Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Psalms 60:11
Give us help from trouble: for vain [is] the help of man.
11. Give us help from trouble ] Or, as R.V., Give us help against the adversary. Cp. Psa 60:12.
for vain is the help of man ] Lit. salvation. It is a delusion (cp. Psa 33:17) to look to human strength for victory. See Psa 44:6-7; 1Sa 17:47; Jer 17:5; and cp. Jdg 7:4; Jdg 7:7; 1Sa 14:6 ; 2Ch 14:11; 1Ma 3:16 ff.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Give us help from trouble – From the troubles which have now come upon us and overwhelmed us.
For vain is the help of man – Margin, salvation. The idea is, that they would look in vain to man to assist them in their present difficulties. They must depend on God alone. What is here said of temporal troubles is true as absolutely in the matter of salvation. When we are burdened with the consciousness of guilt, and trembling under the apprehension of the wrath to come, it is not man that can aid us. Our help is in God alone. Man can neither guide, comfort, pardon, nor save; and in vain should we look to any man, or to all people, for aid. We must look to God alone: to God as the only one who can remove guilt from the soul; who can give peace to the troubled heart; who can deliver us – from condemnation and ruin.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Psa 60:11
Give us help from trouble: for vain is the help of man.
Help in God in all times of trouble
If a man had a long and perilous journey to take, in which he would be exposed to many difficulties and great dangers, would he not most thankfully receive from any one the kind offer of direction and assistance, that he might perform it with success and security? The life of man is such a journey, during which he is exposed to many difficulties and dangers.
I. In the world we must expect tribulation. As fallen creatures, we are constantly liable to infirmities, affliction, and disappointment.
II. Vain is the help of man. Man may not have the ability nor the inclination to help us in our worldly troubles. Man may not feel for our misery, nor be disposed to aid us in our distress. He may promise us his assistance, and yes desert us in the very time of need. Vain is the help of man. Man may endeavour to help; but it is so feeble, as to be of no real service. God, and God alone, can remove the burden, or support us under it.
III. How is this help to be obtained? By humble, fervent, and believing prayer. Give us help in trouble, for vain is the help of man. It is freely bestowed in Christ Jesus to all that need it and seek it of God in humble and fervent prayer. (C. Davy.)
The common in human life
I. A common human condition. Trouble. He has, almost from birth to death, to walk in the midst of trouble–troubles personal and social, material and spiritual–troubles of body, troubles of intellect, troubles of conscience.
1. Those that are spiritually pernicious–tending only to intensify the rebellion of the soul, harden the conscience, etc.
2. Those that are spiritually beneficent. To all regenerate and Christly men troubles are morally disciplinary (Heb 12:11).
II. A common human instinct. Give us help from trouble. Man in great trouble instinctively cries to the Supreme for help. Even irrational creatures seem to shriek for help in trouble. Tyndall says of the hare, when the greyhound is almost upon her, that she abandons hope through her own efforts, and screams convulsively into space for help. Mans instinct is of a higher kind. The space into which he cries in trial is not empty. He sees a God in it. This instinct is as deep as the soul and as wide as humanity. It is developed by saint, by savage, and by sage.
1. This instinct implies a constitutional, an ineradicable belief in the existence, personality, accessibleness and entreatability of a God.
2. This instinct shows that prayer is not against the laws of nature, but one with it. As sure as the sun will rise, men will pray.
III. A common human experience. Vain is the help of man.
1. He cannot give an effective deliverance from trouble. That which makes anguish is the state of the soul–disordered affections, guilt of conscience, moral regrets, and dark forebodings. Unless these are removed the troubles remain.
2. He cannot give a permanent deliverance from trouble. Whatever alleviation he may afford to the sufferer, it can be only temporary. Let our prayer therefore be, Give us help from trouble; for vain is the help of man. (Homilist.)
.
Psa 61:1-8
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 11. Give us help from trouble: for vain is the help of man.] We have done all we can do, and have trusted too much in ourselves; now, Lord, undertake for us.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
Though I have some reputation for valour and conduct, and though my people are very numerous, and now united under me, yet all this will avail little or nothing without thy almighty help.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
11, 12. Hence he closes with aprayer for success, and an assurance of a hearing.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
Give us help from trouble,…. To have trouble is the common lot of all men, but especially of the people of God. They have some troubles which others have not, arising from indwelling sin, Satan’s temptations, and the hidings of God’s face; and as for outward troubles, they have generally the greatest share of them, which are certain to them by the appointment of God, and the legacy of Christ; though they are needful and for their good, and lie in their way to heaven. But perhaps here is particularly meant the time of trouble, which will be a little before the destruction of antichrist; which will be great, and none like it; will be the time of Jacob’s trouble, though he shall be saved out of it, Jer 30:7. This will be the time of the slaying of the witnesses, the hour of temptation, that will try the inhabitants of the Christian world; and when the saints, as they do in all their times of trouble, will seek to the Lord for help, in whom it is, and who has promised it, and gives it seasonably, and which is owing wholly to his own grace and goodness; and therefore it is asked that he would “give” it;
for vain [is] the help of man: or “the salvation of man” w; man himself is a vain thing; vanity itself, yea, lighter than vanity; even man at his best state, and the greatest among men; and therefore it is a vain thing to expect help and salvation from men, for indeed there is none in them; only in the Lord God is the salvation of his people, both temporal and spiritual.
w “salus hominis”, V. L. Pagninus, Montanus, &c.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
11 Give us help from trouble: for vain is the help of man. Again he reverts to the exercise of prayer, or rather is led to it naturally by the very confidence of hope, which we have seen that he entertained. He expresses his conviction, that should God extend his help, it would be sufficient of itself, although no assistance should be received from any other quarter. Literally it reads, Give us help from trouble, and vain is the help of man “O God,” as if he had said, “when pleased to put forth thy might, thou needest none to help thee; and when, therefore, once assured of an interest in thy favor, there is no reason why we should desire the aid of man. All other resources of a worldly nature vanish before the brightness of thy power.” The copulative in the verse, however, has been generally resolved into the causal particle, and I have not scrupled to follow the common practice. It were well if the sentiment expressed were effectually engraven upon our hearts. Why is it almost universally the case with men that they are either staggered in their resolution, or buoy themselves up with confidences, vain, because not derived from God, but just because they have no apprehension of that salvation which he can extend, which is of itself sufficient, and without which, any earthly succor is entirely ineffectual? In contrasting the help of God with that of man, he employs language not strictly correct, for, in reality, there is no such thing as a power in man to deliver at all. But, in our ignorance, we conceive as if there were various kinds of help in the world, and he uses the word in accommodation to our false ideas. God, in accomplishing our preservation, may use the agency of man, but he reserves it to himself, as his peculiar prerogative, to deliver, and will not suffer them to rob him of his glory. The deliverance which comes to us in this manner through human agency must properly be ascribed to God. All that David meant to assert is, that such confidences as are not derived from God are worthless and vain. And to confirm this position, he declares in the last verse of the psalm, that as, on the one hand, we can do nothing without him, so, on the other, we can do all things by his help. Two things are implied in the expression, through God we shall do valiantly; (400) first, that if God withdraw his favor, any supposed strength which is in man will soon fail; and, on the other hand, that those whose sufficiency is derived from God only are armed with courage to overcome every difficulty. To show that it is no mere half credit which he gives God, he adds, in words which ascribe the whole work to him, that it is he who shall tread down our enemies Thus, even in our controversy with creatures like ourselves, we are not at liberty to share the honor of success with God; and must it not be accounted greater sacrilege still when men set free will in opposition to divine grace, and speak of their concurring equally with God in the matter of procuring eternal salvation? Those who arrogate the least fraction of strength to themselves apart from God, only ruin themselves through their own pride.
(400) Street supposes that this psalm was composed before the battle of Helam, which is recorded in 1Ch 19:16, where David beat the Syrians of Mesopotamia and the Syrians of Zobah; and, farther, that this psalm might have been sung by the armies of Israel when they were marching out to that battle, triumphantly commemorating their former victories, and avowing their hopes of gaining another by the help of the Almighty. On this verse he observes: “it was a constant practice among the bravest nations of the Greeks, for the troops to advance to battle chanting some kind of song.” And, after quoting some lines which were sung by the Spartan soldiery, he adds, “The Grecian poet avails himself of the love of glory, and the ties of domestic affection, to animate his troops; but the Hebrew makes use of the more powerful stimulus of religious enthusiasm.”
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
Psa 60:11 Give us help from trouble: for vain [is] the help of man.
Ver. 11. Give us help from trouble ] Give it us whensoever we need it; as hitherto thou very graciously hast done.
For vain is the help of man
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
help from trouble = succor out of trouble.
help of man = salvation or deliverance of man. Compare “save”, Psa 60:5.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
Give: Psa 25:22, Psa 130:8
vain: Psa 108:12, Psa 124:1-3, Psa 146:3, Isa 30:7, Isa 31:3
help: Heb. salvation, Psa 62:1
Reciprocal: 2Ki 6:27 – whence Psa 20:1 – hear Isa 33:2 – our salvation
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Psa 60:11-12. Give us help from trouble Do not frustrate these hopes, but afford us thy help against the Syrians also 2Sa 8:5, who now distress us; for vain is the help of man No human force is able to deliver us; nor have we any confidence in it, but in thee alone. Observe well, reader, then only are we qualified to receive help from God, when we are brought to own the insufficiency of all creatures to do that for us which we expect him to do. Through God we shall do valiantly Through his help we shall behave ourselves courageously, and do valiant acts; for he it is that shall tread down our enemies And not we ourselves. Though we do ever so valiantly, the success must be attributed entirely to him. All our victories, as well as our valour, are from him, and therefore at his feet all our crowns must be laid. Observe again, reader, as it is only through God, and by the influence of his grace, that we can, at any time, do valiantly; as it is he that puts strength into us, and inspires us, who of ourselves are weak and timorous, with true courage and resolution; so confidence in him is the best principle, and chief means of this courage and fortitude. But we must remember this confidence must be so far from superseding, that it must encourage and quicken our endeavours in the way of duty. For though it is God that performeth all things for us, and worketh in us to will and to do, yet we must be workers together with him.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
David acknowledged that victory had to come from God. The Israelites could not obtain it without His help. However, with His aid, they could and would overcome valiantly. [Note: See Allen, Rediscovering Prophecy, pp. 108-28.]
Both victory and defeat come from God. Consequently, believers should look to Him in both situations, and should rely on His supernatural strength and His covenant promises for success against their enemies.