Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Psalms 71:6
By thee have I been holden up from the womb: thou art he that took me out of my mother’s bowels: my praise [shall be] continually of thee.
By thee have I been holden up from the womb – From the beginning of my existence. The idea in all this is, that, since God had sustained him from his earliest years – since he had shown his power in keeping him, and manifested his care for him, there was ground to pray that God would keep him still, and that he would guard him as old age came on. The sentiment in this verse is substantially the same as in Psa 22:9-10. See the notes at that passage.
My praise shall be continually of thee – My praise shall ascend to thee constantly. I will not cease to praise thee. Compare the notes at Psa 22:25.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Psa 71:6
By Thee have I been holden up from the womb.
God the Creator, Preserver, and Governor of the world
I. Our birth and being are owing to God, as the original cause of them.
II. It is His providence which sustains, preserves, and holds up our goings in life. Even if the materials of our being had, in themselves, a self-subsisting power, yet the form of them by which we are men, by which we are creatures of such a species, this, we know, is liable to various contingencies, and obnoxious to many fatal alterations. Wherefore, as we derive our birth and being from the wisdom and power of our great Creator, so, if we were not nursed up by the care and goodness of His paternal providence, the brittle and tender threads of life had probably long since been broken in us, and we had consequently returned to the dust from whence we were taken.
III. There is a providential direction and disposal of such events as concern us. If we would attend to Gods dealings with us, every man, I doubt not, might find his own experience attesting the truth and fact of this directing, overruling, superintending providence. Conclusion.
1. If God be our Creator, Preserver, and Governor, then we can nowhere fix our dependence so properly, nowhere with such security and safety, as upon His infinite goodness, wisdom, and power.
2. To render this persuasion of our dependence on God more practical, we are not only to recognize His majesty and power in thought and in word, but in deed and in truth.
3. If we owe our life and being to God, as the original cause and donor of them, let His demands upon us to resign them find us in the posture of a ready obedience. (N. Marshall, D. D.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
From the womb, i.e. from the time when I came out of the womb.
My mothers bowels, i.e. out of her womb; which he justly mentions as a great and wonderful, though a common and neglected, work of Gods power and goodness.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
6-9. His history from earlyinfancy illustrated God’s care, and his wonderful deliverances wereat once occasions of praise and ground of confidence for the future.
my praise . . . oftheeliterally, “in” or “by Thee” (Ps22:25).
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
By thee have I been holden up from the womb,…. Supported in being, upheld in life, and sustained with food and raiment, and followed with the mercies and blessings of life from thence to this present moment; which the psalmist takes notice of, as he does of what goes before and follows after, to encourage his faith and hope in God as to present deliverance;
thou art he that took me out of my mother’s bowels;
[See comments on Ps 22:9]; the Syriac version is, “thou art my hope from my mother’s bowels”; the Arabic version, “thou art my helper”; and the Septuagint and Vulgate Latin versions, “thou art my protector”; the word is only used here, and in Ps 90:10; and is there rendered “cut off”; the Lord was, as it were, his “cutter off” t; that cut the navel string, and loosed him from his mother, and safely brought him into the world, and preserved him ever since: wherefore he adds,
my praise [shall be] continually of thee; as the God of nature and providence; and also as the God of grace, who had blessed him both with temporal and spiritual blessings; and these being continued with him, he determines that God should be the subject of his praise always. The Targum is,
“in thy Word my praise is continually.”
t “excisor meus”, Gejerus.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
6. Upon thee have I been sustained from the womb. This verse corresponds with the preceding, except that David proceeds farther. He not only celebrates the goodness of God which he had experienced from his childhood, but also those proofs of it which he had received previous to his birth. An almost similar confession is contained in Psa 22:9, by which is magnified the wonderful power and inestimable goodness of God in the generation of men, the way and manner of which would be altogether incredible, were it not a fact with which we are quite familiar. If we are astonished at that part of the history of the flood, in which Moses declares (Gen 8:13) that Noah and his household lived ten months amidst the offensive nuisance produced by so many living creatures, when he could not draw the breath of life, have we not equal reason to marvel that the infant, shut up within its mother’s womb, can live in such a condition as would suffocate the strongest man in half an hour? But we thus see how little account we make of the miracles which God works, in consequence of our familiarity with them. The Spirit, therefore, justly rebukes this ingratitude, by commending to our consideration this memorable instance of the grace of God, which is exhibited in our birth and generation. When we are born into the world, although the mother do her office, and the midwife may be present with her, and many others may lend their help, yet did not God, putting, so to speak, his hand under us, receive us into his bosom, what would become of us? and what hope would there be of the continuance of our life? Yea, rather, were it not for this, our very birth would be an entrance into a thousand deaths. God, therefore, is with the highest propriety said to take us out of our mother’s bowels To this corresponds the concluding part of the verse, My praise is continually of thee; by which the Psalmist means that he had been furnished with matter for praising God without intermission.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
(6) Took me out.Comp. Psa. 22:10. The Hebrew is not the same, but the Authorised Version renders by the same word, treating it as a transitive participle of a word that elsewhere only means to go through, a doubtful expedient. The LXX. (and Vulg.) have protector, , which is probably an error for (following Psa. 22:10, ), which would support the rendering, he that severed me, a rendering for other reasons probable.
This allusion to birth and retrospect of life from the earliest infancy, is not unsuitable to Israel personified as an individual, or rather it suits both the individual and the community of which he is the mouthpiece. So it has often been in application treated as an epitome of the history of the Christian Church.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
6. By thee have I been holden up from the womb From the birth, or since the birth. The tender care of God for him had been like that of a mother, holding up and carrying the child from the moment of birth.
Thou art he that took me out of my mother’s bowels He has already retrospected God’s care from youth to manhood, and from earliest childhood to youth. He now delicately traces back the divine tenderness during all his unconscious life until the act itself of birth. Psa 139:15-16. After his life-long and life-giving tenderness and care, can God now forsake him in old age?
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Psa 71:6 By thee have I been holden up from the womb: thou art he that took me out of my mother’s bowels: my praise [shall be] continually of thee.
Ver. 6. By thee have I been holden up from the womb ] As in the womb I lived upon thee, so from the womb. The same that breedeth us feedeth us; that matter that nourisheth the child in the womb striking up into the breasts, and by a further concoction becoming white, is made milk for it.
Thou art he that took me out of my mother’s bowels] Else I had never been born alive. That a child is born, fieri videmus, saith Galen, sed quomodo fiat, admirari tantum possumus. Avicenna calleth it, Opus supra mirabilia omnia mirabile, the greatest wonder in the world. Surely, if a child were born but once in a hundred years’ time, we should all run to see so strange a work, saith another.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
from the womb. Compare Jer 1:5. Some have supposed that this Psalm was written by Jeremiah. See note on Psa 71:22. But even then it points to Christ.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
By thee: Psa 22:9, Psa 22:10, Pro 8:17, Isa 46:3, Isa 46:4, Jer 3:4
thou art: Psa 139:15, Psa 139:16, Psa 145:1, Psa 145:2, Isa 49:1, Isa 49:5, Jer 1:5, Luk 1:31, Luk 1:32, Gal 1:15
my praise: Psa 71:14, Psa 34:1, Eph 5:20
Reciprocal: 1Sa 7:12 – Hitherto Job 3:11 – when I came Psa 27:9 – thou Psa 119:117 – Hold Psa 138:8 – forsake Psa 139:13 – covered me Isa 44:2 – formed Isa 44:24 – and he