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Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Psalms 17:1

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A Prayer of David. Hear the right, O LORD attend unto my cry, give ear unto my prayer, [that goeth] not out of feigned lips.

1. the right ] Lit. righteousness or justice. With a righteous cause and a just appeal (Psa 7:8) the Psalmist appears before the righteous Judge (Psa 7:17; Psa 9:4; Psa 9:8), confident in the integrity of his motives towards God and man. A good conscience is the indispensable condition of earnest prayer.

my cry ] The word denotes a shrill piercing cry, frequently of joy, sometimes as here of entreaty, “expressive of emotional excitement such as an Eastern scruples not to use in prayer” (Cheyne). Cp. Psa 61:1; Jer 7:16.

that goeth not out of feigned lips ] Uttered by no deceitful lips. Cp. Psa 5:6; Psa 10:7. There is no hypocrisy in this prayer.

Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

1, 2. An appeal for justice.

Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

Hear the right – Margin, as in Hebrew, justice. The prayer is, that God would regard that which was right in the case, or that he would vindicate the psalmist from that which was wrong. It is the expression of his confident assurance even in the presence of God that his cause was right, and that he was asking only that which it would be consistent for a just God to do. We can offer an acceptable prayer only when we are sure that it would be right for God to answer it, or that it would be consistent with perfect and eternal justice to grant our requests. It is to be observed here, however, that the ground of the petition of the psalmist is not that he was righteous, that is, he did not base his petition on the ground of his own merits, but that his cause was righteous; that he was unjustly oppressed and persecuted by his enemies. We cannot ask God to interpose in our behalf because we have a claim to his favor on the ground of our own merit; we may ask him to interpose because wrong is done, and his glory will be promoted in securing that which is just and right.

Attend unto my cry – The word used here – rinnah – means either a shout of joy, Psa 30:5; Psa 42:4; Psa 47:1; or a mournful cry, outcry, wailing, Psa 61:1; et soepe. It is expressive, in either case, of deep feeling which vents itself in an audible manner. Here it denotes the earnest utterance of prayer.

Give ear unto my prayer – See the notes at Psa 5:1.

That goeth not out of feigned lips – Margin, as in Hebrew, without lips of deceit. That is, that is sincere, or that proceeds from the heart. The utterance of the lips does not misrepresent the feelings of the heart. True prayer is that in which the lips do represent the real feelings of the soul. In hypocritical prayer the one is no proper representation of the other. It is evident that the prayer here was not mere mental prayer, or a mere desire of the heart. It was uttered prayer, or oral prayer; and, though private, it was in the form of uttered words. The feeling was so great that it was expressed in an audible cry to God. Deep emotion usually finds vent in such audible and fervent expressions. Compare the Saviours earnest prayer in the garden of Gethsemane, Luk 22:41 ff.

Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible

Psa 17:1

Hear the right, O Lord, attend unto my cry,. . .that goeth not out of feigned lips.

Conscious sincerity

The Psalmist is quite sure that he himself is sincere. The verses which follow seem to be a kind of anticipation of the Pharisees self-satisfied prayer; but they are nothing of the kind. The reference is not to sinlessness, but to sincerity. The Psalmist does not say, I am a pure man, without a stain upon the heart or hand. He says, I am a sincere man, the general purpose I have had in view is a purpose marked by honesty. He does not represent himself as pure snow in the face of heaven, but as a man whose supreme motive has been a motive of honesty and general truthfulness. Sincerity can appeal to the right. We draw our prayer out of our own character. This suppliant is so sure of his own honesty that he says, Let the whole case be settled honestly. At other times, when he knows there is not a clean spot upon his whole constitution–one sound healthy spot–he falls right down before God and weeps out his soul ill penitence . . . We should be sure of our motive before we invoke the doing of right. It is better for us to invoke the exercise of mercy. Most men will get more from pity than they ever can get from righteousness. (Joseph Parker, D. D.)

Prayer out of feigned lips

It is observable that the eagle soareth on high, little intending to fly to heaven, but to gain her prey; and so it is that many do carry a great deal of seeming devotion in lifting up their eyes towards heaven; but they do it only to accomplish with more ease, safety, and applause their wicked designs here on earth; such as without are Catos, within Neros; hear them, no man better; search and try them, no man worse; they have Jacobs voice, but Esaus hands; they profess like saints, but practise like Satans; they have their long prayers, but short prayings; they are like apothecaries gallipots–having without the title of some excellent preservative, but within they are full of deadly poison; counterfeit holiness is their cloak for all manner of villanies, and the midwife to bring forth all their devilish designs. (Peter Bales.)

Justice, mercy, and perfection

I. A cry for justice (Psa 17:1-7). Things in the mind of David.

1. A sense of truthfulness. He was conscious that there was no discrepancy between his speech and his spirit. The man, unless he feels that he is sincere, will never dare to appeal to heaven for justice. Virtuous sincerity requires that there should be not only an exact correspondence between the speech and spirit, but also between the spirit and eternal realities.

2. A desire for the Divine verdict. Let my sentence come forth from Thy presence. The human soul everywhere holds that there is justice at the head of the universe, and that it will sooner or later vindicate the right.

3. A consciousness of a Divine searching. Thou hast proved mine heart. A man may be deeply conscious of his imperfection before God, analyst conscious of his innocence of the charges brought against him by man.

4. A determination to be blameless in his speech. I am purposed that my mouth shall not transgress. What he means is, I will utter nothing wrong concerning mine enemies, nothing that can justify their harsh and cruel conduct.

5. An assurance of Divine protection. He was protected from ruin. Protected by God. And protected in connection with his own agency. Gods agency in connection with mans deliverance neither supersedes the necessity nor interferes with the freedom of human effort.

6. A dread of falling from rectitude. Hold up my goings in Thy paths. This means–I am right as far as mine enemies are concerned at present. I am conscious of no wrong. I am anxious to retain my blamelessness. To retain my blamelessness I need Divine help.

7. A confidence that God will attend to his prayer. The meaning is–I have invoked Thee heretofore, and do so still, because I know that Thou wilt hear.

II. Here is a cry for mercy. Show Thy marvellous loving kindness. A prayer for protection from enemies. Note the character in which he appeals to God for protection. He appeals to Him as a mighty Saviour. The manner in which he desired protection. The enemies from whom he sought protection. The cry for mercy is as deep and universal as that for justice.

III. Here is a cry for perfection. Three facts deduce from the words.

1. That the death of a good man is an awaking from sleep. There is much spiritual torpor and spiritual dreaming even in the best.

2. In this awaking at death there will be the complete assimilation of the soul to God.

3. In this assimilation will consist the everlasting satisfaction of our nature. There is no satisfaction without this. The spiritual powers will not work harmoniously under the dominion of any other disposition. The conscience will frown upon any other state of mind. The Great One will not bless with His friendship any other state of mind in His creatures. Likeness to God is likeness to His controlling disposition. His controlling disposition is disinterested love, and this is that well which springs up to everlasting life. (Homilist.)

Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell

PSALM XVII

David implores the succour of God against his enemies; and

professes his integrity and determination to live to God’s

glory, 1.

He prays for support, and expresses strong confidence in God,

5-9;

describes the malice and cruelty of his enemies, and prays

against them, 10-14;

receives a strong persuasion of support and final victory, 15.

NOTES ON PSALM XVII

The title is, A prayer of David; in which there is nothing that requires explanation. David was most probably the author of this Psalm; and it appears to have been written about the time in which Saul had carried his persecution against him to the highest pitch. See 1Sa 27:1-12. The Arabic calls it “A prayer of a perfect man, of Christ himself, or of any one redeemed by him.” Dr. Delaney, in his life of David, supposes that this poem was written just after parting with Jonathan, when David went into exile.

Verse 1. Hear the right] Attend to the justice of my cause, Yehovah tsedek, righteous Jehovah. “O righteous Jehovah, attend unto my cry.”

Goeth not out of feigned lips.] My supplication is sincere: and the desire of my heart accompanies the words of my lips.

Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible

The right, Heb. righteousness, i.e. me, who, notwithstanding all their accusations and slanders, am righteous. Or, my righteous cause; do thou take notice of it, and give sentence for me. Or, my righteous prayer. I desire nothing that is unreasonable or unjust, but that thou wouldst judge righteously between me and mine enemies, and vindicate thine own honour and faithfulness in making good thy promise to me; which thy righteousness obliges thee to do.

My cry, i.e. my fervent prayer attended with strong cries.

Not out of feigned lips, Heb. not with deceitful lips, which speak one thing, when my heart knoweth and designeth another. And this profession of his sincerity in his words doth fitly make way for his solemn appeal to God in the following verses.

Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole

Hear the right, O Lord,…. The psalmist appeals to the Lord as a Judge, sitting on the throne judging right, that he would hear his cause litigated between him and his adversaries, determine and give the decisive sentence about it; so Christ committed himself to him that judgeth righteously, 1Pe 2:23; for by “right” may be meant his right and cause, or his righteous cause, as in Ps 9:4; unless rather his righteous prayer should be intended, so the Targum paraphrases it, “my prayer in righteousness”; not presented for the sake of his own righteousness, but on account of the righteousness of Christ, and for the vindication of his righteous cause before men: the Vulgate Latin, Ethiopic, and Arabic versions, render it “my righteousness”, meaning his righteous cause; but rather the word may be rendered “righteousness” z, or the “righteous one”, and may design the psalmist himself, who was a righteous person, and such the Lord hears; or Christ, whose name is the Lord our righteousness, Jer 23:6; and who, as an advocate or intercessor for himself and for his people, is Jesus Christ the righteous, 1Jo 2:1. The Septuagint version takes it to be an epithet of the Lord himself, translating it, “O Lord of my righteousness”, as in Ps 4:1; and so the Syriac version, “hear, O holy Lord”; and in this manner does Christ address his father in prayer,

Joh 17:11; and the consideration of the holiness and righteousness of God is of use in prayer to glorify God, and to command a proper awe and reverence of him;

attend unto my cry; the word for “cry” signifies both a noise made in a way of joy and grief; wherefore the Chaldee paraphrase renders it, “attend to my praise”, or hymn of praise, and which arises from sorrow and distress; and intends not mental prayer attended with groanings which cannot be uttered, but vocal prayer expressed in a loud and mournful manner, signifying the distress the person is in, and his earnestness and importunacy for help; and of this sort were some of Christ’s prayers; see Heb 5:7;

give ear unto my prayer, [that goeth] not out of feigned lips; hypocritical and deceitful ones; but this went forth from his heart, which was lifted up with his hands to God, to whom he drew nigh with a true heart, and called upon him in the sincerity and uprightness of his soul; and of this sort were all Christ’s prayers, in whose mouth there is no guile: the various expressions, “hear, attend, give ear”, which signify the same thing, show the distress the supplicant was in, the fervency of his prayer, and his vehement and earnest desire to be heard and answered immediately; and since the accent “athnach” is upon the word , “my prayer”, this last clause is not to be joined only to that, but refers to all that is said before; as that his “right” and his “cry”, as well as his prayer, were unfeigned.

z “justitiam”, Vatablus, Cocceius, Gejerus; , Aquila in Drusius; “justitiam”, i.e. “me qui sum justus”, Piscator.

Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible

is the accusative of the object: the righteousness, intended by the suppliant, is his own ( Psa 17:15). He knows that he is not merely righteous in his relation to man, but also in his relation to God. In all such assertions of pious self-consciousness, that which is intended is a righteousness of life which has its ground in the righteousness of faith. True, Hupfeld is of opinion, that under the Old Testament nothing was known either of righteousness which is by faith or of a righteousness belonging to another and imputed. But if this were true, then Paul was in gross error and Christianity is built upon the sand. But the truth, that faith is the ultimate ground of righteousness, is expressed in Gen 15:6, and at other turning-points in the course of the history of redemption; and the truth, that the righteousness which avails before God is a gift of grace is, for instance, a thought distinctly marked out in the expression of Jeremiah , “the Lord our righteousness.” The Old Testament conception, it is true, looks more to the phenomena than to the root of the matter ( ist mehr phnomenell als wurzelhaft ), is (so to speak) more Jacobic than Pauline; but the righteousness of life of the Old Testament and that of the New have one and the same basis, viz., in the grace of God, the Redeemer, towards sinful man, who in himself is altogether wanting in righteousness before God (Psa 143:2). Thus there is no self-righteousness, in David’s praying that the righteousness, which in him is persecuted and cries for help, may be heard. For, on the one hand, in his personal relation to Saul, he knows himself to be free from any ungrateful thoughts of usurpation, and on the other, in his personal relation to God free from , i.e., self-delusion and hypocrisy. The shrill cry for help, , which he raises, is such as may be heard and answered, because they are not lips of deceit with which he prays. The actual fact is manifest , therefore may his right go forth , – just what does happen, by its being publicly proclaimed and openly maintained – from Him, for His eyes, the eyes of Him who knoweth the hearts (Psa 11:4), behold (as in Psa 58:2; Psa 75:3 = , Psa 9:9, and many other passages), in uprightness, i.e., in accordance with the facts of the case and without partiality. might also be an accusative of the object (cf. 1Ch 29:17), but the usage of the language much more strongly favours the adverbial rendering, which is made still more natural by the confirmatory relation in which Psa 17:2 stands to Psa 17:2.

Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament

Sincere and Importunate Prayer.

A prayer of David.

1 Hear the right, O LORD, attend unto my cry, give ear unto my prayer, that goeth not out of feigned lips. 2 Let my sentence come forth from thy presence; let thine eyes behold the things that are equal. 3 Thou hast proved mine heart; thou hast visited me in the night; thou hast tried me, and shalt find nothing; I am purposed that my mouth shall not transgress. 4 Concerning the works of men, by the word of thy lips I have kept me from the paths of the destroyer. 5 Hold up my goings in thy paths, that my footsteps slip not. 6 I have called upon thee, for thou wilt hear me, O God: incline thine ear unto me, and hear my speech. 7 show thy marvellous lovingkindness, O thou that savest by thy right hand them which put their trust in thee from those that rise up against them.

This psalm is a prayer. As there is a time to weep and a time to rejoice, so there is a time for praise and a time for prayer. David was now persecuted, probably by Saul, who hunted him like a partridge on the mountains; without were fightings, within were fears, and both urged him as a suppliant to the throne of mercy. He addresses himself to God in these verses both by way of appeal (Hear the right, O Lord! let my righteous cause have a hearing before thy tribunal, and give judgment upon it) and by way of petition (Give ear unto my prayer v. 1, and again v. 6, Incline thy ear unto me and hear my speech); not that God needs to be thus pressed with our importunity, but he gives us leave thus to express our earnest desire of his gracious answers to our prayers. These things he pleads with God for audience, 1. That he was sincere, and did not dissemble with God in his prayer: It goeth not out of feigned lips. He meant as he spoke, and the feelings of his mind agreed with the expressions of his mouth. Feigned prayers are fruitless; but, if our hearts lead our prayers, God will meet them with his favour. 2. That he had been used to pray at other times, and it was not his distress and danger that now first brought him to his duty: “I have called upon thee formerly (v. 6); therefore, Lord, hear me now.” It will be a great comfort to us if trouble, when it comes, find the wheels of prayer a-going, for then we may come with the more boldness to the throne of grace. Tradesmen are willing to oblige those that have been long their customers. 3. That he was encouraged by his faith to expect God would take notice of his prayers: “I know thou wilt hear me, and therefore, O God, incline thy ear to me.” Our believing dependence upon God is a good plea to enforce our desires towards him. Let us now see,

I. What his appeal is; and here observe,

1. What the court is to the cognizance and determination of which he makes his appeal; it is the court of heaven. “Lord, do thou hear the right, for Saul is so passionate, so prejudiced, that he will not hear it. Lord, let my sentence come forth from thy presence, v. 2. Men sentence me to be pursued and cut off as an evil-doer. Lord, I appeal from them to thee.” This he did in a public remonstrance before Saul’s face (1 Sam. xxiv. 12, The Lord judge between me and thee), and he repeats it here in his private devotions. Note, (1.) The equity and extent of God’s government and judgment are a very great support to injured innocency. If we are blackened, and abused, and misrepresented, by unrighteous men, it is a comfort that we have a righteous God to go to, who will take our part, who is the patron of the oppressed, whose judgment is according to truth, by the discoveries of which every person and every cause will appear in a true light, stripped of all false colours, and by the decisions of which all unrighteous dooms will be reversed, and to every man will be rendered according to his work. (2.) Sincerity dreads no scrutiny, no, not that of God himself, according to the tenour of the covenant of grace: Let thy eyes behold the things that are equal. God’s omniscience is as much the joy of the upright as it is the terror of hypocrites, and is particularly comfortable to those who are falsely accused and in any wise have wrong done them.

2. What the evidence is by which he hopes to make good his appeal; it is the trial God had made of him (v. 3): Thou hast proved my heart. God’s sentence is therefore right, because he always proceeds upon his knowledge, which is more certain and infallible than that which men attain to by the closest views and the strictest investigations.

(1.) He knew God had tried him, [1.] By his own conscience, which is God’s deputy in the soul. The spirit of a man is the candle of the Lord, with this God had searched him, and visited him in the night, when he communed with his own heart upon his bed. He had submitted to the search, and had seriously reviewed the actions of his life, to discover what was amiss, but could find nothing of that which his enemies charged him with. [2.] By providence. God had tried him by the fair opportunity he had, once and again, to kill Saul; he had tried him by the malice of Saul, the treachery of his friends, and the many provocations that were given him; so that, if he had been the man he was represented to be, it would have appeared; but, upon all these trials, there was nothing found against him, no proof at all of the things whereof they accused him.

(2.) God tried his heart, and could witness to the integrity of that; but, for the further proof of his integrity, he himself takes notice of two things concerning which his conscience bore him record:– [1.] That he had a fixed resolution against all sins of the tongue: “I have purposed and fully determined, in the strength of God’s grace, that my mouth shall not transgress.” He does not say, “I hope that it will not,” or, “I wish that it may not,” but, “I have fully purposed that it shall not:” with this bridle he kept his mouth, Ps. xxxix. 1. Note, Constant resolution and watchfulness against sins of the tongue will be a good evidence of our integrity. If any offend not in word, the same is a perfect man, Jam. iii. 2. He does not say, “My mouth never shall transgress” (for in many things we all offend), but, “I have purposed that it shall not;” and he that searches the heart knows whether the purpose be sincere. [2.] That he had been as careful to refrain from sinful actions as from sinful words (v. 4): “Concerning the common works of men, the actions and affairs of human life, I have, by the direction of thy word, kept myself from the paths of the destroyer.” Some understand it particularly, that he had not been himself a destroyer of Saul, when it lay in his power, nor had he permitted others to be so, but said to Abishai, Destroy him not, 1 Sam. xxvi. 9. But it may be taken more generally; he kept himself from all evil works, and endeavoured, according to the duty of his place, to keep others from them too. Note, First, The ways of sin are paths of the destroyer, of the devil, whose name is Abaddon and Apollyon, a destroyer, who ruins souls by decoying them into the paths of sin. Secondly, It concerns us all to keep out of the paths of the destroyer; for, if we walk in those ways that lead to destruction, we must thank ourselves if destruction and misery be our portion at last. Thirdly, It is by the word of God, as our guide and rule, that we must keep out of the paths of the destroyer, by observing its directions and admonitions, Ps. cxix. 9. Fourthly, If we carefully avoid all the paths of sin, it will be very comfortable in the reflection, when we are in trouble. If we keep ourselves, that the wicked one touch us not with his temptations (1 John v. 18), we may hope he will not be able to touch us with his terrors.

II. What his petition is; it is, in short, this, That he might experience the good work of God in him, as an evidence of and qualification for the good will of God towards him: this is grace and peace from God the Father. 1. He prays for the work of God’s grace in him (v. 5): “Hold up my going in thy paths. Lord, I have, by thy grace, kept myself from the paths of the destroyer; by the same grace let me be kept in thy paths; let me not only be restrained from doing that which is evil, but quickened to abound always in that which is good. Let my goings be held in thy paths, that I may not turn back from them nor turn aside out of them; let them be held up in thy paths, that I may not stumble and fall into sin, that I may not trifle and neglect my duty. Lord, as thou hast kept me hitherto, so keep me still.” Those that are, through grace, going in God’s paths, have need to pray, and do pray, that their goings may be held up in those paths; for we stand no longer than he is pleased to hold us, we go no further than he is pleased to lead us, bear us up, and carry us. David had been kept in the way of his duty hitherto, and yet he does not think that this would be his security for the future, and therefore prays, “Lord, still hold me up.” Those that would proceed and persevere in the way of God must, by faith and prayer, fetch in daily fresh supplies of grace and strength from him. David was sensible that his way was slippery, that he himself was weak, and not so well fixed and furnished as he should be, that there were those who watched for his halting and would improve the least slip against him, and therefore he prays, “Lord, hold me up, that my foot slip not, that I may never say nor do any thing that looks either dishonest or distrustful of thee and thy providence and promise.” 2. He prays for the tokens of God’s favour to him, v. 7. Observe here, (1.) How he eyes God as the protector and Saviour of his people, so he calls him, and thence he takes his encouragement in prayer: O thou that savest by thy right hand (by thy own power, and needest not the agency of any other) those who put their trust in thee from those that rise up against them. It is the character of God’s people that they trust in him; he is pleased to make them confidants, for his secret is with the righteous; and they make him their trust, for to him they commit themselves. Those that trust in God have many enemies, many that rise up against them and seek their ruin; but they have one friend that is able to deal with them all, and, if he be for them, no matter who is against them. He reckons it his honour to be their Saviour. His almighty power is engaged for them, and they have all found him ready to save them. The margin reads it, O thou that savest those who trust in thee from those that rise up against thy right hand. Those that are enemies to the saints are rebels against God and his right hand, and therefore, no doubt, he will, in due time, appear against them. (2.) What he expects and desires from God: Show thy marvellous loving-kindness. The word signifies, [1.] Distinguishing favours. “Set apart thy loving-kindnesses for me; put me not off with common mercies, but be gracious to me, as thou usest to do to those who love thy name.” [2.] Wonderful favours. “O make thy loving-kindness admirable! Lord, testify thy favour to me in such a way that I and others may wonder at it.” God’s loving-kindness is marvellous for the freeness and the fulness of it; in some instances it appears, in a special manner, marvellous (Ps. cxviii. 23), and it will certainly appear so in the salvation of the saints, when Christ shall come to be glorified in the saints and to be admired in all those that believe.

Fuente: Matthew Henry’s Whole Bible Commentary

Psalms 17
A PETITION FOR JUSTICE AND PROTECTION
Verses 1-15:
This is a prayer of David when he was threatened by his enemies, perhaps often repeated by him, through his many bitter battles, as a man of war.
Verses 1, 2 relate David’s cry for the Lord to attend to his cry for the cause of right or justice, and he asks that the Lord give heed to his prayer that was offered through honest lips, not out of feigned or pretended trust or sincerity, 1Jn 3:22; Psa 66:18; Job 27:8-9; Joh 1:47-48; Rev 14:5. David asked further that his own sentence, in vindication of his own righteous cause, come forth from the Lord by delivering him before or in the very presence of his enemies. He believe that the Lord’s eyes beheld or looked favorably only upon the righteous, as being of equal integrity with God, through the Messiah.
Verses 3, 4 declare that the Lord had tried, tested, or proved the, heart of David, having visited him in the night and had found or would find nothing in his heart unconfessed. And he vowed that he would not transgress with his mouth, in words of whining, self-pity, or complaining under suffering. He had also resolved to lie not, gossip not, slander not, backbite not, stir not up any strife, or use not profanity. May more of God’s people resolve daily to “transgress not” with the mouth. As David had guarded his lips from the ways of the destroyer, so should we, Psa 119:11; Mat 4:4; Mat 4:7; Mat 4:10; Joh 17:17; Eph 6:17; 1Pe 5:8; Rev 9:11.
Verse 5 is a Davidic exhortation for the Lord to hold up or sustain his footsteps that they might not slip into wrong, in the way. Tho he claimed to have kept from or avoided the ways of the destroyer, he realized that it is not in his own power, but by the grace of God he can keep on walking daily in paths of right. He therefore asks for Divine strength to help him, day by day, to work out the grace God had worked in him, as expressed Eph 2:10; Mat 5:15-16; Php_2:12-13.
Verses 6, 7 appeal to the Lord to “incline his ear,” or lean over intently and listen to his appeal, even as he had done in the past, and had faith that He would keep doing. He earnestly besought Him to single out or demonstrate to him his loving kindness, as the one who saves or delivers by his right hand (hand of defense) of strength, those who put their trust in Him, from those who rise up against them, to oppress and destroy: For those who rise up to persecute the people of God really rise up against God Himself, Joh 15:19-25.
Verse 8, 9 further call upon the Lord to keep David as or like the “apple of his eye,” the most sensitive part that needs protection, and hide or shelter him under the shadow, warm, intimate safety of His wings of care or protection. For he confessed such was needed to make him safe from the wicked who oppressed him, deadly enemies, who encircled him, with bloody-murder in their hearts and instruments of destruction in their hands. Like Jeremiah he realized that but for “mercy-cares” of the Lord he would be consumed every day, La 3:22, 23; Deu 32:10; To touch holy people of God is to touch the “apple of His eye,” Zec 2:8. To be kept under the Lord’s wings suggested the mighty eagle or the humble hen’s protecting their young and helpless from all manner of harm, as set forth Deu 32:11; Mat 23:37.
Verses 10,11 describe the behavior of David’s deadly, murderous enemies as enclosed in their own fat of plenty, speaking proudly, boastfully against David as king of Israel and the holy people of Zion and Jerusalem. They were spiritually hardened, callous, obstinate, in obese rebellion against God, in their external, temporary prosperity, Deu 32:15; Job 15:27; Psa 63:7; Psa 119:70.
Verse 11 describes them with “set-eyes,” bowing down to the earth, unable to look God’s people in the eye because of their deceitful and treacherous hearts and covetous purpose to dethrone David and set up a new dynasty of their own kings, Psa 10:8-10.
Verse 12 adds that these enemies of David, Israel, and God are like a lion greedy for prey, to tear in pieces and destroy to satisfy his own appetite. Thus the wicked is compared with a carnivorous, ravenous beast, and as a young lion lurking in the shadows to spring upon his prey, Psa 17:9; 1Pe 5:8-9.
Verses 13, 14 relate David’s continuing prayer for the Lord to respond to his need, to rise up (in judgment) and disappoint his enemy, by tripping him up, casting him down, or subduing him. He asked that the Lord deliver him from immediate danger of the wicked by drawing His sword of destruction against him, as expressed Psa 7:11-13.
Verse 14 adds that these wicked men are or exist of the world, by the hand of the Lord in whom they live, who have their daily portion by His mercies, who fills their bellies with His own treasures, for which they are ingrates, Act 17:28. It is observed that their children are full and leave the rest of their substance with their babes after them, Psa 127:3; Psa 128:3-4; Job 21:11.
Verse 15 concludes that David expected to behold the Lord’s face in righteousness, in a future life, beyond the grave, Job 19:23-27; 2Co 3:18; 1Jn 3:2. Then he added that he would be satisfied upon awaking in the likeness of the Lord, Dan 12:2; 1Co 15:49; Php_3:20-21; 1Jn 3:2; Col 3:4.
“When I look upon His face
That will be glory, glory for me.”
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary

1. Hear my righteousness, O Jehovah. The Psalmist begins the psalm by setting forth the goodness of his cause. He does this because God has promised that he will not suffer the innocent to be oppressed, but will always, at length, succor them. Some explain the word righteousness as denoting righteous prayer, an interpretation which appears to me unsatisfactory. The meaning rather is, that David, confiding in his own integrity, interposes God as a Judge between himself and his enemies, to cognosce or determine in his cause. We have already seen, in a preceding psalm, that when we have to deal with wicked men, we may warrantably protest our innocence before God. As, however, it would not be enough for the faithful to have the approving testimony of a good conscience, David adds to his protestation earnest prayer. Even irreligious persons may often be able justly to boast of having a good cause; but as they do not acknowledge that the world is governed by the providence of God, they content themselves with enjoying the approbation of their own conscience, as they speak, and, gnawing the bit, bear the injuries which are done to them rather obstinately than steadfastly, seeing they do not seek for any consolation in faith and prayer. But the faithful not only depend upon the goodness of their cause, they also commit it to God that he may defend and maintain it; and whenever any adversity befalls them, they betake themselves to him for help. This, therefore, is the meaning of the passage; it is a prayer that God, who knew David to have done justly, and to have performed his duty without giving occasion to any to blame him, (339) and, therefore, to be unrighteously molested by his enemies, would graciously look upon him; and that he would do this especially, since, confiding in his aid, he entertained good hope, and, at the same time, prays to him with a sincere heart. By the words cry and prayer he means the same thing; but the word cry, and the repetition of what it denotes, by a different expression, serve to show his vehement, his intense earnestness of soul. Farther, as hypocrites talk loftily in commendation of themselves, and to show to others a token of the great confidence which they have in God, give utterance to loud cries, David protests concerning himself that he does not speak deceitfully; in other words, that he does not make use of his crying and prayer as a pretext for covering his sins, but comes into the presence of God with sincerity of heart. By this form of prayer the Holy Spirit teaches us, that we ought diligently to endeavor to live an upright and innocent life, so that, if there are any who give us trouble, we may be able to boast that we are blamed and persecuted wrongfully. (340) Again, whenever the wicked assault us, the same Spirit calls upon us to engage in prayer; and if any man, trusting to the testimony of a good conscience which he enjoys, neglects the exercise of prayer, he defrauds God of the honor which belongs to him, in not referring his cause to him, and in not leaving him to judge and determine in it. Let us learn, also, that when we present ourselves before God in prayer, it is not to be done with the ornaments of an artificial eloquence, for the finest rhetoric and the best grace which we can have before him consists in pure simplicity.
(339) “ Que David se soit portd justement et fait son devoir sans donner a aucun occasion de le blasmer.” — Fr.
(340) “ Que nous sommes blasmez et persecutez a tort.” — Fr.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary

THE ACCEPTABLE MAN
Psalms 15-18
IN walk, work and word.
Lord, who shall abide in Thy tabernacle f who shall dwell in Thy holy hill?
He that walketh uprightly, and worketh righteousness, and speaketh the truth in his heart.
He that backbiteth not with his tongue, nor doeth evil to his neighbour, nor taketh up a reproach against his neighbour (Psa 15:1-3).
In both spirit and speech.
In whose eyes a vile person is contemned; but he honoureth them that fear the Lord. He that sweareth to his own hurt, and changeth not (Psa 15:4).
In character and conduct.
He that putteth not out his money to usury, nor taketh reward against the innocent. He that doeth these things shall never be moved (Psa 15:5).
THE DEPENDENT MAN
He looks to God for his reservation.
Preserve me, O God: for in Thee do I put my trust. O my soul, thou hast said unto the Lord, Thou art my Lord: my goodness extendeth not to Thee;
But to the saints that are in the earth, and to the excellent, in whom is all my delight.
Their sorrows shall be multiplied that hasten after another god: their drink offerings of blood will I not offer, nor take up their names into my lips.
The Lord is the portion of mine inheritance and of my cup: Thou maintainest my lot (Psa 16:1-5).
He acknowledges the goodness of God.
The lines are fallen unto me in pleasant places; yea, I have a goodly heritage.
I will bless the Lord, who hath given me counsel: my reins also instruct me in the night seasons.
I have set the Lord always before me: because He is at my right hand, I shall not be moved (Psa 16:6-8).
He trusts the keeping grace of God.
Therefore my heart is glad, and my glory rejoiceth: my flesh also shall rest in hope.
For Thou wilt not leave my soul in hell, neither wilt Thou suffer Thine Holy One to see corruption.
Thou wilt shew me the path of life: in Thy Presence is fulness of joy; at Thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore (Psa 16:9-11).
Psa 17:1-15.
Hear the right, O Lord, attend unto my cry, give ear unto my prayer, that goeth not out of feigned lips.
Let my silence come forth from Thy Presence; let Thine eyes behold the things that are equal.
Thou hast proved mine heart; Thou hast visited me in the night;. Thou hast tried me, and shalt find nothing; I am purposed that my mouth shall not transgress.
Concerning the works of men, by the word of Thy lips I have kept me from the paths of the destroyer.
Hold up my goings in Thy paths, that my footsteps slip not.
I have called upon Thee, for Thou wilt hear me, O God: incline Thine ear unto me, and hear my speech.
Shew Thy marvellous lovingkindness, O Thou that savest by Thy right hand them which put their trust in Thee from those that rise up against them.
Keep me as the apple of the eye, hide me under the shadow of Thy wings.
From the wicked that oppress me, from my deadly enemies, who compass me about.
They are inclosed in their own fat: with their mouth they speak proudly.
They have now compassed us in our steps: they have set their eyes bowing down to the earth;
Like as a lion that is greedy of his prey, and as it were a young lion lurking in secret places.
Arise, O Lord, disappoint him, cast him down: deliver my soul from the wicked, which is Thy sword:
From men which are Thy hand, O Lord, from men of the world, which have their portion in this life, and whose belly Thou fillest with Thy hid treasure: they are full of children, and leave the rest of their substance to their babes.
As for me, I will behold Thy face in righteousness: I shall he satisfied, when I awake, with Thy likeness (Psa 16:9-17:15)
THE GRATEFUL MAN
He affirms his personal affection.
I will love Thee, O Lord, my strength.
The Lord is my Rock, and my Fortress, and my Deliverer; my God, my Strength, in whom I will trust; my Buckler, and the Horn of my salvation, and my high Tower.
I will call upon the Lord, who is worthy to he praised: so shall I he saved from mine enemies (Psa 18:1-3),
He rehearses his wondrous salvation.
The sorrows of death compassed me, and the floods of ungodly men made me afraid.
The sorrows of hell compassed me about: the snares of death prevented me.
In my distress I called upon the Lord, and cried unto my God: He heard my voice out of His temple, and my cry came before Him, even into His ears.
Then the earth shook and trembled; the foundations also of the hills moved and were shaken, because He was wroth.
There went up a smoke out of His nostrils, and fire out of His mouth devoured: coals were kindled by it.
He bowed the heavens also, and came down: and darkness was under His feet.
And He rode upon a cherub, and did fly: yea, He did fly upon the wings of the wind.
He made darkness His secret place; His pavilion round about him were dark waters and thick clouds of the skies.
At the brightness that was before Him His thick clouds passed, hail stones and coals of fire.
The Lord also thundered in the heavens, and the Highest gave His voice; hail stones and coals of fire.
Yea, He sent out His arrows, and scattered them; and He shot out lightnings, and discomfited them.
Then the channels of waters were seen, and the foundations of the world were discovered at Thy rebuke, O Lord, at the blast of the breath of Thy nostrils.
He sent from above, He took me, He drew me out of many waters.
He delivered me from my strong enemy, and from them which hated me: for they were too strong for me.
They prevented me in the day of my calamity: but the Lord was my stay.
He brought me forth also into a large place; He delivered me, because He delighted in me.
The Lord rewarded me according to my righteousness; according to the cleanness of my hands hath He recompensed me (Psa 18:4-20).
He assigns his triumphs to Gods grace.
For I have kept the ways of the Lord, and have not wickedly departed from my God.
For all His judgments were before me, and I did not put away His statutes before me.
I was also upright before Him, and I kept myself from mine iniquity.
Therefore hath the Lord recompensed me according to my righteousness, according to the cleanness of my hands in His eyesight.
With the merciful Thou wilt shew Thyself merciful; with an upright man Thou wilt shew Thyself upright;
With the pure Thou wilt shew Thyself pure; and with the froward Thou wilt shew Thyself froward.
For Thou wilt save the afflicted people; but wilt bring down high looks.
For Thou wilt light my candle: the Lord my God will enlighten my darkness.
For by Thee I have run through a troop; and by my God have I leaped over a wall.
As for God, His way is perfect: the Word of the Lord is tried: He is a buckler to all those that trust in Him.
For who is God save the Lord? or who is a rock save our God?
It is God that girdeth me with strength, and maketh my way perfect.
He maketh my feet like hinds feet, and setteth me upon my high places.
He teacheth my hands to war, so that a bow of steel is broken by mine arms.
Thou hast also given me the shield of Thy salvation: and Thy right hand hath holden me up, and. Thy gentleness hath made me great.
Thou hast enlarged my steps under me, that my feet did not slip.
I have pursued mine enemies, and overtaken them: neither did I turn again till they were consumed.
I have wounded them that they were not able to rise: they are fallen under my feet.
For Thou hast girded me with strength unto the battle: Thou hast subdued under me those that rose up against me.
Thou hast also given me the necks of mine enemies; that I might destroy them that hate me.
They cried, but there was none to save them: even unto the Lord, but He answered them not.
Then did I beat them small as the dust before the wind: I did cast them out as the dirt in the streets.
Thou hast delivered me from the strivings of the people; and Thou hast made me the head of the heathen: a people whom I have not known shall serve me.
As soon as they hear of me, they shall obey me: the strangers shall submit themselves unto me.
The strangers shall fade away, and be afraid out of their close places.
The Lord liveth; and blessed be my Rock; and let the God of my salvation be exalted.
It is God that avengeth me, and subdueth the people under me.
He delivereth me from mine enemies: yea, Thou liftest me up above those that rise up against me: Thou hast delivered me from the violent man.
Therefore will I give thanks unto Thee, O Lord, among the heathen, and sing praises unto Thy name.
Great deliverance giveth He to His king; and sheweth mercy to His anointed, to David, and to his seed for evermore (Psa 18:21-50).

Fuente: The Bible of the Expositor and the Evangelist by Riley

INTRODUCTION
David pours forth to God in this psalm an earnest prayer for deliverance from his inveterate enemies, who were bent on taking away his life. We find in it his opinion of the character of his oppressors, who were obviously persons of consideration and influence, and who were disposed to exercise all the power which their station enabled them to command, to gratify their hatred and malice against him. He affirms his own innocence, and expresses his full conviction that the time would come when the relative conditions of himself and his opponents would be changed. Many persons think, and with some reason, that the psalm was written on the occasion when Saul and his men pursued David in the wilderness of Engedi.Phillips.
SAFE STEPS ON DANGEROUS PATHS
(Psa. 17:4-5.)
We are reminded here:
I. Of our need of the Divine succour. Hold up my goings in Thy paths (Psa. 17:5). This is the language of one who felt that he could not hold himself up. Some in the pride of their heart imagine that they can, in their own wit and strength, face life and its difficulties. Let us look at the path of life, the path which leads to heaven, and we shall see our need of a Divine Helper. In our way through this world to a better we must often encounter:
1. Steep paths. How pure, perfect, high are the statutes of God! We are born in the depths of sin and shame. All that is truly great and truly good lies far above us, as those white mountains of Switzerland lie above the traveller, their tops touching heaven. Now, who can ascend the holy hill? Can we, in our own strength, get so much above ourselves, so much beyond ourselves? Surely not. Without superhuman help we should soon grow faint and weary in scaling these sublime heights, and glide down, or fall down, into sense and sin.
2. Rough paths. Life has its paths of suffering, the paths that have to be traversed with bleeding feet. Here human nature often faints and falls. Men strike against sick-beds, bereavements, losses, persecutions, and lose all energy, peace, hope. Our heart is often discouraged because of the way, and unless we have Divine strength, comfort, guidance, we must perish.
3. Dark paths. We are often in most perplexing circumstances, and it is very easy for us to get wrong. Ye have not passed this way heretofore. Our path is often untried, strange, and dangerous. We speak of taking a leap in the dark. We are constantly doing this, compelled to do it; life is a series of leaps in the dark. If a Heavenly Hand does not aid us, we must stumble and fall.
4. Slippery paths. Days of youth, when the blood is hot, and life free and full; days of temptation, when a strange illusive light brightens into beauty things of death and darkness; days of comfort, when there is nothing to stir the soul, but everything to lull it; days of prosperity, when riches and honours increase: these are the times when we stand on slippery paths, on enchanted ground; and unless God help us, we are soon, as an old writer says, on all fours. Alpine climbers say that the icy peaks which sometimes they attempt to climb are like the neck of a bottle, and it is hard work to keep from sliding into the abyss. Life has paths similarly slippery, and unless a Divine guide uphold us, our steps will slide.
In Psa. 16:11 we read, Thou wilt show me the path of life; here the psalm speaks of the paths of the destroyer. The path of life is oue; but there are many paths of the destroyer.Wordsworth. And Satan is perpetually seeking to drive or to draw us from the Kings highway into his destructive paths. The path of life is like the vale of Siddim, slimy and slippery, full of lime-pits and pit-falls, springs and stumbling-blocks.Trapp. Hold up my goingsas a careful driver holds up his horse when going down hill. We have all sorts of paces, both fast and slow, and the road is never long of one sort, but with God to hold up our goings, nothing in the pace or in the road can cast down.Spurgeon. Lord, hold me up, that I may hold out.Watson.
We are reminded:
II. Of the sufficiency of the Divine succour. The Psalmist has no doubt of his safety if only God will save him. Thus, in another place: Hold Thou me up, and I shall be safe (Psa. 119:117). There is no royal road to heaven, but there is a royal Helper, and none can perish who cling to Him. God is able to make you stand (Rom. 14:4). There is a Catholic story which relates that once a holy painter was painting on the lofty ceiling of a church the image of one of the apostles. Absorbed in his work the artist stepped back to contemplate it, and stepped beyond the edge of the scaffolding; in a moment the figure that he was painting started into life, caught the falling artist, and set him down safely by the altar. If we live in the Church, and seek to glorify God, whenever we take a dangerous step, or stand in perilous slight, a Hand stronger than that of Peters, stronger than Gabriels, shall preserve us, and keep us in safety.
On every side He stands,
And for His Israel cares;
And safe in His Almighty hands,
Their souls for ever bears.
Learn:
1. That we are safe only whilst we rest in God. All other securities for good living are valid only whilst God gives them efficacy. Promises, vows, pledges, all are unreliable, except as God gives them fixity and force. Gods help is the key-stone of all prudential measures. We must all try to take the dying minister advice: Stand up for Christ, stand up in Christ.
2. That it is the privilege of the believer to be held up. Not only to be picked up when we have fallen, but to be held up, so that we may not fall. The old poet sings
That which makes us have no need
Of physic, thats physic indeed.
Preventing grace is the best physic.
3. That we are preserved from falling by holding to Gods Word (Psa. 17:4). Whatever men in general may do or say, I have but one guide and rule of action, viz., Thy Word.Perowne. And Kay renders (Psa. 17:5). Because my treadings held firm to Thy paths, my steps have been unmoved. By holding fast my goings in Thy paths, or rather, tracks, ruts of wheels, my footsteps have not been moved. I owe my safety to the care which I take to tread in Thy footsteps. Wordsworth. If we hold firmly by Gods Word, that Word will preserve us. It shows us which are the false paths. By the words of thy lips I have marked the paths of the transgressor.Wordsworth. It strengthens us to walk in true paths. Its examples, its promises, the grace which is ever given in the reading of it, energise us to walk in the path of life which it indicates.
4. That the text gives no sanction to carelessness and sloth. If God hold us up we have something to do, we have to hold to Him. To hold Gods hand day by day is the supremest effort of the soul, it means unceasing thought, prayer, endeavour. God only saves those who daily cling to Him in sighs, and prayers, and tears.
SPECIAL NEED, SPECIAL HELP
(Psa. 17:7-14.)
I. Special Need. Show Thy marvellous lovingkindness (Psa. 17:7). Make Thy grace wonderful.Moll. Exhibit Thy special mercies, Thou who savest them that flee for refuge.Kay. It has particular reference to extraordinary favours, implying an unusual necessity.Alexander. The Psalmist was in a position of peculiar distress and peril. Mark his trying position as here depicted by himself.
1. The number of his enemies (Psa. 17:9). They compassed him about. He felt that he was hemmed in by them on every side.
2. The character of his enemies. They were deadly enemies (Psa. 17:9). As the 10th verse particularises, they were proud, arrogant, unfeeling. Their heart is not a pulsating human heart, but a lump of fatMoll. Insensible, obdurate, cruel.
3. The strategy of his enemies (Psa. 17:11-12). They had fixed their eyes intently on the Psalmist, with a purpose to prostrate him to the ground, or completely overwhelm him.Moll. A greedy lion lurking in secret places, expresses at once, their ferocious disposition and crafty action. It was then with the Psalmist a time of special need. All Gods people know such times. They are often in deep waters, but sometimes deep calleth unto deep; their sky is often clouded, but sometimes it is eclipsed; they often pass through the fire, but sometimes the furnace is heated seven times hotter than it is wont to be heated. Their trouble is sore, their trial fiery. Their tribulation seems to go beyond that of Christians in general; it certainly goes beyond any which they have experienced in the past. They have need of extraordinary help, marvellous lovingkindnesses, special mercies.
II. Special Help. Keep me as the apple of the eye, hide me under the shadow of Thy wings (Psa. 17:8). How truly sublime these conceptions! In the seasons of deepest distress we have the brightest visions of Gods love and power to save. In times of deepest trial we are:
1. The dearest to God. Keep me as the apple of the eye. This is a symbol of that which is dearest to us. How precious is the eye, how carefully guarded by us! So we are never dearer to God than when we want Him most. The most suffering child in a family is the best beloved; and so it is in Gods family (Zec. 2:8).
2. The nearest to God. Hide me under the shadow of Thy wings. How near, how safe! The wings of a hen cover her brood so that they cannot be seen by birds of prey; she covers them against rain and storms; she warms them and strengthens them when they are cold and weak; so likewise does the Divine grace with His children.Moll. Thus in times of persecution and temptation; of suffering and trouble; of weakness and fear, God draws us all the closer to Himself, and under those wings, whose golden feathers are wisdom and power and love, we hide in safety.
3. The happiest in God. The eaglet hiding under the wing of the parent bird is a figure of comfort as well as safety. It is only as we realise deeper experience of pain, and loss, and peril, that we realise the deeper joys of the Divine life. For as the sufferings of Christ abound in us, so our consolation also aboundeth by Christ (2Co. 1:5). The brighter rainbow decks the darker cloud; in mid-winters gloom the stars burn brightest. Gods wing is as soft as it is strong, and the sorrow that drives us to the closer communion ensures us a deeper peace, a keener bliss.
When my sorrows most increase,
Let Thy strongest joys be given!
Jesus, come with my distress,
And agony is heaven!
SANCTIFIED TRIAL
(Psa. 17:7-15.)
In these verses we have an illustration of the purifying and ennobling influences of sanctified trouble. We see that unsanctified prosperity degrades those who enjoy it, whilst sanctified adversity lifts up those who suffer it
I. Sanctified sorrow drives us nearer God. In the 7th and 8th verses this is very apparent. The hard usage of his enemies drove David into Gods blessed bosom; as children misused abroad run home to their parents.Trapp. Wronged by the world, buffeted by the messengers of Satan, overtaken by the storms of adversity, in closer fellowship with God we find balm to our soul. One day an aide-de-camp of the late Emperor Nicholas of Russia threw himself at the monarchs feet, and begged from his sovereign permission to fight a duel. The Emperor, who was a staunch opponent of duelling, immediately and emphatically refused. But, sire, I am dishonoured; I must fight, cried the disconsolate aide. The Czar frowned, and asked him what he meant. I have been struck in the face, was the ready reply. Well, said the Emperor, for all that, thou shalt not fight; but comecome with me. And, taking him by the arm, the Emperor led him into the presence of his court which was assembled in an adjoining saloon. Then, in view of the flower of his realm, the Emperor kissed the cheek of the aide-de-camp which had received the blow. Go now, he exclaimed, and be at peace; thy affront has been effaced. Thus, when we are wronged by men or devils, we fly to our God, and the kiss of the King of the universe more than atones for the injury and dishonour that may have been done us. The Kings love and favour fill the wounded soul with strength and gladness.
II. Sanctified sorrow conducts to a higher spiritual life. We see this specially in the 14th verse. The Psalmist has been led to feel how much superior is the Divine life to a worldly life. He is led to a new and deeper appreciation of a godly nature, and of all the treasures it inherits. In the midst of persecution and sorrow he realises a more intense spirituality. A naturalist, speaking of the swarms of insects which torment cattle in tropical lands, shows that the sufferings of the cattle issue in their safety. Observe, says this writer, that the furious eagerness of the winged insects, which seem to be the agents of death, is frequently a cause of life. By an incessant persecution of the sick flocks, enfeebled by hot damp airs, they ensure their safety. Otherwise they would remain stupidly resigned, and hour after hour grow less capable of motion, gloomier and more morbid in the bonds of fever, until they could rise no more. The inexorable spur knows, however, the secret of putting them on their legs; though, with trembling limbs, they take to flight, the insect never quits them; presses them, urges them, and conducts them, bleeding, to the wholesome regions of the dry lands and the living waters, where their furious guide abandons them, and returns to the pestilent vapours, to its realm of death. Thus Davids enemies, like a swarm of winged insects, drove him to loftier heights of life. If he had been left to a level life of care and prosperity he might have fallen a victim to its relaxing influences, but persecutions and tribulations drove him to the higher walks of thought, and feeling, and life. Is it not often thus with Gods people? They are stung by many losses and sorrows; but these afflictions secure their salvation. With trembling limbs, and bleeding hearts, they take their flight from the miasmatic plains of the carnal life, to the tablelands of which God Himself is sun and moon.
III. Sanctified sorrow awakens longings for the heavenly and eternal life (Psa. 17:15). Here we see the Psalmist loosened from earth by his troubles, and looking forward to the heavenly and immortal for the satisfaction of all his longings. Such is the beauty of Damascus that we are told Mahomet feared, if he entered it, his heart would be captivated by its loveliness, and he would be unfitted for the celestial, so he turned away from the gates of the Syrian paradise. Amid scenes of affluence and pleasure we may easily forget our great inheritance; but in disappointment and affliction our heart goes out after that Divine and heavenly inheritance which fadeth not away.
MEN OF THE WORLD
Men of the World (Psa. 17:14)
We will first consider:
I. The characters thus described. Men of the world observe:
1. Their portion. Which have their portion in this life. The word here used for world denotes the transitory nature of the world as a thing of time. Men of the world are those who have made it their home, and who, together with the world and the lust thereof, are passing away. Being thus worldly-minded, they have their portion in life, i.e. in the brief years of their existence upon earth.Perowne. Life is by some understood to mean a life of ease or pleasure; but this is far less natural than the obvious sense of this life, this present state as distinguished from futurity.Alexander.
(1.) They live to the visible. The world. Their pain and pleasure, hope and fear, loss or gain, all have to do with the senses and the worldly life.
(2.) They live to the present. Their disposition is grosstheir highest good and happiness is in the purely natural life. Worldliness consists in these three things:Attachment to the Outward; attachment to the Transitory; attachment to the Unreal: in opposition to love for the Inward, the Eternal, the True.Robertson. A man may not be an atheist, and yet be a man of the world; a man may not be vicious, and yet be a man of the world; nay, a man may be moral, amiable, kind, and yet be a man of the world. They love not God: The friendship of the world is enmity with God. They love the near and the low, not the distant and the highthey are deaf to the injunction, Set not your affections upon things of the earth. They look at the things which are temporal. How many there are with many good qualities, but who at their best are never more than men of the world!
2. Their prosperity.
(1.) They have enough for themselves. Whose belly thou fillest with Thy hid treasure. To the eye of sense God seems sometimes to have reserved His choicest gifts for the ungodly.Alexander. They have more than heart could wish, their eyes stand out with fatness (Job. 21:7-15).
(2.) They have enough for their children. They are full of children, &c. Margin, their children are full. The obvious signification is, that they have enough for themselves and for their children.Barnes. They found large and flourishing houses. The prosperity of the wicked need not excite any particular surprise.
(1.) They set their whole heart on such prosperity.
(2.) They bend their whole strength to compass their aim.
(3.) They have no moral scruples to stand in the way of their progress. They live to the world, and get it. Its wreaths theirs, its gold, its purple, its dainties.
Observe:
II. The disadvantages of their lot.
The Psalmist in this place is not envying the men of this world; but, on the contrary, pities them.
1. The hand of God is against them. From the wicked by Thy sword: from men by Thy hand (Psa. 17:13-14). Many take worldly prosperity as a sign of Gods favour, but it is no such sign. Gods hand is against men of the world. His sword is lifted against them, and must smite erelong if they repent not.
2. They have a profound discontent. A carnal content they have, but does not the Psalmist intimate in the 15th verse, that true satisfaction comes only through righteousness? Yes, the men of the world are full of precious thingspleasures, honours, gold, and silverbut their spirit is desolate and unsatisfied. Their portion is a lean and hungry one at the bestone that may fill the hand, but cannot fill the soul.Binnie.
3. They soon part with their inheritance for ever. This world. This life. Whatever this world gives us it soon takes back again, just as the hungry ocean-waves suck back again the glittering shells with which they first strewed the shore. And then? For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever (1Jn. 2:16-17).
SATISFACTION
(Psa. 17:15.)
Satisfaction! What a magical word! Oh! What is it? Where is it to be found? Who shall teach us to realise it? In this verse we have suggested to us,
I. The nature of true satisfaction.
1. It is spiritual. The Psalmist shows here that it is not external and physical, but internal and spiritual. The sensual men in the 14th verse, are not satisfied men are not men seeking satisfaction in a right direction. Not in mere sensuality shall we ever find content. You cannot satisfy the body with thoughts, neither can you satisfy the soul with meats. Not in social rank and glory shall we prove satisfaction. The ancient star-worshippers affixed mirrors to their breasts to bring near to them the orbs they worshipped, but the orbs themselves were far away in the heavens, nevertheless; and titles, purple, coronets, golden fortunes, crowns of fame, are but mirrors also in which you have the reflections of high and glorious thingsreflections, and nothing more. Not in mere intellectuality shall we find content,art, science, philosophy. St. Augustine complains to God of his friends offering him the books of the philosophers;And these were the dishes in which they brought to me, being hungry, the sun and the moon instead of Thee. True satisfaction is not in the sphere of the senses, but of the spirit.
2. It is complete. The satisfaction of the sensual in the 14th verse, is one-sided, only regarding one section of the complex nature. The Psalmists satisfaction was all pervasivethe gratification of his whole beingappetite, sensibility, imagination, spirit. Theirs, partial, defective, such as would but gratify their bestial part; his, adequate, complete, a happiness of proportion, such as should satisfy the man.John Howe.
3. It is full, satisfied, fed to the full.French. The whole nature blessed, and fully blessed. They hunger no more, neither do they thirst any more.
4. It is everlasting. The Psalmist looks forward here to the great future, and anticipates endless blessedness. The perpetuity of the inheritance of the worldly man referred to in Psa. 17:14, is quite a mock immortalityhe dies, and his estate is soon dissipated; but the joy of a spiritualised and perfected nature flows for evermore.
II. The source of true satisfaction.
1. The vision of God. As for mein righteousness let me behold Thy face.Perowne. The knowledge of Godthe perception of His goodness, wisdom, beauty. The secret of all our discontents is our misapprehension of the Divine nature, law, government, purpose. If we could see the Throne, and Him that sits thereupon, with unclouded facefor really the cloud is on our face, not on Godsour soul would be filled with ecstasy. To know that God is all beauty, and His law all love, and His government all wise, and His kingdom and eternity all joyto know this, is overflowing and everlasting gladness. To have a clear, full vision of Jesus, Who is the brightness of the Fathers glory, is the secret of satisfaction. Observe, it is through righteousness that we gain this vision. In righteousness let me behold Thy face. Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.
2. The likeness of God. When I awake with Thy likeness. When Thy likeness is awakened.Horsley. As we become pure we get the clearer vision of God, and as we get the clearer vision of God, the Divine image is inwrought once more in our deepest nature. We all with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, &c. (2Co. 3:18).
Unlike my God I cannot rest,
For sin is perfect misery:
But stamp Thine image on my breast,
Conform my hallowed soul to Thee.
Partaker of Thine utmost grace,
My soul would then be satisfied;
As Moses, when he saw Thy face,
And sank into Thine arms and died.
(1.) This satisfaction may be largely attained in this life. It is a grave error to place this satisfaction wholly in the future. In this life we may, through the grace of Jesus, attain power over sin, fix our heart singly upon God, and attain thus to the vision of God, the likeness of God, and all the joy of which God is the fountain. Let us seek a pure heart.
(2.) This satisfaction is fully attained in the life to come. They shall see His face, and His name shall be in their foreheads. Here we begin to awake in the likeness of God, and as His image shines more clear in our soul, our satisfaction becomes more profound; in heaven, that likeness shall be completewe shall see Him as He is, and our joy shall be full.
Fuente: The Preacher’s Complete Homiletical Commentary Edited by Joseph S. Exell

Psalms 17
DESCRIPTIVE TITLE
One who is Righteous Prays, in Great Trouble, for Divine Deliverance and Manifestation.
ANALYSIS
Stanza I., Psa. 17:1-2, The Prayer of Righteousness. Stanza II., vers, 3, 4, The Proving of Righteousness. Stanza III., Psa. 17:4-6, The Precaution of Righteousness! Stanza IV., Psa. 17:6-8, Prayer for Attention, Kindness and Tender Care. Stanza V., Psa. 17:9-10, Refuge sought from Greedy. Cross and Arrogant Enemies. Stanza VI., Psa. 17:11-12, Invaders Advancing, Surrounding, Encamping, and Waylaying. Stanza VII., Psa. 17:13-14, Arise, Confront, Bring down, Deliver, Slay! Stanza VIII., Psa. 17:14-15, Punishment invoked on Three GenerationsReward counted upon by a Hoped-for Satisfying Vision of God.
(Lm.) PrayerBy David
1
Oh hear Jehovah one who is righteousattend to my piercing cry,
oh, give ear to my prayerwithout lips of deceit:
2
from thy presence let my sentence come forththat mine[136] eyes may behold it.
[136] So. Sep.
3
With equity hast thou tried my hearthast inspected me by night,
hast proved[137] me thou findest in me no evil purposemy mouth transgresseth not:
[137] Zaraph, smelt, refine, testO.G.
4
as for the doings of men by the word of thy lips (do I regard them).
I have watched the paths of the violent one;
5
my steps hold fast to thy tracksmy footsteps slip not
6
I have called upon theesurely thou wilt answer me O God!
Incline thine ear to mehear my promise,[138]
[138] Saying or speech; but cp. Psalms 119, table.
7
make wonderful thy deeds of kindness[139]thou Saviour from assailants![140]
[139] Make signal thy kindnessesDr.
[140] Those that rise up (against them)Dr.
8
I am taking refuge at thy right handprotect me as the pupil the daughter of the eye.
9
In the shadow of thy wings wilt thou hide me from the lawless,
those mine accusers that assail mewith greed[141] encompass me,
[141] Ml.: with (or in) soul.
10
their gross heart[142] have they closedwith their mouth have they spoken proudly.
[142] Ml.: fat, midriff, diaphragm.
11
They advance now they march round ustheir eyes they fix,
12
They mean to encamp in the landthey maltreat as a lion,
they are greedy for preythey are like a young lion lurking in secret places.
13
Oh, arise Jehovah! confront him bring him down,
oh, deliver my soul from the lawless one (destroy with) thy sword!
14
let them be slain (by) thy handslain out of the world.
Let their portion be during lifelet thy stored-up penalty fill their bosom,[143]
[143] Ml.: belly.
let their sons be satedand leave their residue to their children;
15
but as for me let me have vision of thy facebe satisfied with thy form.[144]
[144] Or.: the form of thee M.T., more fully:
But as for me in righteousness shall I have vision of thy face, Oh let me be satisfied when I awake a resemblance of thee!
(Lm.) To the Chief Musician.
PARAPHRASE
Psalms 17
I am pleading for Your help, O Lord; for I have been honest and have done what is right, and You must listen to my earnest cry!
2 Publicly acquit me, Lord, for You are always fair.
3 You have tested me and seen that I am good. You have come even in the night and found nothing amiss and know that I have told the truth.
4 I have followed Your commands and have not gone along with cruel and evil men.
5 My feet have not slipped from Your paths.
6 Why am I praying like this? Because I know You will answer me, O God! Yes, listen as I pray.
7 Show me Your strong love in wonderful ways, O Savior of all those seeking Your help against their foes.
8 Protect me as You would the pupil of Your eye; hide me in the shadow of Your wings as You hover over me.
9 My enemies encircle me with murder in their eyes.
10 They are pitiless and arrogant. Listen to their boasting.
11 They close in upon me and are ready to throw me to the ground.
12 They are like lions eager to tear me apart, like young lions hiding and waiting their chance.
13, 14 Lord, arise and stand against them! Push them back! Come and save me from these men of the world whose only concern is earthly gainthese men whom You have filled with Your treasures so that their children and grandchildren are rich and prosperous.
15 But as for me, my contentment is not in wealth but in seeing You and knowing all is well between us. And when I awake in heaven, I will be fully satisfied, for I will see You face to face.
EXPOSITION
The first method of these Studies as to the question of authorship was to analyse a psalm with exclusive regard to internal evidence; and to interrogate that evidence by saying, Now what sort of man appears to have written that psalm, under what circumstances, with a view of what dangers (if any), and with what feelings? Only after pursuing this method with the present psalm, did any name occur as probable; and then it was the name of King Hezekiah, in view and in presence of the Assyrian invasion. If we take this suggestion as a working hypothesis, it is at once seen what a large amount of verisimilitude gathers about it. It is at once noticed how naturally, in such case, the writer appears both as an individual and as a personified nation; and the danger comes into view as an actual and most formidable invasion, by a cruel, greedy, insensate enemy. It is easily realised how naturally a good man like Hezekiah would assure himself of his rectitude, as a man and a monarch, in pressing his suit at Jehovahs footstool; and, considering the multitude of persons and the variety of interests at stake, how inevitable were the passion and the persistence in petition which are here displayedpiercingly loud (Psa. 17:1), courageously bold (Psa. 17:13-14), thoughtfully tender (Psa. 17:8); how suitable to the gravity of the occasion is the largeness of the blessings soughtthat the answer should plainly have come forth from the Divine Presence (Psa. 17:2), that it should amount to nothing less than Jehovahs making his deeds of kindness wonderful (Psa. 17:7)and that its result on the enemy should be his inevitable slaughter (Psa. 17:13-14). In view of such a situation, how little of personal vengeance appears in the most sweeping petitions for the punishment of the foe; for only by such an overthrow could the deliverance sought be so much as imagined. Even the desire that the stroke might be felt to the third generation (Psa. 17:14) would seem to be necessarily involved in the making of Israels deliverance effective. Perhaps, even beyond all these features of adaptation discoverable in this psalm, is its conclusion; and, quite unexpectedly, to the writer of this exposition, its conclusion rather in the shorter form inserted in the text than in the longer form relegated to the margin. For, assuredly, it was not without searchings of heart that the familiar and favourite ending of the Massoretic Text was, at the bidding of a very refined criticismunwilling to admit any unsymmetrical distension of metre or stanza,assigned to a lower place; especially considering that such assignment would in a measure put out of confident use the significant word awake, which had always been felt to be evidence that actual resurrection from the dead formed, for the psalmist, the path to life by which he hoped to ascend to the beatific vision of Jehovahs face. But, with the apprehension that HEZEKIAH might have written this psalm, the whole realm of probability was changed. The natural thing for HEZEKIAH to say, under the circumstances, would be the very thing that the textual critic prefers should be regarded as the original text: But, as for me, let me have vision of thy face!the very thing Hezekiah had hoped for, without need to awake, because without having previously fallen asleep! This we can confidently gather from the very bitterness of his lament when the prospect of death came upon him: I shall not see Yah even Yah in the land of the living! (Isa. 38:11). That, then,namely to see Yah in the land of the living,had been Hezekiahs cherished hope; and that is the hope expressed in the short but powerful conclusion of this psalm preferred in the text above. In decipherment of the final wordbe satisfied with thy forma backward and a forward glance will repay us: backward to Num. 12:8, to discover the same word employed as here; and forward to Joh. 1:18; Joh. 14:9, 1Pe. 1:7-8, 1Jn. 3:2, to be reminded of the form, and the vision of that form, which we are joyfully assured will give unbounded satisfaction.
This psalm is a tephillah prayer; and admirably that word describes it. It is attributed To David; and doubtless its groundwork came from him. So strongly, however, is the image of Hezekiah impressed upon it, that already, in the above exposition, had such authorship been confidently inferred, before the perusal of Dr. Thirtles second book: which offers the following reenforcement:Hezekiah was familiar with persecution. Psa. 17:5 reads like Psa. 73:2; Psa. 17:14 like Psa. 73:3-9, a psalm from the time of Hezekiah. The concluding verse looks forward to recovery from sickness.Thirtle, O.T.P., p. 314.
QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION
1.
When and where was the request of verses one and two answered?
2.
In what sense could David say he was good as in verse three?
3.
How did Rotherham arrive at the thought that this psalm was a record of Hezekiahs reaction to the Assyrian invasion? Do you agree? Discuss.
4.
What do the textual critics say about this Psalm? Why? Discuss.
5.
Psa. 17:15 is applied to neither Hezekiah nor David in Act. 2:28or is this the Psalm used by Peter? Discuss.
Fuente: College Press Bible Study Textbook Series

(1) Hear the right.Or (see margin), justice. Some ancient versions read, Hear, Lord of righteousness. Others make it concrete: Hear me, the righteous; but the Authorised Version has the true sense.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)

1. Hear the right To hear the right, or righteousness, is the same as to hear the prayer for righteousness, or that righteousness may obtain. David does not pray, Hear the righteous man, but righteousness, being intent upon that which is right rather than personal victory. Herein he submits everything to the will of God as the rule of justice. The hearing invoked is a judicial hearing.
My cry My outcry, my loud call for help.
Attend give ear That is, hearken, listen, stronger words than “hear.”
Feigned lips Lips of deceit. This he could aver of himself without reserve, that he was innocent of any crime as the cause of his persecution, and honest in his desire that righteous judgment should be given. Morally he was upright, however defective his judgment; and his appeal to the divine judgment was confidently grounded upon the rectitude of his intentions.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

‘A Prayer of David.’
A further psalm from the Davidic psalms.
Psa 17:1-2
‘Hear, O YHWH, righteousness, attend to my cry,
Give ear to my prayer, which goes not out of deceitful lips.
Let my verdict come forth from your presence,
Let your eyes look on rightness (or ‘your eyes look on what is right’).’
The psalmist is under attack by the world and cries to YHWH to vindicate him. The verb indicates that his cry is strong and piercing. ‘O YHWH, righteousness’ might signify that it is God Who is his righteousness (‘YHWH of righteousness’), or that he wants YHWH to judge righteously.
The scene is the heavenly court. He declares that he is speaking honestly and has nothing to hide. There is no deceit on his lips. He asks that he might be justified in the eyes of all men as YHWH passes judgment on his life and behaviour. Let YHWH Who knows all things hear his plea, and come to the right verdict, the right judgment, and make it known to the world (compare Psa 37:6; Isa 42:1-4; contrast Hab 1:4). Thus will His eyes look down on what is totally right.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett

Psalms 17
Psa 17:8 Keep me as the apple of the eye, hide me under the shadow of thy wings,
Psa 17:8 “Keep me as the apple of the eye” Scripture References – Note:
Deu 32:10, “He found him in a desert land, and in the waste howling wilderness; he led him about, he instructed him, he kept him as the apple of his eye .”
Pro 7:2, “Keep my commandments, and live; and my law as the apple of thine eye .”
Zec 2:8, “For thus saith the LORD of hosts; After the glory hath he sent me unto the nations which spoiled you: for he that toucheth you toucheth the apple of his eye .”
Psa 17:9 From the wicked that oppress me, from my deadly enemies, who compass me about.
Psa 17:9 “from my deadly enemies, who compass me about” – Comments – This could be a reference to the events of Saul surrounding David, when he fled from Saul and was encircled by him at one time (1Sa 23:26).
1Sa 23:26, “And Saul went on this side of the mountain, and David and his men on that side of the mountain: and David made haste to get away for fear of Saul; for Saul and his men compassed David and his men round about to take them.”
Psa 17:15 As for me, I will behold thy face in righteousness: I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with thy likeness.
Psa 17:15 Comments – Psa 17:15 is similar to 1Jn 3:2, “Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is.”
Fuente: Everett’s Study Notes on the Holy Scriptures

The Believer Takes His Refuge in God.
Every true believer is a poor sinner in the sight of God, knowing that his natural sinfulness will not permit justifying himself before the tribunal of divine justice. At the same time every believer can and does cheerfully approach God, not on the strength of his own merits, but by virtue of his trust in the righteousness of Christ imputed to him. Moreover, he may, at such a time, urge the sincerity of his conduct, the righteousness of his life, for the good works which he performs are the work of God in him and will therefore well merit the Lord’s attention. A prayer of David.
Making a Plea On the Strength of his Righteousness Of Life
v. 1. Hear the right, O Lord, listening as the believer presents the argument of his righteousness, attend unto my cry, his loud and importunate call; give ear unto my prayer, that goeth not out of feigned lips, out of lips that have nothing to do with hypocrisy and deceit; for if he were defiled with guilt, he would not dare to approach the Lord, praying lips, in that case, being filled with falsehood.
v. 2. Let my sentence come forth from Thy presence, that acquitting him of wrong-doing, God Himself stating that David was not guilty before Him; let Thine eyes behold the things that are equal, God sees and judges aright, He reads the hearts and minds and knows true uprightness.
v. 3. Thou hast proved mine heart testing it for its sincerity; Thou hast visited me in the night, an investigation at that time being especially searching since the soul is then undisturbed by the happenings and noises of the outside world; Thou hast tried me, making a very careful examination, and shalt find nothing, no wicked thoughts; I am purposed that my mouth shall not transgress, he would not permit a sinful thought to pass the door of his mouth.
v. 4. Concerning the works of men, as David noted in what manner men in general behaved, by the word of Thy lips, in accordance with God’s command, I have kept me from the paths of the destroyer, he had not followed the example of the wicked in becoming guilty of oppression, of robbery and violence.
v. 5. Hold up my goings in Thy paths, his steps follow the ways outlined by God, that my footsteps slip not, he has not left the way of God’s command on either side, he can in all sincerity urge his righteousness before the tribunal of God. This is an example to all believers and at the same time a warning against hypocrisy; for only he who has a good conscience is able to pray in this manner.
Fuente: The Popular Commentary on the Bible by Kretzmann

EXPOSITION
THIS psalm is termed “a prayer””a Prayer of David.” It consists, no doubt, mainly of a series of petitions (Psa 17:1, Psa 17:2, Psa 17:6, Psa 17:7, Psa 17:8, Psa 17:9, Psa 17:13, Psa 17:14); but contains also a number of verses which have no precatory character (Psa 17:3, Psa 17:4, Psa 17:5, Psa 17:10-12, Psa 17:15); and, on the whole, it cannot be said to be occupied with supplication to a greater extent than many of the compositions which are simply termed “psalms.” Probably it was called a “prayer” because the writer himself seemed so to entitle it in Psa 17:1. David’s authorship is generally allowed, since the composition has “the marked characteristics of David’s early style” (‘Speaker’s Commentary’). The current of thought and language is vehement and abrupt; there is a deep dependence upon God, and at the same time a warmth of indignation against the writer’s enemies, found frequently in the Davidical psalms, and not very noticeable in the others. There is also an earnest faith in a future life (Psa 17:15), which was a marked feature of David’s character, but not very common among his contemporaries. The time in David’s life to which the psalm belongs is uncertain; but it has been conjectured, with a certain amount of probability, to have been written during the heat of the persecution by Saul, perhaps when David was pursued after by the wicked king in the wilderness of Maon (1Sa 23:26). (So Hitzig, Moll, and the ‘Speaker’s Commentary.’)
The metrical arrangement is somewhat doubtful. Perhaps the best division is that of Dr. Kay, who makes the poem one of four stanzasthe first of five verses (Psa 17:1-5); the second of four (Psa 17:6-9); the third of three (Psa 17:10-12); and the fourth also of three (Psa 17:13-15).
Psa 17:1
Hear the right, O Lord (comp. Psa 9:4). Here and elsewhere the psalmist assumes that right is on his side, and that he is persecuted unjustly. Unless he had been convinced of this, he could not have called on God to vindicate him. The narrative in 1Sa 18:1-30.-27, fully justifies his conviction. Attend unto my cry (comp. Psa 4:1; Psa 5:2; Psa 61:1). Rinnah, the word translated “cry” here (and in Psa 61:1) is a strong term: it means “shout,” “outcry”most often, though not here, “a shout of joy.” Give ear unto my prayer, that goeth not out of feigned lips; rather, feigning lips, or guileful lipslips, i.e; that speak falsehood knowingly.
Psa 17:2
Let my sentence come forth from thy presence. David does not doubt, any more than Job (Job 13:18), what the sentence will be. As right is on his side (verse 1), it must be in his favour. Let thine eyes behold the things that are equal; literally, Let thine eyes behold equities.
Psa 17:3
Thou hast proved mine heart (comp. Psa 26:2; Psa 66:9; Psa 95:9; Psa 139:23). “Proved” means “tried,” “tested,” examined strictly, so as to know whether there was any wickedness in it or not. Thou hast visited me in the night. The night is the time when men can least escape those searching, testing thoughts which God’s providence then especially sends, to “try the very heart and reins” (Psa 7:9). Thou hast tried me; and shalt find nothing; rather, and findest nothing. The process was one begun in the past, and continuing on in the present. God was ever searching David and trying him; but “found nothing,” i.e. no alloy, no base rectal, no serious flaw in his character; not that he was sinless, but that he ‘was sincere and earnesta true worshipper of God, not a hypocrite. I am purposed that my mouth shall not transgress. “If any man offend not in word, the same is a perfect man” (Jas 3:2). David’s resolution to “keep the door of his lips” would have a chastening influence over both his thoughts and acts.
Psa 17:4
Concerning the works of man; i.e. “with respect to the actions of ordinary life “here called “the works of Adam” i.e. of the natural man. By the word of thy lips I have kept me from the paths of the destroyer. By attending to thy Law, and following it (see Psa 119:11), I have refrained myself from sin, and avoided the wicked courses of the violent.
Psa 17:5
Hold thou up my goings in thy paths, that my footsteps slip not. So De Wette and Rosenmuller; but most recent critics prefer to consider the words as an assertion rather than a prayer, and translate, “My steps have held fast to thy paths: [therefore] my feet have not been moved” (Kay, Hengstenberg, Alexander, Cheyne, ‘Speaker’s Commentary,’ Revised Version).
Psa 17:6
I have called upon thee, for thou wilt hear me, O God (comp. Psa 17:1, Psa 17:2). Having established, as the ground of his claim to be heard of God, his own sincerity, steadfastness, and virtuous course in life (Psa 17:3-5), David now recurs to his original intent, and resumes his “prayer.” He is sure that God will hear him, since his prayer is grounded on “right.” Incline thine ear unto me, and hear my speech (comp. Psa 71:2; Psa 88:2, etc.).
Psa 17:7
Show thy marvellous loving kindness, O thou that savest by thy right hand them which put their trust in thee from those that rise up against them. It is uncertain to which clause of the sentence the word belongs. Its position seems to attach it rather to those who resist God than to those who trust in him. See the marginal version, which has, O thou that savest them which trust in thee from those that rise up against thy right hand. But the rendering in the text of the Authorized Version is preferred by most writers.
Psa 17:8
Keep me as the apple of the eye (comp. Deu 32:10, where the same simile is used). Here, however, the expression employed is still more tender and more practical: “Keep me,” says David,” as the apple, daughter of the eye.“ Hide me under the shadow of thy wings. This seems also to be a reminiscence of Deuteronomy, where, after the mention of the “apple of the eye,” the water continues, As an eagle stirreth up her nest, fluttereth over her young spreadeth abroad her wings, taketh them, beareth them on her wings: so the Lord alone did lead him, and there was no strange god with him” (Deu 32:11, Deu 32:12; comp. further Psa 36:7; Psa 57:1; Psa 63:8; Psa 91:4).
Psa 17:9
From the wicked that oppress me; or, lay me wastetreat me as invaders treat an enemy’s territory (see Isa 15:1). From my deadly enemies, who compass me about; literally, my enemies in soulthose who in heart and mind are wholly set against me. When hunted by Saul upon the mountains, David was often “compassed about” with foes (1Sa 23:14, 1Sa 23:15, 1Sa 23:26; 1Sa 26:20).
Psa 17:10
They are enclosed in their own fat (comp. Deu 32:15; Job 15:27; Psa 119:70). Self-indulgence has hardened their feelings and dulled their souls. An organ enclosed in fat cannot work freely. So their feelings cannot work as nature intended through the coarseness and hardness in which they are, as it were, embedded. With their mouth they speak proudly (comp. Psa 12:3, Psa 12:4; Psa 86:14).
Psa 17:11
They have now compassed us in our steps; rather, [following] our steps, they now compass me (comp. Psa 17:9; and see 1Sa 23:26). They have set their eyes bowing down to the earth; rather, they have set their eyes, to east [me] down to the earth. The simile of the lion is already in the writer’s mind. As the lion, before making his spring, fixes his eyes intently upon the preynot to fascinate it, but to make sure of his distancewith intent, when he springs, to cast the prey down to the earth; so it is now with my enemies, who have set their eyes on me. (So Dr. Kay, the ‘Speaker’s Commentary,’ and the Revised Version.)
Psa 17:12
Like as a lion that is greedy of his prey; literally, his likeness [is] as a lion that is greedy to rend (comp. Psa 7:2; Psa 10:9; Psa 57:4). And as it were a young lion (kephir, “a lion in the first burst of youthful vigour”) lurking in secret places; rather, crouching. The attitude of the lieu when he is just preparing to spring.
Psa 17:13
Arise, O Lord (comp. Psa 7:6; Psa 9:19; Psa 10:12; Psa 44:26, etc.). Having described the character of the wicked man, and pointed out his ill desert (Psa 17:9-12), the psalmist now invokes God’s vengeance upon him. “Right” requires equally the succour of the godly and the punishment of the ungodly man. Disappoint him, cast him down; literally, get before him, bow him down; i.e. intercept his spring, and bow him down to the earth (see Psa 18:39). Deliver my soul from the wicked. This will be the result of the interposition. When the ungodly are cast down, the righteous are delivered out of their hand. Which is thy sword. 4. true statement (see Isa 10:5), but scarcely what the writer intended in this place, where he is regarding the wicked as altogether opposed to God. It is best to translate, with the Revised Version, Deliver my soul from the wicked by thy sword.
Psa 17:14
From men which are thy hand, O Lord; rather, from men, by thy hand, as in the margin of the Authorized Version, and in the text of the Revised Version. From men of the world; i.e. men who are altogether worldly, whose views, aspirations, hopes, longings, are bounded by this lifethe “children of this world,” as our Lord expressed it (Luk 16:8). Which have their portion in this life; i.e. who have here all that they will ever receive, and all that they care to receive. And whose belly thou fillest with thy hid treasure; rather, with thy storesthe good things that thou makest the earth to produce. There seems to be some allusion here to the frequent worldly prosperity of the ungodly (comp. Job 12:6; Job 21:7-13; Psa 73:3-12). They are full of children (so Job 21:8, Job 21:11; Job 27:14). And leave the rest of their substance to their babes (comp. Psa 49:10). No doubt this is often the case; but the ill-gotten gains handed on by the wicked to their children seldom prosper (see Job 27:14-17).
Psa 17:15
As for me, I will behold thy face in righteousness; i.e. “As for me, I do not envy the wicked man’s prosperity. I set against it the blessedness of which I am quite sure. I in my righteousness shall behold the face of God, have the light of his countenance shine upon me, and thus be raised to a condition of perfect happiness.” Moreover, I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with thy likeness. David had already spoken of death as a “sleep” (Psa 13:3). Now he speaks of “awaking.” What awaking can this be but an awaking from the sleep of death? When he so awakes, he says, he will he “satisfied with God’s likeness.“ The word used is the same as that employed in Num 12:8, of the manifestation of the Divine glory to Mosesviz. temunah. David therefore expects to see, on awaking, a similar manifestation, he will have the enjoyment of the “beatific vision,” if not in the Christian sense, at any rate in a true and real sense, and one that will wholly “satisfy” him.
HOMILETICS
Psa 17:15
True satisfaction.
“As for me thy likeness.” “I shall be satisfied.” This is a great and bold thing to say. It implies one of two thingseither a low standard of satisfaction, a poor measure of what it takes to satisfy a human soul; or else a prospect beyond this world. If only a question of lower wants”What shall I eat drink? wherewithal be clothed? what wages shall I earn? what holidays and amusements secure?”then if your desires be temperate, you may easily say,” I shall be satisfied.” But if it be a question of your soul, life, whole being, with all high, deep, partially developed capacities for happiness and blessedness,then it is not in this world that satisfaction is possible. Earth might be bankrupt, and yet leave your soul, your inner immortal self, starving (Mat 16:26).
I. THE SATISFACTION DESIRED AND EXPECTEDardently desired and confidently expected. To behold God’s face in righteousness; to awake from the dream of life, from the sleep of death, to the reality of his presence, the sight of his unveiled glory. We are met here by one of those apparent contradictions in Scripture, which are always rich in deep meaning and instruction. On one hand, it is declared that to see God is impossible. He is “the King immortal, invisible” (1Ti 1:17; 1Ti 6:16). “God is a Spirit,” the Infinite Spirit; and how can spirit become visible to sense? On the other hand, our Saviour promises that “the pure in heart shall see God.” Of Moses it was said, “The similitude [or ‘form,’ ‘image,’the same word as in the text] of the Lord shall he behold” (Num 12:8). Isaiah tells us how, in vision, he beheld the Lord on his throne (Isa 6:1-13.). Ezekiel, Daniel, and St. John had similar visions. Visions, it is true; but visions that stood for that infinitely glorious reality of which the Lord said to Moses, “There shall be no man see me, and live” (Exo 33:20). The explanation of this seeming contradiction is found in Joh 1:18. All those glorious manifestations, as well as the occasions on which a Divine angel appeared, as to Abraham, Jacob, Joshua, etc; who is identified with the Lord, we understand to have been manifestations of the Son of God, the everlasting Word, crowned and completed by the Incarnation (Joh 1:14). He is “the Image of the invisible God” (Col 1:15; Heb 1:3). Thus this desire and expectation have for us as Christians a clearness and force they could not have for the holiest of the ancient believers. Even in the days of his flesh, the Lord could say, “He that hath seen me hath seen the Father.” How much more in his glory! The Lord God and the Lamb are the light of the heavenly city. This does not exclude other manifestations of God as Spirit to our spirits; like that of which Christ speaks (Joh 14:23). Some have thought there is a dead faculty in our nature, by which we should have direct intuition of God; be naturally conscious of his presence, as we are of space and time. If so, this dead or sleeping sense, partially quickened by faith, shall awake; we shall know, consciously, what now we believe, that “in him we live, and move, and have our being.” Meantime, this is enough for faith to lay hold on, to rest inwe shall see Jesus our Lord in his glory. “To depart,” is, for the Christian, “to be with Christ;” “Absent from the body, at home with the Lord.” We shall “see him as he is;” “the Fulness of the Godhead bodily” dwelling in the immortal temple of glorified humanity. And in him we shall see the Father, and come to the Father. Our fellowship will be “with the Father, and with his Son Jesus Christ.” Ambition cannot rise higher than this. Thought cannot soar beyond this. Faith, hope, love, cannot desire more than this.
“Then shall I see and hear and know
All I desired or wish’d below.”
Divines have been wont to call this “the beatific vision,” q.d. the happy-making sight of God. But note that whatever be the forms of inconceivable glory in which God reveals himself to his children, the true satisfaction is in the knowledge of God himself (1Co 13:12). As we look into the face and eyes of a friend to read his soulthought, feeling, inner selfso the knowledge of God of which Christ says, “This is life eternal” (Joh 17:3), is of his character, holiness, truth, wisdom, infinite love to us.
II. THE GLORIOUS FULNESS AND PERFECTION OF THIS SATISFACTION.
1. The end of the conflict between faith and doubt. How many a soul has echoed Job’s cry (Job 23:3, Job 23:8-10)! The life of faith is a wholesome discipline (Joh 20:29; 1Pe 1:8). But who could bear to think that it would last for ever?
2. The consciousness of perfect reconciliation to God. No shadow of fear, any more than of doubt.
3. The experience of complete likeness to our Saviour (Col 3:10). This is the point of 1Jn 3:2.
4. The perfect rest of the soul. Hope is compared to the “anchor of the soul” (Heb 6:19). But the ship is still tossed on the surges (Heb 4:9).
5. The elevation of our being and life to the highest pitch of love, knowledge, and joy.
CONCLUSION. Turn this expectation and desire into a question, a heart-trying testShall I be thus satisfied? Is my keenest desire tuned to this note? Will this satisfy me?this and nothing else? The presence of Christ, perfect likeness to him, and eternal fellowship with him; to behold, without a veil, the glory of God in the face of Jesus; to know God? Believe it, no other heaven is promised or possible. If you-life be not tending this way, you are misdirecting, misspending it.
HOMILIES BY C. CLEMANCE
Psa 17:1-15
The saint’s appeal from the wrongs of earth to the Righteous One on the throne.
The title of our homily on this psalm is in some respects similar to that on the seventh psalm. There, however, the psalm is an appeal to the great Vindicator of one unjustly accused; here, it is the appeal of one beset with persecutors to the great Judge of all. Whenever or by whomsoever the words of this psalm were penned, it may not be easy to say. The probability is that it is one of David’s. If so, there is an abundance of incident in the record of his career by which it may be illustrated and explained. And, indeed, the surest (perhaps the only) way of interpreting such psalms as this is to read them by the light of the Books of Samuel. Anyway, however, it is an infinite mercy that we have preserved to us, not only psalms to be enjoyed at all times,(such as the twenty-third and the forty-sixth), but others adapted for special times. For very often the saints of God have been so impeached, slandered, worried, beset, and persecuted, that the words of this psalm have exactly fitted their ease. And in all such instances, the people of God may find sweet repose in reading the words before us; showing us, as they do,
(1) that however greatly we may be wronged on earth, there is a Righteous One to whom we may make our final appeal;
(2) that he who sitteth on the throne is not only just, but is also One of “marvellous loving-kindness;”
(3) that therefore we may pour out our heart before him, and tell him our casethe whole of it, exactly as it is; so that, though we are by no means obliged to adopt as our own every word in psalms like this, yet we may learn from them to present our case before God as minutely and exactly as the psalmists did theirs,as varied as are the cases, so varied may be the words.
I. HERE IS A REMARKABLE CASE LAID BEFORE GOD. There are in it six features.
1. The writer is sorely and grievously persecuted. (Psa 17:9-12.) It has been well said, “Where would David’s psalms have been, if he had not been persecuted?” The experiences through which he passed may be studied in the records to which we have referred above. In fact, one of our most skilled expositors said to the writer that his own study of the Books of Samuel had thrown floods of light on the Psalms, had cleared up many phrases that before were unintelligible, and had shown the reason of many others that seemed unjustifiable. And since David was withal the poet of the sanctuary, be could and did put these hard experiences of his life in such words as should be helpful to the troubled and ill-treated saint in all future time. (For the exact significance of detailed expressions, seethe Exposition. ) Let believers follow David here, and whatever their cares and worries may be, let them tell them out, one by one, to their God, who will never misunderstand them, and, even if some expressions of emotion are unwise and faulty, will cover the faults with the mantle of his forgiving love, and fulfil the desires according to his own perfect wisdom. Oh, the infinite relief of having a Friend to whom we may safely tell every thing!
2. David is conscious of his own integrity. (Verses 1 4.) This is by no means to be understood as a piece of self-righteousness (see Psa 143:2). It is quite consistent with the deepest humiliation before a holy and heart-searching God, that an upright man should avow his innocence of the guilt that false accusers may charge upon him. In fact, we ought, while penitent before our God for innumerable heart-sins, to be able to look our fellow-men in the face with the dignity of conscious honesty and purity.
3. David knows there is a Judge on the Throne, a Judge of perfect righteousnessand One who will listen to his cry (verse 7). He knows God as One who saves the trusting ones from their foes by his own omnipotent hand.
4. Hence to him David makes his appeal. (Verse 2.) Note: Only one who is at peace with God, and who is among the upright in heart, could possibly make such an appeal as this,for sentence to come forth from God’s presence must be a terror to the rebel, for that sentence could only be one of condemnation. But souls in harmony with God can lovingly look to God as their Redeemer, their Goel, their Vindicator; they will say, with Job, “I know that my Redeemer liveth;” or with Cromwell, “I know that God is above all ill reports; and that he will in his own time vindicate me.” Yea, they can call on God to do this, leaving in his hands the time and the way of doing it (cf. 1Jn 3:21, 1Jn 3:22).
5. With the appeal, David joins fervent supplication.
(1) With regard to his enemies. That God would arise, i.e. interpose in the way of providential aid; that he would cast down the wicked from their high pretensions, and disappoint them, i.e. prevent thembe beforehand with them, and frustrate their evil designs ere they attempt to carry them out.
(2) With regard to himself.
(a) That God would deliver him out of their hand.
(b) That God would hold up his goings in the right way.
(c) That God would keep him
() as the apple of the eye (literally,” the little man,” “the daughter of the eye”)an exquisitely beautiful figure, admirably adapted to be the basis of an address to the young on God’s care in the structure of the eye;
() as a hen gathereth her brood under her wingsanother figure of marvellous tenderness (Psa 36:7; Psa 57:1; Psa 61:4; Psa 91:4; Mat 23:37). Nor let it be unnoticed that for all this, David uttered a “piercing cry’ (for so the word in the first verse signifies).
6. David remembers that, after all, he has no reason to envy his persecutors; that, after all, it is far better to know God as his God, and to have him as a Refuge, than to have all the ease, comfort, and wealth which this world can give. And this brings us to note
II. THAT, REMARKABLE AS THE PSALMIST‘S CASE IS, IT PRESENTS TO US A STILL MORE REMARKABLE CONTRAST. (Verse 14.) How much force is there in the expression, “As for me” (cf. Psa 4:1-8 :16)! Note: Amid all the confusion, strife, and whirl of earth, each man has a distinctive individuality, which is all his own, and is never confounded with another’s (Gal 6:5; Isa 40:27). No one has a right to think he is lost in the crowd (2Ti 2:19; Rev 2:17; Isa 43:1; Luk 12:6, Luk 12:7). Each one has a relation to God entirely his own. The bad may mingle with the good, but are never confounded with them. Not one grain of wheat is by mistake cast into the fire, nor yet one of the tares gathered into the garner. All that is momentous in hope, character, relation, security, destiny, gathers round the individual. Each one has an “As for me.” In the psalm before us there are indications of six points of difference between David and his enemies; so vital are they, that not all the distress which he suffers from them could make him desire to change places with them.
1. He is right; they are in the wrong. (Verse 1.) As we have before said, the writer by no means claims to be perfect, but he knows that he has chosen the side of righteousness, and is sincerely anxious to walk according thereto; he walks in his integrity, though he may be conscious of coming far short of his own ideal. But as for his enemies, to be in the right is no concern of theirs! Their’s is might against right. Note: Happy is the man who sees infinite honour in being right, however much it may cost him!
2. God is to him a Defender; to them he is a Judgeto condemn them and put them to shame. This is the ground-tone of the psalm. The throne of the great Eternal is to the psalmist one of grace, mercy, and love; but to his enemies, it appears to shoot forth devouring flame. Note: God will seem to us according to our state before him (see Psa 18:25, Psa 18:26).
3. The psalmist addresses God in confident hope; they resist God, in proud defiance. The whole attitude of David’s enemies was one of proud self-confidence: “Our tongues are our own: who is Lord over us?” Hence:
4. The throne of righteousness, which was the safety of David, was the peril of his persecutors. His joy was their dread. Wicked men are afraid of God; and it is saddening to reflect that the guilt of an uneasy conscience projects its own dark shadow on the face of infinite love!
5. David had an eternal portion in his God; they lived only for this life. He calls them (verse 14) “men of the world” (cf. Hebrew original). David could say, “Thou art my Portion, O God;” but with them their all was laid up here. When they depart hence, they will leave behind them all their treasures; but David would go, at death, to the enjoyment of his. Hence:
6. The outlook of the psalmist was full of gladness; theirs, full of gloom. How blissful the anticipation in the one case!
(1) A glorious vision. “I shall behold thy face in righteousness.” Whether the writer thought of a bodily vision of Jehovah’s form, or of a spiritual vision of the invisible glory, we cannot say. At any rate, knowing even now the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ, we can forecast the ecstatic rapture which we shall feel when he shall be manifested, and we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is!
(2) A glorious transformation. “When I awake, with thy likeness,” i.e. with possessing it (otherwise the phrase would be a tautology). As Watts beautifully puts it
“I shall behold thy blissful face,
And stand complete in righteousness.”
(3) Entire satisfaction therein; i.e. both with the vision and with the conformation. Yes! There will be full and complete realization of the glory which now we see only “as through a glass darkly.” And this will be in the awakening (cf. Psa 49:14, “The upright in the morning“). The state after death has been viewed in three aspects.
(a) As a slumbrous state in the under-world, from which there was no awaking. This was the pagan view.
(b) As a slumbrous state in the underworld, but with the hope of an awaking “in the morning.” This was the Hebrew conception.
(c) To the Christian, however, the state after death is”Absent from the body, at home with the Lord” (2Co 5:8, Revised Version). The glory, however, will be completed at the resurrection (Col 3:4, Revised Version). But how different the outlook of the wicked! (Mat 7:13, Mat 7:14; Php 3:19; Luk 16:22, Luk 16:23; Luk 12:21; Luk 13:28). Well may preachers plead agonizingly with their hearers to choose life rather than death (Heb 11:25, Heb 11:26)! Little will the godly think of past sorrow when they Gave their recompense in heaven! Small comfort, will earth’s wealth give to those who miss heaven!C.
HOMILIES BY W. FORSYTH
Psa 17:1-15
The righteousness of God’s dealing.
It is a common saying that “the pillow is a good counsellor;” and there is much truth in this. In the quietness and retirement of night we are able to collect our thoughts and to commune with our own hearts, as to the past, the present, and the future. And if we do this in the spirit of the psalmist, realizing God’s presence and relying upon him for counsel and guidance, it will be well. Whether this psalm was written at night or not, we cannot tell; but it contains truths fitted to soothe and comfort the soul in the night of trouble, and that mark the progress of the light from sunrise to the perfect day.
I. THAT GOD WILL HEAR THE RIGHT. This faith accords with the intuitions of the heart. We are sure that God must be on the side of right, for we feel that it is only when we are for the right that we are on the side of God. If we are true, much more must God be true. If we are just, much more must God be just. And this confidence is confirmed by God‘s words and deeds (Psa 17:4, Psa 17:5). If it were otherwise, how could we trust God? and how could God govern and judge the world?
II. THAT GOD WILL DEFEND THE FAITHFUL. Perfect righteousness no man can claim. But as regards spirit and intention, and even as to actual conduct, some can plead integrity. Job could say, “Behold, my witness is in heaven” (Job 16:19). Samuel could appeal to Israel as to his uprightness, “Behold, here I am, witness against me before the Lord, whom have I defrauded, or whom have I oppressed?” (1Sa 12:3). So David called Saul to witness to his innocence. “Moreover, my father, know thou and see that there is neither evil nor transgression in mine hand, and I have not sinned against thee” (1Sa 24:11). It is a great matter if we can thus approach God with a good conscience (1Jn 3:21). But our integrity, after all, is nothing to boast of. Before men, we may be innocent, but not before God. Our trust must therefore be, not in our own merits, but in God’s mercy. God’s lovingkindness will shine forth in giving protection and deliverance (verses 6-12) to those who love him and hope in his mercy. He will be their Refuge and Defence against every foe. With tender care and never-failing prayer, he will keep them from the evil.
II. THAT GOD WILL DISAPPOINT THE PERSECUTOR, WHILE HE WILL ABUNDANTLY SATISFY THE DESIRES OF THE HUMBLE. (Verses 13-15.) When David was pursued by the forces of Saul, and in sore straits in the wilderness of Maon, God in a wonderful way brought him deliverance (1Sa 23:25). So we may expect that God will meet the enemies of his people, front to front, and cast them down. There are marvellous deliverances wrought by God in behalf of his children (2Pe 2:9; 2Th 1:6-10). But God does far more than deliverhe satisfies. The heart is ever yearning after some unattained possession and enjoyment. “Man never is, but always to be blessed.” The children of this world have their desires, and, though they may so far be successful, though they may gain wealth, and have sons to bear their name and inherit their possessions, yet for all this they are not satisfied. Their blessings, through their own perversity, are turned to curses. But in bright contrast with these men of carnal minds, is the man who loveth God and worketh righteousness. “I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with thy likeness.”W.F.
Psa 17:3
The visits of God in the night.
The psalmist seems to have been one of the children of Israel scattered abroad. From the midst of a strange country he looks with a wistful eye towards the far-off land of his youth. Tried and persecuted by the worldly and profane, he takes refuge under the sheltering wings of Jehovah, his father’s God. If he was not David, he has the spirit of David. There are foreshadowings and foregleams of gospel times, in the ideas as to “the world,” the “loving-kindness,” and saving power of the Lord; and the blessed hope of satisfaction in God. This verse leads us to consider the visits of God in the night.
I. REFRESHMENT. The divisions of time have to do with man (Gen 1:5; Psa 104:20).
“God has set labour and rest,
As day and night to men successive,
And the timely dew of sleep.”
When night comes, it brings, not only relief from toil, but needed rest in sleep. In this we see the mercy of God. Like the sunshine and the rain, sleep is a common gift from God to men. Sleep also often brings return of health. How often is it said of some beloved one, with trembling hope, “If he sleep, he shall do well” (Joh 11:12)!
II. PROTECTION. We associate the day with safety (Joh 11:9). On the other hand, night is the season when not only wild beasts, but lawless men, seek their prey (Psalm cir. 20, 21; Job 24:14-17; 1Th 3:7). There may be dangers unseen and unknown (Psa 91:5, Psa 91:6). Besides, there are perils from evil thoughts and the wiles of the wicked one. But come what will, God is our sure Defence. He visits us in love and mercy. He watches over us with untiring vigilance (Psa 121:3). The angel of judgment may be abroad, but under the shelter of the blood of the covenant we are safe. Even though God should say, “This night thy soul shall be required of thee,” it will be in love, and not in wrath. Even should we be taken away in our sleep, it will be to light, and not to darkness. Hence we may say, “I will lay me down in peace, and sleep; for thou, Lord, only makest me dwell in safety” (Psa 4:8).
III. INSTRUCTION. God has access to us at all times. He speaks to us continually by day, when our ears are open; but he also speaks to us, as he sees cause, by night, in dreams and visions, and when he holds our souls waking. Of this we have many examples in the Bible, and who is there who has not had some knowledge of this in his own experience? Dreams and visions are, for the most part, vain things; but there are even dreams and visions that have been found to be visits of God and turning-points in life. But it is when we have hours of sleeplessness that precious opportunities occur of communing in our hearts with God. Then there is not only quietness, but solitude. We are alone with God, and if we recognize his presence and hearken to his Word, we shall have cause to say, with thankfulness, “Thou hast visited me in the night.” Sleeplessness, if prolonged, if it becomes a habit, is a sore evil; but sleepless hours may be turned to great profit. We have then the opportunity for quiet thought, for self-examination, for converse with God. Perhaps the past, with its joys and sorrows, rises before us, or we are troubled about the present or the future; but God is ever near, to counsel and to comfort us. “He giveth songs in the night” (Job 35:10). “One practical lesson at least may be remembered as bearing on this subjectthe duty of storing the mind, while we are yet comparatively young and strong, with that which, in the hours of sleeplessness and pain, will enable us to rise up to God. A mind well stored with Holy Scripture, with good prayers and hymns, need never feel that the waking hours of the night are lost. We may do more, for the soul’s true sanctification and peace, than many others in their own brief earthly pilgrimage” (Canon Liddon).W.F.
Psa 17:15
Three awakings.
The Bible is a book of contrasts. Here we have a contrast between the man of God and “the men of the world.” We may bring out something of its force and significance by considering the three awakings here suggested.
I. THE AWAKING FROM SLEEP. The psalmist says (Psa 17:3), “Thou hast visited me in the night.” The sense of God’s presence abides. When he awakes, it is not, like the worldling, to a life of selfish pleasure, but to a life of holy service. His first thought is not of self, but of God. His highest joy is in fellowship with God and in doing his work. His prayer is
“Guard my first springs of thought and will,
And with thyself my spirit fill.”
II. THE AWAKING FROM THE NIGHT OF TROUBLE. Darkness is the image of gloom; light, of joy. “The men of the world” have few troubles, but they have fewer comforts. Their hope is in the things that perish. The godly man may be sorely tried (Psa 17:7-9), but he has “strong consolation.” And even if gloom settles down upon him, it is but for a little, and when he awakes, thoughts that troubled him pass away as the visions of the night, and he rejoices in God’s favour as in the light. Joy comes with the morning.
III. THE AWAKING FROM THE SLEEP OF DEATH. “Here we see right into the heart of the Old Testament faith.” In life and death, God is all. Thus the soul rises to the hope of immortality. “God is not the God of the dead, but of the living.”
1. This awaking holds good of the whole being. The spirit is first, but the body next.
2. This awaking opens up a glorious vision. There will be many and wondrous sights, but the first and chief of all will be God. “Thy face.” So Moses (Num 12:8); so believers (2Co 3:18). But here in a far higher way.
3. This awaking will bring complete satisfaction. Here we are never satisfied. This awaking into glory will first of all, and in the fullest sense of the word, bring satisfaction. “Thy likeness.” Nothing less will satisfy. This is the hope of all our hoping. The joy of joys. “The rest that remaineth for the people of God.” How grand must that possession be that will satisfy the soul, awakened to the highest life and the noblest aspirings! Not only will the redeemed be satisfied, but the Redeemer also. “He shall see of the travail of his soul, and be satisfied.” Study the awful contrast (Dan 12:2; Luk 16:25; Joh 5:28, Joh 5:29).W.F.
HOMILIES BY C. SHORT
Psa 17:1-5
The prayer of the righteous.
“In this psalm a servant of God, conscious of his own uprightness, and surrounded by enemies, prays to be kept from the evil world and from the evil men who persecute him, and then from the dark present looks forward with joy to the bright future.” The first five verses are as the porch to the templethe introduction to the main prayer of the psalm. The psalmist pleads with God
I. FOR THE RIGHTEOUS CAUSE. (Psa 17:1, Psa 17:2.) God is righteous, therefore he must be on the side of justice and right. When we pray that liberty may prevail against slavery of mind or body, that justice may triumph over all injustice, that truth may overcome falsehood, that the spirit may be stronger than the flesh, and that religion may conquer all irreligion, we may be sure that we are praying according to the will of God, and may expect him to answer us.
II. IS A RIGHTEOUS SPIRIT. The prayer is offered by “lips without deceit,” in all sincerity, without any hypocritical pretence. The truthfulness, righteousness, of his spirit are here pleaded as a ground for his being heard. “If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me.” Integrity of mind is necessary to all true and successful prayer. He is in earnest about the righteous cause, and not making a pretence to it.
III. ON THE GROUND OF RIGHTEOUS CHARACTER. (Psa 17:3.)
1. God had subjected him to close scrutiny in the night. He had been divinely tested. 4, In the night,” when good and evil thoughts spring up in greatest force, because of our freedom from outward occupation, and when the native bias discovers itself unchecked. Then God tries him, and does not find that his thoughts are dross, but gold. This is a bold statement, when put by the side of other statements, “If thou, Lord, shouldst mark iniquity,” etc.
2. He keeps evil thoughts in subjection, even when they do arise. They do not pass his mouth, do not find expression, but are held back from utterance. We cannot help evil thoughts, but we can help the utterance of them.
IV. HE PLEADS ALSO RIGHTEOUS CONDUCT. (Psa 17:4, Psa 17:5.) He has kept himself from the common doings of men, from the ways of the oppressor and destroyer. This is the negative side of his conduct; but it is a great virtue to resist the mass and run against the stream. The positive is that he had held fast in his doings to the Divine paths, and been steadfast in the right course. He has been constant, and steered by the heavenly pole-star.S.
Psa 17:6-15
Confidence in God.
From the first to the fifth verse the prayer bases his confidence in God on four pleas.
1. He prays for the righteous cause.
2. In a righteous spirit.
3. On the ground of a righteous character.
4. On the ground of righteous conduct.
Now we come to other grounds upon which he urges God to save him.
I. THE COMPASSION OF GOD for THOSE WHO URGENTLY CRY TO HIM. (Psa 17:6, Psa 17:7.) He calls, because God answers him; and now he calls for a special exercise of mercy, because God saves those who find their refuge or safety in him. He was pleading according to the law of God’s nature, and had, therefore, a Divine warrant for his prayer: “If we ask anything according to his will, he heareth us.”
II. HIS IMMINENT DANGER. (Psa 17:7, Psa 17:9, Psa 17:11, Psa 17:12.) His enemies were the enemies of God (Psa 17:7). They would destroy him (Psa 17:9). They haunted his footsteps everywhere (Psa 17:11). He prays, therefore, to be protected as the pupil of the eye is protected, as if he could not be kept secure enough; and to be hidden under the shadow of the Divine wings, where no danger could reach him (Deu 32:10, Deu 32:11).
III. THE WICKEDNESS OF HIS ADVERSARIES.
1. Their want of sympathy and their hard pride. (Psa 17:10.) “Enclosed in fat” is equivalent to “have become gross and unfeeling.”
2. They were bent on the ruin of others as well as themselves. (Psa 17:11.)
3. They were fierce and furious in their wicked efforts. (Psa 17:12.) Like a greedy lion, like a young vigorous lion lurking in his lair.
IV. THEY WERE MEN WHO SOUGHT THEIR PORTION IN THIS PASSING LIFE; WHILE HE SOUGHT HIS IN GOD. (Psa 17:13-15.)
1. They were satisfied with the treasures of this world. With children and worldly substance, and were not worthy, therefore, to triumph over the righteous cause and the righteous persons. Deliver me from such worldlings.
2. He was seeking after the highest good. (Psa 17:15.) “In righteousness let me behold thy face; let me be satisfied, when I awake, with thine image.” An echo of the eleventh verse of the previous psalm, which reveals his trust in a future life. “There is an allusion probably to such a manifestation of God as that made to Moses (Num 12:8), where God declares that with Moses he will speak “mouth to mouth, even apparently, and not in dark speeches, and the similitude [rather, ‘form,’ the same word as here] of Jehovah shall he behold.”S.
Fuente: The Complete Pulpit Commentary

Psalms 17.
David, in confidence of his integrity, asketh defence of God, against his enemies: he sheweth their pride, craft, and eagerness: he prayeth against them in confidence of his hope.
A Prayer of David.
Title. tephillah ledavid, a Prayer of David. The author, in this Psalm, earnestly prays for a deliverance from his enemies; whom he describes as just ready to swallow him up. In the 4th and 5th verses he justifies his innocence, and pictures his enemies in the 14th as persons intoxicated with prosperity. By the 3rd and 15th verses it seems to be a night-piece. Dr. Delaney supposes it to have been written after David’s parting with Jonathan, and going into exile. See 1Sa 20:42.
Psa 17:1. Hear the right, O Lord Hear, O righteous Lord] Houbigant.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke

Psalms 17
A Prayer of David
1Hear the right, O Lord, attend unto my cry;
Give ear unto my prayer, that goeth not out of feigned lips.
2Let my sentence come forth from thy presence;
Let thine eyes behold the things that are equal.
3Thou hast proved mine heart; thou hast visited me in the night;
Thou hast tried me, and shalt find nothing:
I am purposed that my mouth shall not transgress.
4Concerning the works of men, by the word of thy lips
I have kept me from the paths of the destroyer.
5Hold up my goings in thy paths,
That my footsteps slip not.
6I have called upon thee, for thou wilt hear me, O God:
Incline thine ear unto me, and hear my speech.
7Shew thy marvellous loving-kindness, O thou that savest by thy right hand them which put their trust in thee
From those that rise up against them.
8Keep me as the apple of the eye;
Hide me under the shadow of thy wings,
9From the wicked that oppress me,
From my deadly enemies, who compass me about.
10They are inclosed in their own fat:
With their mouth they speak proudly.
11They have now compassed us in our steps:
They have set their eyes bowing down to the earth;
12Like as a lion that is greedy of his prey.
And as it were a young lion lurking in secret places.
13Arise, O Lord, disappoint him, cast him down:
Deliver my soul from the wicked, which is thy sword:
14From men which are thy hand. O Lord, from men of the world,
Which have their portion in this life, and whose belly thou fillest with thy hid treasure:
They are full of children, and leave the rest of their substance to their oabes.
15As for me, I will behold thy face in righteousness:
I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with thy likeness.
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
Title and Contents.Respecting tefillah, vid. Introduction. This Psalm has so strongly impressed upon it the characteristics of a prayer, as it wrenches itself from the soul of a man hard pressed by deadly enemies, in a moment of greatest danger, that we need not suppose that the title is a later addition taken from Psa 17:1 b (Hitzig). The manner of expression discloses so vividly the agitation, change of sentiment, individuality, and the immediateness of the circumstances, that we are still less to think of the abstract person of the righteous (Hengst.), or of a poet, unknown in person and circumstances, as it is pretended is the case in most of the Psalms of lamentation and prayer (Hupf.); for in the life of David, in the time of the persecution by Saul according to 1 Samuel 23, there were circumstances corresponding exactly with those of this Psalm (Hitzig); and the language which is frequently hard and inflexible, with its peculiarly irregular turns and gloomy tones, together with other points of contact with prominent expressions in other Psalms of David, is a very marked echo of his frame of mind (Delitzsch), although we may perhaps in some passages admit a corruption of the text. (Olsh.)6
The prayer begins with calling upon God as the righteous Judge and infallible searcher of hearts, with an appeal to the honesty of the petitioner (Psa 17:1-2), who knows that he is searched through and through in his inmost soul by God, and accordingly holding fast to the word and ways of God he has kept himself in his conversation and walk, so that the corrupt movements of men have not borne him along with them (Psa 17:3-5). With so much the greater assurance of being heard (Psa 17:6) prayer now rises for deliverance from wicked, strong, and powerful enemies, whose nearness, inexorableness and cruelty (Psa 17:10-12) are intuitively described, calling upon Jehovah immediately to interfere (Psa 17:13), against an enemy who is especially dangerous (Psa 17:12) who is especially prominent among the worldly-minded who seek and find their good and happiness in things of this world (Psa 17:14). He closes by bringing into strong contrast the disposition, position, and hopes of the man of prayer.7
Str. I. Psa 17:1. Righteousness.This word is not in apposition to Jehovah (Khler), or in dependence upon Jehovah according to the translations of Symm. and Theodot., , but as an accusative of the object. The interpretation, me as righteous (Aquil., Jerome, Hengst.), unites the expression, or rather its idea, too closely to the person praying. Luthers marginal reading: If thou wilt not hear me, then hear thy righteous cause, separates it too far from the person. The general character of the expression and its meaning as introducing the contents of the prayer, are effaced by either of the translations: my righteousness = my righteous cause (Calv.), or, my righteous prayer (Chald.), or indeed, my sincere petition (Kimchi). The parallelism (Hupf.) does not justify any such special reference. Still less is the article to be brought in as a suffix, and the righteousness or innocence regarded as those who were oppressed and injured in the persecution of David, who complain and pray in his mouth (Geier, et al.) It is true the paraphrase: Hear the righteousness which speaketh through me! would be more exact than that already rejected: Hear me in my righteousness or as righteous. For righteousness of the thing and not of the person would be first stated in accordance with the text, and thus at the same time that opposition of righteousness of the thing and of the person would be avoided (Calov., J. H. Mich., et al.), which is foreign to the text, and indeed according to Psa 17:3 sq., contradictory. But yet the reference of righteousness to the person appears in the text only after many accommodations. To these belong the appeal made to the righteous dealings of God according to His infallible judgment by the praying Psalmist, who in the uprightness of piety cries anxiously to God with the hope of being heard. This interpretation brings into view an advance in the thought which is for the most part overlooked, and likewise is supported by the fact that the last word in Psa 17:2, in an adverbial interpretation, corresponds better with usage than to regard it as an accusative of the object dependent upon behold, and thus parallel to: hear righteousness, in Psa 17:1, essentially a statement respecting the character of the petitioner, whilst our interpretation presents an appeal to the infallible judgment of God 8 Hitzig, by comparing Pro 4:25, finds a similar thought expressed to that of Jer 5:3.From lips without deceit. [A. V. (that goeth) not out of feigned lips. Hupfeld: Not with deceitful lips, or with lips without deceit (falsehood, hypocrisy), in opposition to the cry and prayer, which at first protests the subjective uprightness of his prayer and the ideas with which he supports it, but at the same time guarantees the objective truth of the assertion of his righteousness in the first member (with which it is parallel) so far as that he who is defiled with guilt dare not approach God and venture to call upon His righteousness as a righteous man, comp. Psa 32:2; Psa 66:18, and lift up holy hands, 1Ti 2:8.C. A. B.]
Str. II. Psa 17:3. Thou hast proved, etc.The three perfects, since they are followed by an imperfect, do not refer to a definite historical event in the history of David, but form the antecedent, stating the Divine activities which constantly precede the result of the Divine examination described in the conclusion. There is no question or doubt but that David is drawn into this court of examination by God, and hence the clause does not properly admit of being taken as hypothetical, but rather as present.Thou hast visited in the night.[The visit is for the purpose of investigating, Job 7:18. It is by night as the time when the soul is undisturbed by the external world, and ready for reflection and examination.Thou hast tried me.The usual figure of the refiner of metals.C. A. B.]
Thou wilt not find in me wicked thoughts; my mouth doth not transgress. [A. V. (And) shall find nothing; I am purposed that my mouth shall not transgress]. Since it has not been proved that has the meaning of nothing there is no object to the verb find, if we follow the accents, and connect the next word with the next clause. We might certainly most naturally supply nothing from the context in accordance with the sense. But the interpretation of , as 1 person Perf. = I have thought, that is, purposed (Is. 4:28) which then would be immediately followed by the statement of the contents of the purpose (Luther, Geier, et al., finally Delitzsch), whilst it is possible, yet is opposed by the fact that the context rather causes us to expect a statement respecting the moral condition of the Psalmist than of his purpose. Moreover the other statements on this subject do not allow us to translate with Bttcher: If I thought wickedness, it must not go over my mouth. The Masora likewise remarks that the tone of this Hebrew word is to be put upon the last syllable. This is then a noun with the suffix, and indeed not the plural of a substantive which cannot be proved, but an infinitive with a feminine ending (Hupf.). If we connect it with the following clause in accordance with the accents, then since the masc. of the verb demands that should be the subject of the clause, the translation, my thought does not overstep my mouth (Hitzig), that is, I do not speak in sleep, because I am not excited by passion, appears to do violence to the text; on the other hand, the translation, my mouth doth not overstep my thoughts, that is, I say no more than I think (Hengst. [Alexander]) as the simple protestation, I do not dissemble, I do not lie, is strained, and with the lack of an object in the preceding clause obscure and unintelligible. The explanation of Aben Ezra, Bucer, Rosenm., et al.: my thought is not different from my words is still less admissible. It is accordingly more natural not to regard the accents as restrictive, but with the ancient translations and Jerome, and since J. D. Mich., many recent interpreters, to make an object for find, and gain two parallel clauses beginning with not, and understand the meditation in accordance with Hebrew usage as the meditation of evil. So Perowne: Thou hast tried me and findest no evil thought in me, neither doth my mouth transgress.C. A. B.] The suffix would be as Psa 18:23, (Hupf.) not for an actual sin, but for one regarded as possible yet denied. The transition from the mention of sins of thought to sins of action, considered in the subsequent verse, would then be suitably prepared by sins of word.9
Psa 17:4. In mans doings, by the word of Thy lips, I have carefully avoided the path of the destroyer. [A. V., concerning the works of men]. The ancient translators connect the last words of the previous verse closely with this verse, and either translate: my mouth doth not go over to the doings of men, that is, approve them; or, my mouth doth not transgress according to the doings of men. This gives a better parallelism, and therefore many interpreters approve this division of the verses. But the structure of a verse is not always complete. Most interpreters, after Calv. and Geier, regard as temporal, as Psa 32:6; others as denoting either reference = as concerns [A. V.] or condition, as Psa 69:22. Delitzsch takes the following words directly in the sense of against the word of Thy lips, as the object of the doings of men. According to Hitzig introduces the accusative of the object, as 1Sa 22:7; Psa 69:6, which widely separated from the finite verb is again taken up after this by the statement wherein these doings of men consisted.10 [Hupfeld: In the midst of the surrounding practices of men, which so easily carry others away with them, I have shunned following their wicked examples, being led and supported by the word of God.Word of Thy lips.Hupfeld: The word of God in the law, that is, the commandments of God in contrast with the doings of men who transgress it, and offer a higher rule.C. A. B.] is here used in a pregnant sense, without expressing the negative reference by as usual.11
Psa 17:5. My steps hold fast in Thy paths.The infinitive is regarded by the ancient translators and most ancient interpreters, and among more recent interpreters, De Wette and Stier, as imperative = support my steps [A.V.] But this does not agree with the perfect of the following clause. The infinitive is then either to be regarded in the sense of a gerund, and then most properly as an antecedent to the following clause (De Dieu, et al.), or instead of the finite verb (Gesenius, 128, 4 b), and indeed as a perfect, yet not as the 1st person singular = I have maintained my steps in Thy paths (Geier), but as the 3d person plural (Cocc0.) with respect to usage = my steps have held fast to Thy paths (Ewald, Hengst., Hitzig, Hupf., Delitzsch).
Str. III. Psa 17:7. Make Thy grace wonderful.[A. V., show thy marvellous loving-kindness], literally, separate; namely, by gradation in thought, the implored exhibition of Thy grace from the usual exhibitions of the same, so that it may thus prove to be wonderfully glorious to me (Sept.); not: take away Thy grace from the adversaries (Rabbin.) According to others (De Wette, Hupfeld, Delitzsch), the fundamental meaning of this verb is in the Hiphil made to be an attribute of the object, so that the Psalmist does not request anything extraordinary for himself, but merely implores that the well-known wonderful = glorious grace may be shown. Delitzsch translates like Luther and the ancient translators: against Thy right hand. But the right hand of God is frequently mentioned as the instrument of deliverance, Psa 44:3; Psa 98:1; Jdg 7:2; Isa 59:1. The anxiety of the moment transposes the words with the breath.
Str. IV. Psa 17:8. Apple of the eye.Literally; the little man, the daughter of the eye, Lam 2:18; Zec 2:8. The figure is chosen with reference to Deu 32:10-11; comp. Pro 7:2, as is shown by the subsequent words. [Hupfeld: The first figure as with us is proverbial, as a symbol of that which is dearest to us, of the most careful, attentive protection. The second, hide me under the shadow of Thy wings, is taken from birds, especially the hen, who protects her brood with her wings, a figure of the most tender protection, frequently of Gods protection, Psa 36:7; Psa 57:1; Psa 61:4; Psa 63:7; Psa 91:4 (used of Christ, Mat 23:37), and in the same connection with the first figure, Deu 32:10-11, both in reference to the people of Israel. Wordsworth: There is a climax of delicate tenderness in the language here.C. A. B.]
Psa 17:9. My enemies who greedily surround me.The position of the suffix is against the connection of with the preceding word = my deadly enemies (Geier [A. V.]). On the other hand it is admissible to get the same sense by the translation: against the life (Kimchi), or, in matters of life (Hengst.). Most recent interpreters, however, translate after the Chald. and Aben Ezra: with eagerness, as Psa 27:12; Psa 35:25; Psa 41:3; Isa 5:14.
Psa 17:10. Fat.Many interpreters, likewise Clauss, Stier, Tholuck, after the Chald. and Symm., understand by this, the prosperity in which they wrap themselves, and which prompts them to haughty expressions. Others regard it as = the fat heart (Geier) = unfeeling heart, (De Wette, Kster, Ewald, et al.); Hupfeld as merely the heart. But manifestly it is meant that their heart, , is not a pulsating human heart, but , a lump of fat, Psa 73:7; Psa 119:70 (Delitzsch, Hitzig). The closing up, 1Jn 3:17, denotes the intentional holding off from all influences which would excite human emotions, so that the consequence is, hardening and obduracy, Psa 95:8. We have not here a pleonasm, but a climax, and the context shows that we are not to think of the closing up of secret, crafty schemes, Psa 64:6-7; Pro 7:10, contrasted with speaking of the mouth (Hupf.). The explanation of Theodoret, who understands the heart in the sense of pity is entirely astray.Speak proudly.This comes from their delusion of a near and sure victory.
Psa 17:11. Our steps now have they surrounded me.[A. V., They have now compassed us in our steps]. Since the singular suffix does not agree with the plural suffix of the noun, the translation quoad gressum nostrum, which supposes that this accusative of closer definition of the part of the body (Gen 3:15) is parallel with the accusative of the person (Delitzsch) has very little to recommend it. It does violence to the text, however, to read with the Masora the plural when the codd. do not have it. The double accusative which is usual with verbs of surrounding, to which ancient interpreters appeal, would here produce this nonsense: with our steps they have now encompassed me. Hitzig, who previously thought, of the accusative of the object to = our steps to fell to the ground, now explains that the distance is too great between the words, and moreover it is obstructed by the parenthesis: he now changes the vowel points in order to get the meaning: I perceive him. This is certainly admissible, and gives a good sense; whilst the meaning obtained by some of the ancient translations by changing a consonant: They express congratulations over me, is violent and unnatural. With the present reading we think that the discourse is broken by the liveliness of passion.
To throw down upon the ground.[A. V., Bowing down to the earth. Barnes: The Hebrew word , natahmeans properly to stretch out, to extend; then to incline, to bow, to depress; and hence the idea of prostrating; thus, to make the shoulder bend downwards, Gen 49:15; to bring down the mind to an object, Psa 119:112; to bow the heavens, Psa 18:9. Hence the idea of prostrating an enemy; and the sense here clearly is, that they had fixed their eyes intently on the Psalmist, with a purpose to prostrate him to the ground, or completely overwhelm him.C. A. B.] The interpretations that they direct their attention to turn aside in the land (Hengst.); or to wander through the land (Ewald) [Alexander: go astray,C. A. B.] are artificial and unnecessary.
Psa 17:12. [His likeness = he is like, is not dependent upon the preceding clause, as A. V., but a new and independent clause, introducing the figure of the lion and the young lion, vid., notes upon Psa 10:9 sq.C. A. B.]
Str. V. Psa 17:13. Go forth to meet him.[A. V., disappoint him. [Perowne: As David himself went forth to meet first the lion and the bear, and afterwards the champion of Gath. This is the true interpretation advocated by most recent interpreters.C. A. B.]Cast him down.[Properly to make him fall upon his knees, (Hupf.), the figure of the lion is continued here.C. A. B.]The wicked. Jerome understands this to be the devil.By Thy sword.[Not as A. V., which is thy sword. God is to go forth to meet the enemy, who is like a lion, to cast him down upon his knees, and by His sword slay him, and thus deliver the Psalmist.C. A. B.]
Psa 17:14. People of the world, literally men of the world [A. V.,] or of temporal life, not men of duration or of enduring success, (Calv., Venema, Ruding., Hengst.,) after the Arabic, but either perishable men (Hitzig) or better after the Syriac: men of the world with reference to their disposition (Kimchi, Geier and most interpreters). The life, in the following relative clause, answers to this, wherein they have their , that is their portion, as their highest good and happiness, Psa 16:5, not temporal life (Geier), life without duration (Hitzig) as showing the fate of the ungodly, Job 20:5, Isa 65:20; so likewise not life blessed with external good and earthly happiness (Calv., Hengst.) of which they have received their proper portion; but the idle vain life, in contrast to the spiritual life in God (Hupf., Hitzig).12 Here likewise the tone and order of the words show the language of anxiety and haste. Whilst this was overlooked, most interpreters translated the beginning of the verse from people of Thy hand [A. V.] and thought for the most part of those men whom God uses as His rods of chastisement and scourges; sometimes likewise of those who must fall into judgment in the wrathful hand of God because the measure of their sins was filled. [The proper rendering is by Thy hand as above by Thy sword, the two expressions being parallel.C. A. B.]With that which thou hast stored up. [A. V. with thy hid (treasure)]. This is a past partic. used as a substantive in a good sense, Psa 31:19; Pro 13:22, and in a bad sense Job 21:19. Almost all interpreters take it here in the former sense, that God gives the worldly minded the portion they have chosen, even children in abundance, Job 22:17, to whom they leave their affluence, yet without knowing or possessing the prospects and enjoyment of the pious. Hitzig on the other hand takes it in the bad sense of the punishment, the reception or experience of which is represented as eating of bitter, deadly food (Job 9:18; Job 21:15, comp. Psa 6:7; Psa 59:15), as God fills the bodies of the wicked with the fire of His wrath (Job 20:23). This judgment is likewise said to extend to children and childrens children (Exo 20:5, comp. Job 21:7-8; Job 21:11); to which the following words according to his translation, may they satisfy the sons, etc., refer. The translation made by most interpreters their children are filled would require . The translation of Kster who follows the Sept. Vulg. closely they are full of sons [A. V.], is literal but obscure.
Str. VI. Psa 17:15. The antithetical reference of this strophe is rendered very prominent not only by the emphasis of the I [As for me, A. V.], but likewise by the intentional use of the same word satisfied with reference to Jehovahs form, in beholding His countenance. These expressions themselves by their undeniable reference to Num 12:8, comp. Exo 33:20, lead us beyond the usual means of recognizing and communing with God. In the present context a glance is given into eternity. It is true there is no mention of a resurrection of the dead as such (Hofmann), or of a natural awaking upon the next morning (Ewald), or of a breathing again and stepping forth from the confusion of a perplexing trouble, as from a night of suffering (Hitzig), so that a new earthly phase of life broke forth upon the psalmist in the sunlight of the Divine grace (Kurtz), or of a mingling of both references (Hupf.), or indeed of an awaking of Jehovah that is in His coming to help, after having hidden His countenance (Cleric. Hensl., Hengst.); but of an awaking from the night of death (among recent interpreters, even Rosenmller, De Wette, Gesenius), as a hope shining forth from the consciousness of communion with Jehovah (Delitzsch) as Psa 16:10; Psa 49:15.13
DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL
1. There are troubles, into which we do not fall as a punishment for our sins, but in which we are unjustly persecuted and compelled to flee from hard-hearted, unprincipled and powerful enemies, and with all the justice of our cause, may be in danger of succumbing to the snares of our bitter opponents, and even of losing our lives.
2. In such a situation neither lamentations nor despondency are becoming to the pious. The proper course is to pray for help, which may in anxiety of heart become a cry, without becoming improper, and may appeal before God the righteous Judge to the personal righteousness of the persecuted, without thereby in the least disputing, murmuring or contending with God, or boasting or confiding in ones own righteousness. For there is no reference to righteousness gained by ones self, or to ones own deserts and the worthiness derived therefrom, but to the fact, that the piety of the petitioner has shown itself as vitally and powerfully in his person, as it expresses itself candidly and sincerely in his prayer. And in such cases the question is not of its origin from grace apprehended in faith, but of the earnestness and reality of its attestation.
3. Now he who flees from the judgment and hands of men, to the judgment and presence of God must not forget that the Almighty is likewise the All-knowing, the Searcher of hearts. He must still further be mindful of this, that under the trying eye of the holy and omnipresent God he endures an infallible judgment by night as well as by day, waking or sleeping, dreaming or acting. It is well for the man who feels this judging and sifting nearness of God, which as the fire in the furnace separates the gold from the dross, as soothing his conscience, and who can comfort himself with that fact that God finds in him a man of true piety.
4. The human heart is naturally inclined to evil, and human doings and practices do not move in the paths which please God; they attempt rather, to break through the restraints imposed upon them by God. But the efficacy of the means of grace in the congregation of God is able to change the disposition of the heart and he who holds fast to the word of God, is able likewise to withstand the temptations of his situation and to walk in the ways of God according to Gods regulation.
5. If there is already a great consolation and a strong encouragement to constantly new prayers in the assurance of the faith, that God not only hears the pious, but answers him and thereby testifies, that on His part He has and will maintain intercourse and relations with him; then with increasing needs and under the pressure of great dangers not only the need of the improvement of this intercourse with God, but likewise the joyousness of prayer and the confidence of being heard, gain nourishment and power by the experience made in this intercourse, that it belongs to the nature of God to be a deliverer of those who seek His protection. The courage of the pious is explained by these fundamental principles and upon them it rises in order to implore likewise in special circumstances special gracious help.
6. From the confidence of the faith, that the person of the pious man who has intercourse with God is an object of His love and care, arises the assurance, that this person will not only find occasional help and an assistance referring merely to special and transient needs and dangers, from the almighty Protector of the oppressed, but that he finds constant protection against all the enemies of his body and soul, and can be sheltered forever in God, if he has his satisfaction in the nearness and communion of God in contrast to the people of this world, who do not inquire after God, because they seek and find their satisfaction in the possession of perishable goods and in the enjoyment of earthly joy.
7. Great external happiness, prosperity and luxury, increase the natural selfishness, worldliness and pride of the unconverted man, make his heart insensible to emotions of pity and the inborn feelings of justice, and do not permit him to exhibit thankfulness to God for His great benefits, but rather stop up the sources of his love to God and his neighbor and prevent the approach of those things which would open them, so that the man is choked in his own fat and has become spiritually dead in the midst of his abundance. On the other hand, troubles and dangers, sufferings and infirmities, the lack and loss of earthly goods, impel the pious man with ever renewed energy to lay hold of God and thereby obtain his only salvation and true life in God.
8. He who has God, has life. This truth enters only into the experience of the soul which has communion with God. Moreover the life is likewise the light of the soul, and enlarges its sphere of vision, so that it not only looks upon the gracious countenance which God causes to shine upon His servants in the night of trouble, but it consoles itself with beholding in the future that form of God, in which those who are completely blessed, will see Him as He is. Accordingly the full satisfaction in the blessed enjoyment of thus beholding the Divine glory comes only in eternity and presupposes the awaking from the sleep of death.
HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL
The pious man may call upon the judgment of God and rely upon it when condemned by the judgment of men. He who appeals to God, should consider that God is not only the Almighty and the merciful, but that he is likewise the All-knowing and the Holy God.God sees not only our works, He hears not only our words, He likewise proves the heart, and this without cessation, by day and by night.He who will walk in the ways of God must direct himself by the word of God and keep the regulations of God.The Divine grace not only delivers from the hands of earthly enemies, but likewise from inborn sinful corruption and from the power of temporal and eternal death.Every help of God is a miracle of grace; but in the particular exhibitions of Divine help the miraculous appears in various degrees. It is, however, not always perceived by men with the same clearness and not implored with the same fervor in personal distress.It is a true sign of human corruption, that temporal happiness hardens the heart as easily as it fills it with vain efforts after perishable goods and joys.The principal dangers of worldly-mindedness are forgetfulness of God, exaltation of self, and contempt of others.The way to escape from temporal need and anxiety to eternal goods and joys consists in walking in the ways of God.
Starke: He who would be heard in his cause against all kinds of oppression and perversion, must have innocence as his plea; if not he must first confess his guilt and ask God for forgiveness. If prayer is not to go forth from a false mouth, the heart must previously be free from all deceitfulness; for what fills the heart, will pass over the mouth (Mat 12:34).If we are attacked and persecuted by the world and our cause is good and righteous we cannot get better advice, than to have recourse to God and place our need in the lap of His grace.Persecuted Christians often have no judge on earth to do them justice; then sentence must come from heaven.The eyes of men only see what has a fine appearance of human wisdom and power; but the eyes of the Lord see, what is right and good.The nights when troubles and afflictions try us, are indeed hard for flesh and blood, but very profitable to the soul, because there is thus revealed to others and ourselves what is concealed in us.It is not enough to leave off evil works; a Christian is likewise not to speak knowingly an idle word; much less a wicked word. O what watchfulness is necessary for this!The more ungodly men strive to overthrow the truth of Gods word, or to break from its yoke by bold wickedness, the more carefully should believers be, not to deviate a finger-breadth from reverence and obedience to the word of God.It is not enough to remain in the right way, but it is likewise necessary to make advances therein and not slip.O how dangerous and slippery is the way through this wicked world!God fulfils all His promises to us, not as we think according to our reason, but wonderfully, inconceivably, against all thought and above all reason.What is more tender, sensitive, dearer than the apple of the eye: yet believers are such before God; how then can those who touch them, remain unpunished? (Zec 2:8.)The wings of a hen cover her brood so that they cannot be seen by birds of prey; she covers them against rain and storms; she warms them and strengthens them, when they are cold and weak; so likewise, does the Divine grace with His children (Mat 23:37).It is a terrible word, to have ones portion only in this world and thus be excluded from everlasting possessions! Woe to the man who for a short temporal pleasure sacrifices everlasting joy!It is true God often blesses the ungodly with more bodily blessings, than the pious, and fills them better with His treasures; but they have their portion in this life and they starve in the world to come.Children are a gift of the Lord; but they may increase the condemnation of their parents, if they neglect the salvation of their childrens souls and devote their attention merely to the storing up many goods.Christian, your spiritual hunger and thirst will not endure forever; no, the time is drawing near, when you will be satisfied with the rich possessions of the house of God.He who would in the future awake in the image of God, must begin even here the transfiguration and production of the image of God, 2Co 3:18.A great, yes, an infinite difference between the children of this world and the children of God! The former have their bellies full, the latter the heavens full, the one, the shadows, the other, the true imperishable substance.
Luther: The warmer and more ardent our faith is, the more will God accomplish with it.Bugenhagen: The world may satisfy itself where it will; I will satisfy myself with God.Schnepf: What is it to be a man of the world? To have his heaven upon earth and his portion here.Arndt: There are three reasons why prayer will be heard: 1) a righteous cause: 2) righteousness in Christ; 3) righteousness of heart.Scriver: The chief blessedness consists in beholding God, and this consists in the sweetest communion.Renschel: Innocence is the best treasure.To behold Gods countenance is the true paradise.Frisch: David in his opening words expresses at once his faith, because he lays hold of the righteousness of his Saviour; his earnestness, because he continues to cry; his humility because he seeks gracious audience; his perseverance, because he knocks for the third time at the door of grace; his uprightness, because he says nothing except what his heart says to him.Thym: What glory has the servant of God to expect after death? 1) He is to behold the Lord in His glory; 2) he is to be satisfied with the blessings of heaven; 3) he is to awake glorified according to the glory of the Lord unto everlasting life.
[Matth. Henry: It will be a great comfort to us if trouble, when it comes, finds the wheels of prayer agoing, for then may we come with the more boldness to the throne of grace.Gods omniscicence is as much the joy of the upright as it is the terror of hypocrites, and it is particularly comfortable to those who are falsely accused and in any wise have wrong done them.If we keep Gods law as the apple of our eye, Pro 7:2, we may expect God will so keep us; for it is said concerning His people, that whoso toucheth them toucheth the apple of His eye. Zec 2:8.There is no satisfaction for a soul but in God, and in His face and likewise His good will towards us, and His good work in us; and even that satisfaction will not be perfect till we come to heaven.Barnes: We can offer an acceptable prayer only when we are sure that it would be right for God to answer it, or that it would be consistent with perfect and eternal justice to grant our requests.Spurgeon: David would not have been a man after Gods own heart, if he had not been a man of prayer. He was a master in the sacred art of supplication.There is more fear that we will not hear the Lord than that the Lord will not hear us.Who can resist a cry? A real hearty, bitter, piteous cry, might almost melt a rock, there can be no fear of its prevalence with our heavenly Father. A cry is our earliest utterance, and in many ways the most natural of human sounds, if our prayer should like the infants cry be more natural than intelligent and more earnest than elegant, it will be none the less eloquent with God. There is a mighty power in a childs cry to prevail with a parents heart.That heavenly book which lies neglected on many a shelf is the only guide for those who would avoid the enticing and entangling mazes of sin; and it is the best means of preserving the youthful pilgrim from ever treading those dangerous ways. We must follow the one or the other; the Book of Life, or the way of death; the word of the Holy Spirit, or the suggestion of the evil spiritC. A. B.]
Footnotes:
[6][This Psalm resembles the preceding in so many particulars, e. g., the prayer , Psa 16:1; Psa 17:8; the recollection of communion with God by night, Psa 16:7; Psa 17:3; the use of in prayer, Psa 16:1; Psa 17:6; the verb , Psa 16:5; Psa 15:5 (Delitzsch); the reference to the protecting and defending right hand of God, Psa 16:8; Psa 17:7; Psa 17:14; the contrasted portions of the Psalmist and the wicked, Psa 16:2-6; Psa 17:14-15; and the pleasures of the Divine presence, Psa 16:11; Psa 17:15; that they may properly be regarded as a pair composed at or near the same time, and that towards the close of Davids life (vid. note to Psalms 16).C. A. B.]
[7][It is very usual among interpreters to regard this enemy who is especially prominent as Saul, and the Psalm is referred to the period of the persecution by Saul, but it seems better to regard this enemy as the powerful Joab, who was the plague of Davids life, especially towards its close, and the Psalmist often alludes to this bold, powerful, unscrupulous chieftain, who more than once had the audacity to threaten David himself. That David regarded him as an enemy we see from his command to Solomon, 1Ki 2:5-6.C. A. B ]
[8][The author is incorrect in regarding as an adverb, it is better with Hupf. and most interpreters to regard it as the object of behold, Jehovah is to acknowledge His own judgment as such (Hupf.) He is to behold with favor the right, equity. There is thus a gradation in the thought of this strophe. 1) The Psalmist appeals to Jehovah to hear the right; 2) to let the sentence go forth from His presence, the court of the great Judge, let the decision be proclaimed, and then; 3) to behold it as executed, to look with approval and pleasure upon equity, the right being approved by the infallible Judge.C. A. B.]
[9][Riehm mediates between the author and Hitzig. Thus, he contends that never means transgress, sin, when used alone, and since the my mouth doth not transgress can hardly be the result of the examination by night, it is better to regard the object of , at the same time as the subject of , thus: thou will not find wicked thoughts in me, they will not pass over my mouth, that is, I will not betray them by speaking in sleep.C. A. B.]
[10][Thus Hitzig translates: The doings of men, by the word of Thy lips, I have shunned the path of the robber.C. A. B.]
[11][Hupfeld: properly to watch, take heed, observe, usually positively, in order to follow the law and the right way (as Psa 18:21, the ways of God; Prov. 2:29, the righteous), here, on the contrary, in order to avoid. This meaning is usually brought about by the reflexive idea, to be on ones guard, to beware of something, but this as a negative idea necessarily has with it: whilst here the accusative presupposes the original active signification, which here either pregnantly includes the negative consequences which are not expressed, or developes from the idea of watch, guard, keep, according to the nature of that which is watched, a negative side or reference = to keep off, hold off, avoid. Wordsworth translates: I have marked the paths of the transgressor, I have tried them by the words of Thy lips. The sentiment is explained by the Apostolic precept. If any man obey not our words, note that man, and have no company with him, that he may be ashamed (2Th 3:14).C. A. B.]
[12][Perowne: We have here a view of the world and of life very remarkable for the Old Testamenta kind of anticipation of the contrast between the flesh and the Spirit which St. Paul gives us, or the love of the world and of God of which St. John speaks.C. A. B.]
[13][Perowne; Worldly men have their satisfaction in this life, in treasures, in children; David hopes to be satisfied with the likewise or rather real manifest bodily form () of God. The personal pronoun stands emphatically at the beginning of the verse, in order to mark the contrast between his own feelings and those of the men of the world. He hopes (as Job also does Job 19:26-27), to see God. (The parallelism of the next clause shows that this must mean more than merely to enjoy His favors, the light of His countenance, etc. as in Psa 11:7). There is an allusion probably to such a manifestation of God as that made to Moses, Num 12:8, where God declares that with Moses He will speak mouth to mouth, even apparently, and not in dark speeches; and the similitude (rather form, the same word as here) of Jehovah shall he behold. Wordsworth; The thought is completed by St. John: Beloved, now are we the sons of God; and it doth not yet appear what we shall be, but we know that when He appears we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is, (comp. 1Co 13:12; 1Co 15:49; 2Co 3:18; Col 3:10.) As Theodoret observes here, the wicked may be satisfied with sons in this life, but I, O God, shall be satisfied with the sight of Thy Son for evermore. So also Didymus here. Perowne: In opposition to this interpretation it is commonly asserted that the truth of a resurrection had not yet been revealed, and that, consequently if we find the doctrine here, the Psalm must be of later date, after the exile (so De Wette). But this is mere assertion. First as regards the use of the figure Waking from death occurs in 2Ki 4:31., Death is spoken of as a sleep from which there is no awaking Job 14:12, Jer 51:39. Next Isa 26:19. Awake ye that sleep in the dust, plainly refers to the resurrection, (Hence critics who think the truth could not be known before the exile, are obliged to suppose that this chapter was written after that time). Again, why should not David have attained in some degree to the knowledge of a truth, which in later times was so clearly revealed as it was to Ezekiel (who makes use of it as the image of the resurrection of Israel Psa 37:1-14), and Daniel (Psa 12:2)?C. A. B.]

Fuente: A Commentary on the Holy Scriptures, Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical by Lange

CONTENTS
The Psalmist is here again at the mercy-seat, pleading his cause against the ungodly. In a tried God, who had before manifested his faithfulness, he now confides, and closeth with the assurance of a happy issue.
A Prayer of David.
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

As none but Jesus could ever make appeal in the justice of his cause, so it is blessed to discover him in this sweet prayer. Reader, you and I may, in his righteousness, look up to that God, who is and can be just, and the Justifier of every poor sinner that believeth in Jesus. To the throne we may, and indeed we are commanded to come, that the sentence of our justification in Jesus may come forth. God hath found no iniquity in our glorious Surety; and, therefore, the sweetest, and strongest, and best of all prayers are those which the poor believer in Jesus puts up, when he tells God, that the life of Jesus was perfect, and his nature wholly free from taint or shadow of sin. Precious Lamb of God! what unanswerable arguments may the souls of thy redeemed find in this holiness of thine as our Surety! And what can a sinner tell Jehovah, so pleasing to him, as when he follows up the gracious voice and proclamation from heaven, in which the Father said, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; and saith, Lord! I am well pleased too in Jesus and his justifying righteousness, and am now come for acceptance in the beloved!
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

Men of the World
Psa 17:14

To every young man there comes, sooner or later, the brief but startling message which God addressed to Abraham when he was in Ur of the Chaldees ‘Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father’s house, unto a land that I will show thee’. You cannot always abide in the home of your childhood.
I. Think of the portion which belongs to men of the world. There is not a greater mistake than to imagine that you will be heart-rich as soon as you become purse-rich. Riches do make happy; but it is not the riches of the pocket, but the riches of the mind and heart. The riches of taste, of culture, of affection, and, above all, the riches of God’s grace, which impart capacities of deep and intense enjoyment, otherwise unknown. Although every age has had its philosophers and its moralists, proclaiming that money will not bring happiness, it is as little believed today as ever it was.
II. The contrast, as suggested by David’s words in the next verse ‘As for me, I will behold Thy face in righteousness: I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with Thy likeness’.
( a ) If you study the Bible, you will find that when reference is made to the ‘face of God,’ there is generally allusion to Jesus Christ, His Son. We are said to behold Him ‘in the face of Jesus Christ’. The Psalmist means that he will fix his eye on God, as reconciled to him through the righteousness of the Redeemer. He will enjoy the light of His favour. He will bask in the sunshine of His smile. This, believe me, is the first secret of a happy life. If you want to know the joy of a heart at rest, the first thing you have to do is to get right with God.
( b ) ‘I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with Thy likeness.’ Satisfied when? ‘When I awake.’ This is commonly interpreted as having reference to the morning of resurrection, when, aroused from the long slumber of the tomb, the perfected saint shall arise in the image of his Saviour. And, truly, the moment of resurrection will be the first moment in our history, when, in the fullest, amplest sense of the word, we shall be able to say, ‘I am satisfied!’ ‘I have all that I can desire.’
J. Thain Davidson, The City Youth, p. 168.
Reference. XVII. 14. Expositor (3rd Series), vol. v. p. 308.
The Two Awakings
Psa 17:15 ; Psa 73:20

The period to which both David and Asaph look in these two verses is the end of life. The words of both, taken in combination, open out a series of aspects of that period which carry weighty lessons, and to which we turn now.
I. The first of these is that to all men the end of life is an Awakening. The representation of death most widely diffused among all nations is that it is a sleep. The reason for that emblem is easily found. Men prefer not to name their God or their dread, but find roundabout phrases for the one, and coaxing, flattering titles for the other. But that emblem, true and sweet as it is, is but half the truth. We shall sleep, yes; but we shall wake too. To our true selves and to God we shall wake.
II. The second principle contained in our text is that death is to some men the awakening of God. For the long years of our stay here, God’s seeking love lingers round every one of us, yearning over us, besetting us behind and before, courting us with kindness, lavishing on us its treasures, seeking to win our poor love. The judgment sleeps; the loving forbearance, the gracious aid wake. But remember that that predominating, merciful, and longsuffering character of God’s present dealings affords no guarantee that there will not come a time when the slumbering judgment will stir to waking. The Bible which is our only source of knowledge on the subject tells us that men who have been compassed with the loving kindness of the Lord, and who die leaving worldly things and keeping worldly hearts, will have to confront ‘the terror of the Lord’.
III. Death is the annihilation of the vain show of worldly life. Nothing that is without a man can make him rich or restful. That which we are makes us rich or poor, that which we own is a trifle. Let us see to it that not in utter nakedness do we go hence, but clothed with that immortal robe, and rich in those possessions that cannot be taken away from us, which they have who have lived on earth as heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ.
IV. Finally, death is for some men the annihilation of the vain shows in order to reveal the dread reality. We have here the blessed confidence that when all the baseless fabric of the dream of life has faded from our opening eyes we shall see the face of our ever-loving Lord God. And seeing God we shall be satisfied.
Alexander Maclaren.
Psa 17:15
This text, in its Latin rendering, Satiabor cum apparuerit gloria tua , was the passage chosen by Henri Perreyve for his epitaph. ‘He had put his whole soul,’ says Pre Gratry, ‘into that cry of faith, hope, and love.’
The mother of Susannah Wesley, passed away exclaiming: ‘I will die praising Thee I shall be satisfied when I awake with Thy likeness satisfied! satisfied!’ Melanchthon says: ‘The true Church is subjected in this life to the cross. But a word of comfort is spoken about the eternal life: Satiabor cum surget imago tua , that is to say, when Thou restorest Thy perfect likeness in the resurrection of the dead.’
‘As for Me ‘

Mr. Pike of Yarmouth. On Sunday, 17 January, 1858, just after giving out his text, which was the last verse of the 17th Psalm, ‘As for me, I will behold Thy face in righteousness; I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with Thy likeness’; with the words ‘as for me’ upon his lips, he was smitten with death, and was buried in the chapel-yard on the 22nd of the month.
References. XVII. 15. J. Vaughan, Sermons (7th Series), p. 127. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. i. No. 25. Preacher’s Monthly, vol. v. p. 180. T. Binney, Christian World Pulpit, vol. i. p. 120. G. Matheson, Moments on the Mount, p. 39. Homiletic Quarterly, vol. iii. p. 277. Homiletic Magazine, vol. xiv. p. 233. XVII. International Critical Commentary, vol. i. p. 127. I. Williams, The Psalms Interpreted of Christ, p. 296. XVIII. 1. John Thomas, Myrtle Street Pulpit, vol. ii. p. 290. XVIII. 9. J. E. Vaux, Sermon Notes (4th Series) p. 10. XVIII. 16. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxiv. No. 1432.
Fuente: Expositor’s Dictionary of Text by Robertson

A Prayer of David
Psa 17

We have heard David sing, now let us hear him pray. He played wonderfully upon his harp, what is his skill as a suppliant? Does he know the ways of heaven? Can he speak the language of the skies, or any language of earth that can be understood there? This psalm is quite in a new style. It is said to be in the early style of the sweet singer of Israel. There is a charm in the early style of all great writers. It may be efflorescent, and redundant; yet there is wonderful passion in it, an audacity that inspires, if it does not affright; although the critic may see much to modify and rearrange, yet there is about the young heart, the young religious life, something that fascinates and stirs and blesses.
The prayer begins right boldly. Introduction there is none. The suppliant would appear to be in great haste, and to be minded to wait for his answer. The opening words of the psalm are a bold moral appeal: “Hear the right, O Lord.” Not, Hear my side, my way of putting the case; but, Hear the man who is representing a righteous cause; whatever is done, let right be done. This is the strength and glory of the Bible: it is a book of righteousness; its God is revealed as one who will do right. God is implored to measure everything by a straight line, by a perpendicular standard, to make no allowance on the one side or the other, but to be just to all men. In the second verse the same idea is continued. The “let” in the second clause of the verse may be omitted; then the words will stand thus: “Thine eyes behold the things that are equal”; in other words, God is a God impartial, just, and true; the sentence of heaven must not be modified by any narrow partiality: whatever goes down, righteousness must stand. Let this be felt to be the spirit of the whole Bible, and at once the book becomes a great and noble sanctuary into which all men may run, assured that the measure is right, and that the balances and the weights are just. This should be the prayer of the battlefield every battlefield; the scene of every controversy. Let right be done! Who has not thought that his banner alone was stainless? Who has not been guilty of the injustice of supposing that there could be no right on the other side? Where is there a controversy that has not on both sides of it elements of right? What, then, should be the true prayer of the soul that would have things adjusted upon a permanent basis? that “right” should be done, that wherever there is right it should be recognised, wherever there is wrong it should be put down; and that the whole process of divine criticism should end in the establishment of the right alone.
The Psalmist is quite sure that he himself is sincere. The verses which follow seem to be a kind of anticipation of the Pharisee’s self-satisfied prayer; but they are nothing of the kind. The reference in all these matters is not to sinlessness but to sincerity. The Psalmist does not say: I am a pure man, without stain upon the heart or hand. He says: I am a sincere man; the general purpose I have had in view is a purpose marked by honesty. He does not represent himself as pure snow in the face of heaven, but as a man whose supreme motive has been a motive of honesty and general truthfulness. Sincerity can appeal to the right. We draw our prayer out of our own character. This suppliant is so sure of his own honesty that he says: Let the whole case be settled honestly. At other times, when he knows there is not a clean spot upon his whole constitution one sound healthy spot he falls right down before God and weeps out his soul in contrition; but being engaged in a great strife and knowing that he is substantially right as to motive and purpose, he chooses the court in which he will have the case tried, and the court he chooses is the high court of justice. Let right be done. The appeal is an awful one. It is like inviting the day of judgment prematurely. It is the invocation of a sword which once unsheathed returns no more until it has rectified all inequalities and all instances of injustice. We should be very sure of our motive before we invoke the doing of right. It is better for us to invoke the exercise of mercy. Most men will get more from pity than they ever can get from righteousness. Who dare stand before God and say, Let right be done? Better say, God be merciful to me a sinner; Father, pity me, spare me; I am wholly without excuse before thee, but thy grace abounds over my sin God pity me!
David’s pleas are not without strength and pertinence. He says he has been obedient so far as he could be: I have been working steadily at the plough; I have been faithful in speaking thy word; I have habitually sought the sanctuary; and my desire has been to serve God: therefore I appeal to the right. Then he pleads his desire to be guided. In the fifth verse he says, “Hold up my goings in thy paths, that my footsteps slip not.” If we thought he had been boasting too loudly, he corrects our impression by thus casting himself upon the almightiness of God. He is young, adventurous, but not romantic; he will still acknowledge that there are paths in which men ought to go literally, wheel-tracks; so the fifth verse might read: Hold up my goings in thy wheel-tracks; I do not want to make new paths, and to create new and perilous roads in the unmeasured wilderness of time and life, I want to follow the chariots of God. So prudence is compatible with youth; so it is possible to be young, bold, adventurous, and yet to cling to the conservative and the established and the well tested. Who cares to make new roads when good roads are already in existence? Who would carry his independence so far as to say that he will not travel by established roads from one city to another, but will make a road of his own? Who does not see the folly of a boldness or enterprise of that kind? The analogy has its applications to our religious life. There are old paths, old words, even old forms, ancient, well-marked wheel-tracks: enough for most of us to follow where God has led.
Then he pleads his intimacy with God: “I have called upon thee” ( Psa 17:6 ) I know thee, thou knowest me altogether; do not let our friendship go for nothing; complete it in perfect consummation, so that I may see light in thy light, and know the fulness of thy purpose in my being. There are times when we can turn our spiritual intimacy with God into immediate and practical advantage. We have not to begin our communion in the time of controversy; it is not in trouble that we originate the building of the sanctuary; but in hours of contentment and blessedness and general prosperity we have been cultivating the divine acquaintance, advancing our confidence on high, so that when the trouble comes in great shocks and gusts and tempests, God is not afar off but nigh at hand, and our intimacy becomes a real and valuable possession. Improve the quiet days, work hard when the wind is low; then when the days are full of noise, and the air is an angry tempest, there will be less to do in moving heaven, and in invoking and realising the right.
Observe the character of God as drawn by the Psalmist in this prayer. We have seen that: he regards God as righteous. That must be the foundation of all true theology. There must be no difficulties of a conscientious kind in our communion with heaven. Once unsettle the moral confidence, and the whole creation of a theological kind totters and dies, and properly so. Reason may be baffled, Imagination may be confounded, but Conscience must have a sure standing-place, an everlasting confidence, must be so persuaded of God’s righteousness as to be able to say, The end will be right; at the last even hell will confess that its pit is not too deep or its fire too hot Conscience keeps the whole nature right; conscience chastens imagination, and throws a rein upon the passion which would urge reason to undue and disastrous lengths. God has always been careful to keep conscience as it were upon his side, so that men might feel, whether by day or by night, all processes of providence would end in righteousness.
The Psalmist also looks upon God as probing the heart, always seeking to know what is in it, watching its every throb and flush of colour. It is about the heart that God may be said to be anxious. Given a heart of honesty, a spirit that wishes supremely to be in the right, then how merciful yea, how pitiful even to tears, and how patient beyond all known love is God, in relation to every other department of life! As we, on our side, are solicitous that there should be no dispute on moral grounds, in relation to the divine purpose and government, so God may be said to be anxious, on his side, that our heart should be right. That being so, he can understand the ambition of reason and the audacity of imagination.
But is the Psalmist’s portraiture of the divine character all drawn in stern lines? Are there no tears in all the delineation? The seventh verse is our reply: “Shew thy lovingkindness” that would be beautiful if it stood alone, but the word lovingkindness does not stand alone “Shew thy marvellous lovingkindness.” Has any New Testament writer suggested a tenderer aspect of the divine character? Observe how the words accumulate: kindness, lovingkindness, marvellous lovingkindness. Religion must not be a matter of abstract right, some lofty or metaphysical geometry of perpendicular lines and horizontal positions; it must go further and be more: and how much further can it go, and how much more can it be, than as represented by such words as kindness, lovingkindness, mercy, tender mercy, marvellous lovingkindness? Now the balance seems to be adjusted: the stern in law is balanced by the tender in pity.
This suppliant is a poet He thinks in images. When did he ever write without symbolism, metaphor, the fine colour which is thrown upon common words by the poet-prophet? In this matter the Psalmist is just to himself, even in this pious composition, this sacred address to the ear of God. In the eighth verse he says, “Keep me as the apple of the eye.” Religion cannot do without metaphors. Religion itself, as we understand it, is but a metaphor, pointing to its larger self, beyond the horizon, above the zenith. “The apple of the eye” literally, the manikin of the eye, the little man in the eye; that central eye, that without which there would be no eye. Keep me as the gem, or living point, of the eye.
“Hide me under the shadow of thy wings” ( Psa 17:8 ).

What wings? Quote the Old Testament instances in which this figure is used, and you will find that they are instances relating to the eagle, the vulture, flying things with great pinions that might almost darken the sun. Under such outspread pinions would the Psalmist be hidden. These are Hebrew figures, but we are not Hebrews. Is any use made of these figures, nearer our own custom, nearer our own simplicity? The answer is in the affirmative. Where the Hebrew says the “manikin” of the eye, the Gentile language says the “daughter” of the eye “the little daughter”; a gentler term, a coming-down to our historical standing-place, without loss of dignity, but with some accession of tenderness. “Wings” wings of the eagle wings of the vulture, says the Hebrew; but when the Saviour speaks, he says, “as a hen.” There is no loss of dignity; there is a revelation of household nearness and pity. The ancient figure is “as an eagle stirreth up her nest”; in the New Testament the Saviour says, “I would have gathered thee as a hen doth gather her brood under her wings,” poor wings, as compared with the eagle’s and the vulture’s, but a mother’s wings nevertheless; and but a figure after all, representing in some bold way, or in some modest form, the available almightiness of the Almighty God.
Another figure occurs in the thirteenth verse: “Arise, O Lord, disappoint him.” The English word “disappoint” does not represent the original meaning in the most graphic form. The figure is that of a champion going out to meet the enemy, and to break him in pieces. Read: Arise, O Lord, go forth, meet him ere he start from home; be first on the field; be ready to encounter him the moment he comes out from his hiding-place, and smite him with thy righteousness. Thus the Lord fights the battle alone oftentimes. We are not called into the controversy at all; the whole shock takes place without our knowledge, yet not without being an answer to our prayer. In the New Testament we have sketches of worldly men, but say whether there is any sketch amongst them equal to the portraiture given in the fourteenth verse of this Psalm. This is a perfect delineation of the worldly man. It is impossible to add one useful line to it: “Men of the world, which have their portion in this life, and whose belly thou fillest with thy hid treasure: they are full of children, and leave the rest of their substance to their babes”; their life is a limited life; it is all visible, measurable, namable; the whole life can be written out in plain terms and figures, and the whole value can be totaled in summary numbers. It is a pitiful man who is sketched in the fourteenth verse a worldling, a grubber, a man who lives in the dust, almost a beast. Whatever may have been outworn by the process of the ages, this picture of the worldly man is today correct in every line, vivid and true in every tint.
We now come to the fifteenth verse, so generally misunderstood and misapplied: “As for me, I will behold thy face in righteousness: I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with thy likeness.” Who has not misread this verse by not perceiving its punctuation? How often has the comma after “awake” been struck out, and thus the whole sense of the passage lost! It has been read, “when I awake with thy likeness”; being so read it has been violated. Observe the punctuation, and further comment is needless. We might turn it round thus: I shall be satisfied with thy likeness when I awake. The man does not awake with the likeness; he is satisfied with the likeness when he awakes. But why is he about to awake? This is a note of time. The explanation of this is in the third verse: “Thou hast visited me in the night.” This prayer was a prayer offered in darkness. Who can tell how many of the Psalms were night thoughts? How could a soldier find time to write psalms or prayers in the day season, when every sound was an alarm, every shadow was a challenge? How could minstrels sing then, or suppliants stop to write their prayers? Beautiful is the figure of the Psalmist writing his psalms at night: the hurly-burly done for the day, and the scribe sets himself to make record of his heart’s deepest experiences. Who cannot compose best at nighttime? The day seems to be made for active thought outward, urgent service, and the calm night for setting down in order the recollections of the day’s controversy. Now we come to the fifteenth verse: “As for me, I will behold thy face in righteousness”; I am about to sleep, to lie down and take what rest I may; I shall be satisfied with thy likeness when I awake: the morning shall see me a stronger man, the morning shall bring a larger and truer theology, the morning will be a time of liberty and enlargement. Yet men do not know always what they are saying as to the fulness of its meaning, its uttermost possibility and final consummation. He is no fanatic who sees in such words strugglings after immortality, the beginnings of a new mysterious energy in the soul that will by-and-by be articulated into resurrection. To sleep, now that we understand it, is to die; to awake, now that we see the larger meanings of things, is resurrection. We did not see these things at the first, but now they are clear. We thought of sleep in a merely animal sense: it was a bodily recreation, something to be done at the end of a period of service. Now that we have more light we see clearly that sleep is death, waking resurrection, and when we awake we shall see the likeness of God, and we shall be satisfied with that likeness; that is to say, he shall come into us, fill us: we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. A transforming sight: whilst we gaze upon the beautiful, we ourselves shall be beautified.
Prayer

Almighty God, let it please thee to show us more and more of the beauty and tenderness of thy Son. It is thine to show Christ to the heart we cannot see him with our dull eyes, but if thou dost anoint our eyes with eye-salve that we may see, we shall behold him near at hand, the great light and the only life. We have heard of him by the hearing of the ear now would we receive him into the sanctuary of our love, and have long converse with him, and tender, as those who exchange deepest confidences, and express to one another the most urgent necessities and longings of the heart. We would hear him speak to us in his whisper as well as in his great thunder: we would hear from him the voice still and small that will not add to our grief, but utterly take it away, by the tenderness of the sympathy, by the richness of the grace with which it will speak to our wounded spirits. Thou hast yet more to say unto us thou art never done always is there one more word one other message, one further revelation. Thus dost thou take us along the road of our life promising and fulfilling, and yet making every fulfilment itself a still richer promise. Thou hast kept the good wine until now; we behold the beauty of the Lord as we never saw it before it is richer, tenderer, nearer, more complete in its persuasiveness, more powerful in its attraction. May we thus see it every day, until we exchange all meaner lights and all poorer mediums for the great glory and the unveiled majesty in heaven. Amen.
Fuente: The People’s Bible by Joseph Parker

PSALMS

XI
AN INTRODUCTION TO THE BOOK OF PSALMS

According to my usual custom, when taking up the study of a book of the Bible I give at the beginning a list of books as helps to the study of that book. The following books I heartily commend on the Psalms:
1. Sampey’s Syllabus for Old Testament Study . This is especially good on the grouping and outlining of some selected psalms. There are also some valuable suggestions on other features of the book.
2. Kirkpatrick’g commentary, in “Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges,” is an excellent aid in the study of the Psalter.
3. Perowne’s Book of Psalms is a good, scholarly treatise on the Psalms. A special feature of this commentary is the author’s “New Translation” and his notes are very helpful.
4. Spurgeon’s Treasury of David. This is just what the title implies. It is a voluminous, devotional interpretation of the Psalms and helpful to those who have the time for such extensive study of the Psalter.
5. Hengstenburg on the Psalms. This is a fine, scholarly work by one of the greatest of the conservative German scholars.
6. Maclaren on the Psalms, in “The Expositor’s Bible,” is the work of the world’s safest, sanest, and best of all works that have ever been written on the Psalms.
7. Thirtle on the Titles of the Psalms. This is the best on the subject and well worth a careful study.
At this point some definitions are in order. The Hebrew word for psalm means praise. The word in English comes from psalmos , a song of lyrical character, or a song to be sung and accompanied with a lyre. The Psalter is a collection of sacred and inspired songs, composed at different times and by different authors.
The range of time in composition was more than 1,000 years, or from the time of Moses to the time of Ezra. The collection in its present form was arranged probably by Ezra in the fifth century, B.C.
The Jewish classification of Old Testament books was The Law, the Prophets, and the Holy Writings. The Psalms was given the first place in the last group.
They had several names, or titles, of the Psalms. In Hebrew they are called “The Book of Prayers,” or “The Book of Praises.” The Hebrew word thus used means praises. The title of the first two books is found in Psa 72:20 : “The prayers of David the son of Jesse are ended.” The title of the whole collection of Psalms in the Septuagint is Biblos Psalman which means the “Book of Psalms.” The title in the Alexandrian Codex is Psalterion which is the name of a stringed instrument, and means “The Psalter.”
The derivation of our English words, “psalms,” “psalter,” and “psaltery,” respectively, is as follows:
1. “Psalms” comes from the Greek word, psalmoi, which is also from psallein , which means to play upon a stringed instrument. Therefore the Psalms are songs played upon stringed instruments, and the word here is used to apply to the whole collection.
2. “Psalter” is of the same origin and means the Book of Psalms and refers also to the whole collection.
3. “Psaltery” is from the word psalterion, which means “a harp,” an instrument, supposed to be in the shape of a triangle or like the delta of the Greek alphabet. See Psa 33:2 ; Psa 71:22 ; Psa 81:2 ; Psa 144:9 .
In our collection there are 150 psalms. In the Septuagint there is one extra. It is regarded as being outside the sacred collection and not inspired. The subject of this extra psalm is “David’s victory over Goliath.” The following is a copy of it: I was small among my brethren, And youngest in my father’s house, I used to feed my father’s sheep. My hands made a harp, My fingers fashioned a Psaltery. And who will declare unto my Lord? He is Lord, he it is who heareth. He it was who sent his angel And took me from my father’s sheep, And anointed me with the oil of his anointing. My brethren were goodly and tall, But the Lord took no pleasure in them. I went forth to meet the Philistine. And he cursed me by his idols But I drew the sword from beside him; I beheaded him and removed reproach from the children of Israel.
It will be noted that this psalm does not have the earmarks of an inspired production. There is not found in it the modesty so characteristic of David, but there is here an evident spirit of boasting and self-praise which is foreign to the Spirit of inspiration.
There is a difference in the numbering of the psalms in our version which follows the Hebrew, and the numbering in the Septuagint. Omitting the extra one in the Septuagint, there is no difference as to the total number. Both have 150 and the same subject matter, but they are not divided alike.
The following scheme shows the division according to our version and also the Septuagint: Psalms 1-8 in the Hebrew equal 1-8 in the Septuagint; 9-10 in the Hebrew combine into 9 in the Septuagint; 11-113 in the Hebrew equal 10-112 in the Septuagint; 114-115 in the Hebrew combine into 113 in the Septuagint; 116 in the Hebrew divides into 114-115 in the Septuagint; 117-146 in the Hebrew equal 116-145 in the Septuagint; 147 in the Hebrew divides into 146-147 in the Septuagint; 148-150 in the Hebrew equal 148-150 in the Septuagint.
The arrangement in the Vulgate is the same as the Septuagint. Also some of the older English versions have this arangement. Another difficulty in numbering perplexes an inexperienced student in turning from one version to another, viz: In the Hebrew often the title is verse I, and sometimes the title embraces verses 1-2.
The book divisions of the Psalter are five books, as follows:
Book I, Psalms 1-41 (41 chapters)
Book II, Psalms 42-72 (31 chapters)
Book III, Psalms 73-89 (17 chapters)
Book IV, Psalms 90-106 (17 chapters)
Book V, Psalms 107-150 (44 chapters)
They are marked by an introduction and a doxology. Psalm I forms an introduction to the whole book; Psa 150 is the doxology for the whole book. The introduction and doxology of each book are the first and last psalms of each division, respectively.
There were smaller collections before the final one, as follows:
Books I and II were by David; Book III, by Hezekiah, and Books IV and V, by Ezra.
Certain principles determined the arrangement of the several psalms in the present collection:
1. David is honored with first place, Book I and II, including Psalms 1-72.
2. They are grouped according to the use of the name of God:
(1) Psalms 1-41 are Jehovah psalms;
(2) Psalms 42-83 are Elohim-psalms;
(3) Psalms 84-150 are Jehovah psalms.
3. Book IV is introduced by the psalm of Moses, which is the first psalm written.
4. Some are arranged as companion psalms, for instance, sometimes two, sometimes three, and sometimes more. Examples: Psa 2 and 3; 22, 23, and 24; 113-118.
5. They were arranged for liturgical purposes, which furnished the psalms for special occasions, such as feasts, etc. We may be sure this arrangement was not accidental. An intelligent study of each case is convincing that it was determined upon rational grounds.
All the psalms have titles but thirty-three, as follows:
In Book I, Psa 1 ; Psa 2 ; Psa 10 ; Psa 33 , (4 are without titles).
In Book II, Psa 43 ; Psa 71 , (2 are without titles).
In Book IV, Psa 91 ; Psa 93 ; Psa 94 ; Psa 95 ; Psa 96 ; Psa 97 ; Psa 104 ; Psa 105 ; Psa 106 , (9 are without titles).
In Book V, Psa 107 ; III; 112; 113; 114; 115; 116; 117; 118; 119; 135; 136; 137; 146; 147; 148; 149; 150, (18 are without titles).
The Talmud calls these psalms that have no title, “Orphan Psalms.” The later Jews supply these titles by taking the nearest preceding author. The lack of titles in Psa 1 ; Psa 2 ; and 10 may be accounted for as follows: Psa 1 is a general introduction to the whole collection and Psa 2 was, perhaps, a part of Psa 1 . Psalms 9-10 were formerly combined into one, therefore Psa 10 has the same title as Psa 9 .
QUESTIONS

1. What books are commended on the Psalms?
2. What is a psalm?
3. What is the Psalter?
4. What is the range of time in composition?
5. When and by whom was the collection in its present form arranged?
6. What the Jewish classification of Old Testament books, and what the position of the Psalter in this classification?
7. What is the Hebrew title of the Psalms?
8. Find the title of the first two books from the books themselves.
9. What is the title of the whole collection of psalms in the Septuagint?
10. What is the title in the Alexandrian Codex?
11. What is the derivation of our English word, “Psalms”, “Psalter”, and “Psaltery,” respectively?
12. How many psalms in our collection?
13. How many psalms in the Septuagint?
14. What about the extra one in the Septuagint?
15. What is the subject of this extra psalm?
16. How does it compare with the Canonical Psalms?
17. What is the difference in the numbering of the psalms in our version which follows the Hebrew, and the numbering in the Septuagint?
18. What is the arrangement in the Vulgate?
19. What other difficulty in numbering which perplexes an inexperienced student in turning from one version to another?
20. What are the book divisions of the Psalter and how are these divisions marked?
21. Were there smaller collections before the final one? If so, what were they?
22. What principles determined the arrangement of the several psalms in the present collection?
23. In what conclusion may we rest concerning this arrangement?
24. How many of the psalms have no titles?
25. What does the Talmud call these psalms that have no titles?
26. How do later Jews supply these titles?
27. How do you account for the lack of titles in Psa 1 ; Psa 2 ; Psa 10 ?
XII
AN INTRODUCTION TO THE BOOK OF PSALMS (CONTINUED)

The following is a list of the items of information gathered from the titles of the psalms:
1. The author: “A Psalm of David” (Psa 37 ).
2. The occasion: “When he fled from Absalom, his son” (Psa 3 ).
3. The nature, or character, of the poem:
(1) Maschil, meaning “instruction,” a didactic poem (Psa 42 ).
(2) Michtam, meaning “gold,” “A Golden Psalm”; this means excellence or mystery (Psa 16 ; 56-60).
4. The occasion of its use: “A Psalm of David for the dedication of the house” (Psa 30 ).
5. Its purpose: “A Psalm of David to bring remembrance” (Psa 38 ; Psa 70 ).
6. Direction for its use: “A Psalm of David for the chief musician” (Psa 4 ).
7. The kind of musical instrument:
(1) Neginoth, meaning to strike a chord, as on stringed instruments (Psa 4 ; Psa 61 ).
(2) Nehiloth, meaning to perforate, as a pipe or flute (Psa 5 ).
(3) Shoshannim, Lilies, which refers probably to cymbals (Psa 45 ; Psa 69 ).
8. A special choir:
(1) Sheminith, the “eighth,” or octave below, as a male choir (Psa 6 ; Psa 12 ).
(2) Alamoth, female choir (Psa 46 ).
(3) Muth-labben, music with virgin voice, to be sung by a choir of boys in the treble (Psa 9 ).
9. The keynote, or tune:
(1) Aijeleth-sharar, “Hind of the morning,” a song to the melody of which this is sung (Psa 22 ).
(2) Al-tashheth, “Destroy thou not,” the beginning of a song the tune of which is sung (Psa 57 ; Psa 58 ; Psa 59 ; Psa 75 ).
(3) Gittith, set to the tune of Gath, perhaps a tune which David brought from Gath (Psa 8 ; Psa 81 ; Psa 84 ).
(4) Jonath-elim-rehokim, “The dove of the distant terebinths,” the commencement of an ode to the air of which this song was to be sung (Psa 56 ).
(5) Leannoth, the name of a tune (Psa 88 ).
(6) Mahalath, an instrument (Psa 53 ); Leonnoth-Mahaloth, to chant to a tune called Mahaloth.
(7) Shiggaion, a song or a hymn.
(8) Shushan-Eduth, “Lily of testimony,” a tune (Psa 60 ). Note some examples: (1) “America,” “Shiloh,” “Auld Lang Syne.” These are the names of songs such as we are familiar with; (2) “Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing” and “There Is a Fountain Filled with Blood,” are examples of sacred hymns.
10. The liturgical use, those noted for the feasts, e.g., the Hallels and Hallelujah Psalms (Psalms 146-150).
11. The destination, as “Song of Ascents” (Psalms 120-134)
12. The direction for the music, such as Selah, which means “Singers, pause”; Higgaion-Selah, to strike a symphony with selah, which means an instrumental interlude (Psa 9:16 ).
The longest and fullest title to any of the psalms is the title to Psa 60 . The items of information from this title are as follows: (1) the author; (2) the chief musician; (3) the historical occasion; (4) the use, or design; (5) the style of poetry; (6) the instrument or style of music.
The parts of these superscriptions which most concern us now are those indicating author, occasion, and date. As to the historic value or trustworthiness of these titles most modern scholars deny that they are a part of the Hebrew text, but the oldest Hebrew text of which we know anything had all of them. This is the text from which the Septuagint was translated. It is much more probable that the author affixed them than later writers. There is no internal evidence in any of the psalms that disproves the correctness of them, but much to confirm. The critics disagree among themselves altogether as to these titles. Hence their testimony cannot consistently be received. Nor can it ever be received until they have at least agreed upon a common ground of opposition.
David is the author of more than half the entire collection, the arrangement of which is as follows:
1. Seventy-three are ascribed to him in the superscriptions.
2. Some of these are but continuations of the preceding ones of a pair, trio, or larger group.
3. Some of the Korahite Psalms are manifestly Davidic.
4. Some not ascribed to him in the titles are attributed to him expressly by New Testament writers.
5. It is not possible to account for some parts of the Psalter without David. The history of his early life as found in Samuel, 1 and 2 Kings, and 1and 2 Chronicles, not only shows his remarkable genius for patriotic and sacred songs and music, but also shows his cultivation of that gift in the schools of the prophets. Some of these psalms of the history appear in the Psalter itself. It is plain to all who read these that they are founded on experience, and the experience of no other Hebrew fits the case. These experiences are found in Samuel, 1 and 2 Kings, and 1 and 2 Chronicles.
As to the attempt of the destructive critics to rob David of his glory in relation to the Psalter by assigning the Maccabean era as the date of composition, I have this to say:
1. This theory has no historical support whatever, and therefore is not to be accepted at all.
2. It has no support in tradition, which weakens the contention of the critics greatly.
3. It has no support from finding any one with the necessary experience for their basis.
4. They can give no reasonable account as to how the titles ever got there.
5. It is psychologically impossible for anyone to have written these 150 psalms in the Maccabean times.
6. Their position is expressly contrary to the testimony of Christ and the apostles. Some of the psalms which they ascribe to the Maccabean Age are attributed to David by Christ himself, who said that David wrote them in the Spirit.
The obvious aim of this criticism and the necessary result if it be Just, is a positive denial of the inspiration of both Testaments.
Other authors are named in the titles, as follows: (1) Asaph, to whom twelve psalms have been assigned: (2) Mosee, Psa 90 ; (3) Solomon, Psa 72 ; Psa 127 ; (4) Heman, Psa 80 ; (5) Ethem, Psa 89 ; (6) A number of the psalms are ascribed to the sons of Korah.
Not all the psalms ascribed to Asaph were composed by one person. History indicates that Asaph’s family presided over the song service for several generations. Some of them were composed by his descendants by the game name. The five general outlines of the whole collection are as follows:
I. By books

1. Psalms 1-41 (41)
2. Psalms 42-72 (31)
3. Psalms 73-89 (17)
4. Psalms 90-106 (17)
5. Psalms 107-150 (44)
II. According to date and authorship

1. The psalm of Moses (Psa 90 )
2. Psalms of David:
(1) The shepherd boy (Psa 8 ; Psa 19 ; Psa 29 ; Psa 23 ).
(2) David when persecuted by Saul (Psa 59 ; Psa 56 ; Psa 34 ; Psa 52 ; Psa 54 ; Psa 57 ; Psa 142 ).
(3) David the King (Psa 101 ; Psa 18 ; Psa 24 ; Psa 2 ; Psa 110 ; Psa 20 ; Psa 20 ; Psa 21 ; Psa 60 ; Psa 51 ; Psa 32 ; Psa 41 ; Psa 55 ; Psa 3:4 ; Psa 64 ; Psa 62 ; Psa 61 ; Psa 27 ).
3. The Asaph Psalms (Psa 50 ; Psa 73 ; Psa 83 ).
4. The Korahite Psalms (Psa 42 ; Psa 43 ; Psa 84 ).
5. The psalms of Solomon (Psa 72 ; Psa 127 ).
6. The psalms of the era of Hezekiah and Isaiah (Psa 46 ; Psa 47 ; Psa 48 )
7. The psalms of the Exile (Psa 74 ; Psa 79 ; Psa 137 ; Psa 102 )
8. The psalms of the Restoration (Psa 85 ; Psa 126 ; Psa 118 ; 146-150)
III. By groups

1. The Jehovistic and Elohistic Psalms:
(1) Psalms 1-41 are Jehovistic;
(2) Psalms 42-83 are Elohistic Psalms;
(3) Psalms 84-150 are Jehovistic.
2. The Penitential Psalms (Psa 6 ; Psa 32 ; Psa 38 ; Psa 51 ; Psa 102 ; Psa 130 ; Psa 143 )
3. The Pilgrim Psalms (Psalms 120-134)
4. The Alphabetical Psalms (Psa 9 ; Psa 10 ; Psa 25 ; Psa 34 ; Psa 37 ; 111:112; Psa 119 ; Psa 145 )
5. The Hallelujah Psalms (Psalms 11-113; 115-117; 146-150; to which may be added Psa 135 ) Psalms 113-118 are called “the Egyptian Hallel”
IV. Doctrines of the Psalms

1. The throne of grace and how to approach it by sacrifice, prayer, and praise.
2. The covenant, the basis of worship.
3. The paradoxical assertions of both innocence & guilt.
4. The pardon of sin and justification.
5. The Messiah.
6. The future life, pro and con.
7. The imprecations.
8. Other doctrines.
V. The New Testament use of the Psalms

1. Direct references and quotations in the New Testament.
2. The allusions to the psalms in the New Testament. Certain experiences of David’s life made very deep impressions on his heart, such as: (1) his peaceful early life; (2) his persecution by Saul; (3) his being crowned king of the people; (4) the bringing up of the ark; (5) his first great sin; (6) Absalom’s rebellion; (7) his second great sin; (8) the great promise made to him in 2Sa 7 ; (9) the feelings of his old age.
We may classify the Davidic Psalms according to these experiences following the order of time, thus:
1. His peaceful early life (Psa 8 ; Psa 19 ; Psa 29 ; Psa 23 )
2. His persecution by Saul (Psa 59 ; Psa 56 ; Psa 34 ; Psa 7 ; Psa 52 ; Psa 120 ; Psa 140 ; Psa 54 ; Psa 57 ; Psa 142 ; Psa 17 ; Psa 18 )
3. Making David King (Psa 27 ; Psa 133 ; Psa 101 )
4. Bringing up the ark (Psa 68 ; Psa 24 ; Psa 132 ; Psa 15 ; Psa 78 ; Psa 96 )
5. His first great sin (Psa 51 ; Psa 32 )
6. Absalom’s rebellion (Psa 41 ; Psa 6 ; Psa 55 ; Psa 109 ; Psa 38 ; Psa 39 ; Psa 3 ; Psa 4 ; Psa 63 ; Psa 42 ; Psa 43 ; Psa 5 ; Psa 62 ; Psa 61 ; Psa 27 )
7. His second great sin (Psa 69 ; Psa 71 ; Psa 102 ; Psa 103 )
8. The great promise made to him in 2Sa 7 (Psa 2 )
9. Feelings of old age (Psa 37 )
The great doctrines of the psalms may be noted as follows: (1) the being and attributes of God; (3) sin, both original and individual; (3) both covenants; (4) the doctrine of justification; (5) concerning the Messiah.
There is a striking analogy between the Pentateuch and the Psalms. The Pentateuch contains five books of law; the Psalms contain five books of heart responses to the law.
It is interesting to note the historic controversies concerning the singing of psalms. These were controversies about singing uninspired songs, in the Middle Ages. The church would not allow anything to be used but psalms.
The history in Samuel, 1 and 2 Kings, and 1 and 2 Chronicles, and in Ezra and Nehemiah is very valuable toward a proper interpretation of the psalms. These books furnish the historical setting for a great many of the psalms which is very indispensable to their proper interpretation.
Professor James Robertson, in the Poetry and Religion of the Psalms constructs a broad and strong argument in favor of the Davidic Psalms, as follows:
1. The age of David furnished promising soil for the growth of poetry.
2. David’s qualifications for composing the psalms make it highly probable that David is the author of the psalms ascribed to him.
3. The arguments against the possibility of ascribing to David any of the hymns in the Hebrew Psalter rests upon assumptions that are thoroughly antibiblical.
The New Testament makes large use of the psalms and we learn much as to their importance in teaching. There are seventy direct quotations in the New Testament from this book, from which we learn that the Scriptures were used extensively in accord with 2Ti 3:16-17 . There are also eleven references to the psalms in the New Testament from which we learn that the New Testament writers were thoroughly imbued with the spirit and teaching of the psalms. Then there are eight allusions ‘to this book in the New Testament from which we gather that the Psalms was one of the divisions of the Old Testament and that they were used in the early church.
QUESTIONS

1. Give a list of the items of information gathered from the titles of the psalms.
2. What is the longest title to any of the psalms and what the items of this title?
3. What parts of these superscriptions most concern us now?
4. What is the historic value, or trustworthiness of these titles?
5. State the argument showing David’s relation to the psalms.
6. What have you to say of the attempt of the destructive critics to rob David of his glory in relation to the Psalter by assigning the Maccabean era as the date of composition?
7. What the obvious aim of this criticism and the necessary result, if it be just?
8. What other authors are named in the titles?
9. Were all the psalms ascribed to Asaph composed by one person?
10. Give the five general outlines of the whole collection, as follows: I. The outline by books II. The outline according to date and authorship III. The outline by groups IV. The outline of doctrines V. The outline by New Testament quotations or allusions.
11. What experiences of David’s life made very deep impressions on his heart?
12. Classify the Davidic Psalms according to these experiences following the order of time.
13. What the great doctrines of the psalms?
14. What analogy between the Pentateuch and the Psalms?
15. What historic controversies concerning the singing of psalms?
16. Of what value is the history in Samuel, 1 Kings and 2 Chronicles, and in Ezra and Nehemiah toward a proper interpretation of the psalms?
17. Give Professor James Robertson’s argument in favor of the Davidic authorship of the psalms.
18. What can you say of the New Testament use of the psalms and what do we learn as to their importance in teaching?
19. What can you say of the New Testament references to the psalms, and from the New Testament references what the impression on the New Testament writers?
20. What can you say of the allusions to the psalms in the New Testament?
XVII
THE MESSIAH IN THE PSALMS

A fine text for this chapter is as follows: “All things must be fulfilled which were written in the Psalms concerning me,” Luk 24:44 . I know of no better way to close my brief treatise on the Psalms than to discuss the subject of the Messiah as revealed in this book.
Attention has been called to the threefold division of the Old Testament cited by our Lord, namely, the Law, the Prophets, and the Psalms (Luk 24:44 ), in all of which were the prophecies relating to himself that “must be fulfilled.” It has been shown just what Old Testament books belong to each of these several divisions. The division called the Psalms included many books, styled Holy Writings, and because the Psalms proper was the first book of the division it gave the name to the whole division.
The object of this discussion is to sketch the psalmist’s outline of the Messiah, or rather, to show how nearly a complete picture of our Lord is foredrawn in this one book. Let us understand however with Paul, that all prophecy is but in part (1Co 13:9 ), and that when we fill in on one canvas all the prophecies concerning the Messiah of all the Old Testament divisions, we are far from having a perfect portrait of our Lord. The present purpose is limited to three things:
1. What the book of the Psalms teaches concerning the Messiah.
2. That the New Testament shall authoritatively specify and expound this teaching.
3. That the many messianic predictions scattered over the book and the specifications thereof over the New Testament may be grouped into an orderly analysis, so that by the adjustment of the scattered parts we may have before us a picture of our Lord as foreseen by the psalmists.
In allowing the New Testament to authoritatively specify and expound the predictive features of the book, I am not unmindful of what the so-called “higher critics” urge against the New Testament quotations from the Old Testament and the use made of them. In this discussion, however, these objections are not considered, for sufficient reasons. There is not space for it. Even at the risk of being misjudged I must just now summarily pass all these objections, dismissing them with a single statement upon which the reader may place his own estimate of value. That statement is that in the days of my own infidelity, before this old method of criticism had its new name, I was quite familiar with the most and certainly the strongest of the objections now classified as higher criticism, and have since patiently re-examined them in their widely conflicting restatements under their modern name, and find my faith in the New Testament method of dealing with the Old Testament in no way shattered, but in every way confirmed. God is his own interpreter. The Old Testament as we now have it was in the hands of our Lord. I understand his apostle to declare, substantially, that “every one of these sacred scriptures is God-inspired and is profitable for teaching us what is right to believe and to do, for convincing us what is wrong in faith or practice, for rectifying the wrong when done, that we may be ready at every point, furnished completely, to do every good work, at the right time, in the right manner, and from the proper motive” (2Ti 3:16-17 ).
This New Testament declares that David was a prophet (Act 2:30 ), that he spake by the Holy Spirit (Act 1:16 ), that when the book speaks the Holy Spirit speaks (Heb 3:7 ), and that all its predictive utterances, as sacred Scripture, “must be fulfilled” (Joh 13:18 ; Act 1:16 ). It is not claimed that David wrote all the psalms, but that all are inspired, and that as he was the chief author, the book goes by his name.
It would be a fine thing to make out two lists, as follows:
1. All of the 150 psalms in order from which the New Testament quotes with messianic application.
2. The New Testament quotations, book by book, i.e., Matthew so many, and then the other books in their order.
We would find in neither of these any order as to time, that is, Psa 1 which forecasts an incident in the coming Messiah’s life does not forecast the first incident of his life. And even the New Testament citations are not in exact order as to time and incident of his life. To get the messianic picture before us, therefore, we must put the scattered parts together in their due relation and order, and so construct our own analysis. That is the prime object of this discussion. It is not claimed that the analysis now presented is perfect. It is too much the result of hasty, offhand work by an exceedingly busy man. It will serve, however, as a temporary working model, which any one may subsequently improve. We come at once to the psalmist’s outline of the Messiah.
1. The necessity for a Saviour. This foreseen necessity is a background of the psalmists’ portrait of the Messiah. The necessity consists in (1) man’s sinfulness; (2) his sin; (3) his inability of wisdom and power to recover himself; (4) the insufficiency of legal, typical sacrifices in securing atonement.
The predicate of Paul’s great argument on justification by faith is the universal depravity and guilt of man. He is everywhere corrupt in nature; everywhere an actual transgressor; everywhere under condemnation. But the scriptural proofs of this depravity and sin the apostle draws mainly from the book of the Psalms. In one paragraph of the letter to the Romans (Rom 3:4-18 ), he cites and groups six passages from six divisions of the Psalms (Psa 5:9 ; Psa 10:7 ; Psa 14:1-3 ; Psa 36:1 ; Psa 51:4-6 ; Psa 140:3 ). These passages abundantly prove man’s sinfulness, or natural depravity, and his universal practice of sin.
The predicate also of the same apostle’s great argument for revelation and salvation by a Redeemer is man’s inability of wisdom and power to re-establish communion with God. In one of his letters to the Corinthians he thus commences his argument: “For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent. Where is the wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the disputer of this world? Hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world? -For after that in the wisdom of God, the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preach-ing to save them that believe.” He closes this discussion with the broad proposition: “The wisdom of this world is foolishness with God,” and proves it by a citation from Psa 94:11 : “The Lord knoweth the thoughts of the wise, that they are vain.”
In like manner our Lord himself pours scorn on human wisdom and strength by twice citing Psa 8 : “At that time Jesus answered and said, I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent and hast revealed them unto babes. Even so, Father: for so it seemed good in thy sight” (Mat 11:25-26 ). “And when the chief priests and scribes saw the wonderful things that he did, and the children that were crying in the temple and saying, Hosanna to the Son of David; they were sore displeased, and said unto him, Hearest thou what these say? And Jesus saith unto them, Yea; have ye never read, Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings thou hast perfected praise?” (Mat 21:15-16 ).
But the necessity for a Saviour as foreseen by the psalmist did not stop at man’s depravity, sin, and helplessness. The Jews were trusting in the sacrifices of their law offered on the smoking altar. The inherent weakness of these offerings, their lack of intrinsic merit, their ultimate abolition, their complete fulfilment and supercession by a glorious antitype were foreseen and foreshown in this wonderful prophetic book: I will not reprove thee for thy sacrifices; And thy burnt offerings are continually before me. I will take no bullock out of thy house, Nor he-goat out of thy folds. For every beast of the forest is mine, And the cattle upon a thousand hills. I know all of the birds of the mountains; And the wild beasts of the field are mine. If I were hungry, I would not tell thee; For the world is mine, and the fulness thereof. Will I eat the flesh of bulls, Or drink the blood of goats? Psa 50:8-13 .
Yet again it speaks in that more striking passage cited in the letter to the Hebrews: “For the law having a shadow of good things to come, not the very image of the things, can never with the same sacrifices year by year, which they offer continually, make the comers thereunto perfect. For then would they not have ceased to be offered? because that the worshipers, once purged should have no more consciousness of sins. But in those sacrifices there is a remembrance made of sins year by year. For it is impossible that the blood of bulls and goats should take away sins. Wherefore when he cometh into the world, he saith, Sacrifice and offering thou wouldst not, But a body didst thou prepare for me; In whole burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin thou hadst no pleasure: Then said I, Lo, I am come (In the roll of the book it is written of me) To do thy will, O God. Saying above, Sacrifice and offering and whole burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin thou wouldst not, neither hadst pleasure therein, (the which are offered according to the law), then hath he said, Lo, I am come to do thy will, O God. He taketh away the first, that he may establish the second” (Heb 10:1-9 ).
This keen foresight of the temporary character and intrinsic worthlessness of animal sacrifices anticipated similar utterances by the later prophets (Isa 1:10-17 ; Jer 6:20 ; Jer 7:21-23 ; Hos 6:6 ; Amo 5:21 ; Mic 6:6-8 ). Indeed, I may as well state in passing that when the apostle declares, “It is impossible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins,” he lays down a broad principle, just as applicable to baptism and the Lord’s Supper. With reverence I state the principle: Not even God himself by mere appointment can vest in any ordinance, itself lacking intrinsic merit, the power to take away sin. There can be, therefore, in the nature of the case, no sacramental salvation. This would destroy the justice of God in order to exalt his mercy. Clearly the psalmist foresaw that “truth and mercy must meet together” before “righteousness and peace could kiss each other” (Psa 85:10 ). Thus we find as the dark background of the psalmists’ luminous portrait of the Messiah, the necessity for a Saviour.
2. The nature, extent, and blessedness of the salvation to be wrought by the coming Messiah. In no other prophetic book are the nature, fullness, and blessedness of salvation so clearly seen and so vividly portrayed. Besides others not now enumerated, certainly the psalmists clearly forecast four great elements of salvation:
(1) An atoning sacrifice of intrinsic merit offered once for all (Psa 40:6-8 ; Heb 10:4-10 ).
(2) Regeneration itself consisting of cleansing, renewal, and justification. We hear his impassioned statement of the necessity of regeneration: “Behold, I was shapen in iniquity and in sin did my mother conceive me. Behold, thou desirest truth in the inward parts,” followed by his earnest prayer: “Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me,” and his equally fervent petition: “Wash me thoroughly from mine iniquity and cleanse me from my sin. Purge me with hyssop and I shall be clean; wash me and I shall be whiter than snow” (Psa 51 ). And we hear him again as Paul describes the blessedness of the man, unto whom God imputes righteousness without works, saying, Blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven, And whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not reckon sin Psa 32:1 ; Rom 4:6-8 .
(3) Introduction into the heavenly rest (Psa 95:7-11 ; Heb 3:7-19 ; Heb 4:1-11 ). Here is the antitypical Joshua leading spiritual Israel across the Jordan of death into the heavenly Canaan, the eternal rest that remaineth for the people of God. Here we find creation’s original sabbath eclipsed by redemption’s greater sabbath when the Redeemer “entered his rest, ceasing from his own works as God did from his.”
(4) The recovery of all the universal dominion lost by the first Adam and the securement of all possible dominion which the first Adam never attained (Psa 8:5-6 ; Eph 1:20-22 ; Heb 2:7-9 ; 1Co 15:24-28 ).
What vast extent then and what blessedness in the salvation foreseen by the psalmists, and to be wrought by the Messiah. Atoning sacrifice of intrinsic merit; regeneration by the Holy Spirit; heavenly rest as an eternal inheritance; and universal dominion shared with Christ!
3. The wondrous person of the Messiah in his dual nature, divine and human.
(1) His divinity,

(a) as God: “Thy throne, O God, is forever and ever” (Psa 45:6 and Heb 1:8 ) ;

(b) as creator of the heavens and earth, immutable and eternal: Of old didst thou lay the foundation of the earth; And the heavens are the work of thy hands. They shall perish, but thou shalt endure; Yea, all of them shall wax old like a garment; As a vesture shalt thou change them, and they shall be changed. But thou art the same, And thy years shall have no end Psa 102:25-27 quoted with slight changes in Heb 1:10-12 .
(c) As owner of the earth: The earth is the Lord’s and the fulness thereof; The world, and they that dwell therein, Psa 24:1 quoted in 1Co 10:26 .
(d) As the Son of God: “Thou art my Son; This day have I begotten thee” Psa 2:7 ; Heb 1:5 .
(e) As David’s Lord: The Lord said unto my Lord, Sit thou at my right hand, Until I make thine enemies thy footstool, Psa 110:1 ; Mat 22:41-46 .
(f) As the object of angelic worship: “And let all the angels of God worship him” Psa 97:7 ; Heb 1:6 .
(g) As the Bread of life: And he rained down manna upon them to eat, And gave them food from heaven Psa 78:24 ; interpreted in Joh 6:31-58 . These are but samples which ascribe deity to the Messiah of the psalmists.
(2) His humanity, (a) As the Son of man, or Son of Adam: Psa 8:4-6 , cited in 1Co 15:24-28 ; Eph 1:20-22 ; Heb 2:7-9 . Compare Luke’s genealogy, Luk 3:23-38 . This is the ideal man, or Second Adam, who regains Paradise Lost, who recovers race dominion, in whose image all his spiritual lineage is begotten. 1Co 15:45-49 . (b) As the Son of David: Psa 18:50 ; Psa 89:4 ; Psa 89:29 ; Psa 89:36 ; Psa 132:11 , cited in Luk 1:32 ; Act 13:22-23 ; Rom 1:3 ; 2Ti 2:8 . Perhaps a better statement of the psalmists’ vision of the wonderful person of the Messiah would be: He saw the uncreated Son, the second person of the trinity, in counsel and compact with the Father, arranging in eternity for the salvation of men: Psa 40:6-8 ; Heb 10:5-7 . Then he saw this Holy One stoop to be the Son of man: Psa 8:4-6 ; Heb 2:7-9 . Then he was the son of David, and then he saw him rise again to be the Son of God: Psa 2:7 ; Rom 1:3-4 .
4. His offices.
(1) As the one atoning sacrifice (Psa 40:6-8 ; Heb 10:5-7 ).
(2) As the great Prophet, or Preacher (Psa 40:9-10 ; Psa 22:22 ; Heb 2:12 ). Even the method of his teaching by parable was foreseen (Psa 78:2 ; Mat 13:35 ). Equally also the grace, wisdom, and power of his teaching. When the psalmist declares that “Grace is poured into thy lips” (Psa 45:2 ), we need not be startled when we read that all the doctors in the Temple who heard him when only a boy “were astonished at his understanding and answers” (Luk 2:47 ); nor that his home people at Nazareth “all bear him witness, and wondered at the gracious words which proceeded out of his mouth” (Luk 4:22 ); nor that those of his own country were astonished, and said, “Whence hath this man this wisdom?” (Mat 13:54 ); nor that the Jews in the Temple marveled, saying, “How knoweth this man letters, having never learned?” (Joh 7:15 ) ; nor that the stern officers of the law found their justification in failure to arrest him in the declaration, “Never man spake like this man” (Joh 7:46 ).
(3) As the king (Psa 2:6 ; Psa 24:7-10 ; Psa 45:1-17 ; Psa 110:1 ; Mat 22:42-46 ; Act 2:33-36 ; 1Co 15:25 ; Eph 1:20 ; Heb 1:13 ).
(4) As the priest (Psa 110:4 ; Heb 5:5-10 ; Heb 7:1-21 ; Heb 10:12-14 ).
(5) As the final judge. The very sentence of expulsion pronounced upon the finally impenitent by the great judge (Mat 25:41 ) is borrowed from the psalmist’s prophetic words (Psa 6:8 ).
5. Incidents of life. The psalmists not only foresaw the necessity for a Saviour; the nature, extent, and blessedness of the salvation; the wonderful human-divine person of the Saviour; the offices to be filled by him in the work of salvation, but also many thrilling details of his work in life, death, resurrection, and exaltation. It is not assumed to cite all these details, but some of the most important are enumerated in order, thus:
(1) The visit, adoration, and gifts of the Magi recorded in Mat 2 are but partial fulfilment of Psa 72:9-10 .
(2) The scripture employed by Satan in the temptation of our Lord (Luk 4:10-11 ) was cited from Psa 91:11-12 and its pertinency not denied.
(3) In accounting for his intense earnestness and the apparently extreme measures adopted by our Lord in his first purification of the Temple (Joh 2:17 ), he cites the messianic zeal predicted in Psa 69:9 .
(4) Alienation from his own family was one of the saddest trials of our Lord’s earthly life. They are slow to understand his mission and to enter into sympathy with him. His self-abnegation and exhaustive toil were regarded by them as evidences of mental aberration, and it seems at one time they were ready to resort to forcible restraint of his freedom) virtually what in our time would be called arrest under a writ of lunacy. While at the last his half-brothers became distinguished preachers of his gospel, for a long while they do not believe on him. And the evidence forces us to the conclusion that his own mother shared with her other sons, in kind though not in degree, the misunderstanding of the supremacy of his mission over family relations. The New Testament record speaks for itself:
Son, why hast thou thus dealt with us? behold, thy father and I sought thee sorrowing. And he said unto them. How is it that ye sought me? Knew ye not that I must be in my Father’s house? And they understood not the saying which he spake unto them Luk 2:48-51 (R.V.).
And when the wine failed, the mother of Jesus saith unto him, They have no wine. And Jesus saith unto her, Woman, what have I to do with thee? Mine hour is not yet come. Joh 2:3-5 (R.V.).
And there come his mother and his brethren; and standing without; they sent unto him, calling him. And a multitude was sitting about him; and they say unto him. Behold, thy mother and thy brethren without seek for thee. And he answereth them, and saith, Who is my mother and my brethren? And looking round on them that sat round about him, he saith, Behold, my mother and my brethren) For whosoever shall do the will of God, the same is my brother, and sister, and mother Mar 3:31-35 (R.V.).
Now the feast of the Jews, the feast of tabernacles, was at hand. His brethren therefore said unto him, Depart hence, and go into Judea, that thy disciples also may behold thy works which thou doest. For no man doeth anything in secret, and himself seeketh to be known openly. If thou doest these things, manifest thyself to the world. For even his brethren did not believe on him. Jesus therefore saith unto them, My time is not yet come; but your time is always ready. The world cannot hate you; but me it hateth, because I testify of it, that its works are evil. Go ye up unto the feast: I go not up yet unto this feast; because my time is not fulfilled. Joh 7:2-9 (R.V.).
These citations from the Revised Version tell their own story. But all that sad story is foreshown in the prophetic psalms. For example: I am become a stranger unto my brethren, And an alien unto my mother’s children. Psa 69:8 .
(5) The triumphal entry into Jerusalem was welcomed by a joyous people shouting a benediction from Psa 118:26 : “Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord” (Mat 21:9 ); and the Lord’s lamentation over Jerusalem predicts continued desolation and banishment from his sight until the Jews are ready to repeat that benediction (Mat 23:39 ).
(6) The children’s hosanna in the Temple after its second purgation is declared by our Lord to be a fulfilment of that perfect praise forecast in Psa 8:2 .
(7) The final rejection of our Lord by his own people was also clear in the psalmist’s vision (Psa 118:22 ; Mat 21:42-44 ).
(8) Gethsemane’s baptism of suffering, with its strong crying and tears and prayers was as clear to the psalmist’s prophetic vision as to the evangelist and apostle after it became history (Psa 69:1-4 ; Psa 69:13-20 ; and Mat 26:36-44 ; Heb 5:7 ).
(9) In life-size also before the psalmist was the betrayer of Christ and his doom (Psa 41:9 ; Psa 69:25 ; Psa 109:6-8 ; Joh 13:18 ; Act 1:20 ).
(10) The rage of the people, Jew and Gentile, and the conspiracy of Pilate and Herod are clearly outlined (Psa 2:1-3 ; Act 4:25-27 ).
(11) All the farce of his trial the false accusation, his own marvelous silence; and the inhuman maltreatment to which he was subjected, is foreshown in the prophecy as dramatically as in the history (Mat 26:57-68 ; Mat 27:26-31 ; Psa 27:12 ; Psa 35:15-16 ; Psa 38:3 ; Psa 69:19 ).
The circumstances of his death, many and clear, are distinctly foreseen. He died in the prime of life (Psa 89:45 ; Psa 102:23-24 ). He died by crucifixion (Psa 22:14-17 ; Luk 23 ; 33; Joh 19:23-37 ; Joh 20:27 ). But yet not a bone of his body was broken (Psa 34:20 ; Joh 19:36 ).
The persecution, hatred without a cause, the mockery and insults, are all vividly and dramatically foretold (Psa 22:6-13 ; Psa 35:7 ; Psa 35:12 ; Psa 35:15 ; Psa 35:21 ; Psa 109:25 ).
The parting of his garments and the gambling for his vesture (Psa 22:18 ; Mat 27:35 ).
His intense thirst and the gall and vinegar offered for his drink (Psa 69:21 ; Mat 27:34 ).
In the psalms, too, we hear his prayers for his enemies so remarkably fulfilled in fact (Psa 109:4 ; Luk 23:34 ).
His spiritual death was also before the eye of the psalmist, and the very words which expressed it the psalmist heard. Separation from the Father is spiritual death. The sinner’s substitute must die the sinner’s death, death physical, i.e., separation of soul from body; death spiritual, i.e., separation of the soul from God. The latter is the real death and must precede the former. This death the substitute died when he cried out: “My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken me.” (Psa 22:1 ; Mat 27:46 ).
Emerging from the darkness of that death, which was the hour of the prince of darkness, the psalmist heard him commend his spirit to the Father (Psa_31:35; Luk 23:46 ) showing that while he died the spiritual death, his soul was not permanently abandoned unto hell (Psa 16:8-10 ; Act 2:25 ) so that while he “tasted death” for every man it was not permanent death (Heb 2:9 ).
With equal clearness the psalmist foresaw his resurrection, his triumph over death and hell, his glorious ascension into heaven, and his exaltation at the right hand of God as King of kings and Lord of lords, as a high Driest forever, as invested with universal sovereignty (Psa 16:8-11 ; Psa 24:7-10 ; Psa 68:18 ; Psa 2:6 ; Psa 111:1-4 ; Psa 8:4-6 ; Act 2:25-36 ; Eph 1:19-23 ; Eph 4:8-10 ).
We see, therefore, brethren, when the scattered parts are put together and adjusted, how nearly complete a portrait of our Lord is put upon the prophetic canvas by this inspired limner, the sweet singer of Israel.
QUESTIONS

1. What is a good text for this chapter?
2. What is the threefold division of the Old Testament as cited by our Lord?
3. What is the last division called and why?
4. What is the object of the discussion in this chapter?
5. To what three things is the purpose limited?
6. What especially qualifies the author to meet the objections of the higher critics to allowing the New Testament usage of the Old Testament to determine its meaning and application?
7. What is the author’s conviction relative to the Scriptures?
8. What is the New Testament testimony on the question of inspiration?
9. What is the author’s suggested plan of approach to the study of the Messiah in the Psalms?
10. What the background of the Psalmist’s portrait of the Messiah and of what does it consist?
11. Give the substance of Paul’s discussion of man’s sinfulness.
12. What is the teaching of Jesus on this point?
13. What is the teaching relative to sacrifices?
14. What the nature, extent, and blessedness of the salvation to be wrought by the coming Messiah and what the four great elements of it as forecast by the psalmist?
15. What is the teaching of the psalms relative to the wondrous person of the Messiah? Discuss.
16. What are the offices of the Messiah according to psalms? Discuss each.
17. Cite the more important events of the Messiah’s life according to the vision of the psalmist.
18. What the circumstances of the Messiah’s death and resurrection as foreseen by the psalmist?
Fuente: B.H. Carroll’s An Interpretation of the English Bible

Psa 17:1 A Prayer of David. Hear the right, O LORD, attend unto my cry, give ear unto my prayer, [that goeth] not out of feigned lips.

A Prayer of David ] He was a man of prayer; but this was his appeal to God, the supreme Judge, as the word importeth.

Ver. 1. Hear the right, O Lord ] Heb. Righteousness, which crieth unto God no less than blood doth, Gen 4:10 Or, hear the right, that is, my prayer, saith R. David, rightly made with heart and voice. Or, Hear, O righteous Lord, as Christ also saith, O righteous Father, Joh 17:25

Attend unto my cry ] Some profane persons bear well their crosses, because their cause is good; but they cry not when God bindeth them, Job 36:13 . Or, if they cry, they cry out of hard fortune, as the Athenians did when their good General Nicias was slain, and their army routed in Sicily (Thucyd.); or against dame Virtue, as if it were no more than a mere name, as Brutus did, when beaten out of the field (Dio). Or, against providence, as if there were a mist over the eye of it, as Pompey did, when discomfited by Caesar; so blaming the sun, because of the soreness of his own blear eyes. But David (greatly wronged by Saul and his courtiers) by humble and hearty prayer maketh his request known to God with thanksgiving, Phi 4:6 . And this, like his harp, drove away the evil spirit of grief and discontent.

That goeth not out of feigned lips ] His devotion was not sorrowful, as is that of hypocrites; it was not an empty ring, a mere outside, the labour of the lips, but the travail of the heart; it was sincere and thoroughly wrought, as St James hath it, , Jas 5:16 . Wicked men speak God fair, but it is as the devil did our Saviour, to be rid of him, or as those, Psa 78:36 , who flattered him with their mouths, and lied unto him with their tongues.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

Here consequently Christ takes His place with the godly in contrast with the wicked and oppressive. It is rather righteousness before God and from Him, than grace in dependence on Him, and being with Him. It is not so exclusively Christ as in Psa 16
It will be observed, that though right is appealed to, there is no vengeance any more than self-seeking, but reliance on Jehovah. As regards the saints, it answers to Rom 8:2-9 , as the preceding psalm to Rom 5:2 . The one is more inward, the other rather display; but both are entire trust in God. Hence deliverance is looked for here, not in Psa 16 .
Fuente: William Kelly Major Works (New Testament)

NASB (UPDATED) TEXT: Psa 17:1-5
1Hear a just cause, O Lord, give heed to my cry;
Give ear to my prayer, which is not from deceitful lips.
2Let my judgment come forth from Your presence;
Let Your eyes look with equity.
3You have tried my heart;
You have visited me by night;
You have tested me and You find nothing;
I have purposed that my mouth will not transgress.
4As for the deeds of men, by the word of Your lips
I have kept from the paths of the violent.
5My steps have held fast to Your paths.
My feet have not slipped.
Psa 17:1 Notice the parallel imperatives referring to the psalmist’s prayer.
1. hear BDB 1033, KB 1570, Qal imperative, cf. Psa 17:6; Psa 27:7; Psa 28:2; Psa 30:10; Psa 39:12; Psa 54:2; Psa 61:1; Psa 64:1; Psa 84:8; Psa 102:1; Psa 119:149; Psa 130:2; Psa 143:1
2. give heed BDB 904, KB 1151, Hiphil imperative, cf. Psa 5:2; Psa 55:2; Psa 61:1; Psa 86:6; Psa 142:6
3. give ear BDB 23, KB 27, Hiphil imperative, cf. Psa 5:1; Psa 39:12; Psa 49:1; Psa 54:2; Psa 55:1; Psa 77:1; Psa 80:1; Psa 84:8; Psa 140:6; Psa 141:1; Psa 143:1
Psalms is a book of God’s people earnestly asking Him to hear (i.e., take note of and respond to) their sensed needs.
In Psa 17:1 the words of the one with a just cause (BDB 841) is contrasted to the words of the one with deceitful lips (cf. Isa 29:13).
Psa 17:1 is parallel to Psa 17:6. All three strophes of this Psalm begin with several imperatives beseeching God to act on the psalmist’s behalf!
NASB, NKJVnot from deceitful lips
NRSV, NJBfrom lips free of deceit
TEVhonest prayer
JPSOAwithout guile
The psalmist is asserting his integrity. He prays with no hidden motives or known lies (cf. Isa 29:13).
Psa 17:2 As verse one had three imperatives, this verse has two understood jussives.
1. let my judgment/vindication come forth from Your presence BDB 422, KB 425, Qal imperfect used in a jussive sense
2. let Your eyes look with equity BDB 302, KB 301, Qal imperfect used in a jussive sense
NASBequity
NKJVupright
NRSVthe right
NJB, TEV,
JPSOA, REBright
LXXstraightforwardness
The MT has evenness, uprightness, or equity (BDB 449). Here it refers to YHWH judging fairly or impartially. The psalmist is asking for the God of justice to render a just verdict (cf. Psa 17:1 a).
Psa 17:3-5 The psalmist enumerates why God should judge/vindicate him.
1. what God has done (all perfects)
a. He tried his heart, Psa 17:3 a
b. He visited him by night, Psa 17:3 b (a & b are parallel with no distinction intended)
c. He tested him and found nothing, Psa 17:3 c (see SPECIAL TOPIC: GOD TESTS HIS PEOPLE )
2. what he has done or not done
a. he has not transgressed with his mouth, Psa 17:3 d
b. he has kept away from the path of the violent (the word, BDB 829, means robber, cf. Jer 7:11, but can mean violent, cf. Eze 18:10), Psa 17:4
c. he has walked God’s paths, Psa 17:5 a
d. he has not slipped, Psa 17:5 b (cf. Psa 18:36)
The concept of path means that the psalmist has followed carefully God’s covenant guidelines (cf. Psa 37:31; Psa 40:2; Psa 44:18; Psa 66:9; Psa 73:2; Psa 119:105; Pro 14:15). Wicked people
1. deviate from the path to the right or left
2. stumble on the path
3. have slippery steps
See SPECIAL TOPIC: GOD TESTS HIS PEOPLE .
Psa 17:3 d The UBS Text Project (pp. 182-183) has a good brief note about the options for translating this line of poetry.
If is interpreted as an infinitive construct with a suffix, the last part of Psa 17:3 should be interpreted as my plans (thoughts) do not go beyond my mouth’ (i.e., my thoughts correspond with my words, my words confirm with my ideas). If is interpreted as a verb in the first person singular, the clause should be interpreted as if I devise something (i.e. something wicked), this should not cross my mouth.
Also see NIDOTTE, vol. 1, p. 1112, for the same suggested emendation. The change from the MT, my wickedness (BDB 273, KB 273) to I have considered or I planned (BDB 273, KB 273, Qal perfect) involves only a change of vowels.
Fuente: You Can Understand the Bible: Study Guide Commentary Series by Bob Utley

Title. Prayer. Hebrew. Tephillah. One of five Psalms so called (17; 86; 90; 102; 142). See App-63. It is a prayer of Messiah, the true David; in view of Psa 16:6-11, Compare Psa 17:15.
Hear . . . attend . . . Give ear. Figure of speech Anabasis. App-6.
right = righteousness. Compare Psa 17:15, and Structure.
LORD. Hebrew. Jehovah.
ear. Figure of speech Anthropopatheia. App-6. Compare verses: Psa 17:2, eyes; 7, hand; 8, wings; 15, face.
feigned = guileless.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics

Psa 17:1-15
The seventeenth psalm is another prayer of David. And it is, again, one of those prayers where David is sort of pleading his own cause, his own righteousness before the Lord.
Hear the right, O LORD, attend unto my cry; give ear unto my prayer, that goeth not out of deceitful lips ( Psa 17:1 ).
It is important that our prayers not come out of deceitful lips. I am afraid that many times I have prayed rather deceitfully, hoping to sort of con God. I haven’t always been absolutely honest in my prayers. I have tried to make myself look better than I really am in many of my prayers. And I find that God can’t deal with me until I get totally honest with Him. As long as I keep saying, “Well, Lord, I can do it. I just need a little help.” I am not really honest, and the help doesn’t seem to be forthcoming. Because if He would help me under those conditions, then I would go around saying, “I always knew I could do it.” So it’s when I get really honest and say, “Lord, I can’t do it. I need help.” Then He comes in and helps me, cause then all I can say is, “Wow! The Lord really helped me.” And I give the credit and the glory to Him. “Lord, You know that I get a little upset with this brother. I don’t love him as much as I should. I don’t have that agape for him, Lord.” That is sort of deceitful. That’s not really telling the truth. “God, You know I hate his guts. I can’t stand him. He makes me sick every time I look at him. I want to punch him in the nose. God, change my heart and my attitude.” Then God can deal with me.
So David is saying, “Lord, I am not speaking out of deceitful lips.” And it is something that we need to watch in our prayers. It can be very subtle, very subtle. We have not because we ask not; we ask and receive not because we ask amiss, that we might consume it upon our own lust. The true motive behind our prayers is often veiled. “Oh God, save my son. Bring him to You, Lord.” And in my mind I am thinking, “I don’t know what I am going to do with this kid. Can’t control him any longer. I just know that one of these days, he keeps on the way he is, I am going to get a telephone call and it is going to be his one telephone call that he has from jail. They’re gonna pick him up. Our name will get in the paper. What a disgrace that will be when all of the people will see our name. Our son arrested. Can’t have that! Oh Lord, save him. Lord, save him. I don’t want the embarrassment of my name in the paper, you know.” Motive! It isn’t that my heart is breaking because my son is destined in this path for hell. It’s that I don’t want my good name drug down into the gossip column.
“Oh God, send a revival to our church. Lord, save souls. Bring in the lost, pack the place, Lord. I don’t know what we are going to do if we don’t raise our budget some. If we only had about five new families we wouldn’t have to worry about the budget. Lord, send in the souls. Maybe the bishop will notice that I am a pretty good pastor and I might even get a promotion to a bigger church. God, save souls.” You know. Motive! Oh, how we have to watch it. Because I can deceive myself. You see, the heart is deceitful and desperately wicked and we don’t always know it ourselves. That is why David, in Psa 139:1-24 said, “Search me, O God, and know my heart. Try me and know my thoughts and see if there is a wicked way there, and then You lead me in Your path. O God, preserve me.” Hear the prayer that comes out of unfeigned, unclean, not out of the feigned or deceitful lips.
Let my sentence come forth from thy presence; let thine eyes behold the things that are equal ( Psa 17:2 ).
And, again, he is asking really for justice here, something that I never do when I pray, but David feels that his cause is right here. He does declare,
I have purposed that my mouth shall not transgress ( Psa 17:3 ).
And that is a great purpose to make. I think that we so often transgress with our mouth. Our mouth can get us in the most trouble it seems.
Years ago when we first started, before we had any children, when we first started in the ministry, we knew all about how kids ought to be raised in those days. We were beginning to discover that we didn’t know as much as we thought we knew about marriage, but we still knew all that there was to know about raising kids, till we had our own. And at this point we know that we know nothing about raising kids. But at that time, we put a notice in the bulletin, “Teach your child to be silent; he’ll learn soon enough to talk.” We get into trouble talking.
I’ve purposed in my heart I’ll not allow my mouth to transgress. Concerning the works of men, by the word of thy lips I have kept me from the paths of the destroyer. Hold up my goings in thy paths that my footsteps slip not. I have called upon thee, for thou wilt hear me, O God: incline thine ear unto me. Show your marvelous loving-kindness. O thou that savest by thy right hand them that put their trust in thee from those that rise up against them. Keep me as the apple of the eye; hide me under the shadow of thy wings ( Psa 17:3-8 ),
Now David is asking the Lord to just keep him there as the pupil, the apple of His eye, and hiding me under the shadow of thy wings.
From the wicked that oppress me, from my deadly enemies, who encircle me ( Psa 17:9 ).
And then he speaks not so nicely about his enemies.
They’re enclosed in their own fat: their mouth speaks proudly. They’ve encircled our steps: they have set their eyes bowing down to the earth; like a lion that is greedy of his prey, and as it were a younger lion lurking in secret places. Arise, O LORD, disappoint them, cast them down: deliver my soul from the wicked, from men which are thy hand, O LORD, from men of the world, which have their portion in this life ( Psa 17:10-14 ),
What an interesting phrase, and how important. Talking about the men of the world, he is talking about men who have their portion in this life. Now, in the seventy-third psalm, we have an interesting case where the psalm confesses, “Hey, I almost slipped. I almost went under. When I looked around and I saw the prosperity of the wicked. I saw these wicked men, and man, they had everything they wanted, everything their hearts desired. People would pour out a full cup to them. They didn’t lack for a thing, and when I saw how prosperous the wicked were, then I said, ‘Hey man, it doesn’t pay to try to live the right kind of a life. You know, better that you are wicked. You seem to have it better off. Here I am trying to live the right kind of a life and I’m in trouble all the time. It seems like I am always broke and I am always going through such hardships, and it really doesn’t pay to serve the Lord.'” And he said, “When I sought to understand these things it almost wiped me out. My foot almost slipped. Until I went into the house of the Lord. And then I saw their end. Surely You have set them in slippery places, in a moment they go down into the pit and all.” But he saw now the end.
Now, so he talks here of the men of the world who have their portion in this life only. You see, God is interested in your eternal welfare. Don’t forget that. God is always dealing with you in the light of eternity. I am always interested in the light of today. I am looking for my ease today. I am looking for comfort today. I am looking for deliverance today. I want it now. So I can enjoy it for the next few minutes. But God is looking at me with eternity in view, and He wants me to have the eternal blessings of His glory and of His kingdom, and it may take depriving me of some of those things that I think I want right now in order that I might have a richer eternity with Him.
When Jesus spoke very harshly saying, “If your eye offend thee, pluck it out.” And we cringe at such a horrible thing, which He wanted you to do. He is just using an illustration that just causes you to cringe, “Oouhuhu, can’t pluck out my eye!” And He is trying to get that kind of a revulsion in you, because He is seeking to point out how important eternity is. Now, I think my eyes are extremely important, but they are not as important as my eternity with Him. And that is the illustration He’s trying to make. Just that your eternal welfare with Him is the most important thing in this life. And the men of the world, they have their portion in this life only. But I am a stranger and a pilgrim here; my portion is coming in the life to come. My portion is there with Him in His kingdom.
The fifteenth verse is one of my favorites in the whole psalms, or in the Bible as far as that goes.
As for me, I will behold thy face in righteousness: I shall be satisfied, when I awake with thy likeness ( Psa 17:15 ).
I am going to behold Your face, Lord, in righteousness. This reminds me of what Paul said in Corinthians, where he said, “And we with open face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are changed from glory to glory into the same image by His Spirit in us” ( 2Co 3:18 ). I’ll be satisfied. I’ll behold Your face in righteousness, and I’ll be satisfied the day I awake in Your likeness. Oh, how I long for that day. When I open my eyes, and I look in the mirror and there I am in the likeness of Jesus Christ. Now I see through the glass darkly, but then, face to face. His work complete in me. Conformed into the image of God’s dear Son.
“Beloved, now are we the sons of God, it does not yet appear what we are going to be, but we know that when He appears we are going to be like Him” ( 1Jn 3:2 ). Now, people are all wondering, “Well, what kind of body?” I am not at all worried; I am satisfied that it is going to be like Him, for I am going to see Him as He is. People are always worried, “What kind of body am I going to have when the Lord comes? What will I look like? I don’t know if I want to change or not. Maybe I would like to have this one, you know. Just renew it or something.” No way, friend! I can hardly wait for the new model to come out. Like Him. I’ll be satisfied when I awake with thy likeness. Comes from beholding His face in righteousness. As we behold the glory of the Lord, we are being changed from glory to glory. “
Fuente: Through the Bible Commentary

Psa 17:1. Hear the right, O LORD, attend unto my cry, give ear unto my prayer, that goeth not out of feigned lips.
Good men are often slandered and misunderstood; and, at such times, the first verse of this Psalm will well fit their lips: Hear the right, O Lord. And, at all times, it is a great blessing when a supplicant can say to God, Give ear unto my prayer, that goeth not out of feigned lips. It must be a dreadful thing to pray with lips that do not speak the truth. When mens thoughts are far away from their prayers, and they are muttering pious words but their heart is absent, what a mockery it must be in the sight of God! A dead prayer, who will own it? It is like the child that was overlaid in the days of Solomon, which neither of the two mothers would own to be hers, Beware of dead prayers. You may dress them up as finely as you like; but, if there is no life in them, what good are they?
Psa 17:2. Let my sentence come forth from thy presence; let thine eyes behold the things that are equal.
It is the appeal of a slandered man to the highest court; he takes his case into the Court of Kings Bench, and asks God himself to give the verdict concerning what he had done. It is a good case that will bear to be so investigated.
Psa 17:3. Thou hast proved mine heart; thou hast visited me in the night; thou hast tried me, and shalt find nothing; I am purposed that my mouth shall not transgress.
Happy is the man who is not afraid for God to come to him suddenly in the night, or to pounce upon him, as it were, at any hour of the day, for, whenever he comes, he will find his servant so acting that he will not mind who examines his conduct. He is keeping his lip, purposing that it shall not transgress Gods law, and he is ruling his whole body in like manner. Only the grace of God can enable us to do this.
Psa 17:4. Concerning the works of men, by the word of thy lips I have kept me from the paths of the destroyer.
Notice that verse, young man! There is much-needed teaching there for you. There are many paths of the destroyer in this wicked city of London, and all over the world; and it is only by taking heed to our ways, according to Gods Word, that we can hope to escape from them. How pleasant those paths of the destroyer often appear to be! How smooth and how alluring they are! All sorts of supposed delicacies and beauties will tempt you to go that way, and the foolish heart readily inclines to these indulgences; but happy is the man whose judgment is enlightened by Gods Word so that he avoids it, and passes by the paths of the destroyer.
Psa 17:5. Hold up my goings in thy paths, that my footsteps slip not.
I know that I am in thy way; but, O Lord, hold me up! I am like a horse that needs a careful driver, else I shall trip and fall, in rough places or in smooth, Hold up my goings in thy paths, for I may fall even there. There are the sins of my holy things, so hold up my goings in thy paths, that my footsteps slip not.
Psa 17:6-12. I have called upon thee, for thou wilt hear me, O God: incline thine ear unto me, and hear my speech. Shew thy marvellous lovingkindness, O thou that savest by thy right hand them which put their trust in thee from those that rise up against them. Keep me as the apple of the eye, hide me under the shadow of thy wings, from the wicked that oppress me, from my deadly enemies, who compass me about.
They are enclosed in their own fat: with their mouth they speak proudly. They have now compassed us in our steps: they have set their eyes bowing down to the earth; like as a lion that is greedy of his prey, and as it were a young lion lurking in secret places. Many godly men have such cruel enemies as David had, so they will do well to pray as he did:
Psa 17:13-15. Arise, O LORD, disappoint him, cast him down: deliver my soul from the wicked, which is thy sword: from men which are thy hand, O LORD, from men of the world, which have their portion in this life, and whose belly thou fillest with thy hid treasure: they are full of children, and leave the rest of their substance to their babes. As for me,
What do I possess? What is my portion? Am I full of substance, like the men of the world, or have I little of this worlds wealth? It is of small consequence, for, as for me,
Psa 17:15. I will behold thy face in righteousness: I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with thy likeness.
That is our portion. God grant that we may prize it more and more! Amen.
Fuente: Spurgeon’s Verse Expositions of the Bible

Psa 17:1-5
A PRAYER FOR PROTECTION AGAINST ENEMIES (A PRAYER OF DAVID)
The customary arguments among scholars as to the date and authorship of this psalm are of little interest and of no value at all. As Maclaren said of such discussions, “The deepest and most precious elements in the Psalms are very slightly affected by the answers to such questions.
However, we find no fault whatever with the ancient inscription here which ascribes the psalm to David. As to the particular time of David’s life when such a psalm was written, it may very well have been during that time when he was hunted like a wild animal in the wilderness of Engedi by King Saul and his followers. The psalm has many intimations in it that harmonize with the opinion that it was written by David. We shall notice some of these in the text below. This psalm along with Psalms 86,142 is, “Entitled `A Psalm of David’ in the superscription.
Psa 17:1-5
“Hear the right, O Jehovah, attend unto my cry;
Give ear unto my prayer that goeth not out of feigned lips.
Let my sentence come forth from thy presence;
Let thine eyes look upon equity.
Thou hast proved my heart, thou hast visited me in the night;
Thou hast tried me, and findest nothing;
I am purposed that my mouth shall not transgress.
As for the works of men, by the word of thy lips
I have kept me from the ways of the violent.
My steps have held fast to thy paths,
My feet have not slipped.”
In our paragraph divisions of this psalm, we have followed that of Rawlinson which he attributed to a Dr. Kay.
A glance at the different versions and translations of this psalm reveals some remarkable variations in what is actually the meaning of the text; and some scholars have registered rather bold claims of damaged or corrupt passages. “Psa 17:4 is hopelessly corrupt, according to Addis; and Maclaren’s comment on Psa 17:3-5 was that:
“The general drift is clear, but the precise meaning and connection are extremely obscure. Probably the text is faulty. It has been twisted in all sorts of ways; the Masoretic accents have been discarded, the division of verses set aside; and still no proposed rendering of verses 3,4 is wholly satisfactory.
We like what Leupold said regarding this problem. “The difficulties of interpretation are numerous; but all of this does not warrant manifold textual changes as though the state of the text were quite corrupt. The compact utterances are part of the problem.
This writer claims no ability whatever to judge the questions regarding damaged or faulty texts; and we shall be content to interpret the passages as they stand in our version.
There are no less than five appeals to God in these two verses. Such repetitions suggest an unusual urgency in the psalmist’s mind which prompted such vigorous appeals.
Christians cannot fail to be somewhat shocked by such bold assertions of the psalmist’s innocence, purity, righteousness, and faithfulness in observing the will of God as we find in this paragraph. These claims of integrity are certainly unlike the petitions of most Christians today, which Maclaren described as follows:
“The modern type of religion recoils from such professions (of innocence and purity), and contents itself with always confessing sins which it has given up hope of overcoming, would be all the better for listening to the psalmist and aiming a little more vigorously and hopefully at being able to say, “I know nothing against myself” (1Co 4:4).
Leupold approvingly quoted this same passage by Maclaren, adding that it was very true and appropriate for our times.
Regarding the claims made by David here regarding his truth, integrity, and righteousness, and even the claim that God himself had found no fault in him, we should remember that this psalm was very likely written in the early part of David’s life, during his flight from the murderous vengeance of King Saul, and that it came from a period in David’s life long before his shameful actions with regard to Bathsheba and the murder of her husband, sins which David tearfully repented of and openly confessed. We may not, therefore, find any fault with such vigorous protestations of innocence as we find here. Rhodes pointed out that, “These declarations are not what we would today call self-righteousness, but an oath of clearance as commanded in 1Ki 8:31-32.
“By the word of thy lips” (Psa 17:4). David here identified the source of his strength, namely, “God’s Word”; and, as Ash said: “God’s revelation implies grace, so he is not suggesting his merit alone as the ground of his pleading. A remarkable example of how David was restrained from evil by a timely remembrance of God’s Word brought to him by Abigail was recorded in 1Sa 25:25-42; and Kidner thought that, “David could have had that in mind here.
“As for the works of men” (Psa 17:4). “The literal words here are `the works of Adam,’ the works of the natural man. This is primarily a reference to deeds of vengeful violence, of the very kind that David contemplated, but did not do, in the event mentioned above. (1Sa 25:22).
Barnes stated that, “No prayer could be more appropriate. When we are hated and pursued by cruel and powerful enemies, against whom we have done no wrong, when our most violent passions are aroused and we are sorely tempted to take bloody vengeance against them, then nothing can be more proper than to lift our hearts to God in prayer, entreating him to keep us from evil and enable us to restrain our passions.
E.M. Zerr:
Psa 17:1. Feigned lips means lips that merely pretend to honor God by praying to him. David was always sincere and never tried to keep anything back, even when he was guilty of a great wrong. (2Sa 12:13.)
Psa 17:2. Sentence means judgment and equal means that which is just. The verse indicates that David was relying on the judgment of God; that it would be just.
Psa 17:3. Shalt find nothing was David’s way of inviting the test of the Lord. He believed he would be found acceptable in God’s sight were he put to the test.
Psa 17:4. David had escaped the destruction his enemies had plotted against him. That was done by following the word of thy lips, or by heeding the counsel of God.
Psa 17:5. David prayed to be kept in the paths of God in order that he might not stumble. This same thought is expressed in Psa 37:23; Psa 119:133.
Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary

This psalm is generally conceded to be closely linked with the preceding one. There is an evident similarity of outlook. In each case the singer declares his abstention from complicity with ungodly men. In both psalms God is appealed to, and the final hope of the soul is for fuller communion with Him. Yet, of course, the chief impression of comparison is the contrast. In the former, peril is referred to incidentally. Here, it is described and is the occasion of the outpouring of the soul.
The two exercises of priesthood are exemplified in the psalms. In the first the sacrifices of praise are offered. In this the petitions of need are presented. First, the ground of appeal is the singer’s uprightness of heart, and speech, and action. It then moves into another and higher realm, the singer’s confidence in God. He is known to be One who saves the trusting. The consciousness of His tenderness appears in the expressions used:
Keep me as the apple of the eye; Hide me under the shadow of Thy wings.
After a description of the immediate peril the singer again appeals for help, and the song ends with the expression of assured blessing and the declaration of the one and only full satisfaction.
Fuente: An Exposition on the Whole Bible

Gods True Servants Safely Kept
Psa 17:1-15
This also dates from the Sauline persecutions. In the earlier verses David protests his innocence, pleads for deliverance from his foes, and ends with glad anticipation of the vision of God. The psalm may have been composed for use at eventide; two at least of its verses point in that direction, Psa 17:3; Psa 15:1-5.
What a comfort it is to appeal from the accusations of men to the judgment-bar of God! Yet our sufferings at their hands are Gods smelting-furnace. The Hebrew word translated tried is melted, Psa 17:3. But we cannot be kept without constant use of Gods Word, Psa 17:4. And then how safe we are! The apple of the eye-that is, the pupil-is defended by eye lash, lid, brow, bony socket, and uplifted arm. Thy wings, see Deu 32:11.
Note the contrast between Psa 17:14 and Psa 16:5; Psa 16:11. The worldly are filled with this world-I with thee. They look for the things of this life-I for the unseen and eternal. They are satisfied with children-I with thy likeness.
Fuente: F.B. Meyer’s Through the Bible Commentary

We have noticed that in the early part of this book a great many of these Psalms have to do primarily with Davids personal experiences. This particular Psalm evidently was written either during the time that he was fleeing from King Saul and his army or when he was hiding from the armies of his own son, Absalom. It probably has reference to the former case. One can understand how David would pen these wards perhaps some night when he was restless, unable to sleep, on the alert, for he knew the enemy was pursuing him. He could not know the instant they might come upon him and an engagement be precipitated, for he realized that from the human standpoint he was in danger of his life every moment. In such circumstances he turned to God. To whom else could he turn?
How wonderfully these Psalms fit in to similar conditions in the lives of Gods beloved people. How much they meant to the suffering in Israel during the days of the Maccabees when they were being so cruelly hunted down and slain, save as God put His hand upon Judas Maccabee and enabled them to defeat the army of the Syrians. And how much they have meant to Christian sufferers during all the centuries whether persecuted by pagan Rome and other heathen powers, or whether in the case of Protestants suffering at the hands of an apostate church because of their faithfulness to the Word of God and the gospel of His grace, or whether, as in the case of the Covenanters of Scotland when the ruling powers were seeking to force upon Christian people a religious system that they could not conscientiously accept, and they too were hunted like partridges on the mountains and never knew what day the heather would be stained with their blood. But we do not see all that is in these Psalms if we think of them merely as presenting the experiences of David or of other believers who like him have been suffering from human foes. We need to go deeper than that, we need to remember that David was, after all, a typical character. In very large measure he typified our Lord Jesus Christ. His very name is significant. The word David means The beloved, and God the Father said of our blessed Lord Jesus, This is My beloved Son [this is My David] in whom I am well pleased (Mat 3:17). One of the earliest incidents recorded in the life of David was when he came from his fathers house in order to minister to his brethren who were in suffering and distress in the war with the Philistines. He reminds us of the Lord who came from His Fathers house of glory with arms full of blessing for His needy people in this world. And again, Davids city is significant. He belonged to Bethlehem, and our blessed Saviour was born in that city. The name too is significant, Bethlehem, The house of bread. But it never really answered to its name until Jesus was born there. He says, I am the bread which came down from heaven (Joh 6:41). And then how wonderfully David typified our blessed Lord Jesus Christ in his rejection. The very people that he benefited the most turned upon him with hatred and bitterness. And so our Lord Jesus Christ had to know all the bitterness, the hatred, the untrustworthiness of the hearts of those whom He came to save, and at last He went to the Cross and there gave Himself in sacrifice for our redemption. So as we read these Psalms we need to listen carefully to hear, not merely the voice of David, but the voice of Jesus.
I do not know a word in this Psalm that may not have been uttered to the Father by our blessed Lord on one of those nights when out on the mountainside communing with Him, for we may be very sure that He largely used the words of Holy Scripture. What we especially see in this seventeenth Psalm is the righteous man sustained by the Word in the midst of his enemies, and surely that was the case with our blessed Lord Jesus Christ. There is one thing in regard to the mystery of the incarnation that we need to lay hold on and it is this: though our Lord was both God and Man in one blessed, adorable Person, from the moment that He came into this world until that moment when He cried, Father, into Thy hands I commend My spirit (Luk 23:46), He chose not to act as God, though He was God, but He chose to act as a Man of faith dependent in every respect upon the Fathers will and guided by the Holy Spirit. It is difficult for us to understand how He who was God and Man could become so utterly will-less in this scene that the Fathers will was the only will He knew. And the Fathers will was expressed in the Holy Scriptures which He studied from a Child and was manifested by the Holy Spirit who dominated and controlled the Man Christ Jesus. You remember when He went into the wilderness after His baptism, Scripture says, Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil (Mat 4:1). One of the evangelists uses a stronger word; he says He was driven of the Spirit into the wilderness (Mar 1:12). He was absolutely under the control of the Holy Spirit of God. Man had so terribly dishonored God, there had been such grave rebellion against His will all down through the years that our Lord Jesus Christ, before He went to the Cross to settle the sin question, made it the business of His life to glorify the Father fully by giving Him here on earth a human life that was absolutely yielded to Him. In connection with the incarnation we need to remember that our blessed Lord was just as truly God as if He had never become man, and He was as truly man as if He had never been God, but His manhood was never separated from His deity. Nevertheless, in this scene He chose to act as man and not simply as God. The Man Christ Jesus, as to the mystery of His Person, is God over all blessed forevermore, but He acted here before the Father as a dependent man. How beautifully that comes out in this Psalm. We can hear Him, as it were, speaking to His Father when foes are pressing about Him, when He is met with rejection on every hand, when for the love of His heart He is receiving only hatred.
Hear the right, O Lord, attend unto My cry, give ear unto My prayer, that goeth not out of feigned lips. What a word this is for us. It is so possible for prayer to go out of feigned lips; it is so possible to pray absolutely beyond our experience. Have you ever heard people pray something like this, O Lord, we do thank Thee for Thy wondrous love and grace, for the way Thou dost so fully satisfy our hearts, and then the next night, perhaps, they are off to the world for satisfaction. That is prayer going out of feigned lips. Or, have you ever heard people pray like this, O Lord, grant that the love of Christ may absolutely control us, that nothing but His grace and love toward others may be seen, and within twenty minutes they are saying the meanest, unkindest things about fellow believers or about others in the world? That is prayer going out of feigned lips. Sometimes people pray like this, O Lord, we look up to Thee. We trust Thee for everything, for daily bread to meet our need, and yet within an hour they may be talking to you about their circumstances and saying, I am nearly worried to death; I dont know what I am going to do. The two things do not go together. That is praying out of feigned lips. But the Lord Jesus could say, Give ear unto My prayer, that goeth not out of feigned lips. His inmost being was in full accord with the words of His mouth.
There is a beautiful figure of that in connection with the Tabernacle. Every whit of it uttered His glory. Surrounding the court of that tabernacle there were curtains of fine twined linen suspended from pillars, forming the wall, all around it. That speaks of Christs righteousness before the world. The world from the outside could see that white curtain surrounding the court, and the white linen always speaks of righteousness in Scripture. But inside where the sanctuary itself stood there were ten curtains of fine twined linen fastened together that formed the tent of the tabernacle, the tabernacle proper. The world outside could not see those curtains for they were covered over with goats hair and rams skins dyed red and seal skins, or badgers skins curtains. They were there for the priests and for God to see. But do you get this point? If you were outside you saw the curtains of fine twined linen surrounding the court, and as God looked down He saw the curtains of fine twined linen inside the sanctuary. In other words, the Lord Jesus Christs righteousness was just the same under the eye of God as it was under the eye of man. It is so different with us. We can often seem so righteous and so good and so holy before our brethren, but as God looks down upon us it is so different. There was nothing like that with Jesus. In every respect His inward life and His outward life were in perfect agreement. He was just the same before men that He was before God. He was just the same in the presence of God that He was in the presence of men, and that is why He could say, Give ear unto My prayer, that goeth not out of feigned lips. There was nothing unreal about Jesus. Oh, that we might be more like Him!
Let My sentence come forth from Thy presence. That is another way of saying, I just hand My case over to Thee; whatever Thou dost choose will be all right. Let My sentence come forth from Thy presence; let Thine eyes behold the things that are equal. I know Thou wilt weigh everything right, Father, and so I hand it over to Thee. And then He can say, Thou hast proved Mine heart; Thou hast visited Me in the night; Thou hast tried Me, and shalt find nothing; I am purposed that My mouth shall not transgress. He was the holy, sinless Saviour! He had to be that or He never could have died for me. If there had been any evil way in Him, He would have needed a Saviour Himself, but because He was ever the Holy Son of God, He was competent to take my sin upon Himself and die in my room and stead.
Now notice the place the Word of God had in His life, Concerning the works of men, by the word of Thy lips I have kept Me from the paths of the destroyer. Thou hast held fast My goings in Thy paths, that My footsteps slip not. The Lord Jesus Christ who was the Eternal Word, and He was the theme of all Holy Scripture, chose as a Man on earth to live by the Word. He fed on the Word; He was sustained by the Word. When Satan said, If Thou be the Son of God, command that these stones be made bread (Mat 4:3), He met him with the Word and said, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God (Mat 4:4). And so He met the devil in one temptation after another with the Word, for the Word was hidden in His heart and there was no possibility of His sinning against the Father. Would that you and I were more controlled by the Word. So often we think of it as something to exercise our minds about, and we are more concerned about getting an intellectual understanding of Scripture than we are of hiding the Word in our hearts. That is why we are so ready to run to hear all kinds of thrilling addresses and why we spend so little time over the Word privately and why we care so little whether we get to hear the Word if it is simply the opening up of the truth for our practical sanctification. As far as the private life is concerned there are some who seldom open a Bible from one week to another. The blessed Lord could say, He wakeneth morning by morning, He wakeneth Mine ear to hear as the learned (Isa 50:4). Think of Him, the holy, spot- less Son of God, feeding on the Word, and yet you and I imagine we can get along without it! God give us a deeper love for the Word of God and help us to eat it that we too may say, Concerning the works of men, by the word of Thy lips I have kept Me from the paths of the destroyer.
And then notice His perfect confidence in the Father, in verses 6 and 7, I have called upon Thee, for Thou wilt hear Me, O God: incline Thine ear unto Me, and hear My speech. Shew Thy marvelous loving-kindness, O Thou that savest by Thy right hand them which put their trust in Thee from those that rise up against them. Is it not lovely to listen, as it were, to the secret things going on between the Father and the Son, the things that the Lord Jesus delighted to say to His Father when He was alone with Him, for that is what you have in a Psalm like this.
How beautiful the next verse is, Keep me as the apple of the eye, hide me under the shadow of Thy wings. These two figures are used frequently in the Old Testament. The apple of the eye. If you were to look up that word apple in a critical concordance or a Hebrew lexicon you might be surprised at the real word, for the literal Hebrew is, little man-Keep me as the little man in the eye. If you stand close to me and you look into my eye, what do you see there? A little man and that little man is yourself; you see yourself reflected upside down; you are a little man in my eye. Now the Lord Jesus says to the Father; David says to Jehovah, Keep me as the little man in Thine eye. God is always looking at you, and you are reflected in His eye. How deep is His interest in you! And then the other figure is that of a great eagle protecting its young. Hide Me under the shadow of Thy wings. He that dwelleth in the secret place of the most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty (Psa 91:1). From the wicked that oppress me, from my deadly enemies, who compass me about.
In verses 10 to 15 you find again contrasted the men of the world and the man of faith. He describes the men of the world, men who live for self, They are inclosed in their own fat: with their mouth they speak proudly. They are haughty men, they are enemies of righteousness. They have now compassed us in our steps: they have set their eyes bowing down to the earth. They are like their master, for The devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour (1Pe 5:8). Like as a lion that is greedy of his prey, and as it were a young lion lurking in secret places. Arise, O Lord, disappoint [hinder] him. It is really little more than hinder, it means to get there first before the enemy can do anything. Cast him down. But notice how he speaks of these wicked men, Deliver my soul from the wicked, which is Thy sword. From the men which are Thy hand. One reason God tolerates wicked men in the world instead of sending them to hell is that He uses them as His scourge for the righteous when they need a whipping. That is why the prophet calls them, Thy sword. You remember God said that He raised up Nebuchadnezzar to come against the people to punish them. He uses the ungodly to test, to try, and to restrain His own people.
These men of the world, have their portion in this life. It is like those of whom we read in The Revelation. Frequently in that book we read of them that dwell upon the earth. That does not mean people living in this world, but people who have refused the heavenly calling and have their portion down here. They are all about us; they have no interest in heaven; they have no interest in God or His Christ. The only world they care anything about is this world. They have their portion in this life. And so they are satisfied with children. The word full really means satisfied. That is, when a man accumulates a great fortune he says, I will pass it on to them, and he just lives on in his children. But with the righteous, how different! They are willing to lay down their lives for the blessing of others if need be. As for these men of the world they leave their substance to their children and do not know what is going to become of it.
But see the contrast. David says, in verse 15, As for me, I will behold Thy face in righteousness: I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with Thy likeness. There are three passages in the book of Psalms that I love to link together. They are Psa 18:30, As for God, His way is perfect; Psa 103:15, As for man, his days are as grass; Psa 17:15, As for me, I will behold Thy face in righteousness: I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with Thy likeness. Notice these three statements, As for God-as for man-as for me. As for God, His way is perfect. No matter what comes I know He makes no mistake. Sickness may come, financial trouble may come, family trouble may come, church troubles may come-and there is no trouble on earth so bad as trouble among the people of God-but no matter what happens, As for God, His way is perfect. As for man: David says, I have learned not to expect much from him, his days are as grass. But As for me,I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with Thy likeness.
Fuente: Commentaries on the New Testament and Prophets

Psa 17:3
The religious aspects of night are many.
I. Viewed in its relations to the life of man, it strikes us, first of all and pre-eminently, as an interruption. It breaks in upon and suspends human occupations, of whatever kind; it writes on the face of the heavens the veto of God on uninterrupted work. This enforced suspension of activity suggests, not merely the limited stock of strength at our disposal, but it also reminds us that we have a higher life than that which is represented and made the most of by the activity of this life, which will last when all that belongs to this life shall have passed away, a life for the nutriment and development of which God thus makes provision, and invites us to make provision, lest we should be swept without thought, without purpose, down the stream of time into the vast eternity that awaits us.
II. Night suggests danger. The daylight is of itself protection. Night is the opportunity of wild beasts and of evil men; they ply their trade during its dark and silent hours. He who gave us life can alone guarantee to us the permanence of the gift, since He can order the unruly wills and affections of sinful men, and can control the destructive force of nature and the sequence of events.
III. Night is a time during which God often speaks solemnly to the soul of man. (1) The sleep of the body is not always the sleep of the soul. If the Bible is to guide us, there can be no doubt that dreams have often been made the vehicle of the communication of the Divine will to man, and that it leads us to expect that they may be so again. (2) But it is not in dreams that God generally speaks to man in the silent hours of the night. Never does God speak more solemnly, more persuasively, to the human soul than during the waking hours of the night. Sleeplessness may be a very great blessing, if we only think of it, first, as a part of the will of God concerning us, and, next, if we are open to its many opportunities.
H. P. Liddon, Contemporary Pulpit, vol. ii., p. 193 (see also Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxvi., p. 161).
Psa 17:5
The prayer may be regarded as showing (1) the right spirit, (2) the right method, (3) the right purpose, of life.
I. In pointing out the right spirit of life, we see humility, dependence, ignorance of the future, etc.
II. The right method of life is based on (1) devotion; (2) trust in God; (3) continuous prayer for help.
III. The right purpose of life is to traverse the whole way of righteousness, that our footsteps slip not, that every step of the journey be taken safely and successfully.
Parker, City Temple, vol. i., p. 60.
References: Psa 17:7.-Spurgeon, Morning by Morning, p. 141. Psa 17:8.-Ibid., Sermons, vol. xv., No. 904; F. V. Brown, Christian World Pulpit, vol. ix., p. 190; G. Bainton, Ibid., vol. xxi., p. 244.
Psa 17:13
I. If any are tempted to ask why the ungodly sometimes have such power and do so much evil, here is an answer. The ungodly in power is a sort of public hangman or executioner, who is appointed to do the vile but necessary scavenger work of the universe, the destroying and clearing away that is needed.
II. The sword is the very type and embodiment of the idea of successful force. Sword-power is very strong. And many strive to forge their being into a hard perfection, hard, and keen, and glittering. The sword-power works by wounding, by cutting, by oppressing the weak, by sharp words, by selfish actions, by having its own way, by being feared, by never sparing. God permits such success; God uses such success to punish or try mankind. “The ungodly, which is a sword of Thine”-a mere hard tool, without any directing power of its own, a sword, not the wielder of a sword, not working intelligently with God, not knowing what is really being done.
III. True training for true life is the learning to heal wounds, not to inflict them; to save, not to destroy; to build up, not to pull down; to be as oil to the afflicted, not sharp as a sword. Beware of the sword-power and its spirit. “They that take the sword shall perish by the sword.”
E. Thring, Uppingham Sermons, vol. ii., p. 128.
Psa 17:14
The general purport of the expression “a man of the world” will be allowed to be that which is evidently David’s meaning in the text: a man who has no spiritual yearnings, no holy aspirations; a mere earthworm, selfish, sordid, and greedy of gain; whose supreme and only thought is to make money, and have his nest well feathered here.
I. Think of the portion which belongs to men of the world. There is not a greater mistake than to imagine that you will be heart-rich as soon as you become purse-rich. Riches do make happy; but it is not the riches of the pocket, but the riches of the mind and heart: the riches of taste, of culture, of affection, and, above all, the riches of God’s grace, which impart capacities of deep and intense enjoyment, otherwise unknown. It is a very solemn thought for any of you who are mere “men of the world” that, though you should be ever so successful, though your gains indeed should be far beyond your expectation, what you have got is only “a portion for this life.”
II. Look, next, at the contrast as suggested by David’s words in the next verse: “As for me, I will behold Thy face in righteousness; I shall be satisfied when I awake with Thy likeness.” There were two things in which he placed the secret of true happiness: the one was seeking God as his Saviour, and the other was being made like Him in character. (1) “I will behold Thy face in righteousness.” When reference is made to the “face of God,” there is generally an allusion to Jesus Christ, His Son. The Psalmist means that he will fix his eye on God as reconciled to him through the righteousness of the Redeemer. This is the first secret of a happy life. (2) Satisfied when? “When I awake.” The moment of resurrection will be the first moment in our history when, in the fullest, amplest sense of the word, we shall be able to say, “I am satisfied! I have all that I can desire!”
J. Thain Davidson, The City Youth, p. 169.
Reference: Psa 17:14.-Expositor, 3rd series, vol. v., p. 308.
Psa 17:15
Notice:-
I. The date of the satisfaction. “When I awake.” The intermediate state is often in the Bible called sleep. It is a metaphor, chosen not to describe a state of unconsciousness, but to illustrate the peace and the calm of that blessed interval in which the soul and the body, separated for a while from each other, await their final summons. By-and-bye the dews of the morning begin to fall. The quickening Spirit-the same that raised Jesus from the grave-begins to do His resuscitating work. The Sun of righteousness rises high in the heavens in His perfect beauty. By His attracting influence every body and every soul, reknit, are drawn up to meet Him in the air. The date of which David speaks is the Easter morning of the first resurrection.
II. The nature of the satisfaction. “Thy likeness.” (1) Take it, first, with the body. Like the body of Jesus we are to believe our new resurrection body will be. Only it will have passed through a great change: no longer carnal, but spiritual; not dull, but glorious; not a hinderer, but a helper, of the soul; framed and moulded in exquisite adaptation, first to hold a perfected spirit, and then to be as wings to execute all the pure and unlimited desires of the soul for the glory of God. (2) And as with the corporeal, so with the spiritual, nature of man. “We shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.” Everything assimilates to what it is conversant with. If a man dwells on any sin, he will grow to the type of the sin he broods upon; and if a man have his eye to Jesus, he will infallibly grow Christlike.
J. Vaughan, Sermons, 7th series, p. 127.
I. In our study of the Psalmist’s words the first thing in question is the awakening that he teaches us to anticipate. (1) The expression “when I awake” may apply to the waking of the soul out of this life. (a) Our natural powers will then awake. (b) Our spiritual life will then awake. (c) We shall awake from all that is dreamy and unsubstantial. (2) While the term will apply to the waking of the soul out of this life in the hour of dissolution, it will also apply to the waking of the body out of the grave in the hour of resurrection. Sure as the fair colours of spring and the rich sweeps of autumnal corn sleep in shrivelled seeds that long lie buried underground, so does the glory of the resurrection lie latent in the graves of the saints; and sure as their Forerunner woke will they wake to see Him and serve Him for ever.
II. The next thing to be considered is the great sight which on awaking we shall certainly behold. (1) We shall behold the face of the Lord. That face will be seen in the mystic moment of our wakening. For what was the first sight that met the eye of Peter when he woke out of sleep in the prison? The illumined face of the angel who, with gentle violence, smote him on the side, and summoned him to rise. What sight first met the waking eye of Lazarus when, with deep sob, heaving breast, disparted lip, and soul all dazzled with wonder, he stood up in his shroud at the gate of his grave? The face of Him who had just sounded the awakening mandate, “Lazarus, come forth.” The first sight that greets the waking life must be the face of the wakener. The soul’s Wakener is always Christ. (2) We shall behold this vision in a state of righteousness. It is not of the abstract quality of righteousness that the holy poet is speaking, but of a righteous or justified state. (3) We shall behold this vision of the Lord “in His likeness.” The unveiled soul will look upon the unveiled Saviour; and the reflection, like the glory which casts it, will be perfect for ever. (4) We shall behold this vision and be satisfied. It suits our nature; it fills our growing capacities; it meets the hunger of every faculty and every affection; it is holy; it is eternal.
Stanford, Symbols of Christ, p. 322.
Psa 17:15
Psa 73:20
The period to which both David and Asaph look in these two verses is the end of life. The words of both, taken in combination, open out a series of weighty lessons.
I. The first of these is that to all men the end of life is an awaking. The representation of death most widely diffused among all nations is that it is a sleep. The recoil of men’s heart from the thing is testified by the aversion of the languages to the bald name “death.” And the employment of this special euphemism of sleep is a wonderful witness to our weariness of life and to its endless toil and trouble. But the emblem of sleep, true and sweet as it is, is but half the truth. We shall sleep. Yes; but we shall wake too. We shall wake just because we sleep. The spirit, because emancipated from the body, shall spring into greater intensity of action, shall put forth powers that have been held down here, and shall come into contact with an order of things which here it has but indirectly known. To our true selves and to God we shall wake.
II. The second principle contained in our text is that death is to some men the awaking of God. “When Thou awakest, Thou shalt despise their image.” God “awakes” when He ends an epoch of probation and longsuffering mercy by an act or period of judgment. So far then as the mere expression is concerned, there may be nothing more meant here than the termination by a judicial act in this life of the transient “prosperity of the wicked.” But the emphatic context seems to require that it should be referred to that final crash which irrevocably separates him who has “his portion in this life” from all which he calls his “goods.” The whole period of earthly existence is regarded as the time of God’s gracious forbearance and mercy, and the time of death is set forth as the instant when sterner elements of the Divine dealing start into prominence.
III. Death is the annihilation of the vain show of worldly life. The word rendered “image” is properly “shadow.” “Thou shalt despise their shadow.” The men are shadows, and all their goods are not what they are called, their “substance,” but their shadow, a mere appearance, not a reality. That show of good is withered up by the light of the awaking God. What He despises cannot live. “When he dieth, he shall carry nothing away.” Let us see to it that not in utter nakedness do we go hence, but clothed with that immortal robe and rich in those possessions which cannot be taken away from us, which they have who have lived on earth as heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ.
IV. Death is for some men the annihilation of the vain shows in order to reveal the great reality. “I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with Thy likeness.” “Likeness” is properly “form,” and is the same word which is employed in reference to Moses, who saw “the similitude of the Lord.” If there be, as is most probable, an allusion to that ancient vision in these words, then the “likeness” is not that conformity to the Divine character which it is the goal of our hopes to possess, but the beholding of His self-manifestation. These dim hopes suggest to us some presentiment of the full Christian truth of assimilation dependent on vision, and of vision reciprocally dependent on likeness. “I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with Thy likeness,” cries the prophet Psalmist. “It is enough for the disciple that he be as his Master,” responds the Christian hope.
A. Maclaren, Sermons Preached in Manchester, 2nd series, p. 1.
References: Psa 17:15.-A. Raleigh, The Little Sanctuary, p. 257; Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. i., No. 25; Homiletic Quarterly, vol. iii., p. 277; Homiletic Magazine, vol. xiv., p. 233, and vol. xv., p. 47; Preacher’s Monthly, vol. v., p. 180; G. Matheson, Moments on the Mount, p. 39; J. Irons, Thursday Penny Pulpit, vol. vi., p. 137; T. Binney, Christian World Pulpit, vol. i., p. 120. Psalm 17-I. Williams, The Psalms Interpreted of Christ, p. 296. Psa 18:9.-J. E. Vaux, Sermon Notes, 4th series, p. 10. Psa 18:16.-Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxiv., No. 1432. Psa 18:19.-W. Wilkinson, Thursday Penny Pulpit, vol. vii., p. 80. Psa 18:25, Psa 18:26.-J. Service, Salvation Here and Hereafter, p. 156.
Fuente: The Sermon Bible

Psalm 17
The Prayer of Christ Against the Enemy
1. The Righteous Intercessor (Psa 17:1-5)
2. Prayer for deliverance (Psa 17:6-12)
3. The deliverance (Psa 17:13-15)
Psa 17:1-5. This Psalm is blessedly linked with the foregoing one. We hear Christ interceding for the saints in whom is His delight (16:3). He pleads His own perfection. He is righteous; His prayer does not come from feigned lips. Not David, but Christ alone could truly say, Thou hast proved my heart; Thou hast visited me in the night; Thou hast tried me. Thou findest nothing. By the Word of God He had walked and was kept from the paths of the destroyer. What a grand testimony to inspiration we have in verse 4 when the Spirit of Christ declares beforehand that Christ would walk in obedience to the Word and that Word is called here the Word of Thy lips, which came from the mouth and heart of God.
Psa 17:6-12. It is a marvellous prayer for His own with whom He so perfectly identifies Himself. The seventh verse is the key, for He prays, Show Thy marvellous loving-kindness, delivering those who put their trust in Thee by Thy right hand from those rising up against them. He pleads for His beloved saints that they may be kept as the apple of the eye, and hidden under the shadow of His wings. He speaks as for Himself, but it is for the saints, those that trust God, and God hears Him and answers. The enemy threatens His people on earth and therefore we find the plural in verse 11, they have now compassed us in our steps.
Psa 17:13-15. The final prayer is to the Lord to arise and to rescue His suffering people from the wicked one, who is the sword in the hand of the Lord. Then when the Lord ariseth His people will behold His face in righteousness and in awakening shall be satisfied with His likeness. Oh, blessed Hope! which is ours too, when shall it be!
Fuente: Gaebelein’s Annotated Bible (Commentary)

am 2942, bc 1062 – Title Psa 86:1, Psa 142:1, *titles
Hear: Psa 7:8, Psa 18:20, Psa 43:1, Psa 140:12, 1Jo 3:21
the right: Heb. justice
attend: Psa 5:2, Psa 55:2, Psa 55:3, Psa 61:1, Psa 66:19, Psa 142:6, 2Ch 7:15, Neh 1:6, Dan 9:18, Dan 9:19
not out of feigned lips: Heb. without lips of deceit, Psa 18:44, *marg. Psa 145:18, Jer 3:10, Mat 15:8, Joh 1:47
Reciprocal: 2Ch 6:40 – thine ears 2Ch 20:15 – Be not afraid Psa 5:1 – Give Psa 55:1 – Give Psa 86:6 – General Psa 130:2 – let thine ears Pro 15:8 – the prayer Isa 29:13 – Forasmuch Joh 4:23 – in truth 2Ti 1:5 – unfeigned 2Ti 2:22 – call
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge

An appeal against the enemy: on the ground of the perfection of Christ, the Intercessor for the people.
A prayer of David.
The sixteenth psalm, then, has shown us the perfect obedience of One who has come into the path of it in love toward the saints, a path which has led Him as far as death itself, but to find through it a way of life, a way into the presence of God, and the eternal joy there. Now in the seventeenth, we have the effect of this, the identification of Christ with His people, making His appeal against the enemy, grounded upon His personal perfection, to avail for them. The psalm, taken by itself, would but obscurely express this, the work of atonement not having as yet been brought out, as later it will be,when immediately the fullness of grace toward others becomes manifest. Here, for the most part, the psalm is apparently an individual appeal, -Christ, who is most surely the Speaker, pleading in His own behalf. In the seventh verse first a plural is introduced, but in such a way as at first sight only to enunciate the general principle under which His individual case would come; and the common rendering (which is a legitimate one) would make this clearly the meaning. After this again all is individual until the eleventh verse, where we find again a plural, “our steps,” but with which, strangely enough, the written text in the Hebrew joins a singular, “they have surrounded me,” though the K’ri (the “spoken” amended text) substitutes “us,” which the modern translations generally accept.* But the Septuagint has preserved the “me,” and gives the first part of the verse quite differently.
{*It involves only the continuation of the stroke of the jod, by which it becomes a vau.}
Thus there have been evident difficulties with this abrupt plural, -which is found no more to the end of the psalm. If we realize no divine order in the series, we lose the clue by which to penetrate the mystery, or more likely see no mystery. If it be of God, on the other hand, that the seventeenth psalm has its place between the sixteenth and the eighteenth, then these verses acquire special importance, and not only become themselves intelligible, but give light upon the whole character of the psalm. And this is constantly so with the “dark” things of Scripture, which in this very way claim special attention from us: the Spirit of God would by this awaken interest on our part, and never, we may be sure, without some special reward for the search to which it prompts. Nor is there anything of this sort so small but that it may cover a great treasure.
When it is seen, by this absolute perfection which He claims unchallenged, Who the Speaker in this psalm is, then the association of others with Him must have very special interest. It has been noticed by others how careful in this particular Scripture is. “My Father and your Father,” the Lord says to His disciples; never our Father”: that would really falsify the relationship. So He prays for them, and invites them to watch -but never to pray -with Him. All this is perfect in its place. So in this psalm the cry is single, individual; the perfection is His alone who cries; it is “give ear unto my prayer; incline thine ear unto Me; Thou answerest Me.” But, if the way in which the seventh verse is rendered here be the right one, then the prayer is for the salvation of all who “take refuge” in God, -that is, of all believers. And then even that which seems most individual in the prayer becomes possible to be read in the light of the truth of the identification of the believer with his Representative before God, -of his being “in Christ Jesus.”
How this psalm, then, displays the Mediator will be evident. It at once takes its place with the other psalms of this series; and we are able to see in it the love which has manifested itself to men, as well as the strength of their salvation. Christ is not here asking for Himself; but is the great Intercessor in behalf of His people. Let us take it up in detail.
1. The psalm divides into three main parts, the first of which gives the appeal of the Perfect One on the ground of that perfection. He asks, not for mercy but for righteousness, and in entire confidence in God claims Him as Judge in His behalf. He knows Him, -knows that His eyes regard equity.
It is One with whom He is not meeting for the first time. The all-searching eyes have been upon Him; and in the silence of the night, when truth, freed from the conflict of the world’s voices, makes itself most clearly heard, God had been with Him; the Light of light, in the presence of which the slightest breath of evil had been a dense and darkening cloud, bad shone down to meet a perfect response. “Thou hast assayed me; Thou findest nothing!” This is the Voice that said on earth: “I do, always the things that please Him”; and there was but One: “my mouth goeth not beyond my thoughts,” is the answer of perfect Truth to perfect Light.
Around Him there was only contradiction to all this: “the works of men” He puts all together, making no distinction, giving them no other name but that. “As for the works of men, by the word of Thy lips I have kept me from the paths of the violent,” -the breaker forth: that is the character of men at large: God’s word, God’s will, they persistently break through. Alas, there is nowhere a timid woman, -nowhere the child of a few years, -who could not be characterized in this way.
Let us notice how distinctly He affirms the word of God to be His guide and guard. If a perfect moral nature were enough, He had surely that, -“holy” from His very birth. If there were any who might be supposed superior to the need of a “book” to guide, here was One; yet how perfectly he held to, and upheld at all times the “word of Thy lips.” And how great our need, then, of it! How thorough should be our subjection to it! “The word of Thy lips,” -the very utterance of God Himself! It is as if the psalmist would utterly refuse to be hindered by that “human element in inspiration,” of which in the present day we hear so much, from drawing near to Him who would thus draw near, and who cannot be hindered by any creature-limit drawn about Him, from accomplishing His ends.
The result of this divinely guided course is a steadfast and unswerving step. To be with God is, of necessity, to have God with us, and to introduce His unchanging character into our ways. Thus the apostle, preaching no “yea and nay,” but a “yea and amen” Christ, can affirm for himself that with him also there is not yea and nay. (2Co 1:17-19.) Yet though He did not now repent of his previous letter, he had repented. (2Co 7:8.) Only One has trodden perfectly this perfect path, and “left us an example that we should walk in His steps.”
2. Thus we have had the ground of the appeal. Now we have the nature of the appeal, as a cry for deliverance from the enemy, so commonly before one in these pages. God is invoked as the God of power, and trusted as the God of truth. Answer, He will; and the certainty of this has drawn forth the cry. What confidence, too, may be ours, with the name of Him whom the Father ever heareth by which to draw near to God.
Yet it is an appeal to “marvelous loving-kindness,” because of those for whom, as if entirely for Himself, it is made: for it is a prayer for sinners who not in weakness merely but in the consciousness of unworthiness “take refuge” in the mercy as well as the might of God. This is surely no common ground upon which He as well as they are to find acceptance, but far different from that. He does not associate Himself with these suppliants, but prays for them; and then again His voice is heard as for Himself alone. He is not associating Himself with them, so as to say, “Keep us,” but identifying Himself with them, so that He can say, “Keep Me,” -they being covered with the perfection of His beauty, and God to act toward them as to Himself. Such language we shall find elsewhere in the Psalms: words of a Substitute and Representative of His people, -a glory of Christ, to be found, as we surely know, everywhere in Scripture, though here presented in the peculiar manner of the Psalms, a secret for faith to penetrate and possess.
For Who is it in the fortieth psalm, who, coming into the world simply to do the will of God, and to offer to Him the one offering, now to take the place of all others, cries out “Mine iniquities have taken hold upon Me”? And Who, as the Trespass-offering in the sixty-ninth psalm, “restoring what He took not away,” says yet again, “My trespasses* are not hid from Thee”? Such things we are forced, if we apply them (as we must) to Christ, to interpret rightly. Yet here we have only that same truth of representation of which substitution is but the result in suffering and sacrifice, -the Cloud-Pillar of ministrant Glory.
{* Ashmothai; not “sins,” as in the common version.}
Looked at as the intercession of Christ for His own, -the saints in whom all His delight is, -how tenderly does He speak of them! “Keep Me as the reflection in the eye,” -which is literally, “the little man,” the human figure, “the daughter” or product “of the eye.” It is the image of Himself which God sees, as it were in the eyes of His beloved Son, ever having Himself before them! will He not preserve that?
Then He draws near to the Father’s heart for refuge: “hide me in the shadow of Thy wings.” It is the image so familiar to us in the breathings of the Lord’s own heart over Jerusalem; but there love that was refused.
“From the wicked that oppress me, -my enemies that with desire [literally, “in soul,” -the seat of desire] encircle me: in their own fat are they closed up,” -shut up in their own luxurious selfishness; and this is the most evident penalty of sin, which even here begins to stiffen and harden the heart into the unchangeableness of eternity: sin being the coffin, the grave, the final prison of the soul!
Now you see them in their settled enmity against the “righteous; and here the plural comes in again, as we have seen. The wicked associate the Lord’s people with Himself; or at least hate His reflection in them. What they do to them, they do really therefore to Him. With the savage intensity of bloodhounds they are here seen dogging the steps of their victims; fastening their eyes on them, ready to pull them down to the ground. Their whole figure is just that indeed of a ravenous beast of prey: humanity is lost with the casting off of God, and the beast made to be taken and destroyed is his only likeness.
3. The third part, from an Israelite standpoint, is a very striking one. It contrasts the portion of the saint, now suffering at the hands of the wicked, with that of the wicked at whose hands they suffer, and who, completely under divine control, and used of God for the accomplishment of His purposes, has from His hand a present portion, soon to pass away. Beyond it lies that of faith, with God and eternal.
We see that this is not the standpoint of law, which “is not of faith,” (Gal 3:12), and which distinctly has its blessings in the present, but answers rather to our Lord’s story of the rich man and Lazarus (Luk 16:1-31), where the one accepted of God is yet unable to claim anything under law, -is but a beggar (comp. Psa 37:25), while the man careless of God is the “man of this world.” For the Jewish believer of the period to which these psalms have special reference, in the short crisis of trouble so often brought before us, and with millennial days in immediate prospect, the portion of faith is not necessarily -not even nominally -in heaven; but rather in the scene which the psalm last referred to pictures, when the meek will possess the earth and the wicked be cast out of it. For the Christian the blessing to be enjoyed is, of course, heavenly; and of the Jewish remnant of the future, of whom these psalms speak, many will be slain, and thus find their place with the heavenly instead of the earthly people. These are the martyrs who, in the final visions of the Apocalypse, are seen to join the company of the throned saints of the first resurrection. (Rev 20:4-6.)
This part begins with an urgent cry once more for God to interfere. “Arise, Jehovah, confront him, cast him down: rescue my life from the wicked one, thy sword.” So (rightly, I believe,) the common version. The revised puts “by thy sword”; remanding the older translation to the margin. But there is no preposition in the Hebrew, though that is often the case where we should put one: the sense given by the common version, however, is more in accordance with the context, and gives the fuller thought. If the lawless persecutor be, after all, God’s sword, then how simple for Him to turn it aside! His supremacy is manifest; and this is carried into the next verse, where, however, the same question is raised, shall we say “from men thy hand,” or “
by thy hand”? But that their portion is from God there is no question. Acting for Him, although they mean it not, indeed mean nothing less, yet He gives them for their work, as He paid Nebuchadnezzar for his blind service against Tyre. (Eze 29:18-19.) But this is not His grace or in the things that His grace bestows. They are but men of the world, or of time, as I have rendered the word, because the sense of transitoriness inheres in it;* they have their portion in a life that passes away. “Full” they may well be, therefore, for a time, and who shall envy them? though they may leave what is more than they can themselves enjoy, with the brief lives in which to enjoy it, -to their babes.
{*As in Psa 89:47 : “Remember how short my time is,” -literally, “how transitory I am”!}
The saints’ portion, too, can he expressed in a few words; but who can estimate it aright? “For me, in righteousness shall I behold Thy face; I shall be full, awaking in Thine image.”
Here in the first place, that it is Christ’s own voice is evident. The hope before Him is objective and subjective. On the one hand, as come out of His voluntary exile from it, the beholding of the Father’s face in the place of full and supreme manifestation; on the other, His own emerging from all the conditions of manhood in the humiliation in which He had assumed it, so as to be in manhood itself the manifest image and glory of God. We know, indeed, how little of what this implies; but it is the path of His humanity we trace in it, and thus we know that in measure we too are to share it with. Him. Even of man in the old creation it could be said that “he is the image and glory of God.” (1Co 11:7.) And if this be sadly obscured by the fall, it is, even apart from this, the shadow only of the ultimate purpose of God with regard to man. And while Christ is its perfect expression, the breadth of this expression must take in all redeemed humanity in some sense. No doubt that here also there are degrees of such glory, -glory celestial and glory terrestrial, as in nature. Thus again God, who is light, is the “Father of lights,” -many-hued and many-toned, in order that the light itself may have more adequate expression.
The objective and subjective, while different, are in close connection. “We know that we shall be like Him,” says the beloved apostle; and this is the reason he gives for it, “for we shall see Him as He is.” (1Jn 3:2.) On the other hand, “the world knew Him not,” (Joh 1:10, ) because morally it had wandered far from Him. Could untruth apprehend the perfect Truth, or Love be understood by what was “enmity against God”? For us, when the long conflict with sin within us shall be over, how wondrous shall be the soul’s vision out of its now undimmed eyes, how shall the “pure in heart” find the blessedness predicted for them, that “they shall see God”!
For the Lord, there could, of course, be no change in this respect. The days of His youth were as holy as His manhood; those of His life on earth no less so than His life in heaven. Such limitations, however, there were assumed in His assumption of flesh as made possible a life of faith, nay, the pattern life. Here we know indeed nothing except that of which the word of God assures us, and would be careful in any reasoning at all upon it. Yet we may be sure that whatever were these limitations they would make possible for Him also a looking forward to behold the face of God, as on earth He had not beheld it. Wonder as we may and must, His humanity was in these respects such as ours, “apart from sin.” He abode in it, though divine, subjecting Himself to its conditions, so that He could be really a babe, a child, a man, and then again under the awful shadow of the desertion of the cross! What perfect love -what utter reverence -do we owe Him, for such inconceivable self-humiliation as was this!
Fuente: Grant’s Numerical Bible Notes and Commentary

Psa 17:1. Hear the right, O Lord Hebrew, , tzedek, righteousness, that is, my righteous cause, or me, who, notwithstanding all their accusations, and slanders, am righteous in my conduct toward them and all men. Attend unto my cry My fervent prayer, attended with strong cries. That goeth not out of feigned lips Hebrew, , shipthee mirmah, lips of deceit, or of guile, which speak one thing when the heart knows and designs another. This profession of his sincerity in his words fitly makes way for his solemn appeal to God, in the following verses.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Psa 17:3. Thou hast tried me. Vulgate, Igne me examinsti, Thou hast proved or tested me with fire, referring to the test of metals.
Psa 17:14. Menwhich have their portion in this life, as in Luk 16:25. The holy patriarchs, on the contrary, expected their portion in the life to come, and died believing in the promises. The Lord kept David under the shadow of his wings, safe from Sauls lions, that lurked for his life.
REFLECTIONS.
We are taught to carry all our troubles to the Lord, and to labour after sincerity of heart. God is a Spirit, and must be worshipped in spirit and in truth. A sense of the divine omniscience should regulate our words and thoughts. His eyes behold the things that are equal; he tries and proves us, and is intimately acquainted with our true character; therefore we should steadily purpose and resolve that our mouth shall not transgress, and that our words and thoughts shall be such as he approves.
To arm us against temptation, let us consider that the path of sin is the path of the destroyer. It is the way of Satan, who was a destroyer from the beginning, and who still leads to destruction. Let us attend to the words of God, that we may learn our danger and our duty, and pray that he would hold us up and preserve us, even when we have formed the best resolutions; then we may hope that he will guard us with the greatest care and tenderness.
It is comfortable to think, that the bitterest and most powerful enemies are only a sword in Gods hand, his instruments in chastising his people. He manages them as he pleaseth; they can do nothing without his leave, and cannot exceed his commission. The wrath of man therefore shall praise him, and the remainder of wrath he will restrain.
Let us often meditate on this sublime and delightful view of heaven, this bright abridgment of future blessedness. It consists in seeing and knowing God; in being like him, and transformed into his spotless image. This will yield us entire satisfaction, when nothing else can; and the hope of it should reconcile us to the prosperity of the wicked, and to our own troubles; and engage us to purify ourselves even as He is pure, since none but the pure in heart shall see God.ORTON.
Fuente: Sutcliffe’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

XVII. The Prayer of a Godly Man for Deliverance from his Foes.These foes are not foreign enemies but worldly Jews who persecute their pious and innocent neighbours. The cry for Divine help is made in Psa 17:1 and is repeated in Psa 17:6; Psa 17:13.
Psa 17:1-5. In Psa 17:2 follow mg.
Psa 17:3 b. With slight alteration of the text translate Thou shalt find no evil thought in me; my mouth shalt not transgress. Such self-complacency is common in the Pss. and is a marked point of divergence from Christian piety.
Psa 17:4 is hopelessly corrupt; even RV requires an emended text and As for the works of men gives no satisfactory sense.
Psa 17:6-12. Psa 17:10 a. They have closed their fat (cf. mg.), i.e. their gross, unreceptive heart. This is a good description of worldly Jews, but is quite unsuitable if applied to foreign invaders.
Psa 17:14. Translate, from men with thy right hand, O Yahweh, from men whose portion is from this world all their life long, and whose belly thou fillest with thy hid treasure, etc. Another admirable description of worldly Jews. Two points deserve notice. (a) The Psalmist rises above the common notion which prevails in the Pss. and OT generally, that material prosperity is always a token of Divine approval. (b) The Psalmist, probably though not certainly, has in his mind the hope of life after death. But this hope is not definitely expressed (p. 371). In Psa 17:15 When I wake is best taken in its literal sense. The Psalmist when morning dawns will visit the Temple. Then like Isaiah (Isaiah 6) he hopes to see the glory of Yahweh or His beauty (Psa 27:4). Glory indeed is the LXX rendering of the word which is commonly and more strictly translated by likeness.
Fuente: Peake’s Commentary on the Bible

PSALM 17
Christ identifying Himself with the godly in Israel, in the maintenance of righteousness in the midst of evil.
Psalm 16 presents Christ as treading the path of life before God. Psalm 17 presents Christ as treading the path of righteousness in the presence of the temptations of the devil, and the deadly hostility of men. Psalm 16 is the inner life before God; here it is more the outer life before men. Only Christ trod this life in perfection, though others are associated with Him (see verse 7, them, and verse 11, us).
(vv. 1-3) The cry of God by One who can appeal to be heard on the ground of His perfect integrity. Only Christ could take such ground in an absolute way. His words came from unfeigned lips. Everything in Him was equal, or right, under the searching eye of God. His heart was proved, only to make manifest that His secret thoughts never went beyond His words. He did not say one thing and think another (JND).
(vv. 4-5) The men of this age, by their works, have fallen under the power of the devil, and receive their portion in this life. Christ walked in dependence upon God, and His Word, and thus was kept from the works of men, and the paths of the destroyer. The devil would have given Him all the kingdoms of this world if he could have moved the Lord from the path of dependence. Christ refused the portion in this life (v. 14), to receive a better portion in resurrection (v. 15).
(vv. 6-9) The perfectly upright One, because of His righteousness, finds many that rise up against Him. They are deadly enemies that would fain destroy Him (Luk 4:29; Luk 6:11; Luk 19:47). Having refused the works of man and the temptations of the devil, and taken the path of dependence, Christ can look with confidence to God to intervene on behalf of Himself and the godly remnant associated with Him. The perfect integrity of His way gives perfect confidence in God, and the sense of His preciousness to God, so that He can say, Keep me as the apple of the eye, hide me under the shadow of thy wings.
(vv 10-12) In contrast to the righteous One, verses 10 to 12 present the character of the men of this age that rise up against Christ and His own. They are marked by selfish luxury that makes them indifferent to the sorrows of others, and pride that exalts themselves. They watch the righteous One and those associated with Him in order to cast them down, and secretly plot their destruction (Mar 3:2-6; Joh 11:53; Joh 12:10).
(v. 13) An appeal to God to thwart the secret plots of the enemy; to judge the wicked, and deliver the righteous. The wicked are but the sword of God for the accomplishment of His government. It is easy then for the sword to be turned aside from the godly and used for the destruction of the wicked.
(vv. 14-15) The character of the wicked having been presented in verses 10 to 12, we learn now their portion in contrast with the portion of Christ, the righteous One. Men are described as of this world, or age, a word that signifies the transitory character of this world as belonging merely to time, and therefore passing away with the lust of the world. Their portion is in this life and in the natural things given by God. As for Christ, He not only had no portion here, but He refused to accept one either from the destroyer (Luk 4:5-8) or from man (Joh 6:15). He could say in the language of Psa 16:5, The Lord is the portion of mine inheritance. His portion is in the resurrection sphere – in the presence of God – as He can say, I will behold thy face in righteousness: I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with thy likeness. Such is the glorious end of the path of righteousness.
Fuente: Smith’s Writings on 24 Books of the Bible

17:1 [A Prayer of David.] Hear {a} the right, O LORD, attend unto my cry, give ear unto my prayer, [that goeth] not out of feigned lips.
(a) My righteous cause.
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes

Psalms 17
The content of this lament psalm is similar to that of the preceding one, except that the danger David faced when he wrote this psalm was more threatening. Again he viewed himself as a person committed to God who lived among many others who lived for the present. He prayed for deliverance from their oppression and anticipated the future in God’s presence. A strong concern for righteousness pervades the entire psalm (cf. Psa 17:1-2; Psa 17:15).
This is one of five psalms that identify themselves as prayers (cf. 86; 90; 102; and 142; see also Psa 72:20 and Hab 3:1.). There are at least a dozen Hebrew words for prayer, and the one used here, tepilla, means "to intervene." Since most of the psalms were prayers, it is unusual that only five call themselves "prayers." Perhaps this Hebrew word had other connotations as well, possibly indicating a tune to be used in corporate worship.
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)

1. The plea of the righteous 17:1-5
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)

The urgency with which David called on God to heed his petition suggests that he was in a very difficult position. He claimed to be representing a just cause as he made his request, and he assured God he was speaking the truth in what he was about to say. He visualized God as the celestial Judge and asked for a fair ruling in His court. In what follows, the cry for investigation of David’s situation (Psa 17:3-5) and vindication of David’s person (Psa 17:6-15) continues.
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)

Psa 17:1-15
THE investigations as to authorship and date yield the usual conflicting results. Davidic, say one school; undoubtedly post-exilic, say another, without venturing on closer definition; late in the Persian period, says Cheyne. Perhaps we may content ourselves with the modest judgment of Baethgen in his last book (“Handcommentar,” 1892, p. 45): “The date of composition cannot be decided by internal indications.” The background is the familiar one of causeless foes round an innocent sufferer, who flings himself into Gods arms for safety, and in prayer enters into peace and hope. He is, no doubt, a representative of the Ecclesia pressa; but he is so just because his cry is intensely personal. The experience of one is the type for all, and a poets prerogative is to cast his most thoroughly individual emotions into words that fit the universal heart. The psalm is called a “prayer,” a title given to only four other psalms, none of which are in the First Book. It has three movements, marked by the repetition of the name of God, which does not appear elsewhere, except in the doubtful Psa 17:14. These three are Psa 17:1-5, in which the cry for help is founded on a strong profession of innocence; Psa 17:6-12, in which it is based on a vivid description of the enemies; and Psa 17:13-15, in which it soars into the pure air of mystic devotion, and thence looks down on the transient prosperity of the foe and upwards, in a rapture of hope, to the face of God.
The petition proper, in Psa 17:1-2, and its ground, are both strongly marked by conscious innocence, and therefore sound strange to our ears, trained as we have been by the New Testament to deeper insight into sin, This sufferer asks God to “hear righteousness,” i.e., his righteous cause. He pleads the bona fides of his prayer, the fervour of which is marked by its designation as “my cry,” the high-pitched note usually the expression of joy, but here of sore need and strong desire. Boldly he asks for his “sentence from Thy face,” and the ground of, that petition is that “Thine eyes behold rightly.” Was there, then, no inner baseness that should have toned down such confidence? Was this prayer not much the same as the Pharisees in Christs parable? The answer is partly found in the considerations that the innocence professed is specially in regard to the occasions of the psalmists present distress, and that the acquittal by deliverance which he asks is Gods testimony that as to these he was slandered and clear. But, further, the strong professions of heart cleanness and outward obedience which follow are not so much denials of any sin as avowals of sincere devotion and honest submission of life to Gods law. They are “the answer of a good conscience towards God,” expressed, indeed, more absolutely than befits Christian consciousness, but having noticing in common with Pharisaic self-complacency. The modern type of religion which recoils from such professions, and contents itself with always confessing sins which it has given up hope of overcoming, would be all the better for listening to the psalmist and aiming a little more vigorously and hopefully at being able to say, “I know nothing against myself.” There is no danger in such a saying, if it be accompanied by “Yet am I not hereby justified” and by “Who can understand his errors? Cleanse Thou me from secret faults.”
The general drift of Psa 17:3-5 is clear, but the precise meaning and connection are extremely obscure. Probably the text is faulty. It has been twisted in all sorts of ways, the Masoretic accents have been disregarded, the division of verses set aside, and still no proposed rendering of parts of Psa 17:3-4 is wholly satisfactory. The psalmist deals with heart, lips, feet-that is, thoughts, words, and deeds-and declares the innocence of all. But difficulties begin when we look closer. The first question is as to the meaning and connection of the word rendered in the A.V. and R.V., “I am purposed.” It may be a first person singular or an infinitive used as a noun or even a noun, meaning, in both the latter cases, substantially the same, i.e. my thinking or my thoughts. It is connected by the accents with what follows; but in that case the preceding verb “find” is left without an object, and hence many renderings attach the word to the preceding clause, and so get “Thou shalt find no [evil] thoughts in me.” This division of the clauses leaves the words rendered, by A.V. and R.V., “My mouth shall not transgress,” standing alone. There is no other instance of the verb standing by itself with that meaning, nor is “mouth” clearly the subject. It may as well be the object, and the clause be, “[It] shall not pass my mouth.” If that is the meaning, we have to look to the preceding word as defining what it is that is thus to be kept unuttered, and so detach it from the verb “find,” as the accents do. The knot has been untied in two ways: “My [evil] purpose shall not pass,” etc., or, taking the word as a verb and regarding the clause as hypothetical, Should I think evil, it shall not pass, etc.
Either of these renderings has the advantage of retaining the recognised meaning of the verb and of avoiding neglect of the accent. Such a rendering has been objected to as inconsistent with the previous clause, but the psalmist may be looking back to it, feeling that his partial self-knowledge makes it a bold statement, and thus far limiting it, that if any evil thought is found in his heart, it is sternly repressed in silence.
Obscurity continues in Psa 17:4. The usual rendering, “As for [or, During] the works of men, by the word of Thy mouth I have kept me,” etc., is against the accents, which make the principal division of the verse fall after “lips”; but no satisfactory sense results if the accentuation is followed unless we suppose a verb implied, such as e.g., stand fast or the like, so getting the profession of steadfastness in the words of Gods lips, in face of mens self-willed doings. But this is precarious, and probably the ordinary way of cutting the knot by neglecting the accents is best. In any case the avowal of innocence passes here from thoughts and words to acts. The contrast of the psalmists closed mouth and Gods lips is significant, even if unintended. Only he who silences much that rises in his heart can hear God speaking. “I kept me from,” is a very unusual meaning for the word employed, which generally signifies to guard or watch, but here seems to mean to take heed so as to avoid. Possibly the preposition from, denoted by a single letter, has fallen out before “paths.” This negative avoidance precedes positive walking in Gods ways, since the poets position is amidst evil men. Goodness has to learn to say No to men, if it is ever to say Yes to God. The foot has to be forcibly plucked and vigilantly kept from foul ways before it can be planted firmly in “Thy paths.” By holding fast to courses appointed by God stability is ensured. Thus the closing clause of this first part is rather an acknowledgment of the happy result of devoted cleaving to God than an assertion of self-secured steadfastness. “My feet do not slip,” not so much because they are strong as because the road is good, and the Guides word and hand ready.
The second part repeats the prayer for help, but bases it on the double ground of Gods character and acts and of the suppliants desperate straits; and of these two the former comes first in the prayer, though the latter has impelled to the prayer. Faith may be helped to self-consciousness by the sense of danger, but when awakened it grasps Gods hand first and then faces its foes. In this part of the psalm the petitions, the aspects of the Divine character and working, and the grim picture of dangers are all noteworthy. The petitions by their number and variety reveal the pressure of trouble, each new prick of fear or pain forcing a new cry and each cry recording a fresh act of faith tightening its grasp. The “I” in Psa 17:6 is emphatic, and may be taken as gathering up the psalmists preceding declarations and humbly laying them before God as a plea: “I, who thus cleave to Thy ways, call upon Thee. and my prayer is that of faith, which is sure of answer.” But that confidence does not make petition superfluous, but rather encourages it. The assurance that “Thou wilt answer” is the reason for the prayer, “Incline Thine ear.” Naturally at such a moment the name of God springs to the psalmists lips, but significantly it is not the name found in the other two parts of the psalm. There He is invoked as “Jehovah,” here as “God.” The variation is not merely rhetorical, but the name which connotes power is appropriate in a prayer for deliverance from peril so extreme. “Magnify [or make wonderful] Thy lovingkindnesses” is a petition containing at once a glimpse of the psalmists danger, for escape from which nothing short of a wonder of power will avail, and an appeal to Gods delight in magnifying His name by the display of His mercy. The prayer sounds arrogant, as if the petitioner thought himself important enough to have miracles wrought for him; but it is really most humble, for the very wonder of the lovingkindness besought is that it should be exercised for such a one. God wins honour by saving a poor man who cries to Him; and it is with deep insight into the heart of God that this man presents himself as offering an occasion, in which God must delight, to flash the glory of His loving power before dull eyes. The petitions grow in boldness as they go on, and culminate in two which occur in similar contiguity in the great Song of Moses in Deu 32:1-52 : “Keep me as the pupil of Thy eye.” What closeness of union with God that lovely figure implies, and what sedulous guardianship it implores! “In the shadow of Thy wings hide me.” What tenderness of fostering protection that ascribes to God, and what warmth and security it asks for man! The combination and order of these two petitions may teach us that, if we are to be “kept,” we must be hidden; that if these frail lives of ours are to be dear to God as the apple of His eye, they must be passed nestling close by His side. Deep, secret communion with Him is the condition of His protection of us, as another psalm, using the same image, has it: “He that dwelleth in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.”
The aspects of the Divine character, which the psalmist employs to move Gods heart and to encourage his own, are contained first in the name “God,” and next in the reference to His habitual dealings with trusting souls, in Psa 17:7. From of old it has been His way to be the Saviour of such as take refuge in Him from their enemies, and His right hand has shielded them. That past is a prophecy which the psalmist grasps in faith. He has in view instances enough to warrant an induction absolutely certain. He knows the law of the Divine dealings, and is sure that anything may happen rather than that it shall fail. Was he wrong in thus characterising God? Much in his experience and in ours looks as if he were; but they who most truly understand what help or salvation truly is will most joyously dwell in the sunny clearness of this confidence, which will not be clouded for them, though their own and others trust is not answered by what sense calls deliverance.
The eye which steadily looks on God can look calmly at dangers. It is with no failure of faith that the poets thoughts turn to his enemies. Fears that have become prayers are already more than half conquered. The psalmist would move God to help, not himself to despair, by recounting his perils. The enemy “spoil” him or lay him waste, the word used for the ravages of invaders. They are “enemies in soul”-i.e., deadly-or perhaps “against [my] soul” or life. They are pitiless and proud, closing their hearts, which prosperity has made “fat” or arrogant, against the entrance of compassion, and indulging in gasconading boasts of their own power and contemptuous, scoffs at his weakness. They ring him round, watching his steps. The text has a sudden change here from singular to plural, and back again to singular, reading “our steps,” and “They have compassed me, ” which the Hebrew margin alters to “us.” The wavering between the singular and plural is accounted for by the upholders of the Davidic authorship by a reference to him and his followers, and by the advocates of the theory that the speaker is the personified Israel by supposing that the mask falls for a moment, and the “me,” which always means “us,” gives place to the collective. Psa 17:11 b is ambiguous in consequence of the absence of an object to the second verb. To “set the eyes” is to watch fixedly and eagerly; and the purpose of the gaze is in the next clause stated by an infinitive with a preposition, not by a participle, as in the A.V. The verb is sometimes transitive and sometimes intransitive, but the former is the better meaning here, and the omitted object is most naturally “us” or “me.” The sense, then, will be that the enemies eagerly watch for an opportunity to cast down the psalmist, so as to lay him low on the earth. The intransitive meaning “to bow down” is taken by some commentators. If that is adopted (as it is by Hupfeld and others), the reference is to “our steps” in the previous clause, and the sense of the whole is that eager eyes watch for these “bowing to the ground,” that is stumbling. But such a rendering is harsh, since steps are always on the ground. Baethgen (“Handcommentar”), on the strength of Num 21:22, the only place where the verb occurs with the same preposition as here, and which he takes as meaning “to turn aside to field or vineyard-i.e., to plunder them”-would translate. “They direct their eves to burst into the land,” and supposes the reference to be to some impending invasion. A similar variation in number to that in Psa 17:11 occurs in Psa 17:12, where the enemies are concentrated into one. The allusion is supposed to be to some one conspicuous leader-e.g., Saul-but probably the change is merely an illustration of the carelessness as to such grammatical accuracy characteristic of emotional Hebrew poetry. The familiar metaphor of the lurking lion may have been led up to in the poets imagination by the preceding picture of the steadfast gaze of the enemy, like the glare of the green eyeballs flashing from the covert of a jungle.
The third part (Psa 17:13-15) renews the cry for deliverance, and unites the points of view of the preceding parts in inverted order, describing first the enemies and then the psalmist, but with these significant differences, the fruits of his communion with God, that now the former are painted, not in their fierceness, but in their transitory, attachments and low delights, and that the latter does not bemoan his own helplessness nor build on his own integrity, but feeds his soul on his confidence of the vision of God and the satisfaction which it will bring. The smoke clouds that rolled in the former parts have caught fire and one clear shoot of flame aspires heavenward. He who makes his needs known to God gains for immediate answer “the peace of God which passeth understanding,” and can wait Gods time for the rest. The crouching lion is still ready to spring; but the psalmist hides himself behind God, whom he asks to face the brute and make him grovel at his feet “Make him bow down,” the same word used for a lion couchant in Gen 49:9 and Num 24:9. The rendering of Psa 17:13 b, “the wicked, who is Thy sword,” introduces an irrelevant thought; and it is better to regard the sword as Gods weapon that slays the crouching wild beast. The excessive length of Psa 17:14 and the entirely pleonastic “from men (by) Thy hand, O Lord,” suggest textual corruption. The thought runs more smoothly, though not altogether clearly, if these words are omitted. There remains a penetrating characterisation of the enemy in the sensuous limitations and mistaken aims of his godless being, which may be satiated with low delights, but never satisfied, and has to leave them all at last. He is no longer dreaded, but pitied. His prayer has cleared the psalmists eyes and lifted him high enough to see his foes as they are. They are “men of the world,” belonging, by the set of their lives, to a transitory order of things – an anticipation of New Testament language about “the children of this world.” “Their portion is in [this] life,” while the psalmists is God. {Psa 16:5} They have chosen to have their good things in their lifetime. Hopes, desires, aims, tastes, are all confined within the narrow bounds of time and sense, than which there can be no greater folly. Such limitation will often seem to succeed, for low aims are easily reached; and God sometimes lets men have their fill of the goods at which their perverted choice clutches. But even so the choice is madness and misery, for the man, gorged with worldly good, has yet to leave it, however unwilling to loosen his hold. He cannot use his goods; and it is no comfort to him, sent away naked into darkness of death, that his descendants revel in what was his.
How different the contrasted conditions of the hunted psalmist and his enemies look when the light of such thoughts streams on them! The helpless victim towers above his persecutors, for his desires go up to Him who abides and saturates with His blessed fulness the heart that aspires to Him. Terrors vanish; foes are forgotten; every other wish is swallowed up in one, which is a confidence as well as a desire. The psalmist neither grudges, nor is perplexed by, the prosperity of the wicked. The mysteries of mens earthly lot puzzle those who stand at a lower elevation; but they do not disturb the soul on these supreme heights of mystic devotion, where God is seen to be the only good, and the hungry heart is filled with Him.
Assuredly the psalmists closing expectation embodies the one contrast worth notice: that between the present gross and partial satisfactions of sense-bound lives and the calm, permanent, full delights of communion with God. But does he limit his hopes to such “hours of high communion with the living God” as may be ours, even while the foe rings us round and earth holds us down? Possibly so, but it is difficult to find a worthy meaning for “when I awake” unless it be from the sleep of death. Possibly, too, the allusion to the men of the world as “leaving their substance” makes the reference to a future beatific vision more likely. Death is to them the stripping off of their chosen portion; it is to him whose portion is God the fuller possession of all that he loves and desires. Cheyne (“Orig. of Psalt.,” p. 407) regards the awaking as that from the sleep of the intermediate state by “the passing of the soul into a resurrection body.” He is led to the recognition of the doctrine of the resurrection here by his theory of the late date of the psalm and the influence of Zoroastrianism on it. But it is not necessary to suppose an allusion to the resurrection. Rather the psalmists confidence is the offspring of his profound consciousness of present communion, and we see here the very process by which a devout man, in the absence of a clear revelation of the future, reached up to a conclusion to which he was led by his experience of the inmost reality of friendship with God. The impotence of death on the relation of the devout soul to God is a postulate of faith, whether formulated as an article of faith or not. Probably the psalmist had no clear conception of a future life; but certainly he had a distinct assurance of it, because he felt that the very “sweetness” of present fellowship with God “yielded proof that it was born for immortality.”
Fuente: Expositors Bible Commentary

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