Study

a Bible passage

Click a verse to see commentary
Select a resource above

Psalm 71

Prayer for Lifelong Protection and Help

1

In you, O L ord, I take refuge;

let me never be put to shame.

2

In your righteousness deliver me and rescue me;

incline your ear to me and save me.

3

Be to me a rock of refuge,

a strong fortress, to save me,

for you are my rock and my fortress.

 

4

Rescue me, O my God, from the hand of the wicked,

from the grasp of the unjust and cruel.

5

For you, O Lord, are my hope,

my trust, O L ord, from my youth.

6

Upon you I have leaned from my birth;

it was you who took me from my mother’s womb.

My praise is continually of you.

 

7

I have been like a portent to many,

but you are my strong refuge.

8

My mouth is filled with your praise,

and with your glory all day long.

9

Do not cast me off in the time of old age;

do not forsake me when my strength is spent.

10

For my enemies speak concerning me,

and those who watch for my life consult together.

11

They say, “Pursue and seize that person

whom God has forsaken,

for there is no one to deliver.”

 

12

O God, do not be far from me;

O my God, make haste to help me!

13

Let my accusers be put to shame and consumed;

let those who seek to hurt me

be covered with scorn and disgrace.

14

But I will hope continually,

and will praise you yet more and more.

15

My mouth will tell of your righteous acts,

of your deeds of salvation all day long,

though their number is past my knowledge.

16

I will come praising the mighty deeds of the Lord G od,

I will praise your righteousness, yours alone.

 

17

O God, from my youth you have taught me,

and I still proclaim your wondrous deeds.

18

So even to old age and gray hairs,

O God, do not forsake me,

until I proclaim your might

to all the generations to come.

Your power 19and your righteousness, O God,

reach the high heavens.

 

You who have done great things,

O God, who is like you?

20

You who have made me see many troubles and calamities

will revive me again;

from the depths of the earth

you will bring me up again.

21

You will increase my honor,

and comfort me once again.

 

22

I will also praise you with the harp

for your faithfulness, O my God;

I will sing praises to you with the lyre,

O Holy One of Israel.

23

My lips will shout for joy

when I sing praises to you;

my soul also, which you have rescued.

24

All day long my tongue will talk of your righteous help,

for those who tried to do me harm

have been put to shame, and disgraced.


1. In thee, O Jehovah! do I put my trust. It has been thought that the occasion of the composition of this psalm was the conspiracy of Absalom; and the particular reference which David makes to his old age renders this conjecture not improbable. As when we approach God, it is faith alone which opens the way for us, David, in order to obtain what he sought, protests, according to his usual manner, that he does not pour forth at the throne of grace hypocritical prayers, but betakes himself to God with sincerity of heart, fully persuaded that his salvation is laid up in the Divine hand. The man whose mind is in a state of constant fluctuation, and whose hope is divided by being turned in different directions, in each of which he is looking for deliverance, or who, under the influence of fear, disputes with himself, or who obstinately refuses the Divine assistance, or who frets and gives way to restless impatience, is unworthy of being succoured by God. The particle לעולם, leolam, in the end of the first verse, which we have translated for ever, admits of a twofold sense, as I have shown on Psalm 31:1. It either tacitly implies a contrast between the present calamities of David and the happy issue which he anticipated; as if he had said, Lord, I lie in the dust at present as one confounded; but the time will come when thou wilt grant me deliverance. Or not to be ashamed for ever, means never to be ashamed. As these verses almost correspond with the beginning of the 31st psalm, I would refer to that place for those explanatory remarks which I here purposely omit, not wishing to tax the patience of my readers by unnecessary repetition.

In these words of the third verse, Into which I may at all times enter, which are not to be found in the other psalm, David briefly prays that he may have so ready and easy access to God for succor, as to find in him a secure refuge whenever threatened by any immediate danger. Lord! as if he had said, let me always find ready succor in thee, and do thou meet me with a smile of benignity and grace, when I betake myself to thee. The expression which follows, Thou hast given commandment to save me, is resolved by some interpreters into the optative mood; as if David requested that he might be committed to the guardianship of angels. But it is better to retain the past tense of the verb, and to understand him as encouraging himself, from his experience in times past, to hope for a happy issue to his present calamities. Nor is there any necessity for limiting to the angels the verb, thou hast given commandment. God, no doubt, employs them in defending his people; but as he is possessed of innumerable ways of saving them, the expression, I conceive, is used indefinitely, to teach us that he gives commandment concerning the salvation of his servants, according as he has purposed, whenever he gives some manifest token of his favor toward them in his providence; and what he has determined in his own mind, he executes sometimes by his nod alone, and sometimes by the instrumentality of men or other creatures. Meanwhile, David would intimate that such is the all-sufficient power of God intrinsically considered, that without having recourse to any foreign aid, his commandment alone is abundantly adequate for effecting our salvation.

4. O my God! deliver me from the hand of the wicked man. Here he uses the singular number; but he is not to be understood as indicating one man only. 102102     At the same time, it may be observed, that if this psalm was written during the rebellion of Absalom, this cruel son or Achitophel may be the person whom David has here in his eye, and describes in the singular number. If he refers to his own son, how deep must have been his agony of soul to be under the necessity of appealing to God in his present distressing circumstances, against an unnatural and wicked child, around whom all the affections of his heart were intwined! What Calvin renders, in the last clause of the verse, “the violent man,” is literally “leavened man.” Leaven seems to be an image for deep and inveterate depravity of any kind. “Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees,” said our Lord. — (Matthew 16:6; see also 1 Corinthians 5:8.) It is highly probable that he comprehends the whole host of the enemies who assaulted him. We have elsewhere had occasion to observe how greatly it contributes to inspire us with the confidence of obtaining our requests, when we are so assured of our own integrity, as to be able freely to complain before God that we are unjustly and wickedly assaulted by our enemies; for we ought not to doubt that God, who has promised to become the defender of those who are unjustly oppressed, will, in that case, undertake our cause.

5. For thou art my expectation, O Lord Jehovah! The Psalmist here repeats what he had said a little before concerning his trust or confidence. But some, perhaps, may be inclined to refer this sentence rather to the matter or ground afforded him for hope and confidence than to the emotions of his heart; supposing him to mean, that by the benefits which God had conferred upon him, he was furnished with well-grounded hope. And certainly he does not here simply declare that he hoped in God, but with this he conjoins experience, and acknowledges that even from his youth he had received tokens of the Divine favor, from which he might learn, that confidence is to be reposed in God alone. By adverting to what God had done for him, 106106     In the Latin version it is, “Ab affectu ipso;” which is probably a mistake for “Ab effecto ipso.” In the French version it is, “Par l’effet mesme.” he expresses the real cause of faith, (if I may so speak;) and from this we may easily perceive the powerful influence which the remembrance of God’s benefits had in nourishing his hope.

6. Upon thee have I been sustained from the womb. This verse corresponds with the preceding, except that David proceeds farther. He not only celebrates the goodness of God which he had experienced from his childhood, but also those proofs of it which he had received previous to his birth. An almost similar confession is contained in Psalm 22:9, 10, by which is magnified the wonderful power and inestimable goodness of God in the generation of men, the way and manner of which would be altogether incredible, were it not a fact with which we are quite familiar. If we are astonished at that part of the history of the flood, in which Moses declares (Genesis 8:13) that Noah and his household lived ten months amidst the offensive nuisance produced by so many living creatures, when he could not draw the breath of life, have we not equal reason to marvel that the infant, shut up within its mother’s womb, can live in such a condition as would suffocate the strongest man in half an hour? But we thus see how little account we make of the miracles which God works, in consequence of our familiarity with them. The Spirit, therefore, justly rebukes this ingratitude, by commending to our consideration this memorable instance of the grace of God, which is exhibited in our birth and generation. When we are born into the world, although the mother do her office, and the midwife may be present with her, and many others may lend their help, yet did not God, putting, so to speak, his hand under us, receive us into his bosom, what would become of us? and what hope would there be of the continuance of our life? Yea, rather, were it not for this, our very birth would be an entrance into a thousand deaths. God, therefore, is with the highest propriety said to take us out of our mother’s bowels To this corresponds the concluding part of the verse, My praise is continually of thee; by which the Psalmist means that he had been furnished with matter for praising God without intermission.

7. I have been as a prodigy to the great ones. He now makes a transition to the language of complaint, declaring that he was held in almost universal abhorrence by reason of the great calamities with which he was afflicted. There is an apparent, although only an apparent, discrepancy between these two statements; first, that he had always been crowned with the benefits of God; and, secondly, that he was accounted as a prodigy on account of his great afflictions; but we may draw from thence the very profitable doctrine, that he was not so overwhelmed by his calamities, heavy though they were, as to be insensible to the goodness of God which he had experienced. Although, therefore, he saw that he was an object of detestation, yet the remembrance of the blessings which God had conferred upon him, could not be extinguished by the deepest shades of darkness which surrounded him, but served as a lamp in his heart to direct his faith. By the term prodigy 107107     Green reads, “I am become a gazing-stock to the multitude.” Horsley, “‘I am become a prodigious sight to the many.’ A prodigious sight, ‘a sign which shall be spoken against,’ Luke 2:34.” “‘I am become, as it were, a portentous sign unto many.’ Many are willing to persuade themselves that my trials proceed directly from God’s wrath, and are intended to warn them against pursuing a like course of conduct.” — French and SkinnerA monster, i e., the supposed object of God’s signal displeasure. Comp. Isaiah 20:3; Ezekiel 12:6; 24:24, 27.” — Cresswell But others suppose that כמופת, hemopheth, as a prodigy, implies that the great and many dangers to which he had been exposed, and the extraordinary deliverances from them which he had experienced, marked him out as an object of wonder, so that men looked upon him as if he were exempted from the common lot of mankind, as if he possessed a charmed life, and were invulnerable to all assaults; and the second member of the verse has been viewed as the reason why he was so regarded: “for thou art my strong refuge.” is expressed no ordinary calamity. Had he not been afflicted in a strange and unusual manner, those to whom the miserable condition of mankind was not unknown would not have shrunk from him with such horror, and regarded him as so repulsive a spectacle. It was, therefore, a higher and more commendable proof of his constancy, that his spirit was neither broken nor enfeebled with sham but reposed in God with the stronger confidence, the more he was cast off by the world. The sentence is to be explained adversatively, implying that, although men abhorred him as a monster, yet, by leaning upon God, he continued in despite of all this unmoved. If it should be thought preferable to translate the word רבים, rabbim, which I have rendered great ones, by the word many, the sense will be, That David’s afflictions were generally known, and had acquired great notoriety, as if he had been brought forth upon a stage and exposed to the view of the whole people. But in my opinion it will be more suitable to understand the word of great men, or the nobles. There is no heart so strong and impervious to outward influences as not to be deeply pierced when those who are considered to excel in wisdom and judgment, and who are invested with authority, treat a suffering and an afflicted man with such indignity, that they shrink with horror from him, as if he were a monster. In the next verse, as if he had obtained the desire of his heart, he expresses it to be his resolution to yield a grateful acknowledgement to God. To encourage himself to hope with the greater confidence for a happy issue to his present troubles, he promises loudly to celebrate the praises of God, and to do this not only on one occasion, but to persevere in the exercise without intermission.


VIEWNAME is study