Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Psalms 56:13
For thou hast delivered my soul from death: [wilt] not [thou deliver] my feet from falling, that I may walk before God in the light of the living.
13. Borrowed with slight variations in Psa 116:8.
For thou hast delivered &c.] He takes his stand in the future and looks back upon deliverance granted. Cp. Psa 54:7.
wilt not thou deliver my feet from falling ] Yea, my feet from stumbling: lit., ‘hast thou not delivered my feet from thrusting? ’ i.e. not only saved me from death, but upheld me when the foe “ thrust sore at me that I might fall” (Psa 118:13; cp. Psa 36:12).
that I may walk before God ] Not simply live in His Presence and under His protection, but serve Him acceptably. So the LXX, ; cp. Heb 11:5-6. Cp. Gen 17:1; Gen 24:40; Psa 61:7: and Gen 5:22; Gen 5:24; Gen 6:9.
in the light of the living ] Or, of life. “The land of the living” (Psa 27:13; Psa 116:9) is the land of light contrasted with the darkness of the grave (Job 33:28; Job 33:30); it is illuminated by the Presence of God (Psa 36:9), from Whom comes all that is worthy to be called happiness. What to the Psalmist was a present and temporal truth, receives for the Christian a spiritual and eternal meaning. Cp. Joh 8:12, “I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in the darkness, but shall have the light of life.”
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
For thou hast delivered my soul from death – That is, my life. Thou hast kept me from death. He was surrounded by enemies. He was pursued by them from place to place. He had been, however, graciously delivered from these dangers, and had been kept alive. Now he gratefully remembers this mercy, and confidently appeals to God to interpose still further, and keep him from stumbling.
Wilt not thou deliver my feet from falling – This might be rendered, Hast thou not delivered; thus carrying forward the thought just before expressed. So the Septuagint, the Vulgate, and Luther and DeWette render it. The Hebrew, however, will admit of the translation in our common version, and such a petition would be an appropriate close of the psalm. Thus understood, it would be the recognition of dependence on God; the expression of gratitude for his former mercies; the utterance of a desire to honor him always; the acknowledgment of the fact that God only could keep him; and the manifestation of a wish that he might be enabled to live and act as in His presence. The word here rendered falling means usually a thrusting or casting down, as by violence. The prayer is, that he might be kept amid the dangers of his way; or that God would uphold him so that he might still honor Him.
That I may walk before God – As in his presence; enjoying his friendship and favor.
In the light of the living – See the notes at Job 33:30. The grave is represented everywhere in the Scriptures as a region of darkness (see the notes at Job 10:21-22; compare Psa 6:5; Psa 30:9; Isa 38:11, Isa 38:18-19), and this world as light. The prayer, therefore, is, that he might continue to live, and that he might enjoy the favor of God: a prayer always proper for man, whatever his rank or condition.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Psa 56:13
For Thou hast delivered my soul from death: wilt not Thou deliver my feet from falling, that I may walk before God in the light of the living?
Mercies received
I. Mercies received are in a special manner to be remembered. This has been the method of Gods people. David entitles Psa 38:1-22., A psalm to bring to remembrance His afflictions, much more, then, His comforts (Psa 77:10-11). Paul remembered a manifestation of God to him fourteen years before (2Co 12:1). If God treasures up our tears, much more should we treasure up His mercies; as lovers keep the love tokens of those they affect. God hath a file for our prayers, we should have the like for His answers. He hath a book of remembrance to record our afflictions, and believing discourses of Him (Mal 3:16); why should not we, then, have a register for His gracious communications to us? Remembrance is the chief work of a Christian; remembrance of sin to cause a self-abhorrency (Eze 20:43). The remembrance of God for a deep humility (Psa 77:3). Remembrance of His name for keeping His law (Psa 119:55). Remembrance of His judgments of old for comfort in afflictions (Psa 119:52). And remembrance of mercy for the establishment of faith (Isa 57:11). Now, they are to be remembered because–
1. They are the mercies of God.
2. Purchased by Christ.
3. Beneficial to us.
And we are to remember them admiringly and thankfully (Psa 77:11). Affectionately; obediently and fruitfully (Psa 116:16). Humbly: in their varied circumstances and details.
II. Mercies received are encouragements to ask and hope for more.
1. For: There is as great ability in God (Isa 59:2).
2. As much tenderness as before (Lam 3:22),
3. The same pleas to be urged in our prayers.
4. One mercy in spirituals is to no purpose without further mercies. God would not lay a foundation and not build upon it (Rom 8:32).
III. In conclusion.
1. Take heed of forgetting mercies received (Jer 2:2; Psa 68:26). For if we do not remember them we shall be apt to distrust God and abate in our love (Psa 78:19). And if we do not remember we cannot improve them, nor so easily resist temptation.
2. Make use of former mercies to encourage your trust for the future (Psa 9:10; 1Sa 21:9). (S. Charnook, B. D.)
Confidence in God
This psalm seems to have been written when David, from the jealousy of the infuriated Saul, had taken refuge in the religion of Gath, and found himself an object of not unnatural suspicion, from which he escaped only by simulating madness. But his faith waxes stronger as the occasion of his trial comes. Just as there are sea-birds which sing amid the storm, whose earliest blast startles more timid wings, and sends them fluttering home, so in the season of his apparent hopelessness his heart trilled out some of his most rapturous doxologies, and some of the sublimest expressions of his confidence in God. So if our circumstances have been like to the psalmists, if there be in our hearts memories of many sorrows and failures, of manifold enmity to the progress of the life of God within us, still let me ask you to take up the strain of these verses. If we have failed in the past, let us decide for God now.
I. The motive which is to prompt us to decision. Thou hast delivered my soul from death. Motive is the spring of all mental action. We are free, but we are not independent of motives, and hence Scripture continually appeals to them. And here in the great matter of personal consecration to God, what can urge us more mightily than this, that God has saved our soul from death? And–
II. There is the obligation. Thy vows are upon me, O Lord. You are to feel that you are the Lords; that you are not at liberty to swear any other allegiance or enter upon any other service. You are the Lords bondsmen. Are you ready for this? It is the highest privilege.
III. The legitimate expression in which this consecration embodies itself.
1. In praise. The Christians is a joyful, willing service.
2. In a desire to walk before God in the land of the living. Is this our ambition–to walk before God here and now? I trust it is, and may the ardour of your desire know no abatement or decay. (J. Morley Punshon, D. D.)
Deliverance realized though unaccomplished
I. The deliverance realized by faith before it is accomplished in fact (see translation in R.V.). He is still in the very thick of the trouble and the fight, and yet he says, It is as good as over. Thou hast delivered. How does he come to that confidence? Simply because his future is God; and whoever has God for his future can turn else uncertain hopes into certain confidences, and make sure of this: that however Achish and his giant Philistines of Gath, wielding Goliaths arms, spears like a weavers beam, and brazen armour, may compass him about, in the name of the Lord he will destroy them. They are all as good as dead, though they are alive and hostile at this moment. We to-day have the same reasons for the same confidence; and if we will go the right way about it, we, too, may bring Junes sun into Novembers fogs, and bask in the warmth of certain deliverance even when the chill mists of trouble enfold us. But then note, too, here, the substance of this future intervention which, to the psalmists quiet faith, is present. My soul from death. and after that be says, My feet from falling, which looks very like an anti-climax and bathos. But yet, just because to deliver the feet from falling is so much smaller a thing than delivering a life from death, it comes here to be a climax and something greater. The storm passes over the man. What then? After the storm has passed, he is not only alive, but he is standing upright. It has not killed him. No, it has not even shaken him. His feet are as firm as ever they were, and just because that is a smaller thing, it is a greater thing for the deliverance to have accomplished than the other. How did David get to this confidence? Why, he prayed himself into it. If you will read the psalm, you will see very clearly the process by which a man comes to that serene, triumphant trust that the battle is won even whilst it is raging around him. The true answer to Davids prayer was the immediate access of confidence unshaken, though the outward answer was a long time in coming, and years lay between him and the cessation of his persecutions and troubles. So we may have brooks by the way, in quiet confidence of deliverance ere yet the deliverance comes.
II. The impulse to service which deliverance brings. That I may walk before God in the light of the living; that is Gods purpose in all His deliverances, that we may thereby be impelled to trustful and grateful service. And David makes that purpose into a vow, for the words might almost as well be translated, I will walk before Him. Let us see to it that Gods purpose is our resolve, and that we do not lose the good of any of the troubles or discipline through which He passes us; for the worst of all sorrows is a wasted sorrow. Thou hast delivered my feet that I may walk. What are feet for? Walking! Further, notice the precise force of that phrase, that I may walk before God. It is not altogether the same as the cognate one which is used about Enoch, that he walked with God. The one expresses communion as with a friend; the other, the ordering of ones life before His eye, and in the consciousness of His presence as Judge and as Taskmaster. Think of what a regiment of soldiers on parade does as each file passes in front of the saluting point where the commanding officer is standing. How each man dresses up, and they pull themselves together, keeping step, sloping their rifles slightly. We are not on parade, but about business a great deal more serious than that. We are doing our fighting with the Captain looking at us, and that should be a stimulus, a joy, and not a terror. Realize Gods eye watching you, and sin, and meanness, and negligence, and selfishness, and sensuality, and lust, and passion, and all the other devils that are in us will vanish like ghosts at cockcrow.
III. The region in which that observance of the divine eye is to be carried on. In the light of the living. That seems to correspond to the first clause of his hope; just as the previous word that I have been commenting upon, walking before Him, corresponds to the second, where he speaks about his feet. Thou hast delivered my soul from death . . . I will walk before Thee in the light of the living–where Thou dost still permit my delivered soul to be. And the phrase seems to mean the sunshine of human life contrasted with the darkness of Sheol. Our brightest light is the radiance from the face of God whom we try to love and serve, and the psalmists confidence is that a life of observance of His commandments in which gratitude for deliverance is the impelling motive to continual realization of His presence, and an accordant life, will be a bright and sunny career. You will live in the sunshine if you live before His face, and however wintry the world may be, it will be like clear, frosty day. There is no frost in the sky, it does not go above the atmosphere, and high above, in serene and wondrous blue, is the blaze of the sunshine. And such a life will be a guided life. There will still remain many occasions for doubt in the region of belief, and for perplexity as to duty. There will often be need for patient and earnest thought as to both, and there will be no lack of calls for strenuous effort of our best faculties in order to apprehend what our Guide means us to do, and where He would have us go, but through it all there will be the guiding hand. As the Master, with perhaps a glance backward to these words, said, He that followeth Me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life. If He is in the light let us walk in the light, and to us it will be purity, and knowledge and joy. (A. Maclaren, D. D.)
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Psa 57:1-11
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 13. Thou hast delivered my soul from death] My life from the grave, and my soul from endless perdition.
My feet from falling] Thou hast preserved me from taking any false way, and keepest me steady in my godly course; and so supportest me that I may continue to walk before thee in the light of the living, ever avoiding that which is evil, and moving towards that which is good; letting my light shine before men, that they may see my good works, and glorify my Father which is in heaven. To walk before God is to please him; the light of the living signifies the whole course of human life, with all its comforts and advantages.
ANALYSIS OF THE FIFTY-SIXTH PSALM
David, in banishment among the Philistines, and being then in great danger of his life, complains, and professes his confidence in God.
The contents of this Psalm are the following: –
I. David’s prayer, Ps 56:1; Ps 56:7-8.
II. The cause; the fear of his enemies, whom he describes, Ps 56:1-2; Ps 56:5-6.
III. His confidence in God’s word, Ps 56:3-4; Ps 56:9-11.
IV. His thankfulness, Ps 56:4; Ps 56:10; Ps 56:12-13.
I. He begins with a prayer for mercy. Little was he likely to find from man; from his God he expected it; and therefore he prays: “Be merciful unto me, O God.”
II. And then presently he subjoins the cause; the danger he was in by his bloody and cruel enemies, whom he begins to describe: –
1. From their insatiable rapacity. Like a wolf they would swallow me up. Enemies at home and abroad would swallow me up.
2. From the time. Daily they would do it; without intermission.
3. From their number: “Many there be that fight against me.”
Of these he gives us a farther description in the fifth and sixth verses: –
1. From their incessant malice: “Every day they wrest my words. All their thoughts are against me for evil.”
2. From their secret treachery, craft, and vigilance: “They gather themselves together, they hide themselves;” their counsels lying, as it were, in ambush for me. “They mark my steps.” Go where I will, they are at my heels.
3. From their implacable hatred; nothing could satisfy them but his blood: “They lay wait for my soul.”
In the very midst of this complaint, he inserts his courage and confidence.
1. “What time I am afraid, I will trust in thee.”
2. “I will not fear.” He rises higher: even when he fears, he will not fear. His word, his promise, is passed to me for protection; and I will trust in it: “In God will I praise his word; in God have I put my trust, I will not fear what flesh, (for the proudest, the mightiest enemy I have, is but flesh, and all flesh is grass,) I will not then fear what flesh can do unto me.”
This reason he repeats again, Ps 56:10-11.
1. “In God I will praise his word; in the Lord I will praise his word.”
2. “In God have I put my trust, I will not fear what man can do to me.”
III. And this, his confidence, he quickens and animates, –
1. From his assurance that God would punish and bring down his enemies: “Shall they escape for their iniquity?” No, no; “in thine anger thou wilt cast them down.”
2. From his assurance of God’s tutelage, and paternal eye over him in all his dangers, griefs, complaints, petitions, and banishment.
Men think God does not meddle with little things: he knew otherwise.
1. “Thou tellest,” and hast upon account, “my wanderings;” my flights, exile.
2. “Thou puttest my tears into thy bottle; ” preservest them as rich wine.
3. Thou keepest a record for them: “Are they not in thy book?”
4. Thou puttest my enemies to flight: “When I cry unto thee, then I know mine enemies shall be turned back; for God is with me.”
IV. And therefore, at last, he concludes with thanks, to which he holds himself bound by vow.
1. “Thy vows are upon me:” I owe thee thanks by vow, and I will pay them. “I will render praises unto thee.”
2. The reason is, “For thou hast delivered my soul from death.”
3. Thou wilt deliver me: “Wilt not thou deliver my feet from falling?”
4. The end is, “That I may walk before God in the light of the living.” That I may live awhile, and walk as before thy eye; as in thy sight, uprightly, sincerely, and prosperously. That in me men may behold how powerfully thou hast saved both my body and soul.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
From death; which my enemies designed, and my extreme dangers threatened. I am confident that thou wilt deliver, because of thy promises, and my former experience.
That I may walk before God, i.e. that I may please, and serve, and glorify thee, as this phrase implies, Gen 5:24, compared with Heb 11:5, as also Gen 6:9; 17:1; 1Sa 2:30; which is the great end for which I desire life.
In the light of the living: either,
1. In heaven. Or rather,
2. In this life, which is here opposed to the death last mentioned, as it is Job 33:30, which is called light, Job 3:20, as death is called darkness, Job 10:21,22, and oft elsewhere, and which is expressed by beholding the light and the sun, Ecc 11:7.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
13. The question implies anaffirmative answer, drawn from past experience.
fallingas from aprecipice.
before Godin His favorduring life.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
For thou hast delivered my soul from death,…. From imminent danger of death, when in the hands of the Philistines; not that the soul can die; that is immortal; but he means his person, on which account he determines to render praise to God: moreover, this may include the deliverance of his soul from a moral or spiritual death, in which he was by nature, being conceived in sin, and shapen in iniquity; from which he was delivered by regenerating grace, when he was quickened, who before was dead in trespasses and sins; and so delivered, as that this death should no more come upon him; the grace of God in him being a well of living water, springing up unto eternal life: and it may also be understood of deliverance from eternal death, by Christ, who has redeemed his people from the curse of the law, and delivered them from wrath to come; so that they shall never be hurt of the second death; that shall have no power over them; but they shall have eternal life; all which is matter of praise and thanksgiving;
[wilt] not [thou deliver] my feet from falling? that is, “thou wilt deliver” them; for this way of speaking strongly affirms; or “hast thou not delivered [them]?” e thou hast; and wilt still deliver, or keep from falling. The people of God are subject to falling; God is the only keeper of them; and they have reason to believe that he will keep them from a final and total filling away; because of the great love which he has for them, the gracious promises of preservation he has made unto them, and his power, which is engaged in keeping of them; and because they are put into the hands of Christ, who is able to keep them, and who has an interest in them, and an affection for them; and because of the glory of all, the three divine Persons concerned in the saints’ preservation; and this is another reason for rendering praises unto the Lord; the end of which follows;
that I may walk before God in the light of the living; to “walk before God” is to walk as in his sight, who sees and knows all hearts, thoughts, words, and actions; with great circumspection, and caution, and watchfulness; to walk according to the word and will of God, in all his ways, commands, and ordinances; and so the Arabic version, “that I may do the will of the Lord”; and so as to please him, as Enoch did, who walked with him, and whose walking with him is interpreted by pleasing him, Heb 11:5; agreeably to which the Septuagint, Vulgate Latin, Syriac, and Ethiopic versions, render the words, “that I may please before the Lord”; or do what is acceptable in his sight. Moreover, to walk before the Lord is to walk in the light of his countenance, to have his presence, enjoy his favour, and be blessed with communion with him. “In the light of the living?” that is, to walk as an enlightened and quickened person, as the children of the light; and to walk in the light of the Gospel, and as becomes that; and to walk in Christ the light, and by faith on him; and such shall have “the light of life”, Joh 8:12; a phrase the same with this here; and designs the light of the heavenly glory, and of the New Jerusalem church state, in which the nations of them that are saved shall walk,
Re 21:23. Some Jewish f writers interpret this of paradise.
e “An non eripuisti?” Piscator, Gejerus; “nonne liberasti?” Michaelis. f Yalkut Simeoni, par. 2. fol. 108. 3. Targum in Psal. lvii. 2.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
13. For thou hast delivered my soul from death This confirms the truth of the remark which I have already made, that he considered his life as received from the hands of God, his destruction having been inevitable but for the miraculous preservation which he had experienced. To remove all doubt upon that subject, he speaks of having been preserved, not simply from the treachery, the malice, or the violence of his enemies, but from death itself. And the other form of expression which he employs conveys the same meaning, when he adds, that God had kept him back with his hand when he was on the eve of rushing headlong into destruction. Some translate מדחי, middechi, from falling; but the word denotes here a violent impulse. Contemplating the greatness of his danger, he considers his escape as nothing less than miraculous. It is our duty, when rescued from any peril, to retain in our recollection the circumstances of it, and all which rendered it peculiarly formidable. During the time that we are exposed to it, we are apt to err through an excessive apprehension; but when it is over, we too readily forget both our fears and the Divine goodness manifested in our deliverance. To walk in the light of the living means nothing else than to enjoy the vital light of the sun. The words, before God, which are interjected in the verse, point to the difference between the righteous, who make God the great aim of their life, and the wicked, who wander from the right path and turn their back upon God.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
(13) Wilt thou not deliver?Better, hast thou not delivered?
From falling.Literally, front a thrust.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
13. Thou hast delivered The perfect tense of the verb refers to events past, as in Psa 116:8. Upon deliverances already experienced he strengthens himself in God for the future.
Light of the living Opposed to the darkness of sheol, or region of the dead. But with prolonged natural life the divine favour, or spiritual life, must be connected, according to the common form of Old Testament speech, in making the temporal and visible the sign and pledge of the spiritual and eternal.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Psa 56:13. That I may walk before God in the light of the living i.e. “Serve God, whilst I enjoy the common light of mankind; or during the whole of my future life.”
REFLECTIONS.1st, The arms of Divine mercy are ever open to the miserable; thither therefore David flees.
1. He complains of his enemies. They designed nothing less than his utter ruin. Their attacks were restless and incessant; too numerous, as well as mighty, for him to contend with. Note; (1.) A child of God must ever expect to meet the enmity of a world which lieth in wickedness. (2.) Every eye is upon the steps of the godly, with eagerness waiting for their halting, every ear ready to catch their words, and artful to misrepresent them to their prejudice: let them take the greater heed to their ways. (3.) The tempter and accuser of the brethren is ceaseless in his snares; and the more abundantly need we watch and pray, that we enter not into temptation. (4.) However divided wicked men are among themselves, they can ever cordially unite to oppose and oppress the faithful followers of Jesus.
2. In his trouble, David directs his prayer to God. Be merciful unto me; could he obtain that petition, the malice of his foes should not be able to prevail. Note; We have no demand on God for aught; our only plea is for mercy through the Redeemer, and that includes all that we can wish or need.
3. He encourages his heart in God. Fearful he sometimes was; but he has a never-failing resource, even the Most High. His word would comfort, his power protect him: on this rock therefore his confidence fixes, and thence defies the impotent enmity of man. Note; (1.) Faith is then most needful, when the storm of temptation is highest. (2.) Trials drive the faithful bearer to God, as the tree shaken by the wind takes firmer and deeper root.
4. He expresses his confidence of the approaching ruin of the wicked. Shall they escape by iniquity? no: though they promise themselves impunity, and think they are so great and above controul, yet God will not suffer them to go unpunished. Note; None are too great for God to humble; none so secure or daring, but he will make them feel his arm.
2nd, Though the world frowns, if God smiles, we may well be comforted. Thus was the Psalmist in the midst of his trials.
1. He had confidence of God’s notice and kind compassions towards him in his distress: not a weary step he took, but the Lord watched over it; not a tear he dropped, but, as precious, it was preserved in God’s bottle. Note; (1.) The tears of God’s people here below have often cause to flow; shortly they shall be for ever wiped away from their eyes. (2.) Not a tear drops from the eye of his afflicted ones, but the Father of mercies regards and remembers it. (3.) They who have caused the griefs of God’s suffering saints will shortly find every tear that they have drawn productive of a deluge of wrath upon their own heads.
2. He was assured that God would hear his cry, and help him. However mighty or numerous his foes, God was for him, and therefore the victory secure. Note; Whatever enemies without beset, or within war against us, the prayer of faith is all-prevailing, and every believer knows it by experience.
3. He repeats with exultation the profession that he had before made. No fear shall distress him; faith shall strengthen him, not only to pray, but praise. Note; They who have God for them, may well contemn the impotent threats of man, who is a worm.
4. He had vowed, and would pay the bounden sacrifices of praise. Past mercies demanded that grateful tribute, and future ones, which he expected, would still increase his obligation. In deaths oft, he had been hitherto preserved; and shall not the same power and grace protect him still? Note; (1.) Every christian has vows upon him; baptismal, sacramental; let them be often and solemnly remembered, to quicken us to our bounden duty of praise and holiness. (2.) Our souls by sin are now spiritually dead, and liable to eternal death; it is a deliverance, indeed, deserving of our everlasting acknowledgement, if by his Son God hath redeemed and by his Spirit hath quickened us; then we may well rejoice in hope of partaking his eternal glory among the saints in light. (3.) We walk in a slippery path, our tottering footsteps weak, and often thrust at that we should fall; if amid such danger we are preserved, not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but unto thy name be the praise.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
REFLECTIONS
How blessed it is to read the Michtams of David with an eye to Christ. They are golden things indeed, when they become the medium of opening to our view the Lord as our surety; and when they bring home to our souls the tokens of his love and undertaking for his people. Yes! blessed Lord, thou wert indeed all this, and infinitely more, as set forth in this Psalm, when thou hadst engaged in those suretyship engagements for thy people. How exposed to the malice of men! how persecuted by the wrath of hell! and how sustaining, the just desert of our sins from the righteous judgment of God! But oh! thou heavenly Redeemer, how precious were thy tears in the sight of God! How were they all counted and marked down. And most assuredly, blessed God, all must again be accounted for; and thy people remembered and saved by virtue of thy complete redemption-work, when the enemies of our God and of his Christ come to be recompensed for their deadly opposition to thee, and to thy righteous cause.
Help me, gracious Lord, in thy strength to be strong, and in thy righteousness to make my boast. Let men oppose, let devils rage, and all the enemies of thy great salvation threaten. The Lord is my strength and my shield, my heart trusteth in him, and I am helped. I shall still walk before my God in the land of the living; and by and by, in and through Jesus, I shall walk before God forever and ever.
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Psa 56:13 For thou hast delivered my soul from death: [wilt] not [thou deliver] my feet from falling, that I may walk before God in the light of the living?
Ver. 13. For thou hast delivered my soul from death ] Which was the very thing I begged of thee when I was at worst, viz. that thou wouldest save my life, which then lay at stake; I also then solemnly took upon me such and such engagements, which lie upon me as so many debts, and I am in pain till I have paid them. This if I shall do effectually,
Wilt not thou deliver my feet from falling
That I may walk before God in the light of the living?
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Psalms
A SONG OF DELIVERANCE
Psa 56:13
According to the ancient Jewish tradition preserved in the superscription of this psalm, it was written at the lowest ebb of David’s fortunes, ‘when the Philistines took him in Gath,’ and as you may remember, he saved himself by adding the fox’s hide to the lion’s skin, and by pretending to be an idiot, degraded as well as delivered himself. Yet immediately after, if we accept the date given by the superscription, the triumphant confidence and devout hope of this psalm animated his mind. How unlike the true man was to what he appeared to be to Achish and his Philistines! It is strange that the inside and the outside should correspond so badly; but yet, thank God! it is possible. We note,
I. The deliverance realised by faith before it is accomplished in fact.
So, then, the Psalmist is so sure of the deliverance that is coming that he sings of it as past. He is still in the very thick of the trouble and the fight, and yet he says, ‘It is as good as over. Thou hast delivered.’
How does he come to that confidence? Simply because his future is God; and whoever has God for his future can turn else uncertain hopes into certain confidences, and make sure of this, that however Achish and his giant Philistines of Gath, wielding Goliath’s arms, spears like a weaver’s beam, and brazen armour, may compass him about, in the name of the Lord he will destroy them. They are all as good as dead, though they are alive and hostile at this moment. In the midst of trouble we can fling ourselves into the future, or rather draw the future into the present, and say, ‘Thou hast delivered my soul from death.’ It is safe to reckon on to-morrow when we reckon on God. We to-day have the same reasons for the same confidence; and if we will go the right way about it, we, too, may bring June’s sun into November’s fogs, and bask in the warmth of certain deliverance even when the chill mists of trouble enfold us.
But then note, too, here, the substance of this future intervention which, to the Psalmist’s quiet faith, is present:-’My soul from death,’ and after that he says, ‘My feet from falling,’ which looks very like an anticlimax and bathos. But yet, just because to deliver the feet from falling is so much smaller a thing than delivering a life from death, it comes here to be a climax and something greater. The storm passes over the man. What then? After the storm has passed, he is not only alive, but he is standing upright. It has not killed him. No, it has not even shaken him. His feet are as firm as ever they were, and just because that is a smaller thing, it is a greater thing for the deliverance to have accomplished than the other. God does not deliver by halves; He does not leave the delivered man maimed, or thrown down, though living.
Remember, too, the expansion of the text in the psalm to which I have already referred, one of a much later date, which by quoting these words really comments upon them. The later Psalmist adds a clause. ‘Mine eyes from tears,’ and we may follow on in the same direction, and note the three spheres in which the later poet hymns the delivering hand of God as spiritualising for us all our deeper Christian experience. ‘Thou hast delivered my soul from death,’ in that great redemption by which the Son has died that we may never know either the intensest bitterness of physical death, or the true death of which it is the shadow and the emblem. ‘Thou hast delivered mine eyes from tears’; God wipes away tears here, even before we come to the time when He wipes away all tears from off all faces, and no eyes are delivered from tears, except eyes that have looked through tears to God. ‘And my feet from falling’-redeeming grace which saves the soul; comforting grace which lightens sorrow; upholding grace which keeps us from sins-these are the elements of what God has done for us all, if our poor feeble trust has rested on Him.
How did David get to this confidence? Why, he prayed himself into it. If you will read the psalm, you will see very clearly the process by which a man comes to that serene, triumphant trust that the battle is won even whilst it is raging around him. The previous portion of the psalm falls into two parts, on which I need only make this one remark, that in both we have first of all an obvious disquieting fact, and then a flash of victorious confidence. Let me just read a word or two to you. The Psalmist begins in a very minor key. ‘Be merciful unto me, O God! for man would swallow me up’-that is Achish and his Philistines. ‘He fighting daily oppresseth me; mine enemies daily would swallow me up.’ He reiterates the same thought with the dreary monotony of sorrow, ‘for there be many that fight against me, O Thou most High!’ But swiftly his note changes into ‘What time I am afraid I will trust in Thee. In God I will praise His word’; that is to say, His promise of deliverance, ‘in God I have put my trust.’ He has climbed to the height, but only for a moment, for down he drops again, and begins anew the old miserable complaint. The sorrow is too clinging to be cast off at one struggle. It has been dammed out for the moment, but the flood rushes too heavily, and away goes the dam, and back pours the black water. ‘Every day they wrest my words; all their thoughts are against me for evil.’ And he goes on longer on his depressing key this second time than he did the first, but he rises above it once more in the same fashion, and the refrain with which he had closed the first part of the psalm closes the second. ‘In God will I praise His word; in the Lord will I praise His word.’ Now he has won the height and keeps it, and breaks into a paean of victory in words of the text.
That is to say, pray yourselves into confidence, and if it does not come at first, pray again. If the consolation seems to glide away, even whilst you are laying hold of it, grasp it once more, and close your fingers more tightly on it. Do not be afraid of going down into the depths a second time, but be sure that you try to rise out of them at the same point as before, by grasping the assurance that in God, in His strength, and by His grace, you will be able to set your seal to the truth of His great promise. Thus will you rise to this confidence which calleth things that are not as though they were, and brings the to-morrow that is sure to dawn with all its brightness and serenity into the turbulent, tempestuous, and clouded atmosphere of to-day. We shall one day escape from all that burdens, and tries, and tasks us; and until then this blessed assurance, the fruit of prayer, is like the food that the ravens brought to the prophet in the ravine, or the bread and water that the angel awoke him to partake of when he was faint in the wilderness. The true answer to David’s prayer was the immediate access of confidence unshaken, though the outward answer was a long time in coming, and years lay between him and the cessation of his persecutions and troubles. So we may have brooks by the way, in quiet confidence of deliverance ere yet the deliverance comes. Then note,
II. The impulse to service which deliverance brings.
‘Thou hast delivered my feet that I may walk.’ What are feet for? Walking. Further, notice the precise force of that phrase, ‘that I may walk before God .’ It is not altogether the same as the cognate one which is used about Enoch, that ‘he walked with God.’ That expresses communion as with a friend; this, the ordering of one’s life before His eye, and in the consciousness of His presence as Judge and as Taskmaster. So you find the expression used in almost the only other occasion where it occurs in the Old Testament, where God says to Abraham, ‘Walk before Me, and’-because thou dost order thy life in the consciousness that I am looking at thee-’be thou perfect.’ So, to walk before God is to live even in all the distracting activities of daily life, with the clear realisation, and the continued thought burning in our minds that we are doing them all in His presence. Think of what a regiment of soldiers on parade does as each file passes in front of the saluting point where the commanding officer is standing. How each man dresses up, and they pull themselves together, keeping step, sloping their rifles rightly. We are not on parade, but about business a great deal more serious than that. We are doing our fighting with the Captain looking at us, and that should be a stimulus, a joy and not a terror. Realise God’s eye watching you, and sin, and meanness, and negligence, and selfishness, and sensuality, and lust, and passion, and all the other devils that are in you will vanish like ghosts at cockcrow. ‘Walk before Me,’ and if you feel that I am beside you, you cannot sin. ‘Walk before Me, and be thou perfect.’ Notice,
III. The region in which that observance of the divine eye is to be carried on.
The expression is varied in the 116th Psalm, which reads ‘the land of the living.’ The really living are they who live in Jesus, and the real light of the living is the sunshine that streams on those who thus live, because they live in Him who not only pours His light upon their hearts, but, by pouring it, turns themselves into ‘light in the Lord.’ We, too, may have the brightness of His face irradiating our faces and illuminating our paths, as with the beneficence of a better sunshine. The Psalmist points us the way thus to walk in light. He vows that, because his heart is full of the great mercies of his delivering God, he will order all his active life as under the consciousness of God’s eye upon him, and then it will all be lightened as by a burst of sunshine. Our brightest light is the radiance from the face of God whom we try to love and serve, and the Psalmist’s confidence is that a life of observance of His commandments in which gratitude for deliverance is the impelling motive to continual realisation of His presence, and an accordant life, will be a bright and sunny career. You will live in the sunshine if you live before His face, and however wintry the world may be, it will be like a clear frosty day. There is no frost in the sky, it does not go above the atmosphere, and high above, in serene and wondrous blue, is the blaze of the sunshine. Such a life will be a guided life. There will still remain many occasions for doubt in the region of belief, and for perplexity as to duty. There will often be need for patient and earnest thought as to both, and there will be no lack of calls for strenuous effort of our best faculties in order to apprehend what our Guide means us to do, and where He would have us go, but through it all there will be the guiding hand. As the Master, with perhaps a glance backwards to these words, said, ‘He that followeth Me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life.’ If He is in the light let us walk in the light, and to us it will be purity and knowledge and joy.
Fuente: Expositions Of Holy Scripture by Alexander MacLaren
delivered = plucked.
“Wilt not thou . . . ? Figure of Speech. Erotesis. App-6.
In the light of the living = in resurrection life. Hence the title “Michtam”. Compare Psalm 16, and other Michtam Psalms. See also: Job 33:30; and Psa 116:8, Psa 116:9; where it is “land of the living”.
To the chief Musician. See App-64.
Al-taschith = Destroy not. See App-65. The words of David in 1Sa 26:9. 2Sa 24:16, 2Sa 24:17. Same word as in 2Sa 1:14. Isa 65:8. Compare 1Ch 21:12, 1Ch 21:15.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
For: Psa 86:12, Psa 86:13, Psa 116:8, 2Co 1:10, 1Th 1:10, Heb 2:15, Jam 5:20
wilt: Psa 17:5, Psa 94:18, Psa 145:14, 1Sa 2:9
walk: Psa 116:9, Gen 17:1, Isa 2:5, Isa 38:3
the light: Job 33:30, Joh 8:12, Joh 12:35, Joh 12:36, Eph 5:8-14, Rev 21:23, Rev 21:24
Reciprocal: Gen 5:22 – General Num 21:2 – vowed Psa 9:13 – thou Psa 27:13 – in the Psa 30:3 – brought Psa 49:15 – God Psa 49:19 – never Psa 103:4 – redeemeth Psa 107:20 – delivered Psa 119:134 – General Psa 142:5 – in the land Ecc 11:7 – the light 1Jo 1:7 – If we
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
56:13 For thou hast delivered my soul from death: [wilt] not [thou deliver] my feet from falling, that I may {i} walk before God in the {k} light of the living?
(i) As mindful of his great mercies, and giving thanks for the same.
(k) That is, in the life and light of the sun.