Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Psalms 86:1
A Prayer of David. Bow down thine ear, O LORD hear me: for I [am] poor and needy.
1. Bow down &c.] A common form of invocation. Cp. Psa 17:6; Psa 31:1; Isa 37:17; &c. hear me ] Answer me (Psa 55:2).
for I am poor and needy ] Or, afflicted and needy: and therefore one of those whom God has specially promised to help (Psa 12:5). From Psa 40:17 (= Psa 70:5): cp. Psa 109:22.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
1 5. A series of petitions, each supported by the ground on which the Psalmist pleads for a hearing.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Bow down thine ear, O Lord, hear me – See the notes at Psa 5:1.
For I am poor and needy – This is the reason here assigned why God should hear him. It is not a plea of merit. It is not that there was any claim on God in the fact that he was a poor and needy man – a sinner helpless and dependent, or that it would be any injustice if God should not hear, for a sinner has no claim to favor; but it is that this was a condition in which the aid of God was needed, and in which it was proper or appropriate for God to hear prayer, and to render help. We may always make our helplessness, our weakness, our poverty, our need, a ground of appeal to God; not as a claim of justice, but as a case in which he will glorify himself by a gracious interposition. It is also to be remarked that it is a matter of unspeakable thankfulness that the poor and needy may call upon God; that they will be as welcome as any class of people; that there is no condition of poverty and want so low that we are debarred from the privilege of approaching One who has infinite resources, and who is as willing to help as he is able.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Psa 86:1-17
Bow down Thine ear, O Lord, hear me: for I am poor and needy.
Man and the great God
I. Man in a variety of aspects.
1. What every man is. Poor and needy. Morally this is the case with every man. He is poor (Rev 3:17). And needy. What does he need? Knowledge, pardon, purity, power.
2. What every man requires. Be merciful unto me, O Lord. The wages of sin is death. He must throw himself on mercy; mercy is his only ground of hope.
3. What every man should be.
(1) Pious. For I am holy.
(2) Trustful That trusteth in Thee. He is infinitely trustworthy.
(3) Incessantly prayerful I cry unto Thee daily, or all the day. We should pray without ceasing. True prayer is not a service but a spirit.
4. What every man should believe. For Thou, Lord, art good, etc.
(1) God is essentially good–the primal font of all goodness.
(2) Forgivingly good. Ready to forgive. Many men esteemed good have not sufficient goodness in them to forgive. Forgiving goodness is goodness in its highest manifestation.
(3) Abundantly good. Plenteous in mercy, etc. No sinner need despair.
5. What every man should do.
(1) He should seek a knowledge of the Divine will, in order to obey it. Teach me Thy way, etc. Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do? This should be the great question in every mans life.
(2) He should strive for unity of heart, in order to praise God for evermore. Unite my heart, etc.
II. God in a variety of aspects.
1. He is infinitely incomparable.
(1) Incomparable in being. Among the gods there is none like unto thee, O Lord. Angels that excel in strength, etc. But what are they to God?
(2) Incomparable in works. Neither are there any works like unto Thy works.
2. He is universally attractive. All nations whom Thou hast made shall come and worship, etc. Glorious prediction this.
3. He is transcendently great. For Thou art great, etc. (Isa 44:6). All nations before Him are as nothing.
4. He is unspeakably kind (Psa 86:15). (Homilist.)
A pattern of prayer
Earnest reiteration is not vain repetition. Christ used many repetitions, as does the psalmist. This is a pattern of prayer in its invocations, petitions and pleas.
I. The invocations. The appeals to the Divine Name.
1. The significance of invocation, not a mere formality, but the basis of all prayer.
(1) Names expressing certain aspects of Divine character.
(2) The use we make of these names.
(a) Thought. We think of God under this aspect.
(b) Confidence. We avow our faith in Him.
(c) Appeal. We remind God of what He has declared Himself to be.
2. The invocations in this prayer. Note the frequent and varied use of the Divine names. These are made the ground of confidence.
(1) Jehovah–a name with two-fold meaning.
(a) The word itself. Eternal, underived existence.
(b) Its history. The seal of the covenant, i.e. the eternal God entering into covenant relations with man.
(2) My God.
(a) God implies fulness of power.
(b) My God. The Godhead appropriated, i.e. Almighty strength, claimed by human need.
(3) Lord, not here meaning Jehovah, but the God of authority and dominion.
II. The petitions–a progress in thought and desire.
1. The introductory petition.
(1) Loving regard. Bow down Thine ear.
(2) A mighty answer. Hearing means answering.
2. Deliverance under a three-fold aspect.
(1) Protection–preserve my soul.
(2) Safety.
(3) Mercy. The source of both. The first two emphasize the psalmists peril. The last his unworthiness. No word as to the manner of deliverance. He leaves all that to God.
3. The crowning blessing. Gladness as the result of all these. Rejoice the soul of Thy servant.
III. The pleas. The arguments of prayer. The reasons why God should bless.
1. Mans necessities. I am poor and needy.
(1) Circumstances borne down by outward calamity.
(2) Character, destitute of inward resources. These constitute a prevailing plea with God.
2. Mans relations and desires towards God.
(1) Divine favour. I am holy. I am favoured by God.
(2) Possession. Thy servant. The Lord cares for the slave.
(3) Confidence. That trusteth in Thee.
(4) Supplication. I cry unto Thee daily.
(5) Aspiration. Unto Thee do I lift up my soul.
3. Gods own character. For Thou, Lord, art good and ready to forgive. This the mightiest plea of all. We can add to these pleas the name of Christ. (A. Maclaren, D. D.)
Assurances that God will hear prayer
The most of these supplications may be found in other parts of Scripture as promises from God. Only so far as an articulate Divine word carries my faith has my faith right to go. In the crooked alleys of Venice, there is a thin thread of red stone, inlaid in the pavement or wall, which guides through all the devious turnings to the Piazza in the centre where the great church stands. As long as we have the red line of promise on the path, faith may follow it, and it will come to the Temple. Where the line stops it is presumption and not faith that takes up the running. Gods promises are sunbeams flung down upon us. True prayer catches them on its mirror, and signals them back to God. We are emboldened to say, Bow down Thine ear, because He hath said, I will hear. We are encouraged to cry, Be merciful, because we have our foot upon the promise that He will be. (A. Maclaren, D. D.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
PSALM LXXXVI
The psalmist prays to God for support, from a conviction that
he is merciful, good, ready to forgive, and that there is none
like him, 1-8;
all nations shall bow before him because of his wondrous works,
9, 10;
he prays to be instructed, and promises to praise God for his
great mercy, 11-13;
describes his enemies, and appeals to God, 14-16;
begs a token for God, that his enemies may be confounded, 17.
NOTES ON PSALM LXXXVI
The title attributes this Psalm to David; and in this all the Versions agree: but in its structure it is the same with those attributed to the sons of Korah; and was probably made during the captivity. It is a very suitable prayer for a person labouring under affliction from persecution or calumny.
Verse 1. Bow down thine ear] Spoken after the manner of men: I am so low, and so weak, that, unless thou stoop to me, my voice cannot reach thee.
Poor and needy.] I am afflicted, and destitute of the necessaries of life.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
Forsaken and persecuted by men, and utterly unable to save myself, and therefore a very proper object for thy power and goodness to work upon.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
1, 2. poor and needyasuffering child of God, as in Psa 10:12;Psa 10:17; Psa 18:27.
I am holyor, “godly,”as in Psa 4:3; Psa 85:8.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
Bow down thine ear, O Lord, hear me,…. This is spoken of God after the manner of men, who, when they listen and attentively hearken to what is said to them, stoop and bow the head, and incline the ear; and it denotes condescension in the Lord, who humbles himself as to look upon men, so to bow down the ear and hearken to them: this favour is granted to the saints, to whom he is a God hearing and answering prayer, and which Christ, as man and Mediator, enjoyed; see Heb 5:7,
for I am poor and needy; weak and feeble, destitute and distressed, and so wanted help and assistance; and which carries in it an argument or reason enforcing the above petition; for the Lord has a regard to the poor and needy; see Ps 6:2. This may be understood literally, it being the common case of the people of God, who are generally the poor and needy of this world, whom God chooses, calls, and makes his own; and so was David when he fled from Saul, being often in want of temporal mercies, as appears by his application to Ahimelech and Nabal for food; and having nothing, as Kimchi observes, to support him, but what his friends, and the men of Judah, privately helped him to; and the character well agrees with Christ, whose case this was; see 2Co 8:9. Moreover, it may be taken in a spiritual sense; all men are poor and needy, though not sensible of it; good men are poor in spirit, are sensible of their spiritual poverty, and apply to the Lord, and to the throne of his grace, for the supply of their need; and such an one was David, even when he was king of Israel, as well as at this time, Ps 40:17, and may be applied to Christ; especially when destitute of his Father’s gracious presence, and was forsaken by him and all his friends, Mt 27:46.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
The prayer to be heard runs like Psa 55:3; and the statement of the ground on which it is based, Psa 86:1, word for word like Ps 40:18. It is then particularly expressed as a prayer for preservation ( , as in Psa 119:167, although imperative, to be read shamerah ; cf. Psa 30:4 , Psa 38:21 or , and what we have already observed on Psa 16:1 ); for he is not only in need of God’s help, but also because (Psa 4:4; Psa 16:10), i.e., united to Him in the bond of affection ( , Hos 6:4; Jer 2:2), not unworthy of it. In Psa 86:2 we hear the strains of Psa 25:20; Psa 31:7; in Psa 86:3, of Psa 57:2.: the confirmation in Psa 86:4 is taken verbally from Psa 25:1, cf. also Psa 130:6. Here, what is said in Psa 86:4 of this shorter Adonajic Psalm, Psa 130:1-8, is abbreviated in the . (root , , to allow to hang loose, , to give up, remittere ). The Lord is good ( ), i.e., altogether love, and for this very reason also ready to forgive, and great and rich in mercy for all who call upon Him as such. The beginning of the following group also accords with Psa 130:1-8 in Psa 86:2.
Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament
| Humble Petitions. | |
A Prayer of David.
1 Bow down thine ear, O LORD, hear me: for I am poor and needy. 2 Preserve my soul; for I am holy: O thou my God, save thy servant that trusteth in thee. 3 Be merciful unto me, O Lord: for I cry unto thee daily. 4 Rejoice the soul of thy servant: for unto thee, O Lord, do I lift up my soul. 5 For thou, Lord, art good, and ready to forgive; and plenteous in mercy unto all them that call upon thee. 6 Give ear, O LORD, unto my prayer; and attend to the voice of my supplications. 7 In the day of my trouble I will call upon thee: for thou wilt answer me.
This psalm was published under the title of a prayer of David; not as if David sung all his prayers, but into some of his songs he inserted prayers; for a psalm will admit the expressions of any pious and devout affections. But it is observable how very plain the language of this psalm is, and how little there is in it of poetic flights or figures, in comparison with some other psalms; for the flourishes of wit are not the proper ornaments of prayer. Now here we may observe,
I. The petitions he puts up to God. It is true, prayer accidentally may preach, but it is most fit that (as it is in this prayer) every passage should be directed to God, for such is the nature of prayer as it is here described (v. 4): Unto thee, O Lord! do I lift up my soul, as he had said Ps. xxv. 1. In all the parts of prayer the soul must ascend upon the wings of faith and holy desire, and be lifted up to God, to meet the communications of his grace, and in an expectation raised very high of great things from him. 1. He begs that God would give a gracious audience to his prayers (v. 1): Bow down thy ear, O Lord! hear me. When God hears our prayers it is fitly said that he bows down his ear to them, for it is admirable condescension in God that he is pleased to take notice of such mean creatures as we are and such defective prayers as ours are. He repeats this again (v. 6): “Give ear, O Lord! unto my prayer, a favourable ear, though it be whispered, though it be stammered; attend to the voice of my supplications.” Not that God needs to have his affection stirred up by any thing that we can say; but thus we must express our desire of his favour. The Son of David spoke it with assurance and pleasure (Joh 11:41; Joh 11:42), Father, I thank thee that thou hast heard me; and I know that thou hearest me always. 2. He begs that God would take him under his special protection, and so be the author of his salvation (v. 2): Preserve my soul; save thy servant. It was David’s soul that was God’s servant; for those only serve God acceptably that serve him with their spirits. David’s concern is about his soul; if we understand it of his natural life, it teaches us that the best self-preservation is to commit ourselves to God’s keeping and by faith and prayer to make our Creator our preserver. But it may be understood of his spiritual life, the life of the soul as distinct from the body: “Preserve my soul from that one evil and dangerous thing to souls, even from sin; preserve my soul, and so save me.” All those whom God will save he preserves, and will preserve them to his heavenly kingdom. 3. He begs that God would look upon him with an eye of pity and compassion (v. 3): Be merciful to me, O Lord! It is mercy in God to pardon our sins and to help us out of our distresses; both these are included in this prayer, God be merciful to me. “Men show no mercy; we ourselves deserve no mercy, but, Lord, for mercy-sake, be merciful unto me.” 4. He begs that God would fill him with inward comfort (v. 4): Rejoice the soul of thy servant. It is God only that can put gladness into the heart and make the soul to rejoice, and then, and not till then, the joy is full; and, as it is the duty of those who are God’s servants to serve him with gladness, so it is their privilege to be filled with joy and peace in believing, and they may in faith pray, not only that God will preserve their souls, but that he will rejoice their souls, and the joy of the Lord will be their strength. Observe, When he prays, Rejoice my soul, he adds, For unto thee do I lift up my soul. Then we may expect comfort from God when we take care to keep up our communion with God: prayer is the nurse of spiritual joy.
II. The pleas with which he enforces these petitions. 1. He pleads his relation to God and interest in him: “Thou art my God, to whom I have devoted myself, and on whom I depend, and I am thy servant (v. 2), in subjection to thee, and therefore looking for protection from thee.” 2. He pleads his distress: “Hear me, for I am poor and needy, therefore I want thy help, therefore none else will hear me.” God is the poor man’s King, whose glory it is to save the souls of the needy; those who are poor in spirit, who see themselves empty and necessitous, are most welcome to the God of all grace. 3. He pleads God’s good will towards all that seek him (v. 5): “To thee do I lift up my soul in desire and expectation; for thou, Lord, art good;” and whither should beggars go but to the door of the good house-keeper? The goodness of God’s nature is a great encouragement to us in all our addresses to him. His goodness appears in two things, giving and forgiving. (1.) He is a sin-pardoning God; not only he can forgive, but he is ready to forgive, more ready to forgive than we are to repent. I said, I will confess, and thou forgavest, Ps. xxxii. 5. (2.) He is a prayer-hearing God; he is plenteous in mercy, very full, and very free, both rich and liberal unto all those that call upon him; he has wherewithal to supply all their needs and is openhanded in granting that supply. 4. He pleads God’s good work in himself, by which he had qualified him for the tokens of his favour. Three things were wrought in him by divine grace, which he looked upon as earnests of all good:– (1.) A conformity to God (v. 2): I am holy, therefore preserve my soul; for those whom the Spirit sanctifies he will preserve. He does not say this in pride and vain glory, but with humble thankfulness to God. I am one whom thou favourest (so the margin reads it), whom thou hast set apart for thyself. If God has begun a good work of grace in us, we must own that the time was a time of love. Then was I in his eyes as one that found favour, and whom God hath taken into his favour he will take under his protection. All his saints are in thy hand, Deut. xxxiii. 3. Observe, I am needy (v. 1), yet I am holy (v. 2), holy and yet needy, poor in the world, but rich in faith. Those who preserve their purity in their greatest poverty may assure themselves that God will preserve their comforts, will preserve their souls. (2.) A confidence in God: Save thy servant that trusteth in thee. Those that are holy must nevertheless not trust in themselves, nor in their own righteousness, but only in God and his grace. Those that trust in God may expect salvation from him. (3.) A disposition to communion with God. He hopes God will answer his prayers, because he had inclined him to pray. [1.] To be constant in prayer: I cry unto thee daily, and all the day, v. 3. It is thus our duty to pray always, without ceasing, and to continue instant in prayer; and then we may hope to have our prayers heard which we make in the time of trouble, if we have made conscience of the duty at other times, at all times. It is comfortable if an affliction finds the wheels of prayer a-going, and that hey are not then to be set a-going. [2.] To be inward with God in prayer, to lift up his soul to him, v. 4. Then we may hope that God will meet us with his mercies, when we in our prayers send forth our souls as it were to meet him. [3.] To be in a special manner earnest with God in prayer when he was in affliction (v. 7): “In the day of my trouble, whatever others do, I will call upon thee, and commit my case to thee, for thou wilt hear and answer me, and I shall not seek in vain, as those did who cried, O Baal! hear us; but there was no voice, nor any that regarded,” 1 Kings xviii. 29.
Fuente: Matthew Henry’s Whole Bible Commentary
Psalms 86
A Petition In Need
Scripture v. 1-17:
This is a prayer of David, believed to have been offered in a time of Absalom’s revolt. ft is a prayer throughout, not a meditation.
Verses 1, 2 entreat “bow down thine ear, O Lord, hear (heed) me; For I am poor and needy,” or afflicted and wretched, an object of pity, to move a God of mercy; He added, “preserve my soul, for I am holy (one whom thou favorest), the anointed King of Israel.” On this ground he pled, “O thou my God, save thy servant that (continually) trusteth in thee,” Psa 16:10. He represented the Holy One of God, Act 2:27; Mar 1:24; Heb 5:7.
Verses 3, 4 continue, “be merciful unto me, O Lord, for unto thee do I lift up my soul,” in supplication, as an helpless child reaches out in pleading tears to a father or mother, a prayer God will not deny, Psa 145:18-19; Isa 55:6-7; Rom 10:13; Psa 25:1.
Verse 5 adds “for thou, O Lord, (Hob. adonai, caring master, used seven times in this psalm) art good (ideal) and ready to forgive, and plenteous in mercy unto all them that call upon thee,” Psa 130:7; Psa 145:9; Joe 2:13.
Verse 6 pleads “give ear, O Lord, unto my prayer; and attend to the voice of my supplication (continual pleading),” Luk 18:1; 1Th 5:7.
Verse 7 confides “in the day (time) of my trouble (deep trouble) I will call upon thee (in faith), for thou wilt answer me,” based on both God’s promises and David’s past experiences, Psa 40:1-3; Deu 4:7; 2Ch 7:12-16.
Verse 8 declared that, “among the gods there is (exists) none like unto (compared with) thee O Lord or master; neither are there any works (of supernatural or miraculous nature) like unto thy works,” as certified, illustrated, Exo 15:11; Deu 3:24; 1Ki 8:23; Psa 89:6.
Verse 9 further declares “all nations shall come and worship before thee, O Lord, and shall glorify (magnify) thy name,” attribute great honor and majesty to thy name, Isa 43:7; Zep 2:11; Zec 3:5-7; Rev 15:4.
Verse 10 affirms that the Lord god is great and repeatedly, continuously, does wonders, as the living God alone can do, Deu 6:4; Deu 32:39; Isa 37:16; Isa 44:6; Mar 12:29; 1Co 8:4; Eph 4:6.
Verse 11 Is a Davidic plea for God to teach His ways and unite (give him a single heart of love) with the pledge to fear His name and walk in His truth, Psa 27:11, as the Lord had called him to do, Ecc 12:13-14; Jas 1:22.
Verses 12, 13 pledge also to praise and glorify the Lord with all his heart, as bidden by the Lord, because of His great mercy in delivering his soul from the lowest hell, or hell beneath, from both the grave and eternal hell, Job 33:18; Job 33:22; Job 33:24; Psa 56:13; Psa 88:6; Psa 116:8; Isa 33:17; Jon 2:3; 1Th 1:10.
Verses 14, 15 appeal to God to note that the proud, arrogant, and defiant have risen up to defy Him, and the assembly of violent men had sought to destroy the life of His anointed servant David. He added that “you, O Lord are a living God full of: 1) Compassion, 2) gracious, 3) longsuffering, and 4) plenteous in mercy and truth, as repeatedly taught in the word, Exo 34:6; Neh 9:17; Psa 145:8; Joe 2:13; Mic 7:18; Rom 5:20; Eph 1:7.
Verses 16, 17 conclude with an appeal for the Lord to turn hastily to rescue him in mercy, give him strength as His servant, and save the son of His handmaid, Israel. He asked the Lord to show him a visible token for good before the eyes of his enemies, even Absalom, that they might be ashamed. All this he dared to ask because the Lord had come to his help and comforted him in the past, Psa 40:1-5; Php_4:19; Pro 3:3-5.
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
1. Incline thy ear, O Jehovah! Neither the inscription nor the contents of this psalm enable us to conclude with certainty what dangers David here complains of; but the psalm in all probability refers to that period of his life when he was persecuted by Saul, and describes the train of thought which then occupied his mind, although it may not have been written until after his restoration to a state of outward peace and tranquillity, when he enjoyed greater leisure. He does not without cause allege before God the oppressions which he endured as a plea for obtaining the divine favor; for nothing is more suitable to the nature of God than to succor the afflicted: and the more severely any one is oppressed, and the more destitute he is of the resources of human aid, the more inclined is God graciously to help him. That despair therefore may not overwhelm our minds under our greatest afflictions, let us support ourselves from the consideration that the Holy Spirit has dictated this prayer for the poor and the afflicted.
Fuente: Calvin’s Complete Commentary
INTRODUCTION
Superscription.A Prayer of David. Although this Psalm is not placed with the great body of Davids Psalms (170), there is no sufficient ground for disputing his authorship of it.
Occasion.Barnes says, The occasion on which it was composed is unknown, but it has been commonly supposed that it was written in the time of the persecution under Saul. But the opinion of Hengstenberg, that it was written during the dangers to which David was exposed by reason of the rebellion of Absalom, seems to us better supported by the evidence which the Psalm itself affords. Amid the dangers to which he is now exposed, the Psalmist calls to mind for his encouragement a remarkable deliverance which God had formerly granted to him (Psa. 86:13). May it not have been that the former deliverance was from Saul, and his present danger from Absalom! Still we cannot with certainty determine the occasion of its composition.
THE GOODNESS OF GOD AN ENCOURAGEMENT TO SEEK HIM
(Psa. 86:1-5.)
The Prayer of David runs through the whole Psalm, but as the Psalm is too long and suggestive for treatment in one homily, we purpose dividing it by the grounds on which for his encouragement the Psalmist bases his prayer. Let us consider
I. The petitions of the suppliant. The Psalmist prays
1. For audience. Bow down Thine ear, O Lord, hear me. The petition seems to include
(1.) Divine condescension. Being sensible of his unworthiness of the regard of God, he prays Him to bow down His ear to his prayer.
(2.) Divine attention. Hear me. It is not a petition that God would simply hear the prayer of the Psalmist, but that He would hear him favourably, that He would hear and bless him.
2. For protection. Preserve my soul, save Thy servant. David was at this time exposed to danger, his very life was in peril; he prays that God would protect his life, and deliver him from his enemies. If God protect us we are invulnerable. Saul could not harm David, though he sought by every means in his power to do so, because the Lord was his shield. And Absalom and his rebel army were equally powerless against him, because God defended him. All the hosts of hell with their allies upon earth, even when led by their subtle and mighty prince, cannot really harm the child of God who has sought the protection of his Father.
3. For mercy. Be merciful unto me, O Lord. Implied in this petition is the conscious unworthiness of the suppliant. David seeks the protection and deliverance of God, not as a right, but as a favour. He presented to God not a claim, but a humble supplication. He addressed himself not to the Divine justice, but to the Divine mercy. Be gracious unto me, O God. In all our need it is to the mercy of the Lord we must look.
4. For joy. Rejoice the soul of Thy servant. If God should deliver His servant from danger his heart would greatly rejoice. And such were the circumstances of the Psalmist at this time that God only could deliver him from his foes and fill him with gladness. Salvation is a joyous thing. It is the Christians privilege to rejoice in the Lord alway.
II. The pleas of the suppliant. The Psalmist pleads
1. His necessity. For I am poor and needy. Oppression and poverty are the principal meanings of the words used by the Psalmist in this plea. David pleads that he was bowed down by trouble, as he asks God to bow down and hear him, and that he was necessitous, as he asks God to help him. Or we may regard his plea in this way, he was poor, i.e., without supply, he was needy, i.e., full of wants; therefore he must look away from himself, above himself for satisfaction. Mans necessity does not give him any claim upon Gods bounty. But human misery always moves Divine mercy. And when we humbly and sincerely plead our poverty with God, He will enrich us with the treasures of His grace. When I am weak, then am I strong.
2. His consecration. For I am holy. Margin: one whom Thou favourest. Hengstenberg: for I am pious. Calvin: for I am meek. Perowne: one whom Thou lovest. He was pious, not profane. He was the servant of God. Twice he pleads that fact; and as we are sure that he would not plead for I am holy in any boastful or self-righteous spirit, we conclude that his consecration to God is one of his pleas. He was the servant of God, and therefore in asking God to save him, he was asking Him to save His own. If we in the strength of grace have consecrated ourselves to God, we may plead that fact with Him in our prayers. He has never forsaken His faithful servants.
3. His confidence. Thy servant that trusteth in Thee. He has pledged Himself to save those who put their trust in Him. By trusting Him we really place our salvation in His hands. Can He fail? Is His power inadequate? His workings in nature, in human history, and in the conversion of souls proclaim it as great and wonderful as ever. Is His willingness diminished? The mountains shall depart, and the hills be removed; but My kindness shall not depart from thee, neither shall the covenant of My peace be removed, saith the Lord that hath mercy on thee. Our trust in God is a mighty plea in our prayers to Him.
4. His importunity. I cry unto Thee daily. Margin: all the day,continually. His prayer was importunate. Unto Thee, O Lord, do I lift up my soul. These words show that his prayer was earnest, hearty, sincere. He did not merely lift up his hands unto God, but he lifted up his heart also. Prayers which are characterised like this by heartiness, importunity, and faith, when presented by Gods devoted but needy servants, are certain to result in gracious replies from heaven.
III. The encouragement of the suppliant. For Thou, Lord, art good and ready to forgive; and plenteous in mercy to all them that call upon Thee. Here are
1. Goodness for man as a dependent and needy creature. Thou, Lord, art good. In Himself God is good. He is perfect in holiness and in grace. He is also good to all, and His tender mercies are over all His works. He delights in His works, and in dealing bountifully with His creatures. He, the infinitely and ever blessed God, hath assured us that it is more blessed to give than to receive; and He is the infinite Giver. Being and well-being, life and joy, He gives abundantly. Here then is encouragement to seek Him in prayer in every time of need.
2. Mercy for man as a sinful creature. Ready to forgive, and plenteous in mercy. Goodness is the disposition to communicate happiness. Mercy is a modification of goodness. Goodness is the genus, mercy the species. The fruits of goodness are enjoyed by holy and happy creatures. The fruits of mercy, by the guilty and miserable. Mercy with relation to an offender is a disposition to forgive. Mercy in reference to a sufferer is a disposition to relieve. Here then is our encouragement We are sinful and ill-deserving, but He is merciful and pardons. We are wretched, but He is merciful and succours.
3. Mercy in great abundance and dispensed freely. He is ready to forgive, and plenteous in mercy unto all them that call upon Him. With the Lord there is mercy, and with Him is plenteous redemption. He delighteth in mercy. Like Himself His mercy is inexhaustible, infinite. And it is bestowed freely unto all them that call upon Him. Ask, and ye shall receive. Unless we are prepared to receive the mercy of God as a free gift, we cannot receive it at all. Here then is encouragement to seek God in our times of need. His mercy is unspeakably greater than our sin and misery, and He waits ready to bestow it freely unto all them that call upon Him.
CONCLUSION.In the great goodness and mercy of our God there is encouragement for each and for all of us to seek Him in time of need. We are poor and needy, but the riches of His grace are unsearchable and free. We are sinful and sorrowful, but He is plenteous in mercy and ready to forgive. His love is infinite.
In Him let us trust and rejoice.
THE SUPREMACY OF GOD AN ENCOURAGEMENT TO SEEK HIM
(Psa. 86:6-10.)
In that portion of the Psalm which we have already considered the Psalmist encouraged himself by the willingness of God to help him; in this he encourages himself by the ability of God to help him. In that the goodness and mercy of God were the ground of his prayer for deliverance; in this the power and glory of God constitute that ground. Let us consider
I. The supremacy of God. The Psalmist sets forth two aspects of this supremacy. He represents God as supreme
1. In Himself. Among the gods there is none like unto Thee, O Lord. Thou art God alone. The Psalmist refers to the false deities worshipped by the heathen, and he says that none of them are like Jehovah in power and goodness. In might and majesty, in grace and glory, God is supreme. He only is God. It has been well said by Bishop Wilkins, If God be an infinitely-perfect Being, it is impossible to imagine two such beings at the same time, because they must have several perfections, or the same. If the former, neither of them can be God, because neither of them has all possible perfections. If they have both equal perfections, neither of them can be absolutely perfect, because it is not so great to have the same equal perfections in common with another, as to be superior to all others. There can be but one Supreme Being.
2. In His doings. There are no works like unto Thy works. Thou art great and doest wondrous things. Gods works in creation are wonderful in the wisdom and power which they manifest. And in His providence there had often been remarkable displays of His skill in making the designs of the enemies of His people promote their interests, and of His power in overthrowing His foes and saving them that trust in Him. All His works praise Him and proclaim His sole supremacy. But the doing of God which most encouraged the Psalmist was His hearing of prayer. Thou wilt answer me. It is the great glory of God that He who created the heavens and bringeth out their host by number, also regardeth the faint breathings of penitence and the softest whispers of prayer. He hears and attends to all the prayers that rise to Him. He is the proper object of worship everywhere alike, and at all times. This is a thought, says Dr. Wardlaw, not less pregnant with interest than it is with wonder. When you are desirous to present a petition in person to a fellow-creature, you require to leave your place, and to find your way to the nearer or more distant spot where he is. But whatever request you have to present to God, you need not move from the spot you occupy. Never. Wherever you chance to be He is there. This is true, not of you alone, but of all alike. He listens to the prayers and the praises of His people that are poured into His ear at the same instant, in every place and every language. And, at the same instant, too, He is listening to the songs of the ten thousand times ten thousand, and thousands of thousands which arise to Him around His seraph-circled throne in the heavens; and to the addresses which are offered to Him from all the worlds with which the fields of immensity are replenished. And to all these He bends His ear, with the most perfect discrimination, and at the same time with the most perfect ease, without the slightest approach to anything like difficulty or effort. And there is no mixing up of one thing with another; of any of the particulars of one case with those of another. Each case, in all its details, is as distinctly heard and recorded as if there had been no other to which to attend. In this we have a marvellous exhibition of the supremacy of God.
II. The effects of that supremacy. Two are mentioned
1. All nations shall worship God. All nations whom Thou hast made shall come and worship before Thee, O Lord; and shall glorify Thy name. The nations of the earth are represented as created by God. He hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth. All nations have a common origin. God is the Creator-Father of all men. Human brotherhood is a great fact, however man may disregard it. The king and the beggar have a common origin. The oppression of one man by another, or one class of men by another, is a crime in the sight of the common Maker of us all. The nations shall all come and worship God. All kings shall fall down before Him: all nations shall serve Him. All nations shall call Him blessed. It is thought by some that the prediction of the text was partially fulfilled in the great number of proselytes to the Jewish religion during the reigns of David and Solomon. But its complete fulfilment is certainly yet in the future. The triumphs of Christianity are spreading. A bright future is before our world and race. God is supreme over all, and the time is coming on apace when His supremacy shall be loyally and enthusiastically acknowledged by all nations.
2. The troubled soul shall trust in Him. The supremacy of God encouraged the distressed Psalmist to seek Him. Such will ever be the effect of that supremacy when it is rightly understood. God is supremely good, supremely beneficent, and, while enthroned high over all things, He stoops to listen to the feeblest prayer. He is both able and willing to succour the distressed, and help the needy, and comfort the sorrowful.
His love is as great as His power,
And knows neither measure nor end.
There is every encouragement presented to the suppliant soul in drawing near to God. Oh, ye impoverished ones, come and be enriched out of His fulness. Burdened and anxious ones, come and cast yourselves with your weight of cares upon Him who careth for you. Sinful and sorrowing ones, come in faith to God, and He will forgive your sins, and soothe or sanctify all your sorrows.
CONCLUSION.
1. Seeing that God is supreme, let us reverence Him, serve Him. Give unto the Lord the glory due unto His name; worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness.
2. Seeing that He is so compassionate to the troubled, let them seek His help and comfort. From the highest throne in glory He will listen to your cry and hasten to your help. Casting all your care upon Him, for He careth for you. Call upon Me in the day of trouble; I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify Me.
3. Seeing that there is so sure a prospect of His universal worship, let us rejoice in spirit, and hopefully pray and work for its realisation. The earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea. The kingdoms of this world shall become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of His Christ; and He shall reign for ever and ever.
THE DAY OF TROUBLE
(Psa. 86:7.)
We have here
I. A period with which all men are acquainted. The day of trouble. Trouble is a common experience amongst men in this world. We are troubled by physical infirmities, pains, and diseases; by perplexities, cares, and losses in business; by the unfaithfulness of professed friends; by the bereavements of death; by spiritual distresses and conflicts.
1. The individual character of trouble. My trouble. Our troubles often arise partly from peculiarities in our circumstances and temperament and disposition. The same events very differently affect different persons. The sorrows of no two persons are exactly alike. The heart knoweth his own bitterness. Every man must bear his own burden.
2. The limited duration of trouble. The day of my trouble. Through the mercy of God our troubles are short-lived. There is more of gladness than of gloom in the world. In the case of the great majority of persons suffering is the exception, not the rule of life. Courage, troubled heart, the day of thy trouble will soon be over, and happy months of peace shall be thine. Even if the whole of this earthly life were dark and sad it is but as a day when contrasted with the glad, and bright, and endless ruture.
II. A resolve which all men should make. I will call upon Thee. The Psalmist did not stoically endure his distresses. He was keenly sensible of their painfulness. Nor did he impiously rebel against God by reason of them. That, not to mention its sinfulness, would only have made the matter worse. But by prayer he took his trouble to God. We should do the same with ours. And we should do so humbly. It may be that our trouble is a consequence of some sin or sins of ours. Sin is the fruitful parent of suffering. Therefore we should call upon God with humble and penitent hearts. We should call upon Him submissively. While our object in seeking Him is to obtain relief from trouble, let us leave it to Him to impart that relief as He may choose. He may relieve us by removing the trouble. He may continue the trouble, but relieve us by imparting more grace to us that we may bear it. Not my will, but Thine be done.
III. A result which all men may anticipate. Thou wilt answer me. The Psalmist was confident that God would hear and answer his prayer. He that cometh to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him. Thou wilt answer me
1. Because Thou hast promised to do so. Call upon Me in the day of trouble; I will deliver thee. All things, whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive, &c. Ask, and ye shall receive, &c.
2. Because Thou hast done so. Jacob prayed, and God answered and blessed him (Genesis 32) Isaiah and Hezekiah prayed, and the Lord answered and cut off 185,000 Assyrians in one night (1 Kings 19; 1 Chronicles 29) Elias was a man subject to like passions as we are, and he prayed earnestly, &c. (Jas. 5:17-18). The early Christians prayed instantly and earnestly, and the Lord answered, and by an angel delivered Peter out of prison (Acts 12 et al). What He has done, He will do again.
3. Because of what Thou art. Thou art omniscient, and therefore knowest our need; omnipotent, and therefore canst help us; good, and plenteous in mercy, and therefore wilt take pleasure in relieving us, &c.
Trembling and troubled hearts seek the Lord in believing prayer; and He will calm and cheer, soothe and strengthen you.
THE FORMER MERCIES OF GOD AN ENCOURAGEMET TO SEEK HIM
(Psa. 86:11-17.)
In this division of the Psalm we have
I. A grateful recollection of former mercies. Great is Thy mercy toward me; and Thou hast delivered my soul from the lowest hell. The word translated hell is sheol, in the Greek Hades. Thou hast delivered my soul, or life, out of deep sheol, is a poetical way of saying that God had delivered the Psalmist out of extreme dangers or deep distresses. The allusion is very probably to the repeated and remarkable deliverances vouchsafed to David in the time when Saul persecuted him and sought his life. During that persecution there were times when David despaired of his life, feeling that it was vain to hope to escape from the cunning and strength that were put forth against him. Yet God had graciously and marvellously preserved him safely. He regarded this deliverance as a Divine mercy. He knew that he had no claim upon the protection of God. He felt that he had not deserved the great favours which God had bestowed upon him. The Christian may use these words in a spiritual sense. Great is Thy mercy toward me; and Thou hast delivered my soul from the lowest hell. When God in mercy saves a soul He saves it from sin, death, and hell. This recollection of past mercy was an encouragement to the Psalmist in his present distress. It would keep before his mind
1. Gods ability to deliver him. He had saved him in former times, therefore He, the unchangeable One, could save him now.
2. Gods willingness to save him.
His love in time past
Forbids me to think, &c.
Memories like this of the Psalmists are amongst the most helpful and precious of all our possessions.
II. An earnest prayer for deliverance from present danger. The great object of the prayer was that the Psalmist might be delivered from the enemies that were aiming at his life. O God, the proud are risen against me, and the assemblies of violent men have sought after my soul, and have not set Thee before them. Save the son of Thine handmaid. The foes from whom he sought deliverance were proud. They were men of haughty spirit and daring ambition, who would despise the welfare or the right of others if they stood in the way of the accomplishment of their projects. They were violent. They wrought out their plans by force. They were fierce and cruel, caring not what violence they used in accomplishing their ambitious designs. They were united. Hengstenberg translatesThe band of the violent. And Barnes saysThe word assembly here means merely that they were banded together; what was done was the result of a conspiracy or combination. They were irreligious. They had not set God before them. They did not fear Him, or respect His law. His threatenings they despised; His presence and observation they disregarded. What evils might not be expected from enemies such as these? From such enemies David prays for deliverance. Save the son of Thine handmaid. In his prayer be sets forth the desired deliverance
1. As a mercy. O turn unto me, and have mercy upon me. He asks that God would favourably regard him, pity him, and relieve him.
2. As a communication of Divine power. Give Thy strength unto Thy servant. He regarded his case as requiring nothing less than the strength of God to meet it. And he asks that he may be enabled to act as if he were nerved with the very power of God.
3. As found in obedience to the Divine will. Teach me Thy way, O Lord; I will walk in Thy truth; unite my heart to fear Thy name. The Psalmist felt that if deliverance were to come to him, he must be found in the way of the Divine precepts, walking with God, and serving Him with undivided heart. It cannot be too earnestly insisted upon, that, if we would be saved, we must be found walking in the way which God prescribes for us. Narrow is the way which leadeth unto life. Nor can we insist too earnestly upon the necessity of whole-heartedness in the service of God. A double-minded man is unstable in all his ways. In the Christian life and work we need fixedness of purpose and concentration of effort if we would succeed. Unite my heart to fear Thy name. This one thing I do, &c.
4. As calculated to produce a favourable impression. To the Psalmist himself his deliverance would be a token for good, a clear and unmistakable sign of the favour of God. To the enemies of the Psalmist his deliverance would be a rebuke. By it their purposes would be defeated, their schemes frustrated, and themselves humbled and shamed. Thus David prays to God for deliverance, and encourages himself in so doing, by thinking of the goodness and faithfulness of God. Having mentioned the haughtiness and violence, the unity and irreligiousness of his foes, he says, But Thou, O Lord, art a God full of compassion, and gracious, long-suffering, and plenteous in mercy and truth. The Psalmist felt that he had nothing but evil to expect from his enemies. And from so gracious a God, he, though unworthy, could expect nothing but good. (We have already looked at The goodness of God as an encouragement to seek HimPsa. 86:1-5.)
III. A devout resolution to serve God. The Psalmist resolves to serve God
1. By obedience. I will walk in Thy truth; i.e., I will conform my life to Thy will. The truth of God should not only be held by us as sentiment, or doctrine, or fact; but should also be practised by us. We should translate our creed into our conduct. We should seek not only to hold the truth, but also to live the truth; not only to know the will of God, but also to do His will. The doer of the work shall be blessed in his doing.
2. By worship. I will praise Thee, O Lord my God, with all my heart; and I will glorify Thy name for evermore. The poet resolves to worship God heartily. With all my heart. When God united his heart he would pour it all out in worship to Him. His undivided affection and adoration he would give to God. Such hearty worship is acceptable unto God. He would worship God eternallyfor evermore. While he had any being he would praise God. In time and through eternity he would glorify Him.
CONCLUSION.
1. Learn the value of sacred memories. How greatly David was encouraged by his recollections of past mercies! Such memories should be monitors, reminding us of our weakness, &c. Such memories should be inspirers, telling us of Divine strength, goodness, &c. He who does not use wisely the memories of the past is not living as he ought in the present, and is ill-furnished for the changes and trials of the future.
2. The obligations imposed by Divine mercies. Goodness calls for gratitude. New favours demand new songs. Our obligations to God are ever increasing. I will praise Thee, O Lord my God, with all my heart; and I will glorify Thy name for evermore.
THE DIVINE WAY FOR MAN
(Psa. 86:11.)
I. The Divine way for man indicated by God. Teach me Thy way, O Lord.
1. There is a Divine way in which man should walk. Thy way. The way prescribed by Him in His holy Word. The way of obedience to His precepts. The way which our Lord Jesus Christ trod.
2. God must indicate that way to man. Teach me. The original meaning of the Hebrew word is to point out, or mark the way. The way is clearly revealed in the sacred Scriptures; but mans moral perceptions are not clear, his moral judgment is warped by sin; hence his need of the direction of God. He must indicate to man the true way of human life.
II. The Divine way for man trod by man. I will walk in Thy truth. It is the way of Divine truth which God points out, and which the Psalmist resolves to walk in. To walk in Gods truth implies
1. Harmony with the truth. To walk in the truth of God signifies to be always mindful of it. Walking, in the Scripture, takes in the whole of our conversation or conduct. The whole life in accord with the Divine mind and will.
2. Progress in the truth. The Psalmist resolves to walk, not to stand, in Gods truth. Walking implies advancement. The godly soul follows on to know the Lord. We must advance in two things: in knowledge of the truth, and in practice of the truth:
III. The need of integrity of heart to tread the Divine way for man. Unite my heart to fear Thy name. We use the word integrity in its literal meaning.
1. There is a great tendency in human nature to division of heart. There are many rival claimants for our affections; and the heart itself has lost its true centre.
2. Integrity of heart is essential to enable us to tread the Divine way. A double-minded man is unstable in all his ways. Unless we are whole-hearted we shall speedily wander from the way, or faint by the way. God demands our undivided affection and our complete devotion. Only by hearty and concentrated effort can we secure the prize. One thing I do, forgetting, &c.
3. God alone can impart to us integrity of heart in the Divine way. The bias of the unrenewed heart is averse from Divine things. None but God can harmonise our powers and affections in His service. He will thus unite the hearts of all who sincerely seek Him.
Let earth no more my heart divide;
With Christ may I be crucified,
To Thee with my whole soul aspire;
Dead to the world and all its toys,
Its idle pomp and fading joys,
Be Thou alone my one desire.
C. Wesley.
Fuente: The Preacher’s Complete Homiletical Commentary Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Psalms 86
DESCRIPTIVE TITLE
Prayer of a Tried and Faithful Servant of Jehovah.
ANALYSIS
The Psalmist prays to be Heard and Answered and for his Life to be Preserved because of his Need (Psa. 86:1), his Devotion and Trust (Psa. 86:2), his Pleading (Psa. 86:3-4), Adonais Goodness (Psa. 86:5-6), and Incomparable Character and Doings (Psa. 86:8); which are So Great that All Nations will Come and Worship (Psa. 86:9-10). Pleading for Guidance, he Promises Praise (Psa. 86:11-12) and Bethinks him of a Past Rescue of His Life (Psa. 86:13), which (life) seems to be Again in Danger from Insolent Foes (Psa. 86:14): in view of whom he Pleads the Character of Jehovah as set forth in THE REFRAIN of the Bible (Psa. 86:15). He prays for Favour, Strength and Salvation, in view of his own Devotion and that of his Mother (Psa. 86:16); asking for Such a Token as shall Shame his Enemies (Psa. 86:17).
(Lm.) PrayerBy David.
1
Incline Jehovah thine ear, answer me;
for humbled and needy am I.[202]
[202] Cp. Psa. 40:17, Psa. 70:5, Psa. 109:22 : all ascribed, To David.
2
Oh guard thou my life,[203] for a man of kindness[204] am I,
[203] U.: soul.
[204] Heb. hasidh=receiving and reflecting kindness. One whom thou lovestKp., Per.; GodlyDr., Del.; PiousBr., Leeser, P.B.; Devoted to theeCarter. N.B., no psalmist elsewhere makes this claim. Cp. Intro, Chap. III., Kindness.
save thy servant thou my Godwho turneth his trust unto thee.
3
Shew me favour Sovereign Lord,[205]
[205] Heb. adonai; and sorendered Sovereign Lordseven times in this psalm; Jehovah occurs four times. But here some cod. (w. 5 ear. pr. edns.): thee JehovahGn.
for unto thee do I cry all the day:
4
Rejoice the soul of thy servant,
for unto thee Sovereign Lord my soul do I lift.
5
For thou Sovereign Lord[206] art good and ready to pardon,
[206] Some cod.: thou JehovahGn.
and abundant in kindness to all who cry unto thee.
6
O give ear Jehovah unto my prayer,
and oh attend unto the voice of my supplications.
7
In my day of distress I cry unto thee,
surely thou wilt answer me.
8
There is none like unto thee among messengers divine[207] Sovereign Lord,
[207] Or: gods. But see Psa. 8:5. Heb. elohim.
and there are none like thy works.[208]
[208] Or: doings.
9
All nations which thou hast made
will come in and bow down before thee Sovereign Lord,[209]
[209] Cp. Psa. 22:27.
and give glory to thy name;
10
For great art thou and a doer of wondrous things,
thou art God alone.
11
Shew me Jehovah thy way, I would walk in thy truth:
let my heart rejoice[210] to revere thy name:
[210] So it shd. be (w. Sep., Syr., Vul.)Gn. Cp. O.G. 402. M.T.: Unite my heart: i.e., concentrate its energies. But Sep., Syr., with other vowels, have, Let my heart rejoiceDr.
12
I would thank thee Sovereign Lord my God with all my heart,
and would fain glorify thy name to the ages.
13
For thy kindness is great over me,
and thou hast rescued my soul from the lower hades.[211]
[211] The lowest part of the interior of the earthDel. The nether SheolDr. The nethermost SheolKp.
14
O God, insolent men have risen up against me,
and a congregation of ruthless men[212] have sought my soul,[213]
[212] Cp. Psa. 54:3.
[213] Or: life; but the word is nephesh, as in Psa. 86:13.
and have not set thee before them.
15
But thou Sovereign Lord art a God compassionate and gracious,
slow to anger and abundant in kindness and truth.[214]
[214] Cp. Exo. 34:6-7. The Refrain of the BibleEmp. Bible.
16
Turn thou unto me and be gracious unto me:
oh give thy strength unto thy servant,
and oh bring salvation to the son of thy handmaid.[215]
[215] Cp. Psa. 116:16.
17
Work with me a token[216] for good,
[216] Or: sign.
that they who hate me may see and be put to shame,
in that thou Jehovah hast helped me and consoled me.
(CMm.) For the sons of korah.[217]
[217] Intro., Chap. II., 3.
PARAPHRASE
Psalms 86
Bend down and hear my prayer, O Lord, and answer me, for I am deep in trouble.
2 Protect me from death, for I try to follow all Your laws. Save me, for I am serving You and trusting You.
3 Be merciful, O Lord, for I am looking up to You in constant hope.
4 Give me happiness, O Lord, for I worship only You.
5 O Lord, You are so good and kind, so ready to forgive; so full of mercy for all who ask Your aid.
6 Listen closely to my prayer, O God. Hear my urgent cry.
7 I will call to You whenever trouble strikes, and You will help me.
8 Where among the heathen gods is there a God like You? Where are their miracles?
9 All the nationsand You made each onewill come and bow before You, Lord, and praise Your great and holy name.
10 For You are great, and do great miracles. You alone are God.
11 Tell me where You want me to go and I will go there. May every fiber of my being unite in reverence to Your name.
12 With all my heart I will praise You. I will give glory to Your name forever,
13 For You love me so much! And You are constantly so kind! And You have rescued me from deepest hell.
14 O God, proud and insolent men defy me; violent, godless men are trying to kill me.
15 But You are merciful and gentle, Lord, slow in getting angry, full of constant lovingkindness and of truth;
16 So look down in pity and grant strength to Your servant and save me.
17 Send me a sign of Your favor. When those who hate me see it they will lose face because You help and comfort me.
EXPOSITION
By the general consent of critics, this psalm is composite to such a degree as nearly to resolve itself into a mosaic, consisting of extracts from other scriptures; yet even this psalm is not without a significance and beauty of its ownDel. The psalmist is in a situation bearing considerable resemblance to that of David when persecuted by Saul. In other respects his position is like that of Hezekiah. The psalm is peculiar in having in it no fewer than seven occurrences of the Divine name Adonai, here rendered Sovereign Lord (as in Psa. 8:1; Psa. 8:9). It is notably distinguished by containing a prophecy of the gathering of all nations to worship. Although it takes note of mortal perils past and to come, there is a complete absence from it of pleadings for vengeance: the worst thing this wronged saint desires for his enemies is that they may be put to shame.
QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION
1.
Please notice the number of references to other psalms: twenty psalms are laid under contribution in the formation of this psalmalso references from Exodus, Deuteronomy, Isaiah, and Jeremiah. This is a prayer. What does it teach us as to the wording of our prayers?
2.
Consider this prayer as divided into four parts; (1) Psa. 86:1-5; (2) Psa. 86:6-10; (3) Psa. 86:11-13; (4) Psa. 86:15-17. Each is a petition: following the petition is a reason for answer based on a tribute of God. Find them and incorporate them into life and prayer.
3.
This prayer is full of the Lord; He is mentioned 16 times. It is also full of the psalmist or Davidhe mentions himself 35 times. How shall we reconcile this thought?
4.
Unite my heart to fear thy name(Psa. 86:11). What a tragic loss is a divided heart. The heart is: will, conscience, emotions and intellect.
Fuente: College Press Bible Study Textbook Series
1. Poor With the adsignification of lowly, poor in spirit, as Zec 9:9; Psa 9:12; Mat 5:3.
Needy Afflicted. Humility and suffering appeal to the mercy of God.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Psalms 86
Psa 86:9 All nations whom thou hast made shall come and worship before thee, O Lord; and shall glorify thy name.
Psa 86:9
Fuente: Everett’s Study Notes on the Holy Scriptures
David’s Prayer in the Midst of Persecution.
v. 1. Bow down Thine ear, v. 2. Preserve my soul, v. 3. Be merciful unto me, O Lord, v. 4. Rejoice the soul of Thy servant, v. 5. For Thou, Lord, art good, and ready to forgive, v. 6. Give ear, O Lord, unto my prayer, v. 7. In the day of my trouble I will call upon Thee, v. 8. Among the gods, v. 9. All nations whom Thou hast made shall come and worship before Thee, O Lord, v. 10. For Thou art great and doest wondrous things, v. 11. Teach me Thy way, O Lord, v. 12. I will praise Thee, O Lord, my God, v. 13. For great is Thy mercy, v. 14. O God, the proud, v. 15. But Thou, O Lord, art a God full of compassion, v. 16. O turn unto me, v. 17. Show me a token for good,
Fuente: The Popular Commentary on the Bible by Kretzmann
EXPOSITION
THIS is the prayer of an afflicted and humble soul in a time of persecution (Psa 86:14), intermixed with outbursts of praise (Psa 86:5, Psa 86:8-10, Psa 86:15) and thankfulness (Psa 86:12, Psa 86:13). It is assigned in the title to David, and contains nothing, either in matter or style, to make the ascription unlikely. Still, most modern critics regard the psalm as probably of a later date, and consider it the work of a less gifted psalmist than David. If not the production of a “great original mind,” the psalm is nevertheless one of singular sweetness and beauty.
Metrically, it seems to divide itself, like Psa 85:1-13; into three strophes, two shorter, and one longer, the former being of five verses each, and the latter of seven.
Psa 86:1-5
Prayer, the predominant note of the entire psalm, holds almost exclusive possession of the first strophe, only passing into praise when the last verse is reached, where the petitioner reminds God of his loving kindness and readiness to forgive.
Psa 86:1
Bow down thine ear, O Lord, hear me (comp. Psa 31:2; Pro 22:17). For I am poor and needy; or, “I am afflicted and in misery.” Poverty in the ordinary sense is scarcely intended.
Psa 86:2
Preserve my soul. It is one of the special offices of God to “preserve the souls of his saints” (Psa 97:10). He is not only man’s Creator, but his “Preserver” (Job 7:20; Job 10:12). For I am holy. The psalmist does not mean to claim for himself perfect holiness, but only that sincerity in religion which God’s servants may rightly vindicate to themselves. O thou my God, save thy servant that trusteth in thee (comp, Psa 34:22; Psa 37:40).
Psa 86:3
Be merciful unto me, O Lord; for I cry unto thee daily; rather, all day long (Revised Version).
Psa 86:4
Rejoice the soul of thy servant. The prayer rises from mere entreaties for relief and recovery from a state of suffering, into an earnest request for that which the heart of man is ever longing for and seeking aftergladness and joy. The faithful are promised that they shall come ultimately to a condition of exceeding great joy; but even saints are sometimes impatient, and want their joy in this world and at once. For unto thee, O Lord, do I lift up my soul (comp. Psa 25:1, entitled, like this, “a Psalm of David”). There is no more likely way of attaining to spiritual joy than to be always lifting up the soul to God.
Psa 86:5
For thou, Lord, art good, and ready to forgive. The word translated “ready to forgive,” , occurs here only; but the context sufficiently fixes its meaning, which is well expressed by the of the LXX. As God was “good” and “forgiving,” he would be likely to grant the petitions just addressed to him. And plenteous in mercy unto all them that call upon thee (comp. Exo 34:6; Joe 2:13).
Psa 86:6-10
In this second strophe praise is predominant. Prayer occupies two verses only (Psa 86:6, Psa 86:7); in the other three (Psa 86:8-10) God is magnified and glorified.
Psa 86:6
Give ear, O Lord, unto my prayer. An echo of Psa 86:1. The psalmist begins, as it were, afresh, calling God’s attention to himself, as if he had not yet spoken. And attend to the voice of my supplications (comp. Psa 17:1; Psa 55:2; Psa 61:1, etc.). That God’s ear is always attent to the prayers of his people does not make it superfluous for them to entreat his attention. He will listen more favourably when besought to listen.
Psa 86:7
In the day of my trouble I will call upon thee (comp. Psa 86:1 and Psa 86:14). The nature of the trouble is not distinctly stated; but it appears to have been caused by domestic rather than foreign enemies. For thou wilt answer me (comp. Psa 86:5).
Psa 86:8
Among the gods there is none like unto thee, O Lord (see the Song of Moses, Exo 15:11). The imaginary gods of the heathennot, perhaps, known to the psalmist to be wholly imaginaryare probably meant (comp. Psa 77:19; Psa 89:6; Psa 95:3). Neither are there any works like unto thy works. So in Deu 3:24, “What god is there in heaven or in earth that can do according to thy works?”
Psa 86:9
All nations whom thou hast made shall come and worship before thee, O Lord (comp. Psa 72:11, Psa 72:17; Psa 82:8, etc.). Since God had made all nations (Act 17:26), it was safe to conclude that they would all one day worship him. The prophecy, however, still remains unfulfilled. And shall glorify thy Name. Either with their lips, or in their lives, or in both ways. Compare the anticipations of Isaiah (Isa 66:23), Zephaniah (Zep 2:10), and Zechariah (Zec 14:9, Zec 14:16).
Psa 86:10
For thou art great, and doest wondrous things. The” greatness” of God, in reality most clearly manifested by the facts of his ordinary providence, seems to men in general, as it seemed to this psalmist, especially indicated by the “wonders,” or “miracles”which he wrought (comp. Exo 15:11; Psa 72:18; Psa 77:14). Thou art God alone (see 2Ki 19:15; Isa 37:16; Isa 44:6, Isa 44:8).
Psa 86:11-17
The third strophe is almost equally divided between prayer and praise, Psa 86:11, Psa 86:16, and Psa 86:17 being devoted to the one; and Psa 86:12, Psa 86:13, and Psa 86:15 to the other. Psa 86:14 is of the nature of a complaint.
Psa 86:11
Teach me thy way, O Lord; I will walk in thy truth (comp. Psa 25:4; Psa 27:11; Psa 119:33). Man cannot know “the way of the Lord,” unless he is taught of God. The inward anointing of the Spirit is needful to teach us what God would really have us do (1Jn 2:27). It is only when we are thus taught that we can “walk in his truth.” Unite my heart to fear thy Name. So Symmachus, who has ; Canon Cook, Dr. Kay, Hupfeld, Professor Alexander, and the Revised Version. Hengstenberg prefers “incline my heart;” and Professor Cheyne would alter the text into accordance with the LXX; , “Make my heart to rejoice.” But the textual reading has the weight of authority in its favour, and gives an excellent sense, “Bring all my heart into unison, that it may be wholly fixed on thee.” Compare the following verse.
Psa 86:12
I will praise thee, O Lord my God, with all my heart; i.e. “with an undivided heart.” And I will glorify thy Name (see Psa 86:9) forevermore. A belief in immortality is implied, if not formally asserted.
Psa 86:13
For great is thy mercy toward me (see Psa 86:5). And thou hast delivered my soul from the lowest hell. The actual deliverance was from death (Psa 86:14); but death involved descent into Hades, so that those who were delivered from the one were at the same time delivered from the other. The expression translated “the lowest hell” means no more than “Hades which is beneath the earth.” No comparison is made of one part of Hades with another.
Psa 86:14
O God, the proud are risen against me (comp. Psa 119:51, Psa 119:69, Psa 119:85, Psa 119:122; and also Psa 54:3). And the assemblies of violent men have sought after my soul; rather, a crew of violent ones have sought after my soul, or “plotted against my life” (comp. Psa 7:1, Psa 7:2; Psa 17:13; Psa 35:3, Psa 35:4, etc.). And have not set thee before them; i.e. “have given no thought to God, or how he would act, whether he would allow their wickedness or prevent it.”
Psa 86:15
But thou, O Lord, art a God full of compassion. The appeal is to God’s own revelation of himself. He had declared that he was “merciful and gracious, long suffering, and abundant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin” (Exo 34:6, Exo 34:7); he could not, therefore, desert the psalmist in his need. And gracious, long suffering, and plenteous in mercy and truth (comp. above, Psa 86:5; and see also Num 14:18; Joe 2:13; Jon 4:2).
Psa 86:16
Oh turn unto me, and have mercy upon me. God had for a time turned his face away from his servant; now he is entreated to turn it towards him, and, as a consequence, to “have mercy upon him” and deliver him. Give thy strength unto thy servant. Only in God’s strength can we effectually contend against either our spiritual or our temporal foes. If, however, we ask him for strength, his strength will be “sufficient for us” (2Co 12:9). And save the son of thine handmaid. Either “the son of one who was specially religious,” like the mother of Timothy (2Ti 1:5). or” the son of an Israelitish mother,” therefore born and bred up in thy household.
Psa 86:17
Show me a token for good; i.e. give me some signnot necessarily a miraculous onethat thou art dealing with me, not for evil, but “for good” (Jer 24:6), and that thou wilt grant me that which I have requested of thee. That they which hate me may see it. A visible token is therefore requested, not a mere inward conviction or assurance (see 2Ki 20:8; Isa 7:11). And be ashamed (comp. Psa 6:10; Psa 56:1-13 :17; Psa 119:78, etc.). Because thou, Lord, hast holpen me, and comforted me. The psalmist’s deliverance would be his enemies’ shame; it would show that God was on his side, and against them.
HOMILETICS
Psa 86:11
A comprehensive prayer.
“Unite my heart to fear thy Name,” etc. This rich and elevated psalm is well called in the title “a prayer,” rather than “a psalm.” It is more devout than poetical. Its distinctive character is the remarkable union of intense personal feeling with large views of God’s character and relation to mankind (Psa 86:9). This has led critics to speak of it as “liturgical,” overlooking the deep strain of personal feeling, leading the psalmist even (Psa 86:16) to plead that he is the child of a godly mother, as well as (Psa 86:2) that he is “holy”q.d. either consecrated to God, or one on whom God bestows grace. This petition, “Unite my heart,” etc; is one of great compass, grandeur, simplicity, bespeaking a heart already fixed on God. It seeks
I. A SUPREME AFFECTION. A. master passion, to which all other desires and affections shall be subordinate. The worldly mind, just because it is worldly, is torn by conflicting desiresthe prey of passions or feelings, each of which seeks mastery. For the world (as St. John describes it, 1Jn 2:16) has no unity; a mass of contradictions, rivalries, inconsistent objects of desire. Only the heart which has learned to say, “Thou art my Portion” (Psa 119:57), has found the principle of unity, the keynote which can put all the heart’s pure and true affections in tune.
II. A SINGLE AIM. A master purpose, to which all other objects must yield, and which gives back colour to the whole life. Successful men are characterized by singleness and earnestness of aim. A limited and narrow man will carry his point, if it be the one thing he lives for; while men of splendid genius waste their powers, and become splendid failures for lack of concentration and motive power (see Php 3:13, Php 3:14). The hottest diffused sunshine kindles no flame; but concentrate but a few rays with a glass on one point, and flame bursts forth. Supreme love to Christ, and a single eye to his service and approval, give a unity to life which is a great element of success, even in what we call worldly affairs (Col 3:3).
III. UNDOUBTING CONVICTION. Strong, unwavering faith. Doubt distracts, agitates, unsettles, weakens (Jas 1:8). A doubting temper, fond of dwelling on difficulties and objections, is fatal to unity of mind, heart, and will. Doubts, if they assail you, are neither to be timidly shrunk from nor idly played with, but honestly faced and fought. But the grand secret of conviction is to dwell first and constantly on the positive evidence of truth. If that is adequate, unanswerable, then a thousand questions we cannot at present answer need not trouble us. They can wait; but facts will not wait. Here is a great secret, not only of strength, but of rest. And in rest is a reservoir of energy (Isa 26:3; Joh 14:1).
What grand possibilities there are in the Christian life! If an Old Testament saint could put up such a prayer, and have it answered, how much more may it be fulfilled in our experience!
HOMILIES BY S. CONWAY
Psa 86:1-5
The psalmist’s prayers and pleas.
We do not know for certain the author, the date, or the circumstances of this psalm; nor for its ministry of help to us is it needful that we should. It is the fervent utterance of a devout and believing but distressed soul. Consider
I. THE PRAYERS. Even in these few verses we note:
1. How numerous they are! “Bow down thine ear;” “Preserve my soul; Save me;” “Be merciful unto me;” “Rejoice the soul of thy servant.”
2. How substantially the same! Repetitions need not be “vain repetitions;” they are often the reverse of vain; indeed, in many moods of our soul, they are indispensable. The soul is slow and sluggish; its vis inertiae hard to be overcome, and it is found by many that repetition, “saying the same words,” is a great help in arousing thought and fixing the mind on the sacred duty before it.
3. But varied inform. This is also very helpful in prayer. Stereotyped forms, unless we be very watchful, will flow over the mind and never arouse a solitary thought. It is good, therefore, to compel the mind to express itself in varied form; for so our prayer is likely to be both more real and more helpful.
4. And progressive in meaning. The psalmist begins with simply entreating God to hear him, to give him audience; then he asks for his chief need to be supplied, and that he may be delivered, saved; then, that his unworthiness may be overlooked, that God would be merciful to him; and lastly, that the Lord would rejoice his soul, not merely preserve and save him, but moregive him joy. It is ever an upward advance, as our prayer should be.
5. And confident in trust. The opening petition is one of the many proofs that prior to the Incarnation the saints of God had come to the full conviction of the humanity of God. This cry that God would “bow down” his “ear” is one of those anthropomorphic, as they are called, expressions, of which the Old Testament is so full. How often do we read of the eyes, feet, hand, face, ear, of God! They are not mere figures; but they tell of the recognized truth that God was as we areapart from our weakness, limitation, and sin. And the psalmist has laid hold of this truth, and it is his encouragement as he pours forth his prayer. Thus in a very real sense the prayers of the Jewish Church were, as are ours, offered through Jesus Christ our Lord. They, as do we, came to the Father by him; for “no man cometh unto the Father but by me,” said our Lord, nor otherwise have any ever come.
II. THE PLEAS URGED. They are full of power, and in them, as in the prayers they support, there is variety and advance in thought.
1. His deep need. (Psa 86:1.) Unless this be felt, there will never be real prayer.
2. His relationship to God. (Psa 86:2.) “For I am one whom thou lovest.” This, the rendering of the margin, is preferable to the text either of the Authorized Version, which is, “I am holy,” or of the Revised Version, which is, “I am godly.” It avoids the self-righteous tone which seems inseparable from these readings, and declares his confidence begotten by favours received from God in the past.
3. His trust.
4. His continued prayer. He had waited on the Lord, confident that his trust would be sustained.
5. The declared Name of God. (Psa 86:5.) He who believingly urges that cannot fail of the Divine aid according to his need.S.C.
Psa 86:9
Grace triumphant.
The declaration of God’s ultimate possession of all hearts, which is involved in this verse, is found not here alone (cf. Psa 22:27; Psa 66:4; Isa 66:18, Isa 66:23; Joh 12:32; Php 2:10, Php 2:11, etc.); and, assuredly, it is the spirit of the whole Scripture. And such considerations as the following sustain such blessed belief.
I. THAT IT IS A FAITH WHICH SO COMMENDS ITSELF TO THE CONSCIENCE OF MEN. It is what ought to be, what we cannot help hoping may be, that God’s will may be done everywhere and by all.
II. THE OPPOSITE BELIEF IS PRACTICALLY ATHEISTICAL. For it necessitates that we believe
(1) that either God would save all men, but could notin which case he would not be God, because some other had evidently greater power than he; or
(2) that God could save, but would not, which is plainly contradictory of the whole Scripture, and, were it true, God would be no longer God. Either theory leads direct to atheism.
III. IT IS INCREDIBLE THAT GOD WOULD HAVE CONTINUED TO CREATE BEINGS WHOM HE KNEW MUST ETERNALLY SIN AND SUFFER. Creation involves redemption. Had he been unable to redeem, he would not have created.
IV. CHRIST WAS MANIFESTED TO DESTROY THE WORKS OF THE DEVIL. But if any are forever unsaved, then Christ has not accomplished the work he came to do, and the victory belongs not to him, but to Satan.
V. THE WORTH OF CHRIST‘S ATONEMENT. It is the propitiation for the sins of the whole world. But some may say, “It is of no use to any one unless he trusts it.” That is so; but our contention is that the resources of God are adequate to bring men to give up their own evil will, and to cast themselves in penitence and trust on God. Has he not already brought round the most stubborn of human wills? He knows how to make the prodigal come to himself, and to say, “I will arise,” etc.
VI. HE HAS TAUGHT US TO PRAY, “THY WILL BE DONE ON EARTH AS,” ETC. But this is what our text predicts; and he would not have bidden us pray that prayer if it was never to be fulfilled. All this is no encouragement to sin, for it teaches that God will leave no means untried, no matter how terrible they may be, and for the hardened sinner they will be terrible, to subdue to himself the perverse and unruly will of man.S.C.
Psa 86:11
True religion, and what it calls for.
I. THE ESSENCE OF ALL TRUE RELIGION IS THE FEAR OF GOD. “To fear thy Name,” says the psalmist, and so saying he sets forth the central nature of real religion. But this fear
(1) is not the fear which has torment; or
(2) that which is simply the reasonable dread of penalty,the fear of the law-abiding citizen; but it is
(3) the fear begotten of love,the fear of an affectionate child, which makes it careful to obey. Whatever we love we are careful to obey the laws ofwhether it be art, science, parents. And so with the fear of God. It is seen in all saints.
II. THERE CAN BE NO SUCH RELIGION UNLESS THE HEART BE IN IT. Intellect may be there, Reason give her assent. Approval may be expressedit often is. Deep feeling experienced, this not unusual; but unless the heart, the willfor this is the real meaning of the word “heart”be in our religion, we practically have none.
III. NOR THEN UNLESS THE HEART BE UNITED IN IT, Some minds are not fixed on anything; they are perpetual waverers. Others are fixed, set, wrongly but “steadfastly to do evil.” But they are blessed who are described in our text. Oh to be able to say, “O God, my heart is fixed, my heart is fixed”!S.C.
Psa 86:17
Tokens for good.
We remark upon the prayer contained in this verse
I. THAT SUCH PRAYER MAY BE AN IMPROPER ONE. Our Lord said to the people of his day, “Except ye see signs and wonders, ye will not believe.” And how many today are like these people! Now, such request for tokens is wrong:
1. When we presume to select tokens for ourselves. God may allow this, as he did to Gideon in connection with the fleece of wool; but it is very improper for us to be stipulating for specific signs. With how many their religion is one dependent on their feelings, and varies as they do! Naaman “turned, and went away in a rage” (2Ki 5:1-27.), because God’s prophet did not fulfil his idea as to the way in which be should be healed.
2. When we trust to a token more than we do to the Word of testimony. St. Peter, though he had seen the glorious vision on the Transfiguration mounta token for good, if ever there was oneis yet careful to add, “But we have the more sure word of prophecy.” And of all our tokens, as well as all our opinions, we are bound to bring them “to the Law, and to the testimony,” and there test them; for “if they be not according to this word, it is because there is no truth in them.” And not a few of men’s fancied tokens have turned out to have no truth in them.
3. When we withhold faith till we have some token which we think will justify it. (See Luk 1:18.) And when the Jews demanded a sign from heaven, as they were perpetually doing, it was refused them, as such requests ever will be (cf. Luk 1:18).
II. SUCH PRAYER IS NEVER ONE WHOSE ANSWER IS ESSENTIAL. For without any such special tokens as we might wish for, there is no child of God but has tokens for good in abundance.
1. There is the Lord Jesus Christ. Is he not God’s great and eternal token for good to us?
2. And the fact that God has created us, brought us into being. Would he have done that had he meant evil to us? “Known unto God are all his works.”
3. And the further fact that we have come to Christ, are trusting him now, and the Holy Spirit is doing his blessed work in us still.
4. All the promises of God, so exceeding great and precious,are not all these tokens for good? Assuredly they are.
III. BUT IT IS, AT TIMES, A PERMISSIBLE ONE. It was so in the case of the psalmist. For in spite of all difficulties he looked to God; his troubles drove him to God, and to God only, and not to the help of men. Such a man was not one who would arbitrarily select some given token, or who would trust it more than the Word of God, or who would withhold his belief until it was given. But he desired it for the convincement and discomfiture of his enemies, as well as for the confirmation of his own faith.
IV. AND GOD HAS OFTEN GIVEN SUCH TOKENS. Moses and the rod; Gideon with the fleece; Hezekiah with his dial. And he gives the like still, in answers to prayer, in providential help, in support under trial, in unlooked for events.
V. THE RESULTS WHICH HAVE FOLLOWED. God’s enemies have been ashamed. See in, Israel’s history when. God gave them such tokens, how we read of their enemies having “no more spirit in them.” And still, when God visibly sustains his people, unbelievers look on and are silent, in fear, because conscious of the presence of God. But let us remember that we are never without tokens for good.S.C.
HOMILIES BY R. TUCK
Psa 86:1
Man’s claims on God.
Historical associations for this psalm cannot be fixed with any confidence. It may be a fragment of David’s which was enlarged and adapted, in a later age, to liturgical purposes. Its fragmentary character must strike every careful reader. It is suitable for any pious soul that is in distress, and is a fitting utterance for our burdened hearts. The point before us now is, that the pious soul feels it has claims on God, and may plead those claims in prayer before him. Right ideas of the sovereignty of the Divine mercy can be held along with clear convictions of man’s claims on God, if only we keep fully before us that the claims are wholly based on relations in which God has been pleased to set himself. If he condescends, in his infinite love, to enter into covenant with his people, then we may recognize that he puts himself into the limitations and obligations of the pledges he takes. If we are faithful to our pledge in covenant, we can claim that God should be faithful to his pledge in the covenant. This is in part the feeling of the psalmist; and if associated with a due dependence, humility, and submission, it is a right and worthy feeling. A child has claims on his father; and if he does so in a childlike spirit, he may plead those claims before his father. It has been wisely said of our text, “This is not the highest ground that can be taken in pressing for an answer to our prayer, but it is a ground which God suffers us to take.”
I. THE PLEAS BY WHICH THE PSALMIST‘S PRAYER IS URGED. Notice that they concern the psalmist himself, and the conditions in which he is placed. It may seem unworthy thus to speak of himself; but if a man is to be sincere, he must say the truth about himself; and no harm comes when he says it out to God, because we cannot be boastful before him. In Psa 86:1-3 we find four descriptions of the psalmist himself, made into pleas.
1. He is poor. This may refer to circumstances, but more probably it is a word for humble mindedness; the feeling of the man who wants God because he knows he cannot help himself.
2. He is needy. Which may mean in distress, or may express an actual longing for, and crying for, God’s help.
3. He is holy; which simply means, “one of thy saints;” “one who is in the full covenant relations with thee;” “one whom thou favourest;” “one whose habit of life is piety.” If this is true of us, it need not be a wrong thing to say so.
4. Trustful and prayerful. Actually reliant; honouring God by a full confidence. And God surely responds to all who put their trust in him.
II. THE PRAYER WHICH THE PLEAS ARE EMPLOYED TO URGE. For Divine help.
1. Bow down to the poor.
2. Preserve the godly.
3. Save the trustful.
4. Be merciful to him who cries.
The requests for precisely adapted grace.R.T.
Psa 86:2
Man’s soul a sphere of Divine influence.
“Preserve my soul.” In the Old Testament the term “soul” is often used as we use the term “life.” But there always seems within the term more or less perfect apprehension of the truth that the soul is the man. The commonly received division of man’s being is into “body “and “soul;” but a more scientific analysis divides into bodywhich includes animal soul, or lifeand spirit. The “tripartite division” is body, soul, spirit. As a moral redemption, the work of Christ has brought prominently before us that man is a spiritual being. As Dr. George Macdonald expresses it, “We are accustomed to say that we are bodies, and have souls; whereas we should sayWe are souls, and have bodies.”
I. MAN‘S SOUL IS THE SPHERE OF GOD‘S MORAL TRAINING. We may see God in history; but his supreme interest is in characters, not in events. We may see God in providence; but we fail to see him aright, unless we trace the influence of incidents on our principles and on our spirit. Everything has a moral side and a moral mission. God is ever moulding disposition and character, which are the shapings of the soul. This is true of every man. Humanity to God is a collection of spirits, or spiritual beings, set for their moral training in varied bodily forms and relations.
II. MAN‘S SOUL IS THE SPHERE OF GOD‘S REDEMPTIONS. The mistake made about Christ the Saviour in the days of his flesh was quite a representative mistake. Men thought he came to deliver a nation from foreign dominion; whereas he came to save souls from sin. The body redemptions follow on as the natural consequences of the spiritual redemptions. God’s great work is saving souls from death. Therefore it is that before we can hope that Christ and his work will ever be appreciated, we are compelled to awaken soul anxiety; or, in other words, seek to produce conviction of sin. When our Lord’s saving work is fully studied as a moral redemption, a quickening of souls with a Divine life rather than an adjustment of broken external relations, the full mystery of it will be revealed and realized.
III. MAN‘S SOUL IS THE SPHERE OF THE DIVINE SANCTIFYINGS. The present work of the living Christ, realized by us as the inworking of the Holy Ghost, is not the change of the things with which we have to do, but a change of the relations in which we stand to the things; a change wrought in uswrought in the souls that we are. This change, in effect, changes the character of the things with which we have to do.R.T.
Psa 86:8
God incomparable.
“Among the gods there is none like unto thee, O Lord.” It may be asked Why should God be compared with gods that Scripture so vigorously declares are no gods? It is enough to reply that all teachers must come down to the level of those whom they would teach; and begin by accepting their ideas in order to lead them on and up to higher and worthier. Calvin puts this point well. “Should any one assert that it is unseemly to compare God to the empty fictions, the answer is easy; the discourse is accommodated to the ignorance of men, because we know how daringly superstitious men raise their whims above the heavens.” The psalmist has in view a basis of comparison which is foreign to our mode of thinking. In his day the deities were conceived as limited and local beings, who belonged to particular countries. If the general name Baal was used, some qualifying name was added, which indicated the Baal worshipped in a particular district. With this idea in their minds, men might say of Jehovah, “He is only the God of Palestine.” This view of God the whole Bible vigorously protests against, and claims for Jehovah sole Divinity; he is out of the range of so called “gods;” he cannot be compared with any. This subject may be opened out, with present day applications, by showing that
I. God is incomparable as the ONLY UNCAUSED BEING.
II. God is incomparable as an UNSEEN SPIRITUAL BEING.
III. God is incomparable as an INFINITELY HOLY BEING.
IV. God is incomparable as the ONE BEING WHO CLAIMS UNIVERSAL HOMAGE.
V. God is incomparable as the BEING WHO HAS ABSOLUTE POWER OVER ALL THINGS.
VI. God is the BEING WHO REQUIRES A SERVICE OF CHARACTER, expressed in act and conductnot of conduct alone.
Scriptures dwell on this uniqueness of God (see Exo 15:11; Deu 3:24; Isa 40:1-31. etc.). Being what he is, God alone, God all-mighty, God all-holy, he rightly claims that we should love him and serve him, “with all our heart, and mind, and soul, and strength.” He must be first with us, because he stands forth before us as incomparable.R.T.
Psa 86:9
God glorifying his own Name.
By letting that Name be known among the Gentiles, so that they glorify him. At last all the world shall unite in lifting up holy hands and loving hearts to God, and unite in singing, “Praise God, praise God; This conception of the universal acknowledgment of Jehovah is strange for an exclusive Jew, and is a foreshadowing of Christian ideas. We are to think of God as seeking the glorifying of his Name in thisthat every creature made in his image unites in the glorifying. “All nations shall come and worship.” “The Gentile deities being obviously inferior to Jehovah, the psalmist foresees that one day the Creator will become known to the Gentiles, and the Church of God be extended without limit.” “The pious Jews believed that God’s common relation to all would be ultimately acknowledged by all men.” The name of God is usually and properly regarded as any term which gathers up and expresses the attributes and characteristics of God. Illustrate by the way in which a simple term will express a scientific theory.
I. THE NAME, OR NAMES, GOD HAS GIVEN US OF HIMSELF. The earliest name men knew seems to have been El, which, in a general way, expresses the Creatorship of God. This name is common to the human race. It is found in the singular and plural forms, and in combination with some other name, as El Shaddai. Then, one race knew God in special covenant relations; and as the covenant God he is known as Jahveh, or Jehovah. As if the thing which man pledges to preserve were the truth of the self-origination, unity, and spirituality of God! Then God found a name for himself which would make constant appeal to man’s experience of his dealings, and called himself “the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.” Then God found precise names for himself, suitable for individuals, or for the nation in particular circumstances. Compare the name for Abraham, “I am thy Shield;” for David, “The Lord is my Shepherd;” for the nation, “The Lord our Righteousness.” Lead up to the fixing of one name for God by the Lord Jesus Christ”our Father.” If God gives us a name for himself, he pledges himself to all that is involved in the name. In faithfulness to what it demands and involves, he will glorify it.
II. THE NAME, OR NAMES, MEN HAVE GIVEN TO GOD OUT OF THEIR EXPERIENCE OF HIS WAYS. The work of a man’s life may be represented as “finding a name of his own for God.” It may be the same that some one else has found, and yet be the man’s own. In faithfulness to what each man’s name for God claims, each man glorifies him. Then point out that God’s name is glorified
(1) by being duly sustained;
(2) by being efficiently responded to; and
(3) by being widely made known.
“Tell it out among the heathen that the Lord is King,” and they will swell the chorus of his praise.R.T.
Psa 86:11
The desire to be whole-hearted.
This verse contains a prayer “against distraction and division of heart, of course with the desire of its being knit as a whole to God.” Perowne expresses the idea skilfully, “Suffer my heart no longer to scatter itself upon a multiplicity of objects, to be drawn hither and thither by a thousand different aims; but turn all its powers, all its affections, in one direction, collect them in one focus, make them all one in thee.” Our Lord impressed the importance of this unity of aim and purpose by his teachings concerning “singleness of eye.” And he taught us the secret of unifying all our powers and affections. It can only be done by making God and his service our Centre”Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness.” To the earnest, right-hearted man, the tendency to distraction of mind is a constant anxiety. He is troubled by distraction in devotion, in worship, in motive, and in service. Consciousness of this forces the prayer of our text.
I. DISTRACTION IN DEVOTION. All books on the “interior life” deal with this difficulty, and suggest methods by which it may be overcome. But even if good habits can be formed, we are always liable to the intrusion of things in which, at the time, we are specially interestedmatters of business, engagements to be kept, etc. The hurried character of modern private devotion puts in serious peril the unity of our hearts in such seasons. The mind is sure to be elsewhere.
II. DISTRACTION IN WORSHIP. When the words are known, they may be spoken while the mind is otherwhere. When the words are unknown, the mind may fail to be exercised with them. The difference between times of devotion and worship lies in thisin private devotion, the mind must be active; in worship, another mind than ours is active, and ours is passive and recipient. To the passive mind the intrusion of other interests is easier than to the active mind. Therefore our worship should be arranged so as to excite the active cooperation of all who take part in it.
III. DISTRACTION IN MOTIVE. Probably none of us do things from absolutely pure motives. If we read our hearts aright, we find evil and unworthy motives really swaying us, when we half deceive ourselves with the idea that our motives are high and noble. And at best the motives are “mixed.” The self is prominent.
IV. DISTRACTION IN SERVICE. Our purpose may be to set God first, and with this we may begin. But division of interests soon comes in, and we find that we are but “following the devices and desires of our own hearts.” There is hope in the desire to be undivided, whole-hearted. We want a single, steady aim. We want to have no object before our minds save the glory of God. And we want every force and faculty of our being brought into a unity of consecration.R.T.
Psa 86:13
The plea for more grace.
What God has done is made into a ground for pleading that he would do even more abundantly. A psalmist can ask great things when he is well assured that he who has given much grace can give more grace. The plea based on what God has done is made to include two thingssoul redemption, life benediction. These are well expressed in the Revised Version of Psa 56:13, “For thou hast delivered my soul from death: hast thou not delivered my feet from falling?” The review is more complete in Psa 116:8, “For thou hast delivered my soul from death, mine eyes from tears, and my feet from falling.”
I. WHAT GOD HAS DONE FOR US SHOWS US WHAT HE CAN DO.
II. WHAT GOD HAS DONE FOR US SHOWS US WHAT HE WILL DO.
III. WHAT GOD HAS DONE FOR US GIVES US AN ARGUMENT TO URGE WITH HIM.
IV. WHAT GOD HAS DONE SETS US UPON MAINTAINING THE CONDITIONS ON WHICH THE BLESSINGS HAVE COME TO US. For we are not straitened either in God’s power or God’s will. If straitened, it can only be because we fail to respond to the Divine conditions.R.T.
Psa 86:15
God’s graciousness.
“Full of compassion, and gracious, slow to anger, and plenteous in mercy and truth” The term “gracious,” as applied to God, brings in ideas of tenderness, gentleness, considerateness, in dealing with those who are frail and weak. It is like “pitiful,” but does not imply conditions of special poverty or distress. “Gracious” fits into God’s ordinary ways with ordinary people. If we used the term of our fellow men, we should single out those who were sympathetic and sweet mannered and gentle toned. It brings in a somewhat fresh, and a very attractive, view of God, thus to associate the word “gracious” with him. The precise shades of meaning that may be attached to the term will come to view upon a study of the following passages: Exo 22:27, “And it shall come to pass, when he crieth unto me, that I will hear; for I am gracious;” Exo 34:6, “And the Lord passed by before him, and proclaimed, The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious;” 2Sa 12:22, “Who can tell whether God will be gracious to me, that the child may live?” Neh 9:17, “A God ready to pardon, gracious and merciful;” Psa 4:1, margin, “Be gracious unto me, and hear my prayer;” Isa 30:18, “And therefore will the Lord wait, that he may be gracious unto you;” Jon 4:2, “For I knew that thou art a gracious God, and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repentest thee of the evil.” Evidently the term is used to express God’s relations with sinners, as distinct from his relations with sin; and it especially describes the Divine response to penitent sinners. “Grace,” as favour, mercy, was the highest blessing under the Old Testament dispensation. Joseph, in the fulness of his feelings on seeing his brother Benjamin, cried, “God be gracious to thee, my son!” The synonyms of the term “gracious” may be found suggestivekindly, beneficent, benignant, condescending, pleasing. Bring out the point that not only does God save and sanctify, but he saves and sanctifies in a gentle, considerate, and delightful way. Put into a figure, he never “breaks the bruised reed, or quenches the smoking flax.”R.T.
Psa 86:17
The cheer of God’s tokens.
It is a subject of inquiry that we find God sometimes granting, and sometimes refusing to grant, signs and tokens. The reason of his various dealing appears to be thishe is willing to help weak faith; he is unwilling to give opportunities to unbelief. These points may be illustrated from Old and New Testament narrative; e.g. to Gideon God granted the sign or token of the “fleece,” because Gideon wanted to believe, but needed help to believing. The scribes and Pharisees who sought a sign, or token, of the Messiahship of Jesus were refused, because they had no intention of allowing themselves to be persuaded by it, but meant to turn it to account in intensifying their prejudice against Jesus. A pious man may always freely ask God for a token; but whether one is given to him will entirely depend upon the attitude and mood of his mind, and upon the Divine judgment that a token will be a real good to him. Withholding the tokens for which we long and pray is sometimes a form of Divine discipline. What is referred to by the psalmist here is not a miraculous sign, such as Gideon had, but some evident striking proof, in ordinary daily relations, of God’s good will to him. Tholuck says, “Is it not the fact that the more we recognize in every daily occurrence God’s secret inspiration guiding and controlling us, the more will all which to others wears a common, everyday aspect to us prove a sign and a wondrous work.”
I. THE DESIRE FOR TOKENS OF GOD‘S GOOD WILL. Those reconciled to God want to keep up the sense of reconciliation. Modern tokens may be expected in two ways.
1. In an evident ordering and controlling of our outward circumstances. We may see the “good hand of our God, upon us for good.” Doors opened. Ways made plain. Hindrances taken out of the way.
2. In the comfortable sense of God’s love in our souls; the inward communications of Divine grace.
II. THE PURPOSE FOR WHICH THE DESIRE WAS CHERISHED. That God’s service might be commended to others. And that the proofs of Divine favour might so influence the foes of the psalmist, that the strain of their enmity might be relieved. He felt that those who were bitter against him would change their ways if they saw, by some plain sign, that God was on his side.R.T.
HOMILIES BY C. SHORT
Psa 86:11
Single-heartedness.
“Unite my heart to fear thy Name.”
I. WHAT IS INCLUDED IN THE PRAYER?
1. It is prayer against double-mindedness. “The flesh lusteth against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh,” etc. Two masters in the house whom we alternately servethe heavenly and the earthly. Two steering the boat of our lives.
2. For wholeness or entireness of mind in the service of God. That the divided heart may be made one. That the conflicting aims should be destroyed by the strength and superiority of the one aimto love and serve God as our Father.
II. THE ANSWER TO THE PRAYER WOULD INCLUDE:
1. A sense of oneness with God. Let a man honestly and truly give himself to God, and make no reserves; let him determine to be true and faithful,then he comes at once into the secret of faith and acceptance and fellowship with God, and he keeps the secret pure and bright.
2. Triumphant strength. Secret of strength is concentration upon a supreme aim and singleness of purpose. We cannot work out two plans of life that are in their nature mutually exclusive. When we can set aside all compromises and serve God with a united heart, we shall no longer be constantly baffled and defeated by our temptations, but able to cry with joy, “Thanks be unto God, that giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ!”
3. This will give us real peace. The peace of conscious rectitude; feeling that our purpose is honest and simpleto be Christ’s without reserve. The peace of a great deliverance; and feel that we are the subjects of a great salvation. The peace of a great fearlessness; nothing to terrify the man who is at one with God; sits above all storms, and is secure and at home with God.S.
Fuente: The Complete Pulpit Commentary
Psalms 86.
David strengtheneth his prayer by the conscience of his religion, by the goodness and power of God: he desireth the continuance of former grace: complaining of the proud, he craveth some token of God’s goodness.
A Prayer of David.
Title. tephiltah ledavid. This Psalm seems to have been composed by David during his afflictions under Saul. It was afterwards, as the Jews relate, made use of by Hezekiah, when the Assyrians made an attempt upon Jerusalem. The first words of it are indeed the time with Hezekiah’s in 2Ki 19:16 and the 8th and 9th verses may be very fitly accommodated to that history; but the rest a great deal better to David; who, in this psalm, personates his great root and offspring the man Christ Jesus, labouring in the spirit of prophesy to express something of that earnestness and humility with which he poured out his soul, while he dwelt here in the form of a servant, pursued by cruel men, and bearing our iniquities. See Fenwick.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
Psalms 86
A Prayer of David
1Bow down thine ear, O Lord, hear me:
For I am poor and needy.
2Preserve my soul; for I am holy:
O thou my God, save thy servant that trusteth in thee.
3Be merciful unto me, O Lord:
For I cry unto thee daily.
4Rejoice the soul of thy servant:
For unto thee, O Lord, do I lift up my soul.
5For thou, Lord, art good, and ready to forgive;
And plenteous in mercy unto all them that call upon thee.
6Give ear, O Lord, unto my prayer;
And attend to the voice of my supplications.
7In the day of my trouble I will call upon thee:
For thou wilt answer me.
8Among the gods there is none like unto thee, O Lord;
Neither are there any works like unto thy works.
9All nations whom thou hast made
Shall come and worship before thee, O Lord;
And shall glorify thy name.
10For thou art great, and doest wondrous things:
Thou art God alone.
11Teach me thy way, O Lord;
I will walk in thy truth:
Unite my heart to fear thy name.
12I will praise thee, O Lord my God, with all my heart:
And I will glorify thy name for evermore.
13For great is thy mercy toward me:
And thou hast delivered my soul from the lowest hell.
14O God, the proud are risen against me,
And the assemblies of violent men have sought after my soul;
And have not set thee before them.
15But thou, O Lord, art a God full of compassion, and gracious,
Long-suffering, and plenteous in mercy and truth.
16O turn unto me, and have mercy upon me;
Give thy strength unto thy servant,
And save the son of thine handmaid.
17Shew me a token for good;
That they which hate me may see it, and be ashamed:
Because thou, Lord, hast holpen me, and comforted me.
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
Contents and Composition.We have first presented to us in this Psalm a succession of invocations and entreaties to God, supporting themselves on one hand upon the need of the suppliant and His covenant relation, and on the other upon Gods compassion and accessibility (Psa 86:1-7). There next follows the joyful acknowledgment of Gods incomparable exaltation, to which as well as to His power the heathen will submit themselves (Psa 86:8-10). Then comes a prayer for direction in the way of God, which the poet promises to follow out of lasting gratitude for the deliverance vouchsafed to him, (Psa 86:11-13). Finally we have an entreaty preceded by a complaint against godless enemies, spared by Gods patience (Psa 86:14-15), which implores help for the offerer, so that his haters may be ashamed and know that it is really God who has helped His pious servant (Psa 86:16-17).
The whole Psalm gives the impression of a pretty late composition. Familiar expressions and phrases from the words of the Law, the Psalms, and the Prophets, loosely connected, are found throughout, and yet not altogether without evidences of a peculiar treatment. It is remarkable that in Psa 86:14, in the passage taken literally from Psa 54:5, is found instead of , and yet the acknowledgment of God in the nations of the world as the Supreme God is spoken of in Psa 86:9. It is quite uncertain to what event the deliverance mentioned in Psa 86:13 refers. We have no grounds afforded us for supposing the return from exile (Olshausen), or for connecting the verse with 2Ma 13:21, (Hitzig), not to mention the deliverance of David from the plans contrived by Saul (Kster and Clauss last), since we have no reason to assume that David was consoled by the Korahites by a Psalm constructed out of his own words (Hengstenberg). It is even questionable whether it was a past event, and whether the prterite, though not to be taken as prophetic prterite, and therefore as future (De Wette), may yet not be regarded as conveying an optative sense, and therefore be rendered by the imperfect, (Ewald, Baur). It is to be remarked that the appellation of God, Adonai, is here used seven times, and three times in Psalms 130. It seems, however, too rash an opinion to consider this circumstance as indicating a tendency to a later adonaic style of Psalm-poetry, in imitation of the Elohim Psalms (Delitzsch).
[The superscription of this Psalm presents a curious phenomenon. It ascribes the authorship to David, being the only instance in the whole of the Fourth Book. It occurs also in the midst of a group of Psalms of the sons of Korah. The opinion that David himself was the composer is now almost universally abandoned. But is it necessary to assume that it was composed in Davids lifetime? Hengstenberg, who maintains rightly the originality of the superscription, feels bound to maintain that it was. But he is willing to depart from the literal application of the language, as he supposes that it was composed by the sons of Korah for Davids benefit. The character of the Psalm suggests that we may use the same freedom of interpretation in another direction. For the looseness of connection and the liturgical rather than poetical form, as Delitzsch has remarked, seem to bespeak a late origin. It may be called a prayer of David because it expresses the spirit of a number of his Psalms which are of a predominantly supplicatory character, and are indicated by the same title , and chiefly, because his sayings constitute a large portion of it. Among English commentators Perowne abandons the idea of a Davidic composition, and maintains a late date. Alexander appears undecided, though he considers the circumstances described suitable to Davids frequent situations of suffering. Wordsworth thinks that a Psalm of David is inserted in the midst of the Korahite ones, to confirm the equal authority of the latter.J. F. M.]
Psa 86:2-12. I am holy.The expression has reference to the covenant-relation (Hupf.) and not to piety as a virtue. The accusation that the Psalmist makes a boast of the latter (De Wette) is unfounded. Geier already has had occasion to combat it, and translated: beneficiarius; and the Dutch Bible: gunstgenoot. [In Psa 86:3, is capable of being translated either: daily, as E. V. has it, or: all the day, as it is given in the margin. The latter as indicating a depth of need which the former fails to do is to be preferred. On Psa 86:9 Alexander says: The common relation of Jehovah to all men as their Maker shall be one day universally acknowledged, not in word merely, but in act, the most expressive part of worship, involving a recognition of the previous display of Gods perfections, in the language of Scripture, His name. This prospective view of the conversion of the world to its Maker, shows how far the Old Testament writers were from cherishing or countenancing the contracted nationality of the later and the less enlightened Jews. Comp. Psa 22:27-28; Psa 45:12; Psa 45:16; Psa 47:9; and Jer 16:19; Zep 2:11; Zec 14:9; Zec 14:16.J. F. M.] The expression: unite my heart, in Psa 86:11, is peculiar. It is equivalent to: unite all my powers and impel them towards one object (Calvin, Geier, and others). It is the whole, undivided heart which is demanded in connection with love in Deu 6:5; Deu 10:12, and in connection with the fear of God it appears here and in Jer 32:29, as . The contrast is exhibited in Jam 4:8. It is a less tenable explanation which understands a heart one with God (J. H. Michaelis following older expositors). The whole heart is also mentioned in connection with thanksgiving in Psa 86:12. The translation of the Vulgate: ltetur (after Sept., Syr.) rests upon a false derivation from .
Psa 86:13 ff. The underworld [E. V.: lowest hell] is employed as in Deu 32:22, to denote the world beneath in the bowels of the earth (Eze 31:14 f.), under the earth, Exo 20:4, comp. Php 2:10, not as the lowest (Sept., Vulg.) or deepest (Kster, Ewald). There is nothing to indicate any allusion to different degrees of descent. Deliverance from a position in which life was endangered is the subject of the verse.Son of thine handmaid may allude to the servants born in the house, Gen 14:14; Gen 17:12; Exo 23:12 (Geier, Olshausen, Hitzig, Delitzsch) so that the Psalmist does not describe himself as the servant of God in general (Hupfeld), but as being born into this relation.Token for good in Psa 86:17 is not a miracle which the Psalmist implores in order to effect his deliverance (De Wette, Olsh.), but an evidence of the Divine favor (Geier, Hengst., Delitzsch, Hupfeld), a token of good intentions, not: for good fortune, or: that it will be well with me, (Luther), but one from which it will be clear that God purposes good with regard to him. [Hengstenberg: What the Psalmist speaks of, according to the preceding context and the conclusion of the Psalm, is simply help and comfort, by which all his enemies may see that it is not without good ground that he calls God his God.J. F.M.]
DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL
1. The hope that our prayers will be heard by God is grounded partly on our misery and helplessness (Ps. 35:10; 37:14; 40:18; 74:21); partly upon our covenant relation to Him. With regard to the latter, we have not only been able to receive most competent testimony of the goodness and placability of God (Exo 34:6), of His incomparable exaltation (Exo 15:11), and of His power (Deu 3:24), but have also made actual proof of the truth of these declarations, and of the credibility of these attestations.
2. A true servant of this Almighty Lord not merely bears in his heart the hope that many yet in the world will be converted to Him (Psa 22:18; Jer 16:19), but, as included in the terms of the covenant of grace (Psa 4:4; Psa 16:10), he labors earnestly for his own sanctification. He prays therefore especially for direction in the ways of God (Psa 25:4; Psa 25:8; Psa 25:12; Psa 27:11), and for strength to enable him to walk in conformity therewith. And in this he includes a prayer for a heart single to Gods fear, so that the whole heart may be yielded up in true gratitude. The help implored and received thus gains a significance beyond his own experience, and becomes a token for others also.
HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL
It is well for men to complain to God of their distress; it is better to confess their own inability to relieve it; it is best for them to rely upon Gods mercy, and to entreat mighty proofs of His goodness.Believers must not become presumptuous or secure on account of their covenant relation, but find in it reason both for humility and for reliance upon God.Let him who knows God ever learn of Him, and let him who loves God please Him better day by day. The more deeply true piety is stamped upon our own lives, the more distinctly is it made a token for others.It is of no consequence to us, that our enemies are put to shame, unless they, at the same time, give glory to God.How little do we regulate our conduct in view of the incomparable power, goodness, and faithfulness of God!
Starke: The righteous have to suffer much, therefore they must pray much.How useful is affliction! It forces us to pray; it excites us to ardent importunity in our prayers; it supports and strengthens faith.The anguish of guilt and the sense of Gods anger are a deep hell, from which none but God can rescue us.There is need of great self-denial in refraining from asking a sign from God for our own sakes, which would be to tempt God; but we must ask for the sake of Gods glory.
Osiander: As it is the duty of the servant to obey his master, so is it the part of the master to defend and protect his servant.Arndt: When God does not lead and conduct men they wander, and God has His own peculiar way.Frisch: The more thou givest God the honor, and showest thy reliance upon Him, the readier will he be to help thee.Richter (Hausbibel): The best and most indispensable token of mercy which a believer can have is the witness and seal of the Holy Spirit. But God also vouchsafes to them a special token, namely, deliverance from the snares of the world, so that even unbelievers themselves must acknowledge: God is with them!
Fuente: A Commentary on the Holy Scriptures, Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical by Lange
DISCOURSE: 644
A PRAYING SPIRIT EXEMPLIFIED
Psa 86:1-5. Bow down thine ear, O Lord! hear me; for I am poor and needy. Preserve my soul; for I am holy O thou my God, save thy servant that trusteth in thee! Be merciful unto me, O Lord! for I cry unto thee daily. Rejoice the soul of thy servant: for unto thee, O Lord, do I lift up my soul. For thou, Lord, art good, and ready to forgive; plenteous in mercy unto all them that call upon thee.
TRUE and genuine piety cannot always be certainly known by mens intercourse with their fellow-creatures. Appearances may be so plausible, that they cannot, except by Him who searcheth the heart, be distinguished from realities. But in their intercourse with the Deity, the truth or falsehood of their profession may be clearly discerned. The most refined hypocrite may, by examining the state of his soul in his private devotions, obtain the certain means of discovering his proper character, provided he have his standard rightly fixed, and his test impartially applied. To furnish such a standard, is our object in the present discourse. We here behold the man after Gods own heart drawing nigh to a throne of grace, and pouring out his soul in supplications before God: and we wish to call your attention especially to the spirit which he manifested in this sacred duty, since it will serve as an excellent criterion whereby to try and judge ourselves.
Let us then consider,
I.
The subject-matter of his prayer
It should seem that David was now under great affliction, either from the persecutions of Saul, or from the unnatural rebellion of his son Absalom: and his prayers may well be understood, in the first instance, as relating to his temporal trials. But, as it is of his soul that he chiefly speaks, we shall dwell upon his prayer principally in that view. Let us notice then,
1.
His petitions
[St. Paul, in both his Epistles to Timothy, prays, that grace, and mercy, and peace may be multiplied upon him. These three terms comprehend the substance of the Psalmists petitions. He desired grace, to preserve and save his soul. He desired mercy; Be merciful unto me, O Lord! And he desired peace; Rejoice the soul of thy servant, O Lord! Now these are such petitions as every sinner in the universe should offer. There are no other that can be compared with them, in point of importance to the souls of men. As for all the objects of time and sense, they sink into perfect insignificance before the things which appertain to our everlasting salvation. To all therefore I would say, Seek what David sought. Cry mightily to God to have mercy upon you, and to preserve and save your soul: and when you have done that, you may fitly pray also for that consolation and joy, which a sense of his pardoning love will produce in the soul.]
2.
His pleas
[These are taken, partly, from what he experienced in his own soul; and, partly, from the character of God himself.
Observe how he urges, what he experienced in his own soul. The things which God himself requires from us, in order to the acceptance of our prayers, are, a deep sense of our necessities, an entire surrender of our souls to him, a reliance on him for all needful blessings, and a continual application to him in a way of fervent and believing prayer. Behold, these are the very things which David at this time experienced, and which therefore he pleaded before God as evidences of the sincerity of his prayers: Bow down thine ear, O Lord, and hear me; for I am poor and needy! And who is there that must not adopt the same acknowledgment? Who that considers, how destitute his soul is of all that is truly good, will not find these words exactly descriptive of his state? Again, the Psalmist prays, Preserve my soul; for I am holy We must not imagine that David here meant to boast of his high attainments in holiness: the term holy is applied in Scripture to every thing that is dedicated to God, though from its very nature it cannot possess any inherent sanctity: the temple of God, the vessels of the sanctuary, and all the offerings, were holy, because they were set apart for God. So David here speaks of himself as set apart for God [Note: See Psa 4:3.]: and his expression is exactly equivalent to that which he uses in another place; I am thine; save me [Note: Psa 119:94.]. This then is another plea which it becomes us all to use. As the Israelites were a holy nation [Note: Exo 19:6.], so are we [Note: 1Pe 2:9.]: and if we have given up ourselves unreservedly to God, we may well hope, that he will hear and answer our petitions. Once more David says, Save me; for I trust in Thee. This also was a most acceptable plea. If we ask with a wavering and doubtful mind, we can never succeed [Note: Jam 1:6-7.]: but the prayer of faith must of necessity prevail [Note: Mat 21:22. Mar 11:24.]. The suppliant who truly and habitually trusts in God, can never be disappointed. Lastly, David says, I cry unto thee daily: Unto thee, O Lord, do I lift up my soul. God will be inquired of, to do for us the things that he has promised. If we ask, we shall have; if we seek, we shall find; if we knock, it shall be opened unto us [Note: Mat 7:7-8.]: but, if we ask not, we shall not, we cannot, have [Note: Jam 4:2.].
But Davids chief plea is taken from the character of God himself: and this is, in reality, the most satisfactory to the human mind, and most acceptable to the Divine Majesty, who will work for his own great Names sake, when all other grounds of hope are subverted and lost. Towards his creatures generally, whether rational or irrational, God is good; but towards the children of men he is ready to forgive, and plenteous in mercy unto all that call upon him. No mother is so tender towards her new-born child, as God is towards his penitent and believing people. He is far more ready to forgive, than they are to ask forgiveness; and will multiply his pardons beyond all the multitude of their offences [Note: Isa 55:7-9.]. Where sin has abounded, his grace shall much more abound [Note: Rom 5:20.]. The freeness and fulness of Gods grace should be clearly seen, and confidently relied upon: but then we must never forget, that this glorious perfection shines only in the face of Jesus Christ. It is in Christ only that God can pardon sinners in consistency with his justice: but in Christ, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness [Note: Rom 3:24-25.]. In Christ therefore, and in God as reconciled to us through the blood of his Son, must be all our hope. If we rest solely on Christs obedience unto death, all will be well; for in him all the promises of God are yea, and amen [Note: 2Co 1:20.]. But, if we look at God in any way but as in the person of Christ, we shall surely find him a consuming fire [Note: Heb 12:29.].]
The prayer itself not calling for any farther elucidation, we proceed to notice,
II.
The spirit manifested in it
Here the subject is peculiarly important, because it exhibits in so striking a view the dispositions of mind which we should invariably exercise in our approaches to the Divine Majesty. In this example of David, then observe,
1.
His meekness and modesty
[He approaches God, as a sinner ought to do, with reverential awe. He exhibits none of that unhallowed boldness, and indecent familiarity, which are so commonly to be noticed in the prayers of many at this day. It is much to be lamented that many address God almost as if he were an equal. We speak not now of that irreverence with which people, altogether ignorant of religion, conduct themselves in the public services of the church; (though that is deeply to be deplored;) but of the state of mind manifested by many religious people, ministers, as well as others, in their public and social addresses to the throne of Heaven. How different, alas! is it from that which is inculcated, both in the Scriptures [Note: Psa 89:7. Ecc 5:2.], and in the Liturgy of our Church! In the Liturgy, the people are exhorted to accompany their minister with a pure heart and humble voice to the throne of the heavenly grace: and, in another place, to make their humble confession to Almighty God, meekly kneeling on their knees. This is a lovely state of mind, and as opposite to that which many religious people manifest, as light to darkness. Many whose religious principles differ widely from the self-applauding Pharisee, resemble him very nearly in his spirit and conduct: but let us, on the contrary, imitate the publican, who, not venturing so much as to lift up his eyes to heaven, smote upon his breast, and cried, God be merciful to me a sinner.]
2.
His humility and contrition
[He felt himself a guilty and undone creature, deserving of Gods everlasting displeasure: and hence he cried so repeatedly for mercy and salvation, And here again we see how the same views and dispositions are inculcated in the services of our Church. Let any one peruse the confession which is daily offered or that which we are taught to utter at the table of the Lord or let him read the responses after every one of the Ten Commandments or the repeated cries, Lord, have mercy upon me! Christ, have mercy upon me! Lord, have mercy upon me! and he will see at once, what a beautiful harmony there is between our Liturgy and the Holy Scriptures; and what distinguished saints all her members would be, if the Spirit of her Liturgy were transfused into their minds. This is the state of mind which, above all, we would recommend to those who desire to find acceptance with God: for to this man will God look, even to him who is of a broken and contrite spirit [Note: Isa 57:15; Isa 65:2.]: this is the sacrifice which, above all, God requires, and which he has assured us he will never despise [Note: Psa 51:17.].]
3.
His faith and love
[David did not so view his own sinfulness as to distrust the mercy of his heavenly Father; but rather took occasion from his own sinfulness to magnify still more the free and supera-bounding grace of God. In this, his example is especially to be followed. Nothing can warrant us to limit the mercy of our God. O how ready is he to forgive returning penitents! Of this, the conduct of the father towards the repenting prodigal is a lively and instructive image. In that parable, the compassion of God towards returning sinners is, as it were, exhibited even to the eye of sense. Let us then, whatever be our state, bear this in mind, that unbelief is a sin which binds all our other sins upon us. Never, under any circumstances, should we harbour it for a moment. It is enough to have resisted Gods authority, without proceeding further to rob him of the brightest jewels of his crownhis grace and mercy. The goodness of God, as described in our text, and in another subsequent part of this psalm [Note: ver. 15.], is a sufficient pledge to us, that of those who come to him in his Sons name, he never did, nor ever will, cast out to much as one.]
4.
His zeal and earnestness
[The diversified petitions and pleas which we have already considered, together with the renewed urgency of his supplications in the verse following my text [Note: ver. 6.], shew, how determined David was not to rest, till he had obtained favour of the Lord. And thus must we also continue instant in prayer: we must watch unto it with all perseverance; we must pray always, and not faint. Alas! how are we condemned in our own minds for our manifold neglects, and for our lukewarmness in prayer to God! But we must not rest satisfied with confessing these neglects: we should remedy them, and break through this supineness, and correct this negligence, and lie at Bethesdas pool till the angel come for our relief. This is suggested to us in our text. What we translate, I cry unto thee daily, is, in the margin, I cry unto thee all the day. O that there were in us such a heart! O that our sense of need were so deep, our desire of mercy so ardent, and our faith in God so assured, that we were drawn to God with an irresistible and abiding impulse; and that, like Jacob of old, we wrestled with him day and night, saying, I will not let thee go except thou bless me [Note: Gen 32:24; Gen 32:26; Gen 32:28. with Hos 12:3-5.]. Such prayer could not but prevail; and such a suppliant could not but find everlasting acceptance with God, who is so plenteous in mercy, so ready to forgive [Note: Luk 18:1-8.].]
Fuente: Charles Simeon’s Horae Homileticae (Old and New Testaments)
CONTENTS
The royal Prophet is at his devotions; and in beholding David, surely we must not overlook him, of whom David was so eminent a type. We find strong faith joined with earnest prayer in the opening of the Psalm, and loud praise at the close of it.
A Prayer of David.
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
I pause at the close of these verses, though thereby a chasm is made in the prayer, to call the Reader’s attention to what this petitioner said in it, where the great argument made use of is, that he is holy. Can anything more pointedly prove that this is Christ? David never, in any period of his life, could make use of such language: and none but He, who is holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, and made higher than the heavens, could adopt the expression. The same word here rendered holy is used in direct application to Christ, Psa 16:10 .
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
A Pattern of Prayer
Psa 86:1-5
The prayer that springs from a deep-felt need, and will not cease till that need is supplied, may say the same things over a hundred times, and yet they shall not be vain.
I. The Invocations. In general, this Psalm is remarkable for its frequent use of the Divine names. In almost every verse they recur, and their frequency gives us a vivid impression of earnestness, of consciousness of need, and of faith so sore pressed that it could only sustain itself by perpetual renewal of its grasp of God. Five times in these verses of our text does he invoke Him, and that by three several names Jehovah, my God, Lord. These three sacred names have each a distinct meaning when used in prayer; they bring up various aspects of the character of God as the basis of our confidence, and the ground of our petitions. So, then, when we blend all these together, it is as if the Psalmist had said: ‘The ever living, the covenant Jehovah, my God in whom I claim a personal interest, who loves me with an individualizing love, and cares for me with a specific care, the absolute monarch and sovereign of the whole universe is He to whom I come with my supplication. I think of His names, I trust in them, I present them to Him, whom they all but partially declare; and I ask Him for His own name’s sake, because of what He is and hath declared Himself to be, to hear my poor cry, to answer my imperfect faith, to show Himself yet once again that which His name hath from old proclaimed Him to be.’
II. So much then for the invocation, and now a word or two in reference to the petitions which these verses give us. As I have said, they are all substantially the same, and yet they so vary as to suggest how familiar all the aspects of the deliverance that the Psalmist desires were to him. The way in which God’s mercy is to guard and save is left, with meek patience, to God’s decision. No sorrow is so crushing and hopeless but that happiness may again visit the heart where trust and love abide. Only let us remember that this Psalm seeks for joy, where it seeks for help, not from earthly sources, but from God.
III. Finally, we have to consider the pleas on which these petitions are based. The logic of prayer here is very remarkable and beautiful. Every feature of the Psalmist’s condition and character, as well as all that he knows of God, becomes in his life a reason with God for granting his prayer. The human side of the relation between God and His servant is further urged in the subsequent claims which refer to the Psalmist’s longings and efforts after fellowship with God. It is His own mercy in Christ which we present It is the work of His own love which we bring as our plea.
A. Maclaren, Sermons Preached in Manchester, vol. III. p. 257.
Reference. LXXXVI. 9. J. Wordsworth, ‘The One Religion,’ Bampton Lectures, 1881, p. 1.
Religious Concentration
Psa 86:2
To a writer of such broad sympathies as the Psalmist, the doctrine of the Divine unity suggests a prophetic picture of the gathering together of all nations for God’s worship. From the north and the south, the east and the west, he sees many races flowing together with one consent and bowing reverently before the Lord God of Israel. And as he contemplates the glory of the coming days he longs to realize an earnest of its peace in his own undivided consecration to God.
I. Various powers belong to us between which no true bond of coherence makes itself felt. Our minds seem to have suffered dismemberment, and we watch ourselves discharging God’s service with little bits of our being only. There can be no complete oneness of character till we adopt the Psalmist’s prayer and persevere till it is answered.
( a ) That power of religious concentration for which the Psalmist prays is the just tribute to God’s greatness. The worship and service of the Most High must absorb us and will even then be tremendously inadequate.
( b ) A religion illimitable in the range of its interests demands a service into which all the forces of life gather themselves. Isolated acts of worship do not satisfy the spirit of its requirements. The homage Jehovah seeks is many-sided, including praise, faith, reverence, contemplation, obedience, philanthropy, and consuming love.
II. This united and mutually consistent action of all the powers of the soul is necessary to religious perfecting. Some parts of the nature are more predisposed to God and religious exercise and pursuits than others, but the goal is not reached whilst they act in isolation.
III. What is the difficulty which hinders this unification of all the forces of the nature in the Divine service. It is obvious that the impediment is not deficiencies of intellectual training. The mental powers do not act together in close file at a word of command from the hidden life, and it will be some years before that comes to pass. And this fact has its counterpart in the processes through which the art of religious concentration is attained. If sin had not introduced a fixed discord into man’s nature it might still have been needful for him to acquire unity of thought and life by a term in the school of experience.
IV. The grace for which the Psalmist prays is one and the same with the power which sanctifies. Holiness is practical religious concentration, achieved through the commanding motive of love to God. When the heart is united to fear God’s name all social and secular pursuits become indirect forms of worship, binding more closely to God and awakening delight at the thought of His presence.
V. The inevitable set of the human mind is towards concentration, and if we do not acquire the habit for good it will master us for evil. One man’s nature specializes itself into the pursuit of pleasure, another’s into the acquisition of power, and that of a third into money-getting, divorced even from the satisfaction of spending. It behoves us to see that it is the best within us which becomes dominant, and that this supreme concentration chooses for its processes the things which are pure, lovely, and sacred, rather than the things which are evil.
T. G. Selby, The God of the Frail, p. 330.
References. LXXXVI. International Critical Commentary, vol. ii. p. 235. LXXXVI. 17. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxvi. No. 1559.
Fuente: Expositor’s Dictionary of Text by Robertson
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
XV
PSALM AFTER DAVID PRIOR TO THE BABYLONIAN EXILE
The superscriptions ascribed to Asaph twelve palms (Psa 50 ; 73-83) Asaph, Heman, and Jeduthun presided over the Levitical singers in the time of David. Their sons also directed the various bands of musicians (1Ch 25 ). It seems that the family of Asaph for many generations continued to preside over the service of song (Cf. Ezr 3:10 ).
The theme of Psa 50 is “Obedience is better than sacrifice,” or the language of Samuel to Saul when he had committed the awful sin in respect to the Amalekites. This teaching is paralleled in many Old Testament scriptures, for instance, Psa 51:16-17 . For thou delightest not in sacrifice; else would I give it: Thou hast no pleasure in burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: A broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise.
The problem of Psa 73 is the problem of why the wicked prosper (Psa 73:1-14 ), and its solution is found in the attitude of God toward the wicked (Psa 73:15-28 ). [For a fine exposition of the other psalms of this section see Kirkpatrick or Maclaren on the Psalms.]
The psalms attributed to the sons of Korah are Psa 42 ; Psa 44 ; Psa 45 ; Psa 47 ; Psa 48 ; Psa 49 ; Psa 84 ; Psa 85 ; Psa 87 . The evidence that Psalms 42-43 were one poem is internal. There are three stanzas, each closing with a refrain. The similarity of structure and thought indicates that they were formerly one psalm. A parallel to these two psalms we find in the escape of Christian from the Castle of Giant Despair in Pilgrim’s Progress .
Only two psalms were ascribed to Solomon, viz: Psa 72 and 127. However, the author believes that there is good reason to attribute Psa 72 to David. If he wrote it, then only one was written by Solomon.
The theme of Psa 72 is the reign of the righteous king, and the outline according to DeWitt, which shows the kingdom as desired and foretold, is as follows: (1) righteous (Psa 72:1-4 ) ; (2) perpetual (Psa 72:5-7 ); (3) universal (Psa 72:8-11 ); (4) benign (Psa 72:12-14 ); (5) prosperous (Psa 72:15-17 ).
Psa 127 was written when Solomon built the Temple. It is the central psalm of the psalms of the Ascents, which refer to the Temple. It seems fitting that this psalm should occupy the central position in the group, because of the occasion which inspired it and its relation to the other psalms of the group. A brief interpretation of it is as follows: The house here means household. It is a brief lyric, setting forth the lessons of faith and trust. This together with Psa 128 is justly called “A Song of Home.” Once in speaking to Baylor Female College I used this psalm, illustrating the function of a school as a parent sending forth her children into the world as mighty arrows. Again I used this psalm in one of my addresses in our own Seminary in which I made the household to refer to the Seminary sending forth the preachers as her children.
The psalms assigned to the era of Hezekiah and Isaiah are Psa 46 ; Psa 47 ; Psa 48 . The historical setting is found in the history of the reign of Hezekiel. Their application to Judah at this time is found in the historical connection, in which we have God’s great deliverances from the foreign powers, especially the deliverance from Sennacherib. We find in poetry a description of the destruction and desolation of Jerusalem in the Lamentations of Jeremiah and in Psa 74 ; Psa 79 .
The radical critics ascribe Psa 74 ; Psa 79 to the Maccabean period, and their argument is based upon the use of the word “synagogues,” in Psa 74:8 . The answer to their contention is found in the marginal rendering which gives “places of assembly” instead of “synagogues.” The word “synagogue” is a Greek word translated from the Hebrew, which has several meanings, and in this place means the “place of assembly” where God met his people.
The silence of the exile period is shown in Psa 137 , in which they respond that they cannot sing a song of Zion in a strange land. Their brightening of hope is seen in Psa 102 . In this we have the brightening of their hope on the eve of their return. In Psa 85:10 we have a great text:
Mercy and truth are met together;
Righteousness and peace have kissed each other.
The truth here is God’s law demanding justice; mercy is God’s grace meeting justice. This was gloriously fulfilled in Christ on the cross. He met the demands of the law and offers mercy and grace to all who accept them on the terms of repentance and faith.
Three characteristics of Psa 119 are, first, it is an alphabetical psalm; second, it is the longest chapter in the Bible, and third, it is an expansion of the latter part of Psa 19 . Psalms 146-150 were used for worship in the second temple. The expressions of innocence in the psalms do not refer to original sin, but to a course of conduct in contrast with wicked lives. The psalmists do not claim absolute, but relative sinlessness.
The imprecations in the psalms are real prayers, and are directed against real men who were enemies of David and the Jewish nation, but they are not expressions of personal resentment. They are vigorous expressions of righteous indignation against incorrigible enemies of God and his people and are to be interpreted in the light of progressive revelation. The New Testament contains many exultant expressions of the overthrow of the wicked. (Cf. 1Co 16:22 ; 2Ti 4:14 ; Gal 5:12 ; Rev 16:5-6 ; Rev 18:20 .) These imprecations do not teach that we, even in the worst circumstances, should bear personal malice, nor take vengeance on the enemies of righteousness, but that we should live so close to God that we may acquiesce in the destruction of the wicked and leave the matter of vengeance in the hands of a just God, to whom vengeance belongs (Rom 12:19-21 ).
The clearest teachings on the future life as found in the psalms, both pro and con, are found in these passages, as follows: Psa 16:10-11 ; Psa 17:15 ; Psa 23:6 ; Psa 49:15 ; Psa 73:23-26 . The passages that are construed to the contrary are found in Psa 6:5 ; Psa 30:9 ; Psa 39:13 ; Psa 88:10-12 ; Psa 115:17 . The student will compare these passages and note carefully their teachings. The first group speaks of the triumph over Sheol (the resurrection) ; about awaking in the likeness of God; about dwelling in the house of the Lord forever; about redemption from the power of Sheol; and God’s guiding counsel and final reception into glory, all of which is very clear and unmistakable teaching as to the future life.
The second group speaks of DO remembrance in death; about no profit to the one when he goes down to the pit; of going hence and being no more; about the dead not being able to praise God and about the grave as being the land of forgetfulness ; and about the dead not praising Jehovah, all of which are spoken from the standpoint of the grave and temporal death.
There is positively no contradiction nor discrepancy in the teaching of these scriptures. One group takes the spirit of man as the viewpoint and teaches the continuity of life, the immortality of the soul; the other group takes the physical being of man as the viewpoint and teaches the dissolution of the body and its absolute unconsciousness in the grave.
QUESTIONS
1. How many and what psalms were ascribed to Asaph?
2. Who presided over the Levitical singers in the time of David?
3. What is the theme of Psa 50 , and where do we find the same teaching in the Old Testament?
4. What is the problem of Psa 73 , and what its solution?
5. What psalms are attributed to the sons of Korah?
6. What is the evidence that Psalms 42-43 were one poem and what the characteristic of these two taken together?
7. What parallel to these two psalms do we find in modern literature?
8. What psalms were ascribed to Solomon?
9. What is the theme of Psa 72 ?
10. What is the outline according to DeWitt, which shows the kingdom as desired and foretold?
11. When was Psa 127 written and what the application as a part of the Pilgrim group?
12. Give a brief interpretation of it and the uses made of it by the author on two different occasions.
13. What psalms are assigned to the era of Hezekiah and Isaiah, and what their historical setting?
14. What is their application to Judah at this time?
15. Where may we find in poetry a description of the destruction and desolation of Jerusalem?
16. To what period do radical critics ascribe Psalms 74-79; what is their argument, and what is your answer?
17. Which psalm shows the silence of the exile period and why?
18. Which one shows their brightening of hope?
19. Explain Psa 85:10 .
20. Give three characteristics of Psa 119 .
21. What use was made of Psalms 146-150?
22. Explain the expression of innocence in the psalms in harmony with their teaching of sin.
23. Explain the imprecations in the psalms and show their harmony with New Testament teachings.
24. Cite the clearest teachings on the future life as found in the psalms, both pro and con.
Fuente: B.H. Carroll’s An Interpretation of the English Bible
Psa 86:1 A Prayer of David. Bow down thine ear, O LORD, hear me: for I [am] poor and needy.
A prayer ] Left for a form, for a help to devotion, as was also Psa 102:1 title.
Ver. 1. Bow down thine ear, O Lord ] As the careful Physician doth to his feeble patient; so Basil glosseth here.
For I am poor and needy
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
This is “A prayer of David.”
It may be noticed that the name of God rises to its covenant character toward the close of Psa 83 , and for anticipated enjoyment in that relationship, whether in His house or on the way there, and for the land, in the two psalms that follow for the sons of Korah. Jehovah still appears in Psa 86 , but Adonai enters much into “the prayer of David,” which entreats and counts on His grace, being as good as He is great, Whom all nations shall worship, coming before Him. But this glorifying of His name is not without a token for good shown his beloved to put His haters to shame. Israel cannot enter on their promised blessings save through judgments on the quick and the inhabited earth.
Fuente: William Kelly Major Works (New Testament)
Psalms
A SHEAF OF PRAYER ARROWS
Psa 86:1 – Psa 86:5
We have here a sheaf of arrows out of a good man’s quiver, shot into heaven. This series of supplications is remarkable in more than one respect. They all mean substantially the same thing, but the Psalmist turns the one blessing round in all sorts of ways, so great does it seem to him, and so earnest is his desire to possess it. They are almost all quotations from earlier psalms, just as our prayers are often words of Scripture, hallowed by many associations, and uniting us with the men of old who cried unto God and were answered.
The structure of the petitions is remarkably uniform. In each there are a prayer and a plea, and in most of them a direct invocation of God. So I have thought that, if we put them all together now, we may get some lessons as to the invocations, the petitions, and the pleas of true prayer; or, in other words, we may be taught how to lay hold of God, what to ask from Him, and how to be sure of an answer.
I. First, the lesson as to how to lay hold upon God.
Nothing in our prayers is often more hollow and unreal than the formal repetitions of the syllables of that divine name, often but to fill a pause in our thoughts. But to ‘call upon the Name of the Lord’ means, first and foremost, to bring before our minds the aspects of His great and infinite character, which are gathered together into the Name by which we address Him. So when we say ‘Jehovah!’ ‘Lord!’ what we ought to mean is this, that we are gazing upon that majestic, glorious thought of Being, self-derived, self-motived, self-ruled, the being of Him whose Name can only be, ‘I am that I am.’ Of all other creatures the name is, ‘I am that I have been made,’ or ‘I am that I became,’ but of Him the Name is, ‘I am that I am.’ Nowhere outside of Himself is the reason for His being, nor the law that shapes it, nor the aim to which it tends. And this infinite, changeless Rock is laid for our confidence, Jehovah the Eternal, the Self-subsisting, Self-sufficing One.
There is more than that thought in this wondrous Name, for it not only expresses the timeless, unlimited, and changeless being of God, but also the truth that He has entered into what He deigns to call a Covenant with us men. The name Jehovah is the seal of that ancient Covenant, of which, though the form has vanished, the essence abides for ever, and God has thereby bound Himself to us by promises that cannot be abrogated. So that when we say, ‘O Lord!’ we summon up before ourselves, and grasp as the grounds of our confidence, and we humbly present before Him as the motives, if we may so call them, for His action, His own infinite being and His covenanted grace.
Then, further, our psalm invokes ‘ my God.’ That names implies in itself, simply, the notion of power to be reverenced. But when we add to it that little word ‘ my ,’ we rise to the wonderful thought that the creature can claim an individual relation to Him, and in some profound sense a possession there. The tiny mica flake claims kindred with the Alpine peak from which it fell. The poor, puny hand, that can grasp so little of the material and temporal, can grasp all of God that it needs.
Then, there is the other name, ‘Lord,’ which simply expresses illimitable sovereignty, power over all circumstances, creatures, orders of being, worlds, and cycles of ages. Wherever He is He rules, and therefore my prayer can be answered by Him. When a child cries ‘Mother!’ it is more than all other petitions. A dear name may be a caress when it comes from loving lips. If we are the kind of Christians that we ought to be, there will be nothing sweeter to us than to whisper to ourselves, and to say to Him, ‘Abba! Father!’ See to it that your calling on the Name of the Lord is not formal, but the true apprehension, by a believing mind and a loving heart, of the ineffable and manifold sweetnesses which are hived in His manifold names.
II. Now, secondly, we have here a lesson as to what we should ask.
Then the prayers go on to three petitions, which may be all regarded as diverse acts of deliverance or of help. ‘Preserve my soul.’ The word expresses the guardianship with which a garrison keeps a fortress. It is the Hebrew equivalent of the word employed by Paul-’The peace of God shall keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.’ The thought is that of a defenceless man or thing round which some strong protection is cast. And the desire expressed by it is that in the midst of sorrow, whatever it is, the soul may be guarded from evil. Then, the next petition-’Save Thy servant’-goes a step further, and not only asks to be kept safe in the midst of sorrows, but to be delivered out of them. And then the next petition-’Be merciful unto me, O Lord!’-craves that the favour which comes down to inferiors, and is bestowed upon those who might deserve something far otherwise, may manifest itself, in such acts of strengthening, or help, or deliverance, as divine wisdom may see fit. And then the last petition is-’Rejoice the soul of Thy servant.’ The series begins with ‘hearing,’ passes through ‘preserving,’ ‘saving,’ showing ‘mercy,’ and comes at last to ‘rejoice the soul’ that has been so harassed and troubled. Gladness is God’s purpose for us all; joy we all have a right to claim from Him. It is the intended issue of every sorrow, and it can only be had when we cleave to Him, and pass through the troubles of life with continual dependence on and aspiration towards Himself.
So these are the petitions massed together, and out of them let me take two or three lessons. First, then, let us learn to make all wishes and annoyances material of prayer. This man was harassed by some trouble, the nature of which we do not know; and although the latter portion of his psalm rises into loftier regions of spiritual desire, here, in the first part of it, he is wrestling with his afflicting circumstances, whatever they were, and he has no hesitation in spreading them all out before God and asking for His delivering help. Wishes that are not turned into prayers irritate, disturb, unsettle. Wishes that are turned into prayers are calmed and made blessed. Stanley and his men lived for weeks upon a poisonous root, which, if eaten crude, brought all manner of diseases, but, steeped in running water, had all the acrid juices washed out of it, and became wholesome food. If you steep your wishes in the stream of prayer the poison will pass out of them. Some of them will be suppressed, all of them will be hallowed, and all of them will be calmed. Troubles, great or small, should be turned into prayers. Breath spent in sighs is wasted; turned into prayers it will swell our sails. If a man does not pray ‘without ceasing,’ there is room for doubt whether he ever prays at all. What would you think of a traveller who had a valuable cordial of which he only tasted a drop in the morning and another in the evening; or who had a sure staff on which to lean which he only employed at distant intervals on the weary march, and that only for a short time? Let us turn all that we want into petitions, and all that annoys us let us spread before God.
Learn, further, that earnest reiteration is not vain repetition. ‘Use not vain repetitions as the heathen do, for they think they shall be heard for their much speaking,’ said the Master. But the same Master ‘went away from them and prayed the third time, using the same words.’ As long as we have not consciously received the blessing, it is no vain reiteration if we renew our prayers that it may come upon our heads. The man who asks for a thing once, and then gets up from his knees and goes away, and does not notice whether he gets the answer or not, does not pray. The man who truly desires anything from God cannot be satisfied with one languid request for it. But as the heart contracts with a sense of need, and expands with a faith in God’s sufficiency, it will drive the same blood of prayer over and over again through the same veins; and life will be wholesome and strong.
Then learn, further, to limit wishes and petitions within the bounds of God’s promises. The most of these supplications of our text may be found in other parts of Scripture, as promises from God. Only so far as an articulate divine word carries my faith has my faith the right to go. In the crooked alleys of Venice there is a thin thread of red stone, inlaid in the pavement or wall, which guides through all the devious turnings to the Piazza, in the centre, where the great church stands. As long as we have the red line of promise on our path, faith may follow it and will come to the Temple. Where the line stops it is presumption, and not faith, that takes up the running. God’s promises are sunbeams flung down upon us. True prayer catches them on its mirror, and signals them back to God. We are emboldened to say, ‘Bow down Thine ear!’ because He has said, ‘I will hear.’ We are encouraged to cry, ‘Be merciful!’ because we have our foot upon the promise that He will be; and all that we can ask of Him is, ‘Do for us what Thou hast said; be to us what Thou art.’
The final lesson is, Leave God to settle how He answers your prayer. The Psalmist prayed for preservation, for safety, for joy; but he did not venture to prescribe to God how these blessings were to be ministered to him. He does not ask that the trouble may be taken away. That is as it may be; it may be better that it shall be left. But he asks that in it he shall not be allowed to sink, and that, however the waves may run high, they shall not be allowed to swamp his poor little cockle-shell of a boat. This is the true inmost essence of prayer-not that we should prescribe to Him how to answer our desires, but that we should leave all that in His hands. The Apostle Paul said, in his last letter, with triumphant confidence, that he knew that God would ‘deliver him and save him into His everlasting kingdom.’ And he knew, at the same time, that his course was ended, and that there was nothing for him now but the crown. How was he ‘saved into the kingdom’ and ‘delivered from the mouth of the lion’? The sword that struck off the wearied head that had thought so long for God’s Church was the instrument of the deliverance and the means of the salvation. For us it may be that a sharper sorrow may be the answer to the prayer, ‘Preserve Thy servant.’ It may be that God’s ‘bowing down His ear’ and answering us when we cry shall be to pass us through a mill that has finer rollers, to crush still more the bruised corn. But the end and the meaning of it all will be to ‘rejoice the soul of the servant’ with a deeper joy at last.
III. Finally, mark the lesson which we have here as to the pleas that are to be urged, or the conditions on which prayer is answered.
Then the Psalmist goes on to put another class of pleas derived from his relation to God. These are mainly two-’I am holy,’ and ‘Thy servant that trusteth in Thee.’ Now, with regard to that first word ‘holy,’ according to our modern understanding of the expression it by no means sets forth the Psalmist’s idea. It has an unpleasant smack of self-righteousness, too, which is by no means to be found in the original. But the word employed is a very remarkable and pregnant one. It really carries with it, in germ, the great teaching of the Apostle John. ‘We love Him because He first loved us.’ It means one who, being loved and favoured by God, answers the divine love with his own love. And the Psalmist is not pleading any righteousness of his own, but declaring that he, touched by the divine love, answers that love, and looks up; not as if thereby he deserved the response that he seeks, but as knowing that it is impossible but that the waiting heart should thus be blessed. They who love God are sure that the answer to their desires will come fluttering down upon their heads, and fold its white wings and nestle in their hearts. Christian people are a great deal too much afraid of saying, ‘I love God.’ They rob themselves of much peace and power thereby. We should be less chary of so saying if we thought more about God’s love to us, and poked less into our own conduct.
Again, the Psalmist brings this plea-’Thy servant that trusteth in Thee.’ He does not say, ‘I deserve to be answered because I trust,’ but ‘because I trust I am sure that I shall be answered’; for it is absurd to suppose that God will look down from heaven on a soul that is depending upon Him, and will let that soul’s confidence be put to shame. Dear friend! if your heart is resting upon God, be sure of this, that anything is possible rather than that you should not get from Him the blessings that you need.
The Psalmist gathers together all his pleas which refer to himself into two final clauses-’I cry unto Thee daily,’ ‘I lift up my soul unto Thee’-which, taken together, express the constant effort of a devout heart after communion with God. To withdraw my heart from the low levels of earth, and to bear it up into communion with God, is the sure way to get what I desire, because then God Himself will be my chief desire, and ‘they who seek the Lord shall not want any good.’
But the true and prevailing plea is not in our needs, desires, or dispositions, but in God’s own character, as revealed by His words and acts, and grasped by our faith. Therefore the Psalmist ends by passing from thoughts of self to thoughts of God, and builds at last on the sure foundation which underlies all his other ‘fors’ and gives them all their force-’For Thou, Lord, art good, and ready to forgive, and plenteous in mercy unto all them that call upon Thee.’
Brethren! turn all your wishes and all your annoyances into prayers. If a wish is not fit to be prayed about, it is not fit to be cherished. If a care is too small to be made a prayer, it is too small to be made a burden. Be frank with God as God is frank with you, and go to His throne, keeping back nothing of your desires or of your troubles. To carry them there will take the poison and the pain out of wasps’ stings, and out of else fatal wounds. We have a Name to trust to, tenderer and deeper than those which evoked the Psalmist’s triumphant confidence. Let us see to it that, as the basis of our faith is firmer, our faith be stronger than his. We have a plea to urge, more persuasive and mighty than those which he pressed on God and gathered to his own heart. ‘For Christ’s sake’ includes all that he pled, and stretches beyond it. If we come to God through Him who declares His name to us, we shall not draw near to the Throne with self-willed desires, nor leave it with empty hands. ‘If ye ask anything in My Name, I will do it.’
Fuente: Expositions Of Holy Scripture by Alexander MacLaren
NASB (UPDATED) TEXT: Psa 86:1-5
1Incline Your ear, O Lord, and answer me;
For I am afflicted and needy.
2Preserve my soul, for I am a godly man;
O You my God, save Your servant who trusts in You.
3Be gracious to me, O Lord,
For to You I cry all day long.
4Make glad the soul of Your servant,
For to You, O Lord, I lift up my soul.
5For You, Lord, are good, and ready to forgive,
And abundant in lovingkindness to all who call upon You.
Psa 86:1 Incline This is a metaphor derived from the verb to bend or to turn (BDB 639, KB 692). It calls on YHWH to hear His servant’s plea (cf. Psa 86:3-4; Psa 86:6-7).
O Lord This is YHWH (i.e., the name is defined in Exo 3:14, see Special Topic: Names for Deity). This is the covenant name for Deity. It is a form of the verb to be.
There is a play between YHWH (Psa 86:1; Psa 86:3; Psa 86:6; Psa 86:11), Elohim (Psa 86:2; Psa 86:10; Psa 86:12) and Adon (Psa 86:4; Psa 86:8-9; Psa 86:12). These represent different concepts of deity.
1. YHWH – God as Savior, Redeemer
2. Elohim – God as Creator, Sustainer, Provider
3. Adonai – God as master, owner, husband
answer This was not a prayer for information but the assurance of God’s personal presence and care. The psalmist has experienced this and, for whatever reason, does not now! It is a plea for God to act in a visible way.
1. to deliver (Psa 86:7)
2. to witness (Psa 86:8-10)
For I am afflicted and needy This phrase (BDB 776 and BDB 2) could be understood in a spiritual sense to refer to the faithful remnant (see SPECIAL TOPIC: THE REMNANT, THREE SENSES , cf. Psa 34:6; Psa 35:10; Psa 40:17; Psa 70:5). In this Psalm it is possibly a reference to the King.
Psa 86:2 preserve my soul, for I am a godly man There are two terms used to describe the psalmist.
1. soul – lit. nephesh, BDB 659, cf. Psa 86:4 (twice), 13,14; see notes online at Psa 3:2 and Gen 35:18
2. godly one/man – BDB 339, see notes online at Psa 16:10; Psa 50:5
This begins a series of reasons why God should act on the psalmist’s behalf.
1. he is godly, Psa 86:2 (hasid, BDB 339, faithful to the covenant, related to hesed, BDB 339)
2. he trusts in YHWH, Psa 86:2
3. he prays to YHWH, Psa 86:3-5
4. because God is also hesed, Psa 86:5; Psa 86:15.
In the OT, death was not seen as a reunion with God but a place of silence and joylessness. The psalmist wants to praise God in worship. The concept of what happens in the afterlife is developed (i.e., progressive revelation) in the NT. Thank God for Jesus and the NT!
save In the OT this referred to physical deliverance. See SPECIAL TOPIC: SALVATION (OLD TESTAMENT TERM) (OT).
who trusts in You See notes online at Psa 4:5.
Psa 86:3 to You I cry all day long This referred to prayer throughout the day (cf. Psa 22:2; Psa 25:5; Psa 88:9).
Psa 86:4 I lift up my soul This is an idiom for recognizing YHWH’s place of power (i.e., on high, in heaven, cf. Psa 123:1) and offering one’s total self to Him (cf. Psa 25:1; Psa 143:8; Lam 3:41).
The cultural background could be
1. sacrifices were lifted to YHWH
2. Jewish prayer was offered with the head, eyes, and hands lifted to heaven
Psa 86:5 This is a summary of the character of YHWH (cf. Psa 86:10; Psa 86:15). There are several of these summaries throughout the OT (cf. Exo 34:6; Jon 4:2; Neh 9:17; Joe 2:13; Psa 86:15; Psa 103:8; Psa 145:8).
Man’s hope is in the settled, loving character of YHWH. He is
1. good – BDB 373 II (cf. 1Ch 16:34; 2Ch 5:13; 2Ch 7:3; 2Ch 30:18; Ezr 3:11; Psa 25:8; Psa 34:8; Psa 100:5; Psa 106:1; Psa 107:1; Psa 118:1; Psa 118:25; Psa 135:3; Psa 136:1; Jer 33:11; Nah 1:7)
2. ready to forgive – BDB 699, adjective found only here (cf. Neh 9:17; Psa 130:4 for usages for the related noun)
3. abundant in lovingkindness – BDB 912 I construct BDB 338 (cf. Exo 34:6; Neh 9:17; Psa 103:8; Psa 145:8; Joe 2:13; Jon 4:2), see SPECIAL TOPIC: LOVINGKINDNESS (HESED)
4. great, Psa 86:10 – BDB 152 (cf. Psa 77:13)
5. do wondrous deeds, Psa 86:10 – BDB 810, see Special Topic: Wonderful Things
6. merciful, Psa 86:15 – BDB 933
7. gracious, Psa 86:15 – BDB 337
8. slow to anger, Psa 86:15 – cf. same parallel verses as #3
9. abundant in faithfulness/truth, Psa 86:15 – cf. same parallel verses as #3
to all who call upon You The scope of YHWH’s love and offer of acceptance is surprising in an OT Psalm. The same universal promise is repeated in Psa 86:9. God welcomes all who approach Him in faith and worship. See Special Topic: YHWH’s Eternal Redemptive Plan.
Calling upon God was an act of faith expressed in public worship in Joe 2:32 and quoted by Paul in Rom 10:9-13. See Special Topic: What Does It Mean to Receive, Believe, Confess/Profess, and Call Upon?
Fuente: You Can Understand the Bible: Study Guide Commentary Series by Bob Utley
Title. A Prayer = An Intercession, or Hymn. Compare Psa 72:20, referring to the whole of Book II. Hebrew. Tephillah. See App-63.
of David. The only Psalm in this third book ascribed to David. Refers to David’s Son and Lord.
LORD. Hebrew. Jehovah. App-4.
hear = answer.
poor = helpless. Hebrew. ‘ebyon. See note on Pro 6:11.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
Psa 86:1-17 we have another psalm of David. David said,
Bow down thine ear, O LORD, hear me: for I am poor and needy. Preserve my soul; for I am holy: O thou my God, save thy servant that is trusting in you. Be merciful unto me, O Lord: for I cry unto you daily. Rejoice the soul of your servant: for unto thee, O Lord, do I lift up my soul. For thou, Lord, art good, and ready to forgive; and plenteous in mercy unto all them that call upon thee ( Psa 86:1-5 ).
This particular psalm is an interesting psalm in that practically every every verse is taken from another psalm someplace. So actually the psalmist here, number one, David shows his excellent knowledge of all of the other psalms, because he is just taking verses from so many different psalms. And you can find practically every one of these a quotation from another psalm. So David is taking from all these psalms and just sort of putting together a psalm that he draws from all of the other psalms. “For thou, Lord, art good, and ready to forgive; plenteous in mercy unto all those that call upon Thee.”
Give ear, O LORD, unto my prayer; attend to the voice of my supplications. In the day of my trouble I will call upon thee: for thou wilt answer me. Among the gods there is none like unto thee, O Lord, [Adonai, not Jehovah here]; neither are there any works like unto thy works. All nations whom thou hast made shall come and worship before thee, O Adonai; and shall glorify thy name. For thou art great, and you do wondrous things: thou art God alone. Teach me thy way, O Jehovah; I will walk in your truth: unite my heart to fear thy name ( Psa 86:6-11 ).
One of the problems I think that we, all of us, experience is the divided heart. Here David is praying, “God, just unite my heart towards Thee.” We have a divided heart. Part of us is towards God, and part of it is towards our flesh. And I’m divided by the desires of my flesh and my desires for God. David is saying, “Lord, I don’t want a divided heart. Unite my heart towards Thee.” I think that’s an excellent prayer.
I will praise thee, O Lord my God, with all my heart: and I will glorify thy name for ever. For great is thy mercy toward me: and thou hast delivered my soul from the lowest hell. O God, the proud are risen against me, and the assemblies of the violent men have sought after my soul; and have not set thee before them. But thou, O Adonai, art a God full of compassion, and gracious, and longsuffering, and plenteous in mercy and truth. O turn unto me, and have mercy upon me; give thy strength unto thy servant, save the son of your handmaid. Show me a token for good; that they which hate me may see it, and be ashamed: because you, Jehovah, have helped me, and comforted me ( Psa 86:12-17 ).
Now in verse Psa 86:5 , “For thou, O Lord, art good, and ready to forgive.” So he’s declaring here the nature of God in the psalm. And he declares that God is good and God is ready to forgive, that He is plenteous in mercy. In verse Psa 86:10 , he declares, “For Thou art great, and You do wondrous things: You are the only God.” So verse Psa 86:15 , “But Thou, O Lord, art a God full of compassion, gracious, longsuffering, plenteous in mercy and truth.”
So it’s interesting, verses Psa 86:5 , Psa 86:10 , and Psa 86:15 , he declares the character of God, aspects of God’s character. And so to catch… it’s woven through, but then he declares the character of God and then he responds to it with his request. “Lord, You are merciful. O God, have mercy on me, you know. And Lord, You do wonderful things. You only are God. Therefore, teach me Your ways. Lord, You’re a God full of compassion. You’re gracious. You’re longsuffering. You have plenty in mercy and truth. O God, turn to me and have mercy upon me. And and let me experience your grace. A token for good and so forth.” So the character of God and then my response to the character of God.
Now when I come to God, it is important that I understand the character of God. If I do not know that God is merciful, then it’s difficult for me to ask for mercy. If I do not realize that God is gracious, then it’s difficult for me to ask for grace. But knowing the character of God gives me then the confidence in coming to God. It helps me when I come to God to understand the nature of God. Now we so often have misunderstood the nature of God. Thou are the God of wrath and vengeance. Thou are the God of justice. And we look at the one aspect of God’s nature, but that’s to those that hate Him. That’s to those that are opposed to Him. But to those that love Him, to those that call upon Him, He is merciful. He’s longsuffering. He’s gracious. He’s tender. He’s kind. He’s good. And so Lord, I call upon Thee. Show me a token for good and all. “
Fuente: Through the Bible Commentary
Psa 86:1-5
A PSALM OF SUPPLICATION AND TRUST
“This is the only Psalm of David in the Third Book of the Psalter. Of course, Kidner here was following the superscription which thus assigns it. Jones also accepted this, stating that, “There is no sufficient grounds for disputing David’s authorship of it. Rawlinson likewise affirmed that, “The Psalm contains nothing, either in matter or style, to make the ascription unlikely.
This being true, why then, do most modern commentators reject the Davidic authorship of this Psalm? Delitzsch declared that, “It can be called `A Psalm of David’ as having grown out of Davidic and other model passages. He then went on to point out at least 30 allusions and/or quotations from other Biblical passages, saying that, “Almost everything is an echo of the language of other Psalms or of the Law, McCaw referred to the psalm as “A Mosaic. We agree with Miller’s comment that, “It may be that others have borrowed from this Psalm.” Nothing in our own studies has convinced us that modern scholars are actually competent to decide such questions upon the basis of the limited information available to them. In the very nature of the problem, they have to do a lot of “guessing”; and the guesses of the ancient authors of the superscription are just as good as the “guesses” men offer so generously today.
Psa 86:1-5
GOD’S GOODNESS AN ENCOURAGEMENT TO SEEK HIM
“Bow down thine ear, O Jehovah, and answer me;
For I am poor and needy.
Preserve my soul; for I am godly:
O thou my God save thy servant that trusteth in thee.
Be merciful unto me, O Lord;
For unto thee do I cry all the day long.
Rejoice the soul of thy servant;
For unto thee, O Lord, do I lift up my soul.
For thou, Lord, art good, and ready to forgive,
And abundant in lovingkindness unto all them that call upon thee.”
An unusual feature of this psalm is that, “Each petition is accompanied by a reason why the petition should be granted. Note the reasons given in Psa 86:1, “I am poor and needy”; and in Psa 86:2, “for I am godly.” etc.
“I am poor and needy” (Psa 86:1). “These words do not necessarily reveal the financial circumstances of the psalmist; they indicate the need of help from God, in this case help because of the arrogant and violent men of (Psa 86:14-17).
“For I am godly” (Psa 86:2). We cannot allow these words in the mouth of David in the sense of their ordinary meaning. What is meant is that he was loyal to God, that “I am devoted to you and trust you,. or simply that he belonged to the covenant people of Israel.
“Unto thee do I cry … I lift up my soul” (Psa 86:3-4). These are “reasons why” the psalmist believes God should hear his petition.
“Thou, Lord, art good … ready to forgive … abundant in lovingkindness” (Psa 86:5). The wonderful goodness, mercy, lovingkindness, and readiness of God to forgive the penitent – all of these are abundant encouragements indeed for men to seek God in prayer. With such a God, ready and willing to help us, who should neglect to pray?
E.M. Zerr:
Psa 86:1. Bow down means for God to open his ear toward the prayer of David. Poor and needy referred to his condition of sorrow and distress. Psa 86:2. Soul is used in the sense of a living and breathing person. Preserve and save are used in the same sense, meaning to rescue and protect from the encroachments of the enemy. Holy means that David was one of God’s own servants and by reason of that fact was entitled to divine care.
Psa 86:3. Mercy was asked for in regard to his persecutions. When David cried for mercy it meant he prayed earnestly for the favor of God.
Psa 86:4. Soul refers to the whole being as used here. By reducing the persecutions against his body, David would be able to have contentment of mind.
Psa 86:5. A devoted servant of the Lord is always ready to acknowledge his human weakness. A request for pardon does not always imply some specific sin has been committed. Jesus taught his disciples to ask for pardon on a general principle (Mat 6:12), and David was praying from that standpoint.
Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary
This psalm is peculiar in many ways. Its first peculiarity is that the name of God which dominates is Adonahy, or Lord, which indicates absolute Lordship, and by the use of which the singer shows his sense of submission and loyalty. The name Jehovah is used four times, thus revealing the singers sense of God as Helper; and the name God five times, thus revealing his consciousness of the Divine might. The supreme sense however, is that of the Divine authority.
The next matter of special note is that while the psalm is a beautiful and consecutive song, it is largely composed of quotations from other psalms, thus revealing the singers familiarity with them. The references in the Revised Version will enable the reader to trace these quotations.
Finally, the psalm is unique in its method of urging a petition upon the ground of some known fact. This is clearly seen if the use of the word for is noticed (VV. Psa 86:1-5; Psa 86:7; Psa 86:10; Psa 86:13). In the first four verse the facts are those which indicate his attitude toward God. In the first four verses the facts are those which indicate his attitude toward God. In the last four the facts are those revealing Gods attitude toward God. In the last four the facts are those revealing Gods attitude toward him. The revelation for us is that of true approach to God in times of need. This must be based upon our relation of absolute submission to Him. It must be expressed in harmony with spiritual desires as expressed by the fellowship of the faithful. It must be urged in consecration and courage.
Fuente: An Exposition on the Whole Bible
a Prayer to the God of Mercy
Psa 86:1-17
This psalm is largely composed of quotations. When the soul is in great need, it is not concerned with inventing new forms of address to God, but avails itself of well-known and well-worn phrases. Our Lord in Gethsemane prayed the same words. The background of the psalm is faith which reckons on Gods goodness. Thou art good, Psa 86:5; thou art great, Psa 86:10; thou art merciful and gracious, Psa 86:15. Be sure to build prayer upon the revelation of Gods nature as given by Christ.
Psa 86:1-5. That we are indeed poor and needy is our strongest plea with God. That we are holy is true only so far as we present Christ as our righteousness. That we cry all the day is a plea which God honors. But the best of all is the plenteousness of His lovingkindness.
Psa 86:6-13. Again, in this strophe, there is the cry of need; and faith is helped by remembering that Gods power is sufficient. God is so great that He can include our little life in His microscopic care.
Psa 86:14-17. We can readily imagine the rabble that beset the psalmist, for we are similarly beset; but nearer than they can come is the calm and holy inner presence of God.
Fuente: F.B. Meyer’s Through the Bible Commentary
Psa 86:1-5
The fulness and variety of these petitions deserve careful consideration.
Notice:-
I. The invocations. Five times in these verses of the text does the Psalmist invoke God, and that by three several names: “Jehovah,” “my God,” “Lord.” (1) “Jehovah.” The word implies eternal, timeless being, underived self-existence. It was given as the seal of the covenant, as the ground of the great deliverance from Egyptian bondage. The national existence rested upon it. The vitality of Israel was guaranteed by the eternity of Israel’s God. (2) “My God.” The word implies the abundance and fulness of power, and so may be found, and often is found, on the lips of heathens. It contemplates the almightiness rather than the moral attributes or covenant relations of God as the ground of our hopes. This general conception becomes special on the Psalmist’s lips by the little word which he prefixes to it: “my God.” (3) The word “Lord” is not, as a mere English reader might suppose, the same word as that which is rendered Lord” in the first verse. That is “Jehovah.” This means just what our English word “lord” means: it conveys the general idea of authority and dominion.
II. The petitions which these verses give us. They are all substantially the same, and yet they so vary as to suggest how familiar all the aspects of the deliverance that the Psalmist desired were to him. (1) There is, first, the cry that God would hear, the basis of all that follows. Then there is a threefold description of the process of deliverance: “preserve,” “save,” “be merciful.” Then there is a longing for that which comes after the help, a consequence of the hearing: “Make the soul of Thy servant glad.”
III. The pleas on which these petitions are based. (1) The Psalmist pleads his necessities. He is “poor and needy,” borne down by the pressure of outward calamity, and destitute of inward resources. (2) He pleads his relation to God and his longing for communion with Him. “I am holy.” The word simply means “one who is a recipient or object of mercy.” The plea is drawn, not from the righteousness of the man, but from the mercy of God. (3) Finally, because our necessities and our desires derive their force as pleas from God’s own character, he urges that as his last and mightiest appeal. The name of God is the ground of all our hope, and the motive for all His mercy.
A. Maclaren, Sermons Preached in Manchester, 3rd series, p. 257.
In this passage we are looking at one of God’s saints in the holiest of all, in the immediate presence of his God and King.
I. The first thought that strikes us is, David takes his right place. He says, “Bow down,” as though he would say, “I am a worm, and no man.” I cannot claim an audience. If Thou wouldst hear, Thou must bow down Thine ear, as a tender Father, to catch what Thy frail child has to say.
II. Look at the “fors” of the passage. There are five. (1) “For I am poor and needy.” If we come to God at all, we must come as beggars. There are two words in the Greek language which indicate poverty. One indicates respectable poverty, the poverty of a man in humble circumstances, who is working hard to get his bread. The other signifies “beggary,” the state of the man who has got nothing, who is utterly bankrupt. In describing the particular kind of poverty-stricken people He receives, our Lord uses the word to indicate abject bankruptcy; and unless we come into the Divine presence in the position of paupers, we cannot get the blessing. (2) Notice the second “for:” “Preserve my soul, for I am holy.” The first “for” is the “for” of the bankrupt; the second is the “for” of the saint. There is no contradiction here: in my own moral character a poor beggar, grovelling in the dust; in God’s own Divine purpose something nobler than the bright spirits that stand around His throne, heir of God and joint heir with Christ, bound to the everlasting Deity by indissoluble bonds. (3) “Be merciful unto me, O Lord, for I cry unto Thee daily.” This third “for” points out to us what is to be the law of our life. If we want to be kept in constant safety, we must be calling unto Him “daily.” (4) “Rejoice the soul of Thy servant, for unto Thee, O Lord, do I lift up my soul.” The Psalmist begins by asking the Lord to “bow down His ear unto him,” but he goes on till he gets to such a point of believing expectation that he dares to lift up his soul into the presence of God. It is lifted up in order that it may become a partaker of God’s joy. God is the centre of eternal joy. “At Thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore.’ (5) “For Thou, Lord, art good and ready to forgive, and plenteous in mercy unto all them that call upon Thee.” We are so poor in our mercy. The richness of God’s mercy lies in this point: the Lord never gives a mercy till He has taken care that it shall be a real mercy. His favours shall only be received by those who will take them in His own way, and thus the blessing is doubled.
W. Hay Aitken, Mission Sermons, 1st series, p. 220.
Reference: Psa 86:3.- G. Brooks, Outlines of Sermons, p. 248.
Psa 86:9
This Psalm is not usually numbered, but it might well be, amongst the penitential psalms. Its pensiveness is that of contrition. From the Divine attributes which it accentuates, and from its expressions, as well as from the tone that runs through it, we see a tender conscience, healed and lowly, sensible of fault, rejoicing in forgiveness. The Psalmist dwells on God’s mercy, on His longsuffering, on His readiness to forgive, as only they dwell who have the broken and contrite heart.
I. Observe that wherever you find contrition you find a light peculiarly its own, an unusual brightness, a lofty hope; a vision of God amazing in its clearness, and a vision of man remarkable for its brightness and its faith. We cannot by searching find out God, but we can by trusting.
II. Observe the hope which is expressed in the text, “All nations whom Thou hast made shall come and worship before Thee.’ It is a great dream; it is a dream of universal religion-one creed for every variety of man, in all conditions, in all stages of civilisation; one vision of God to charm them; one song of praise and triumph rising over all mankind. Concerning this hope, we remark: (1) that all the holy have cherished it; (2) that it has been marvellously realised in the history of the world in the past; (3) that it is a consummation devoutly to be wished. (4) Think what might have been accomplished already if the Church had done her work.
III. Notice the lessons which these things enforce. (1) Let us repent of our despair and believe in the truth of God; (2) let us repent of the little we have done to speed forward the work; (3) let us labour at home and abroad, expecting not failure, but the thirty-fold, the sixty-fold, the hundred-fold, promised by our Lord.
R. Glover, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxvii., p. 260.
Psa 86:11
In the expressions “teach,” “fear,” “walk,” we have religion presented to us in the three aspects of knowledge, feeling, and conduct; in other words, religion in the head, in the heart, and in the feet. Religion affects the whole circle of man’s activity. As knowledge, it illumines his intellect or guides his thinking in relation to those matters of which religion takes cognisance; as feeling, it awakens right promptings within him in relation to those matters; as conduct, it furnishes rules for his doing.
I. Religion as a matter of knowledge, a process of instruction. “Teach me Thy way, O Lord.” (1) The Teacher: “the Lord.” Religious illumination comes from God, the Father of lights. He graciously assumes the character of Teacher to men in the way of salvation. To this end He has provided for them a great lesson-book, none other than the Bible. When we read this book, we sit, in effect, like Mary of old, at the feet of the Divine Teacher to learn “His way.” (2) The learner: man. Man displays the first essential of a true learner: a keen desire for his lesson. The scholar casts himself at the feet of his Divine Teacher, and entreats to be taught. Meekness and fear-that is, docility and reverence-are qualities in the pupil which unlock the secrets of the Divine heart.
II. Religion in the heart, or religion as a matter of feeling. Religion here has made its way from the head into the heart; from the light of knowledge it has become the warmth of emotion. The particular emotion into which the knowledge develops is fear. (1) This is not fear in the sense of terror or dismay, but love. It is heart-fear, not conscience-fear. It is the child-disposition, sweet, trustful, and penetrated with holy, subduing reverence. (2) The condition of its development. The essential condition of this beautiful disposition is a heart at peace with all its passions, in thorough harmony with God.
III. Religion in the life, or as a matter of conduct. Divine truth is first light in relation to men; this truth or light received into the hearts of men becomes converted into love; and this love becomes a mighty propelling force, impelling them irresistibly along the line of truth and righteousness.
A. J. Parry, Phases of Christian Truth, p. 158.
Psa 86:11
This prayer begins with a general request, and then points it to a particular object: “Unite my heart”-make it one; and for what?-“to fear Thy name.”
I. “Unite my heart.” Who that knows the fickleness and inconsistency of the human character, of his own character, will not join in this prayer? Anything is better for a man than a distracted, unharmonised, inconsistent character. To spend precious time in counteracting and crossing out ourselves is more than any of us can afford in this short life, in which so much is to be done. One very prevailing form of this inconsistency is a trifling, wavering, inconstant spirit, the standing idle in the marketplace of the world of a man who has not yet found his vineyard to work in, or who, having found it, is weary of the work. It is very often incident to youth and inexperience. With the young especially one of the first conditions of unity of heart is a humble and conscientious adoption of opinions. Do not entangle yourselves, in the battle before you, with armour which you have not proved. Better defence to you will be the simple sling and stone of one conviction tried by your own experience than all the panoply of Saul.
II. While on this matter, it seems in the course of our subject to put in a warning against two mistaken lines of conduct which we see around us: (1) a listless apathy to the formation and expression of opinion; a carrying out of an idea that a man may be consistent by being nothing. It is not thus that we pray that our hearts may be united. Better even be inconsistent among the energies of life than faultless, because motionless, in the slumbers of death. (2) The other alternative is that of cherishing an artificial consistency, for mere consistency’s sake. It is lamentable to see men punctiliously upholding an accredited opinion which we have reason to know they do not themselves hold. It is by such men and such lives that mighty systems of wrong have grown up under the semblance of right; it is in spite of such men that the God of truth has broken these systems to pieces one after another, and has strewn the history of His world with the wrecks of these fair-seeming fabrics.
III. “Unite my heart to fear Thy name.” If we would be consistent men, God must be first in everything. (1) If this is so, the first consequence will be that our motives will be consistent. The fear of God will abide as a purifying influence in the very centre of our springs of action, His eye ever looking on us, His benefits ever constraining us. (2) Union of the heart in God’s fear will save us from grievous or fatal inconsistency in opinion. He whose heart is united to fear his God, though not exempt from other men’s failings, is saved from other men’s recklessness, and has a tenderer and a safer conscience in the matter of forming and holding opinion.
H. Alford, Quebec Chapel Sermons, vol. iii., p. 256.
Psa 86:17
I. “Show me a token for good.” The want thus expressed is a spiritual want; the prayer therefore is for spiritual relief. It is a token of love to his soul, a token of spiritual and eternal good, for which the Psalmist prays.
II. Suppose that some particular tendency of our evil nature has long held us in bondage, and that we are conscious of what the Apostle calls “a sin which easily besets us.” What in such a case would be the right use of the words before us? Surely they should suggest to us an earnest prayer to God to show us one of His special tokens, to encourage our weak faith, to animate our feeble efforts, by a season of unwonted success-I mean by enabling us but for once so to overcome our sin, that we may see for ourselves how near help really is, and how surely He hears our prayers.
III. It may be said indeed, and said truly, that such tokens ought not to be needed. We must beware of perverting the text so as to suppose that our Christian faith is to be built upon so unstable a foundation as the impressions and feelings of our own minds, or that our struggles with evil can safely be postponed until some such special help be vouchsafed to us.
IV. The time, and the manner, and the degree of our comfort in spiritual things, as in earthly, must be left implicitly at God’s disposal. While this is remembered and confessed, the prayer of the Psalmist is safe and wise. What God desires is that we should seek our happiness in Him; and then He sets no bounds to prayer or expectation.
C. J. Vaughan, Harrow Sermons, 2nd series, p. 223
Psa 86:17
I. Look, first, at Divine help. “Thou, Lord, hast holpen me!” (1) It is in the very nature and disposition of God to give help. (2) Sin is a hindrance to our reception of Divine help, but for the removal of this obstacle God has made a large provision in the redemption which He has provided. (3) God’s ability to help is perfect, and His resources unlimited, almighty. (4) God helps by various agencies; and these are chosen by His own wisdom, superintended by His own eye, and made efficient by His own power. (5) God helps us individually. (6) God helps us perfectly and efficiently.
II. Look, next, at godly consolation. “Thou hast comforted me.” (1) God comforts by the undergrowth of small alleviations in trouble. (2) God comforts by calling our attention to some solace present with us which we have overlooked. (3) God comforts us by revelations of a bright future. (4) God comforts us in trouble, and He comforts us by taking away trouble. (5) God comforts us by the direct action of His mind Upon our mind; by His word, especially by His word of promise; and by our fellow-men, especially by our fellow-Christians. (6) God comforts us by drawing us near to Himself. (7) God gives help and comfort from the sanctuary.
S. Martin, Comfort in Trouble, p. 120.
References: Psa 86:17.-Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxvi., No. 1559. Psa 87:2.-G. Brooks, Outlines of Sermons, p. 249. Psa 87:3.-A. M. Fairbairn, The City of God, p. 349. Psa 87:6.-Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. vii., No. 382. Psalm 87-A. B. Bruce, Expositor, 1st series, vol. x., p. 134.
Fuente: The Sermon Bible
Psalm 86
A Prayer
1. The prayer of the poor and needy one (Psa 86:1-9)
2. The praise of His Name (Psa 86:10-17)
This Psalm has for an inscription A prayer of David. We can hear in it the voice of the Son of David, our Lord, pleading in the place of humiliation, and also the pleadings of the remnant saints. The prophetic element enters in with Psa 86:9. All nations whom Thou hast made shall come and worship before thee O Lord. This will be the glorious result of His humiliation. Into the many and precious details of this Psalm we cannot enter. The name of the Lord (Adonai) is found seven times in this Psalm.
Fuente: Gaebelein’s Annotated Bible (Commentary)
Bow: Psa 31:2, Isa 37:17, Dan 9:18
for I am: Psa 10:14, Psa 34:6, Psa 40:17, Psa 72:12-14, Psa 102:17, Psa 119:22, Psa 140:12, Isa 66:2, Mat 5:3, Luk 4:18, Jam 1:9, Jam 1:10, Jam 2:5
Reciprocal: Psa 5:1 – Give Psa 17:1 – General Psa 109:22 – For I Psa 119:58 – I entreated Hab 3:1 – prayer
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Adonai.
A prayer of David.
The eighty-sixth psalm has, however, peculiar difficulties which we must now consider. As already said, its theme may be said to be Adonai, the Lord. The servant’s path is, of course, the owning of God as such; and Adonai is here found seven times, which of course must have its significance where, as in Scripture, all is significant. The only other psalm in which we find it as often -and indeed, the very same number of times, is the sixty-eighth; but there “God” is found so often (thirty times), and other names of God, as Almighty, Jah, Jehovah, as quite to prevent its having there the same proportionate value. Here Jehovah is found four times, and God only four; a very small number compared with the frequency of these in general.
Adonai is then the theme of the speaker: the servant proclaims his Lord. But who, then; is this servant? A glance at the title might seem to give us the answer; indeed, must, one would say, have some significance in this respect. It is “a prayer of David,” imbedded between Korahite psalms, and the only psalm ascribed to him in the third book. We immediately, necessarily, think of David’s more than royal Antitype, and expect to find Christ’s voice throughout the psalm.
But here there is at once great and apparently insuperable difficulty. The eleventh verse, as it stands in the Hebrew, “unite my heart to fear Thy Name,” could never have been the prayer of our Lord, whatever His humiliation. The Septuagint, Syriac and Vulgate indeed, by the help of another punctuation, substitute for this, “my heart shall rejoice”: but this is rejected in general, and would only partially relieve the difficulty. The fifth verse bases the confidence of the suppliant towards God on His being “good and ready to forgive,” for which again the Septuagint uses the vaguer term “gentle,” but the verb in Hebrew is always -as far as Scripture is concerned -“to forgive, remit.” The fifteenth verse again seems to take similar ground.
Thus it would seem that only indirectly could this be the “prayer of (the antitypical) David” -His as being the fruit of His work in those whom He leads in the path in which He Himself has alone been perfect. But in this way the title may be a necessary supplementary note of interpretation as to the psalm; just as we have seen “on the Gittith” to be to the three psalms to which it is prefixed (Psa 8:1-9; Psa 81:1-16; Psa 84:1-12). Only in this way also does the connection with the next psalm become fully clear, as we shall see.*
{*There is also a beautiful connection with the latter half of Isaiah, where from Isa 40:1-31; Isa 41:1-29; Isa 42:1-25; Isa 43:1-28; Isa 44:1-28; Isa 45:1-25; Isa 46:1-13; Isa 47:1-15; Isa 48:1-22 Israel is seen as the servant, and unfaithful; then from Isa 49:1-26; Isa 50:1-11; Isa 51:1-23; Isa 52:1-15; Isa 53:1-12; Isa 54:1-17; Isa 55:1-13; Isa 56:1-12; Isa 57:1-21; Isa 58:1-14; Isa 59:1-21; Isa 60:1-22 Christ is the perfect Servant, and standing under the load of the sins of others; and finally, from Isa 61:1-11; Isa 62:1-12; Isa 63:1-19; Isa 64:1-12; Isa 65:1-25; Isa 66:1-24.” the remnant are now seen and accepted as the servants.}
1. In the opening section, the psalmist takes his place with Jehovah as poor and needy, but godly, not unmindful of his creature-relation to Him in whom he believes and whom he serves. This is his plea for help and preservation. The want of originality in the psalm has been noticed by many. “Familiar expressions and phrases from the Law, the Psalms, and the Prophets,” says Moll, “loosely connected [?], are found throughout.” “But,” adds Delitzsch, “although for the most part flowing on only in the language of prayer borrowed from earlier periods, this psalm is not without unmistakable significance and beauty.”
If, however, it be the expression of a faith which, wherever it is found, brings the soul into this relation to God as the obedient servant of His will, how striking is it that it should be thus a harmony of many voices and of different periods in one connected whole! Its very want of originality is in this way itself in remarkable accordance with what it is intended to convey to us. And the argument that it cannot be really a psalm of David, because “the writer cannot be compared for poetic capability with David,” turns the other way when we think of the spiritual meaning of the harmonizing of such scattered utterances of the people of God by One -the true David -who Himself has trodden in His perfection (“Beginner and Finisher of faith”) the whole of this path! How the apparent blemishes of Scripture, when we see the real meaning of them; become themselves witnesses to its absolute inspiration!
2. In the second section we find the help needed -the education of faith, we may perhaps say, by continual exercise. When God brought His people out of Egypt and into training for the land, He brought them into the wilderness, and made them thus for everything dependent upon Himself: and this is still His way; for these things are our types. So now with the psalmist: grace is needed in answer to calls that go up to Him all the day. And joy in Him one serves is that which alone can give strength for all the daily wear and tear of contact with a world such as this. “Rejoice in the Lord alway” is the apostle’s rule and admonition: and we with our eyes lifted up to Him whom we have learned to call that, have reason indeed for this that the psalmist could not know. The path we are upon is the same path He traveled to the throne; and upon the Throne He is who knows all the need of the way we travel.
Apart from this, what a comfort is it to have a path known to be God’s path for us, a path we travel in obedience simply, so that consequences are all His, and He may be trusted for them. The roughest path, if known to be His, can never lack a song.
But we are frail indeed, who walk in it. How blessed, then; to have our refuge in One who is “good and ready to forgive, and full of loving-kindness to all that call upon” Him! With this need may be faced, and (if we have faith for it) gloried in; that means constant proving of the living God; and when with trial the assurance increases: “I will call upon Thee: for Thou wilt answer me.”
3. Thus the song arises: the need and its answer both make God alone glorious, and destroy all other trusts, vain as the senseless gods of the heathen. “There is none among the gods like Thee, Lord: and there is nothing like Thy works.” Thus he foresees that of necessity the world must be brought to realize this: “All nations whom Thou hast made shall come and worship before Thee, Lord, and glorify Thy Name.” This is truest prophecy, what the knowledge of God in this practical way ensures. The time has been long protracted indeed; and even yet the end (so long after the prophet’s time) may seem as far off as ever; and yet it shall, it must be, true: the Lord Himself hasten it, as He will.
4. Now we have the path itself with its trials and experiences, in which these principles are practically realized. First of all, the sufficiency for it, which is in God alone: this is but the application of what has been already said; but it is the necessary foundation on which alone a life with God can be based. And our utter dependence upon Him is expressed in the next verse, in which with the full purpose of heart to walk in His truth the psalmist confesses his need, not only of instruction as to the way, the one way which is Jehovah’s, but also of his own deliverance from the infirmity which nevertheless yields so to distraction: “unite my heart,” he says, “to fear Thy Name.” This is indeed what is everywhere the great lack among the people of God. How much of our lives is, not spent in positive evil, but frittered away and lost in countless petty diversions which spoil effectually the positiveness of their testimony for God! How few can say with the apostle, “This
one thing I do!” We are on the road -not, at least, intentionally off it -but we stop to chase butterflies among the flowers, and make no serious progress. How Satan must wonder when he sees us turn away from the “kingdoms of the world and the glory of them” when realized as his temptation, and yet yield ourselves with scarce a thought to endless trifles, lighter than the thistle-down which the child spends all his strength for, and we laugh at him. Would we examine our lives carefully in such an interest as this, how should we realize the multitude of needless anxieties, of self-imagined duties, of permitted relaxations, of “innocent” trifles, which incessantly divert us from that in which alone there is profit! How few, perhaps, would care to face such an examination of the day by day unwritten history of their lives!
“We must not be legal”: with such an excuse, how we pass over the “little things” which come in everywhere unchallenged by reason of their littleness. “We must not make religion too severe”: and so we take off our armor on the battle-field. “We must not have a morbid conscience”: and so we forget to exercise ourselves, that we may have one void of offence toward God and man. Concentration of purpose is what most of all the devil dreads for us as Christians, and the air is full of whispered plausibilities and lullabies to deprive us of this. Thus Christ Himself as “all” for us is looked at as somewhat not to be too seriously taken; the glorious sunshine is to be helped to be brighter by men’s taper-lights; or carefully shaded from eyes too infirm to enjoy it in its brightness or too continuously.
How perfect a lesson there is for us here in the Lord’s words as to the vine-branch and abiding in Him (Joh 15:1-27)! The branch abides in the vine without intermission: a moment’s intermission would be fatal to it. And “as the branch cannot bear fruit except it abide in the vine, no more can ye,” says He, “except ye abide in Me.”
But then for what are we to abide in Him? The whole purpose of the vine is fruit; and this is what rules in the ways of the husbandman with it. He prunes unsparingly, that he may have fruit: one might think, to look at him, that he was making but a wreck of the whole plant. What harm in all this wood and leaf that he is paring away? In itself none; and yet in relation to its fruit-bearing, very much. Not the parasites that destroy it from without can do it much more harm than just these fruitless stems and this exuberant foliage. The precious sap is drawn off by them by which the fruit is to be filled out and perfected; and, if they are spared, not simply will there be less fruit, but (worse than all) the whole character of that which is produced is deteriorated. And so with the toleration of much that is merely evil in its power to draw off and scatter the energies which should be yielding fruit for Him and are not. It is the “one thing I do” that as a principle characterizes the whole man, and marks him out as Christ’s, glorifies Christ in him. It means seriously “Christ is all.” It proclaims Him the sunshine of life, not shadow; and sunshine is what the fruit needs. It says that for progress every moment of life is valuable, saves the life from dilettanteism and superficiality, makes Christ Lord, not casual adviser: no wonder that in the servant’s psalm we should find, as nowhere else in them; this prayer, “Unite my heart to fear Thy Name.”
And no wonder that this spirit declares itself directly as the spirit of praise which indeed it is: praise from the whole life. “I will praise Thee, O Lord my God, with my whole heart; and I will glorify Thy Name for ever.” Who doubts that the life of that man of one idea, Paul, was a sunny life? Who can afford to pity him because of its vicissitudes? With his feet fast in the stocks in the inner prison; he will be singing, just at midnight, his praises to God. That life of his began under the glory of an opened heaven, with a vision which shut out all other brightness, and became to him in place of all other. Such a life we perhaps may find in all its fulness nowhere else among mere men: but covet it, we may, and reach out after it, and see how much God will deny us of it; whether, rather, we do not ourselves limit and cut ourselves off from it, by the poorest, saddest, most insane and disastrous form of self-denial that can be found.
“With my whole heart,” and “for ever”! These are two things very closely connected: just as the seed that roots itself deeply in the earth becomes the enduring plant. Let the whole soul be thus taken up for God, vantage-ground is not given to the thorns and weeds to spring up and choke the early promise.
The voice of experience is heard in the next verse: “For Thy loving-kindness is great towards me; and Thou hast delivered my soul from the nether Sheol.” Thus with confidence can he appeal now to God when the insolent are risen up against him and the assembly of the violent seek after his soul. “They have not,” he says, set Thee before them:” thus they are meet for Divine judgment.
5. The closing section shows the grounds of the soul’s confidence in God as present with him; which are, first of all, in what God Himself is, and then in the relation subsisting with Him. “Thou, Lord, art the Mighty One, merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abundant in loving-kindness and truth.” This is God’s own testimony to Himself (Exo 34:6), upon the giving of the law the second time; but it is the testimony to the grace which came in to modify the law as far as practicable, while the legal element, which could not after all be modified by it so as to be effectual for man’s salvation; is omitted. This shows how faith could penetrate the disguise in which love veiled itself, and find it, even while under the shadows of that dispensation. Here then is its resource and rest.
But there is also relationship, though it be not yet the full joyous relationship into which the gospel brings. It is that rather which the whole psalm contemplates: “give Thy strength unto Thy servant, and save” -not Thy son, but -“the son of Thy handmaid.” This was what the law was, typically, the Hagar, who though but the nurse and instructress of the children of God, taught them to call her mother. But faith, that taught the Syrophenician woman to make her argument out of the very term of reproach, and to plead for the crumbs which even the “dogs” might be permitted, teaches the speaker here to urge the very servant position which was his as a child of the dispensation; as it were, -by God’s appointment, not his own. He yet, in the confession of helplessness could fall back upon strength not his own; and find it: not of course to make good a self-righteous claim; but the very opposite: “Turn to me and be gracious unto me: give Thy strength unto Thy servant, and save the son of Thy handmaid.” All is perfect lowliness and self-distrust.
But the Lord must appear for him, and appoint him a token for good. It is a necessary result of this position of servant merely, which has in it no absolute assurance of abiding favor (as the servant’s has none, Joh 8:35), that one in it should be more dependent upon manifest interventions and assurances of an outward character. Our “token for good” is once for all the sign of the cross, and by this we recognize the divine favor towards us. although the living God is of course, as fully to be counted on as ever. The enemies can only recognize the interventions. Jehovah’s “help and comfort” have been provided for us in a manner which makes them as unchangeably to be relied on; as that immutable nature of which it is the expression.
Fuente: Grant’s Numerical Bible Notes and Commentary
Psa 86:1. Bow down thine ear, O Lord When God hears our prayers he is fifty said to bow down his ear to them, for it is great condescension in him even to take notice of such mean creatures as we are, and much more to hear our defective and unworthy prayers. For I am poor and needy Forsaken and persecuted by men, and utterly unable to save myself, and therefore a proper object; in behalf of whom thy power and goodness may be exerted. Observe, reader, All prayer is founded on a sense of our own wants, and Gods ability to supply them. In the sight of his Maker every sinner is poor and needy; and he must become so in his own, that his petitions may be regarded; he must pray with the humility and importunity of a starving beggar, at the gate of heaven, if he expect the great King to bow down his ear and hear him. Horne.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Title. A prayer of David. All antiquity, and all the versions, support this title.
Psa 86:2. I am holy, I have not done any wrong to Saul, nor to Absalom, nor indeed to any of the families which have followed the house of Saul. Having received a special anointing, he was holy; and it was Davids great concern to live in holy communion and fellowship with God.
Psa 86:8. Among the gods, the kings and princes of the gentiles, there is none like thee. I therefore seek help from thee alone, and not from alliances with the heathen. David believed, as in Psa 86:9, that all those princes and nations should come and worship before the Lord.
REFLECTIONS.
This psalm was written under Sauls persecution, or some revolt of wicked men; but the substance of it will be found comprised in many of the preseding psalms. Davids asking a token for good, Psa 86:17, may imply some outward help of providence, connected with inward comfort in devotion; for divine comfort assures us of pardon, prompts us to duty, and supports us in the day of trouble. Let us here learn the true way of approaching God in our griefs; for he is full of compassion, and there is none like him among the gods whom the gentiles adore.
Fuente: Sutcliffe’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
LXXXVI. The Prayer of a Godly Man in Affliction.This Ps. is little more than a cento from the rest of the Psalter.
Psa 86:1-10. The Psalmist prays for succour, pleading Gods mercy and his own piety. For piety, see Psa 4:3.
Psa 86:8-10. The incomparable greatness of God, which all nations will in the end acknowledge.
Psa 86:11-17. Prayer for Divine guidance and for a token that God is on his side, not on that of his more prosperous foes.
Psa 86:11. to fear: read, to them that fear. The LXX reads, let my heart rejoice to fear thy name.
Fuente: Peake’s Commentary on the Bible
PSALM 86
The appeal of a godly soul to Jehovah to listen to his cry – (v. 1): attend to his supplication (v. 6): to be taught in the Lord’s way (v. 11): and to be saved from evil men (v. 16).
In this psalm the title Lord, or Adonai, occurs seven times. It indicates the Lordship of Christ over all, and supposes that the one speaking takes the place of a servant who looks to his Lord (vv. 2, 4, 16).
(vv. 1-5) The psalm opens with a cry to Jehovah to listen to the cry of a suppliant who is conscious of his need, and can plead that he is pious, or holy – that is, he fears God, and trusts in God.
The godly man feels his need of daily mercy, and forgiveness, and realizes that the Lord is plenteous in mercy to all that call upon Him.
(vv. 6-10) In the verses that follow the suppliant prays that Jehovah would do more than hear his cry. He desires that Jehovah would attend to his supplication, and answer his call. He feels that in the day of trouble God must answer His people. Here the godly man pleads the greatness and the power of the Lord, as before he had pleaded the mercy of the Lord. There is none like the Lord; there are no works like His works. He has made the nations for His own glory. He is great and doest wondrous things. He alone is God.
(vv. 11-13) Further, the psalmist not only seeks an answer to his cry in the day of trouble, but he desires to be taught the way of Jehovah, that he may walk in the truth, and glorify the One who in mercy has saved his soul from the lowest Sheol.
(vv. 14-17) Lastly the godly man cries to God concerning his enemies. He is surrounded by the proud who have risen up against him; by the violent who oppose him; and lawless men who live without fear of God.
Nevertheless, if the wicked are against the psalmist, God is for him. And the God who is for him is full of compassion, gracious, long-suffering, and plenteous in mercy and truth. Therefore he pleads, though men turn against him, that God would turn towards him (JND), strengthen him, and save him from his enemies. Thus the manifest favour of the Lord, would put to shame those that hate him, and all would see that he had been helped and comforted by Jehovah.
Fuente: Smith’s Writings on 24 Books of the Bible
86:1 [A Prayer of David.] Bow down {a} thine ear, O LORD, hear me: for I [am] poor and needy.
(a) David, when persecuted by Saul, prayed this way, leaving the same to the Church as a monument, how to seek relief against their miseries.
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes
Psalms 86
On the basis of God’s goodness, David asked the Lord to demonstrate His strength by opposing the proud who exalted themselves against him. This is the only psalm ascribed to David in Book 3 (Psalms 73-89). It is an individual lament psalm that speaks out of a situation of disorientation. It is a virtual mosaic of other psalms, and its quotations are almost verbatim.
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Verses in Psalms 86 |
Similar verses elsewhere |
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Psa 86:1 |
Psa 17:6; Psa 31:2; Psa 35:10; Psa 37:14; and Psa 40:17 |
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Psa 86:2 |
Psa 25:20 |
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Psa 86:3 |
Psa 57:1-2 |
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Psa 86:5 |
Exo 34:6 |
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Psa 86:6 |
Psa 28:2 |
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Psa 86:7 |
Psa 17:6; and Psa 77:2 |
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Psa 86:8 |
Psa 35:10; Psa 71:19; Psa 89:6; Exo 8:10; Exo 9:14; and Exo 15:11 |
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Psa 86:10 |
Psa 72:18; and Psa 77:13-14 |
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Psa 86:11 |
Psa 27:11 |
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Psa 86:12-13 |
Psa 50:15; Psa 50:23; Psa 56:13; and Psa 57:9-10 |
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Psa 86:16 |
Psa 25:16 |
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)
1. A request for protection 86:1-10
David appealed to God for preservation as a dependent, needy believer who sought to walk in trust and obedience with his God. He viewed God’s granting of his request as based on His grace, not something God owed him. He looked forward to rejoicing when the answer came.
"Hope begins with submitting oneself fully to the protection of God." [Note: VanGemeren, p. 557.]
David’s attitude of humility comes through in the terms he used in addressing God in this psalm. Seven times he called God his Lord or Master (Heb. adonay), a title that stresses His sovereignty over David (Psa 86:3-5; Psa 86:8-9; Psa 86:12; Psa 86:15). This Hebrew title appears as "Lord" in most English translations whereas "Yahweh" translates as "LORD."
The psalmist was sure God would respond to his prayer (Psa 86:7). The basis of his confidence was the fact that Yahweh is the only God and that He does great things.
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)
Psa 86:1-17
THIS psalm is little more than a mosaic of quotations and familiar phrases of petition. But it is none the less individual, nor is the psalmist less heavily burdened, or less truly beseeching and trustful, because he casts his prayer into well-worn words. God does not give “originality” to every devout man; and He does not require it as a condition of accepted prayer. Humble souls, who find in more richly endowed mens words the best expression of their own needs, may be encouraged by such a psalm. Critics may think little of it, as a mere cento: but God does not refuse to bow His ear, though He is asked to do so in borrowed words. A prayer full of quotations may be heartfelt, and then it will be heard and answered. This psalmist has not only shown his intimate acquaintance with earlier devotional words, but he has woven his garland with much quiet beauty, and has blended its flowers into a harmony of colour all his own.
There is no fully developed strophical arrangement, but there is a discernible flow of thought, and the psalm may be regarded as falling into three parts.
The first of these (Psa 86:1-5) is a series of petitions, each supported by a plea. The petitions are the well-worn ones which spring from universal need, and there is a certain sequence in them. They begin with “Bow down Thine ear,” the first of a suppliants desires, which, as it were, clears the way for those which follow. Trusting that he will not ask in vain, the psalmist then prays that God would “keep” his soul as a watchful guardian or sentry does, and that, as the result of such care, he may be saved from impending perils. Nor do his desires limit themselves to deliverance. They rise to more inward and select manifestations of Gods heart of tenderness, for the prayer “Be gracious” asks for such, and so goes deeper into the blessedness of the devout life than the preceding. And the crown of all these requests is “Rejoice the soul of Thy servant,” with the joy which flows from experience of outward deliverance and of inward whispers of Gods grace, heard in the silent depths of communion with Him. It matters not that every petition has parallels in other psalms, which this singer is quoting. His desires are none the less his, because they have been shared by a company of devout souls before him. His expression of them is none the less his, because his very words have been uttered by others. There is rest in thus associating oneself with an innumerable multitude who have “cried to God and been lightened.” The petition in Psa 86:1 is like that in Psa 55:2. Psa 86:2 sounds like a reminiscence of Psa 25:20; Psa 86:3 closely resembles Psa 57:1.
The pleas on which the petitions are grounded are also beautifully wreathed together. First, the psalmist asks to be heard because he is afflicted and poor. {compare Psalms 11:17} Our need is a valid plea with a faithful God. The sense of it drives us to Him; and our recognition of poverty and want must underlie all faithful appeal to Him. The second plea is capable of two interpretations. The psalmist says that he is Chasid; and that word is by some commentators taken to mean one who exercises, and by others one who is the subject of, Chesed-i.e., lovingkindness. As has been already remarked on Psa 4:3, the passive meaning-i.e., one to whom Gods lovingkindness is shown-is preferable. Here it is distinctly better than the other. The psalmist is not presenting his own character as a plea, but urging Gods gracious relation to him, which, once entered on, pledges God to unchanging continuance in manifesting His lovingkindness. But though the psalmist does not plead his character, he does, in the subsequent pleas, present his faith, his daily and day-long prayers, and his lifting of his desires, aspirations, and whole self above the trivialities of earth to set them on God. These are valid pleas with Him. It cannot be that trust fixed on Him should be disappointed, nor that cries perpetually rising to His ears should be unanswered, nor that a soul stretching its tendrils heavenward should fail to find the strong stay, round which it can cling and climb. God owns the force of such appeals, and delights to be moved to answer, by the spreading before Him of His servants faith and longings.
But all the psalmists other pleas are merged at last in that one contained in Psa 86:5, where he gazes on the revealed Name of God, and thinks of Him as He had been described of old, and as this suppliant delights to set to his seal that he has found. Him to be-good and placable, and rich in lovingkindness. God is His own motive, and Faith can find nothing mightier to urge with God, nor any surer answer to its own doubts to urge with itself, than the unfolding of all that lies in the Name of the Lord. These pleas, like the petitions which they support, are largely echoes of older words. “Afflicted and poor” comes, as just noticed, from Psa 40:17. The designation of “one whom God favours” is from Psa 4:3, “Unto Thee do I lift up my soul” is taken verbatim from Psa 25:1. The explication of the contents of the Name of the Lord, like the fuller one in Psa 86:15, is based upon Exo 34:6.
Psa 86:6-13 may be taken together, as the prayer proper, to which Psa 86:1-5 are introductory. In them there is first, a repetition of the cry for help, and of the declaration of need (Psa 86:6-7); then a joyful contemplation of Gods unapproachable majesty and works, which insure the ultimate recognition of His Name by all nations (Psa 86:8-10); then a profoundly and tenderly spiritual prayer for guidance and consecration-wants more pressing still than outward deliverance (Psa 86:11); and, finally, as in so many psalms, anticipatory thanksgivings for deliverance yet future, but conceived of as present by vivid faith.
Echoes of earlier psalms sound through the whole; but the general impression is not that of imitation, but of genuine personal need and devotion. Psa 86:7 is like Psa 17:6 and other passages; Psa 86:8 a is from Exo 15:11; Psa 86:8 b is modelled on Deu 3:24; Psa 86:9, on Psa 22:27; Psa 86:11 a, – on Psa 27:11; Psa 86:11 b, on Psa 26:3; “Sheol beneath” is from Deu 32:22. But, withal, there are unity and progress in this cento of citations. The psalmist begins with reiterating his cry that God would hear, and in Psa 86:7 advances to the assurance that He will. Then in Psa 86:8-10 he turns from all his other pleas to dwell on his final one (Psa 86:5) of the Divine character. As, in the former verse, he had rested his calm hope on Gods willingness to help. so now he strengthens himself, in assurance of art answer, by the thought of Gods unmatched power, the unique majesty of His works and His sole Divinity. Psa 86:8 might seem to assert only Jehovahs supremacy above other gods of the heathen; but Psa 86:10 shows that the psalmist speaks the language of pure Monotheism. Most naturally the prophetic assurance that all nations shall come and worship Him is deduced from His sovereign power and incomparableness. It cannot be that “the nations whom Thou hast made” shall forever remain ignorant of the hand that made them. Sooner or later that great character shall be seen by all men in its solitary elevation; and universal praise shall correspond to His sole Divinity.
The thought of Gods sovereign power carries the psalmist beyond remembrance of his immediate outward needs, and stirs higher desires in him. Hence spring the beautiful and spiritual petitions of Psa 86:11, which seek for clearer insight into Gods will concerning the psalmists conduct, breathe aspirations after a “walk” in that God-appointed way and in “Thy troth,” and culminate in one of the sweetest and deepest prayers of the Psalter: “Unite my heart to fear Thy Name.” There, at least, the psalmist speaks words borrowed from no other, but springing fresh from his hearts depths. Jer 32:39 is the nearest parallel, and the commandment Deu 6:5, to love God “with all thine heart,” may have been in the psalmists mind; but the prayer is all his own. He has known the misery of a divided heart, the affections and purposes of which are drawn in manifold directions, and are arrayed in conflict against each other. There is no peace nor blessedness, neither is any nobility of life possible, without whole-hearted devotion to one great object; and there is no object capable of evoking such devotion or worthy to receive it, except Him who is “God alone.” Divided love is no love. It must be “all in all, or not at all.” With deep truth, the command to love God with all the heart is based upon his Unity-“Hear, O Israel: The Lord Thy God is one Lord; and thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart”. {Deu 6:4-5} The very conception of religion requires that it should be exclusive, and should dominate the whole nature. It is only God who is great enough to fill and engage all our capacities. Only the mass of the central sun is weighty enough to make giant orbs its satellites, and to wheel them in their courses. There is no tranquility nor any power in lives frittered away on a thousand petty loves. The river that breaks into a multitude of channels is sucked up in the sand without reaching the ocean, and has no force in its current to scour away obstructions. Concentration makes strong men; consecration makes saints. “This one thing I do” is the motto of all who have done anything worthy. “Unite my heart to fear Thy Name” is the prayer of all whose devotion is worthy of its object, and is the source of joy and power to themselves. The psalmist asks for a heart made one with itself in the fear of God, and then vows that, with that united heart, he will praise his delivering God. As in many other psalms, he anticipates the answers to his prayers, and in Psa 86:13 speaks of Gods lovingkindness as freshly manifested to him, and of deliverance from the dismal depths of the unseen world, which threatened to swallow him up. It seems more in accordance with the usage in similar psalms to regard Psa 86:13 as thus recounting, with prophetic certainty, the coming deliverance as if it were accomplished, than to suppose that in it the psalmist is falling back on former instances of Gods rescuing grace.
In the closing part (Psa 86:14-17), the psalmist describes more precisely his danger. He is surrounded by a rabble rout of proud and violent men, whose enmity to him is, as in so many of the psalms of persecuted singers, a proof of their forgetfulness of God. Right against this rapid outline of his perils, he sets the grand unfolding of the character of God in Psa 86:15. It is still fuller than that in Psa 86:5, and like it, rests on Exo 34:1-35. Such juxtaposition is all that is needed to show how little he has to fear from the hostile crew. On one hand are they in their insolence and masterfulness, eagerly hunting after his life; on the other is God with His infinite pity and lovingkindness. Happy are they who can discern high above dangers and foes the calm presence of the only God, and, with hearts undistracted and undismayed, can oppose to all that assails them the impenetrable shield of the Name of the Lord! It concerns our peaceful fronting of the darker facts of life, that we cultivate the habit of never looking at dangers or sorrows without seeing the helping God beside and above them.
The psalm ends with prayer for present help. If God is, as the psalmist has seen Him to be, “full of compassion and gracious,” it is no presumptuous petition that the streams of these perfections should be made to flow towards a needy suppliant. “Be gracious to me” asks that the light which pours through the universe, may fall on one heart, which is surrounded by earth-born darkness. As in the introductory verses, so in the closing petitions, the psalmist grounds his prayer principally on Gods manifested character, and secondarily on his own relation to God. Thus in Psa 86:16 he pleads that he is Gods servant, and “the son of Thy handmaid”. {compare Psa 116:16} That expression does not imply any special piety in the psalmists mother, but pleads his hereditary relation as servant to God, or, in other words, his belonging by birth to Israel, as a reason for his prayers being heard. His last petition for “a sign” does not necessarily mean a miracle, but a clear manifestation of Gods favour, which might be as unmistakably shown by an everyday event as by a supernatural intervention. To the devout heart, all common things are from God, and bear witness for Him. Even blind eyes and hard hearts may be led to see and feel that God is the helper and comforter of humble souls who trust in Him. A heart that is made at peace with itself by the fear of God, and has but one dominant purpose and desire, will long for Gods mercies, not only because they have a bearing on its own outward well-being, but because they will demonstrate that it is no vain thing to wait on the Lord, and may lead some, who cherished enmity to Gods servant and alienation from Himself, to learn the sweetness of His Name and the security of trust in Him.