousnessor,faithful performance of promises to the pious (Psa 7:17;Psa 31:1).
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
I will go in the strength of the Lord God,…. Go on praising him, as he had determined to do in the preceding verses; not in his own strength, knowing that his heart was not always disposed aright or prepared and fit for such service; and that though the daily continuance of favours required constant praise, yet he needed always the aids of divine grace to raise his affection and song: or “I will go into the strengths of the Lord God” d; the power of God is expressed in the plural number, to show the greatness of it, which is as a garrison to the believer; see 1Pe 1:5; a strong hold, a strong tower, a strong habitation, as in Ps 71:3; into which he goes by faith, and is there safe, in all times of distress and danger: or the sense is, that he would go into the house of God, the temple and sanctuary, and in his strength perform the duties of public worship there; and it may include all religious actions, private and public, and every, spiritual undertaking; which ought to be attempted and performed, not in our own strength, but in the strength of the Lord: man is become, through sin, a weak and impotent creature; though he is very hard to be brought to a sense and acknowledgment of his weakness; true believers are sensible of it, and own it; and such, knowing that there is a sufficiency of strength in Christ for them, look and go to him for it; to do otherwise, to attempt to do anything in our own strength, betrays our weakness, folly, and vanity, and is dangerous, attended with bad consequences, and never succeeds well: the Apostle Peter is an instance of this, Mt 26:33;
I will make mention of thy righteousness, [even] of thine only; and that before the Lord himself: not his own righteousness, which he knew would not justify him in his sight, nor render him acceptable to him; nor furnish out a plea or argument why he should receive any favour from him; and therefore resolves not to mention it; but the righteousness of Christ, which is the righteousness of God, which he approves of, accepts, and imputes. This is a pure, perfect, and spotless righteousness, which God is well pleased with; honours his law, satisfies his justice, and so justifies in his sight; and renders person and service acceptable to him; and therefore with great pleasure and boldness, may be mentioned unto as it should be to Christ himself also; by ascribing it to him, as the author of it; by expressing a desire to be found in it; to have faith of interest in it, and joy on account of it; and by owning him openly and freely as the Lord our righteousness: and we should make mention of it to others, in praise of it; extolling it as the righteousness of God, and not a creature; and so sufficient to justify many, even all the seed of Israel; as the best robe of righteousness, better than the best of man’s, better than Adam’s in innocence, or than the angels’ in heaven; as a law honouring and justice satisfying one, and as an everlasting one. And we should put ourselves in mind of it, and, by repeated acts of faith, put it on as our justifying righteousness; since much of our joy, peace, and comfort, depend upon it. And this, and this only, is to be made mention of; it is only in the Lord that there is righteousness: as there is salvation in him, and in no other, so there is righteousness in him, and in no other; wherefore no other is to be mentioned along with it: justification is not partly by Christ’s righteousness, and partly by our own; but only by his, and through faith in it; see Ro 9:32.
d “in fortitudines”, Montanus; “in potentias”, V. L. Vatablus.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
16. I will go in the strength of the Lord Jehovah! This may also very properly be translated, I will go into the strengths; and this interpretation is not less probable than the other. As fear and sorrow take possession of our minds in the time of danger, from our not reflecting with that deep and earnest attention which becomes us upon the power of God; so the only remedy for alleviating our sorrow in our afflictions is to enter into God’s strengths, that they may surround and defend us on all sides. But the other reading, which is more generally received, I have thought proper to retain, because it also is very suitable, although interpreters differ as to its meaning. Some explain it, I will go forth to battle depending upon the power of God. But this is too restricted. To go is equivalent to abiding in a steady, settled, and permanent state. True believers, it must indeed be granted, so far from putting forth their energies without difficulty, and flying with alacrity in their heavenly course, rather groan through weariness; but as they surmount with invincible courage all obstacles and difficulties, not drawing back, or declining from the right way, or at least not failing through despair, they are on this account said to go forward until they have arrived at the termination of their course. In short, David boasts that he will never be disappointed of the help of God till he reach the mark. And because nothing is more rare or difficult in the present state of weakness and infirmity than to continue persevering, he collects all his thoughts in order to rely with entire confidence exclusively on the righteousness of God. When he says that he will be mindful of it ONLY, the meaning is, that, forsaking all corrupt confidences with which almost the whole world is driven about, he will depend wholly upon the protection of God, not allowing himself to wander after his own imaginations, or to be drawn hither and thither by surrounding objects.
Augustine quotes this text more than a hundred times as an argument to overthrow the merit of works, and plausibly opposes the righteousness which God gratuitously bestows to the meritorious righteousness of men. It must, however, be confessed that he wrests the words of David, and puts a sense upon them foreign to their genuine meaning, which simply is, that he does not rely upon his own wisdom, nor upon his own skill, nor upon his own strength, nor upon any riches which he possessed, as a ground for entertaining the confident hope of salvation, but that the only ground upon which he rests this hope is, that as God is righteous, it is impossible for God to forsake him. The righteousness of God, as we have just now observed, does not here denote that free gift by which he reconciles men to himself, or by which he regenerates them to newness of life; but his faithfulness in keeping his promises, by which he means to show that he is righteous, upright, and true towards his servants. Now, the Psalmist declares that the righteousness of God alone will be continually before his eyes, and in his memory; for unless we keep our minds fixed upon this alone, Satan, who is possessed of wonderful means by which to allure, will succeed in leading us astray after vanity. As soon as hopes from different quarters begin to insinuate themselves into our minds, there is nothing of which we are more in danger than of falling away. And whoever, not content with the grace of God alone, seeks elsewhere for the least succor, will assuredly fall, and thereby serve as an example to teach others how vain it is to attempt to mingle the stays of the world with the help of God. If David, in regard to his mere external condition in life, could remain stable and secure only by renouncing all other confidences, and casting himself upon the righteousness of God; what stability, I pray you to consider, are we likely to have, when the reference is to the spiritual and everlasting life, if we fall away, let it be never so little, from our dependence upon the grace of God? It is, therefore, undeniable that the doctrine invented by the Papists, which divides the work of perseverance in holiness between man’s free will and God’s grace, (114) precipitates wretched souls into destruction.
(114) That is, which represents this work as performed, partly by God, and partly by a power which man has in himself underived from God.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
(16) I will go . . .Rather, I will come with the Lord Jehovahs mighty deeds, i.e., come with the tale of them (as last verse) and praise of them into the Temple. (Comp. Psa. 5:7; Psa. 66:13.)
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
16. I will make mention of thy righteousness As the source and ground of my salvation. True faith looks beyond secondary causes, and refers deliverances directly to God. Hence the emphatic thine only, which immediately follows. See on Psa 71:19
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Psa 71:16 I will go in the strength of the Lord GOD: I will make mention of thy righteousness, [even] of thine only.
Ver. 16. I will go in the strength of the Lord God ] Ingrediar in potentia Domini, I will do what I can, with God’s help, in glorifying his name, though I cannot do as I would and as I ought; Narrabo res inenarrabiles, and then entreat those that hear me to think higher things of God than I am able to utter.
Even of thine only
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
strength = strengths. Plural of majesty = great strength.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
I will go: Psa 29:11, Deu 33:25, Isa 40:31, Isa 45:24, Isa 45:25, Zec 10:12, Eph 3:16, Eph 6:10, Phi 4:13, 2Ti 2:1
I will make: Isa 26:13, Isa 63:7
thy righteousness: Psa 71:2, Psa 71:15, Psa 71:19, Psa 71:24, Psa 51:14, Mat 6:33, Rom 1:17, Rom 3:21, Rom 10:3, Phi 3:9, 2Th 1:6
Reciprocal: Psa 7:17 – according Psa 89:16 – righteousness Psa 145:7 – sing Isa 12:4 – declare Isa 42:21 – well Isa 54:17 – and their Mic 4:5 – and we Mic 6:5 – know Joh 7:26 – he speaketh Rom 1:16 – I am 1Co 1:30 – righteousness
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
A MOTTO FOR THE NEW YEAR
I will go in the strength of the Lord God.
Psa 71:16
Observe the two thoughts which compose this sentence. (1) I will gothe language of active, frequent, glad progression; (2) but no less, balancing it and justifying it, in all modesty and holy caution, turning rashness into courage, and sanctifying the fire of an impulsive nature, I will go in the strength of the Lord God.
I. It is of the first importance that we should understand what is meant by the strength of the Lord God.In Himself His strength is in the clouds, and the strength of the hills is His also. He is infinite in power, and His strength from everlasting. (1) But the going forth of His strength is His arm. The arm of God is the Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore the strength of the Lord God to man is Christ, and to go in the strength of the Lord God is only, in other language, to walk in Christ. The strength of man is union with Christ. In Him the weakest, according to his capacity, becomes a partaker of the omnipotence of God.
II. Subordinate to this union with Christ, and included in it, are other elements which compose the strength of the Lord God.(1) There is a an exceeding strength in the simple feeling of being at peace with God. That man has a giants strength who, holding his soul secure, goes in the composure of His confidence, and is therefore at leisure for every providence that meets him. (2) The presence of God is strength. (3) The promises are strength. (4) There is strength in knowing that you travel on to a large result, and that victory at last is inevitable. The sense of a fated life is indomitable: it may be abused, but it is Gods truth, and truth is strength. Blessed is the man whose strength is in Him.
Rev. James Vaughan.
Illustrations
(1) So long as we live on earth our sufferings have no end; but Gods righteousness, power, and goodness likewise never cease to declare themselves. Only let our faith never cease to rely alone on this strong foundation of salvation, and let it drive us thither with prayer, praise, and thanksgiving! For we will then confess in old age what we have learned in youth, and sing in evil days as well as good: I will not leave God, for God does not leave me.
(2) The seventy-first psalm stands in our own Office for the Sick; it is the only psalm with its antiphon preserved. O Saviour of the world, Who by Thy Cross and precious Blood hast redeemed us, save us, and help us.
Fuente: Church Pulpit Commentary
71:16 I will {l} go in the strength of the Lord GOD: I will make mention of thy righteousness, [even] of thine only.
(l) I will remain steadfast, being upheld by the power of God.