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Psalm 41

Assurance of God’s Help and a Plea for Healing

To the leader. A Psalm of David.

1

Happy are those who consider the poor;

the L ord delivers them in the day of trouble.

2

The L ord protects them and keeps them alive;

they are called happy in the land.

You do not give them up to the will of their enemies.

3

The L ord sustains them on their sickbed;

in their illness you heal all their infirmities.

 

4

As for me, I said, “O L ord, be gracious to me;

heal me, for I have sinned against you.”

5

My enemies wonder in malice

when I will die, and my name perish.

6

And when they come to see me, they utter empty words,

while their hearts gather mischief;

when they go out, they tell it abroad.

7

All who hate me whisper together about me;

they imagine the worst for me.

 

8

They think that a deadly thing has fastened on me,

that I will not rise again from where I lie.

9

Even my bosom friend in whom I trusted,

who ate of my bread, has lifted the heel against me.

10

But you, O L ord, be gracious to me,

and raise me up, that I may repay them.

 

11

By this I know that you are pleased with me;

because my enemy has not triumphed over me.

12

But you have upheld me because of my integrity,

and set me in your presence forever.

 

13

Blessed be the L ord, the God of Israel,

from everlasting to everlasting.

Amen and Amen.


9. Even the man of my peace. As the very height of all his miseries, David here declares that he had found the same treachery in some one, or, indeed, in many of his greatest friends. For the change of number is very frequent in the Hebrew language, so that he may speak of several individuals as if they were only one person. Thus the meaning would be: Not only the common people, or strangers of whom I had no knowledge or acquaintance, but my greatest friends, nay, even those with whom I was most intimate, and those of my own household, whom I admitted to eat and drink with me at my table, vaunt themselves reproachfully against me. Among the Hebrews, the expression, men of peace, denotes their kinsfolk and connections; but it was a much closer alliance, and one which ought to have secured a stricter observance of the laws of friendship, to eat the bread of David in company with himself: for it is as if he had employed the appellation, My companion. 107107     “Mon compagnon ordinaire, et qui estoit a pot et a feu avec moy, ainsi qu’on dit en commun proverbe.” — Fr. “My usual companion, and one who, according to the common proverb, had bed and board with me.” If, however, any would rather understand it of some particular traitor than of several persons, I have no objection to it. To lift up the heel is, in my opinion, to be understood metaphorically, and signifies to rise up disdainfully against a man who is afflicted and cast down. 108108     “Hath lifted against me his heel; i.e. hath spurned me, hath kicked at me, as a vicious beast of burden does, hath insulted me in my misery. Comp. Psalm 36:11.” — Cresswell. Others explain the expression by to lay wait secretly; but the former interpretation is more appropriate, That the wicked, seeing that David was placed in embarrassed circumstances, or already prostrated in the dust, took occasion from this to assail him indirectly indeed, but, nevertheless, always with insolence; a thing which usually happens among people of a wicked and servile disposition. Christ, in quoting this passage, (John 13:18,) applies it to the person of Judas. And certainly we ought to understand that, although David speaks of himself in this psalm, yet he speaks not as a common and private person, but as one who represented the person of Christ, inasmuch as he was, as it were, the example after which the whole Church should be conformed — a point well entitled to our attention, in order that each of us may prepare himself for the same condition. It was necessary that what was begun in David should be fully accomplished in Christ; and, therefore, it must of necessity come to pass, that the same thing should be fulfilled in each of his members, namely, that they should not only suffer from external violence and force, but also from internal foes, ever ready to betray them, even as Paul declares that the Church shall be assailed, not only by “fightings without,” but also by “fears within,” (2 Corinthians 7:5.)


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