Study

a Bible passage

Click a verse to see commentary

Select a resource above

9. Psalm 9

¹ I will give thanks to you, LORD, with all my heart;
I will tell of all your wonderful deeds.
² I will be glad and rejoice in you;
I will sing the praises of your name, O Most High.

    ³ My enemies turn back;
   they stumble and perish before you.
⁴ For you have upheld my right and my cause,
   sitting enthroned as the righteous judge.
⁵ You have rebuked the nations and destroyed the wicked;
   you have blotted out their name for ever and ever.
⁶ Endless ruin has overtaken my enemies,
   you have uprooted their cities;
   even the memory of them has perished.

    ⁷ The LORD reigns forever;
   he has established his throne for judgment.
⁸ He rules the world in righteousness
   and judges the peoples with equity.
⁹ The LORD is a refuge for the oppressed,
   a stronghold in times of trouble.
¹⁰ Those who know your name trust in you,
   for you, LORD, have never forsaken those who seek you.

    ¹¹ Sing the praises of the LORD, enthroned in Zion;
   proclaim among the nations what he has done.
¹² For he who avenges blood remembers;
   he does not ignore the cries of the afflicted.

    ¹³ LORD, see how my enemies persecute me!
   Have mercy and lift me up from the gates of death,
¹⁴ that I may declare your praises
   in the gates of Daughter Zion,
   and there rejoice in your salvation.

    ¹⁵ The nations have fallen into the pit they have dug;
   their feet are caught in the net they have hidden.
¹⁶ The LORD is known by his acts of justice;
   the wicked are ensnared by the work of their hands. The Hebrew has Higgaion and Selah (words of uncertain meaning) here; Selah occurs also at the end of verse 20.
¹⁷ The wicked go down to the realm of the dead,
   all the nations that forget God.
¹⁸ But God will never forget the needy;
   the hope of the afflicted will never perish.

    ¹⁹ Arise, LORD, do not let mortals triumph;
   let the nations be judged in your presence.
²⁰ Strike them with terror, LORD;
   let the nations know they are only mortal.

15. The heathen are sunk. David being now raised up to holy confidence, triumphs over his enemies. In the first place, he says metaphorically, that they were taken in their own craftiness and snares. He next expresses the same thing without figure, that they were snared in their own wickedness. And he affirms that this happened not by chance, but was the work of God, and a striking proof of his judgment. When he compares his enemies to hunters or fowlers, it is not without having just ground for doing so. The wicked, it is true, often commit violence and outrage, yet in deceits and cunning artifices they always imitate their father Satan, who is the father of lies, and, therefore, whatever ingenuity they have, they employ it in practising wickedness and in devising mischief. As often, therefore, as wicked men cunningly plot our destruction, let us remember that it is no new thing for them to lay nets and snares for the children of God. At the same time, let us comfort ourselves from the reflection, that whatever they may attempt against us, the issue is not in their power, and that God will be against them, not only to frustrate their designs, but also to surprise them in the wicked devices which they frame, and to make all their resources of mischief to fall upon their own heads.