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Psalm 86

Supplication for Help against Enemies

A Prayer of David.

1

Incline your ear, O L ord, and answer me,

for I am poor and needy.

2

Preserve my life, for I am devoted to you;

save your servant who trusts in you.

You are my God; 3be gracious to me, O Lord,

for to you do I cry all day long.

4

Gladden the soul of your servant,

for to you, O Lord, I lift up my soul.

5

For you, O Lord, are good and forgiving,

abounding in steadfast love to all who call on you.

6

Give ear, O L ord, to my prayer;

listen to my cry of supplication.

7

In the day of my trouble I call on you,

for you will answer me.

 

8

There is none like you among the gods, O Lord,

nor are there any works like yours.

9

All the nations you have made shall come

and bow down before you, O Lord,

and shall glorify your name.

10

For you are great and do wondrous things;

you alone are God.

11

Teach me your way, O L ord,

that I may walk in your truth;

give me an undivided heart to revere your name.

12

I give thanks to you, O Lord my God, with my whole heart,

and I will glorify your name forever.

13

For great is your steadfast love toward me;

you have delivered my soul from the depths of Sheol.

 

14

O God, the insolent rise up against me;

a band of ruffians seeks my life,

and they do not set you before them.

15

But you, O Lord, are a God merciful and gracious,

slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness.

16

Turn to me and be gracious to me;

give your strength to your servant;

save the child of your serving girl.

17

Show me a sign of your favor,

so that those who hate me may see it and be put to shame,

because you, L ord, have helped me and comforted me.


9 All nations which thou hast made shall come. 485485     “Among the gods, i.e., among the gods of the Gentiles, such as Baal, Baal-berith, Baal-zebub, Dagon, Ashtoreth, Chemosh, Milcom, Nisroch, and especially, as R. Kimchi thinks, the heavenly bodies, the sun and the stars. Some commentators suppose that it may mean, among angels, or among princes. There is good reason for doubting, however, with Parkhurst, whether the word Alaim ever positively means princes, judges, or magistrates; and the passage (Judges 13:22) quoted by Buxtorf, to show that it sometimes means an angel, only proves that Manoah intended to say that he had seen God in the person of his angel. Comp. Psalm 89:7; 96:5.” — Cresswell. If any would rather limit what is here stated to David’s present case, this view does not seem liable to any material objection. He, in fact, often enhances the Divine goodness of which he himself had experience by the like magnificent strain. It may, however, be fitly extended to the universal power of God; but whether he speaks of the grace that was bestowed upon himself alone, or treats, in general, of the works of God, we must bear in mind what has been observed in another place, that whenever he celebrates the prevalence of true godliness among the heathen, he has an eye to the kingdom of Christ, prior to whose coming God gave only the initial or dawning manifestation of his glory, which at length was diffused through the whole world by the preaching of the Gospel. David was not ignorant of the future calling of the Gentiles; but this being a doctrine with which Jewish ears were not familiar, that people would have felt it a disagreeable announcement, to have been told that the Gentiles should come to worship God indiscriminately with the children of Abraham, and, all distinction being removed, become partakers with them of heavenly truth. To soften the announcement, he asserts that the Gentiles also were created by God, so that it ought not to be accounted strange if they, being enlightened also, should at length acknowledge Him who had created and fashioned them.

10. For thou art great, and thou alone, O God! doest wondrous things. In this verse there is again repeated the cause which will bring all nations to worship before the Lord, namely, the discovery made of his glory by the greatness of his works. The contemplation of God’s glory in his works is the true way of acquiring genuine godliness. The pride of the flesh would always lead it to wing its way into heaven; but, as our understandings fail us in such an extended investigation, our most profitable course is, according to the small measure of our feeble capacity, to seek God in his works, which bear witness of him. Let us therefore learn to awaken our understandings to contemplate the divine works, and let us leave the presumptuous to wander in their own intricate mazes, which, in the end, will invariably land them in an abyss from which they will be unable to extricate themselves. To incline our hearts to exercise this modesty, David magnificently extols the works of God, calling them wondrous things, although to the blind, and those who have no taste for them, they are destitute of attraction. In the meantime, we ought carefully to attend to this truth, That the glory of Godhead belongs exclusively to the one true God; for in no other being is it possible to find the wisdom, or the power, or the righteousness, or any of the numerous marks of divinity which shine forth in his wonderful works. Whence it follows, that the Papists are chargeable with rendering, as much as in them lies, his title to true Godhead nugatory, when despoiling him of his attributes they leave him almost nothing but the bare name.


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