Psalms 86 — ASV — Scriptura

A Prayer of David.

86Bow down thine ear, O Jehovah, and answer me;
For I am poor and needy.
^{Verse 2}Preserve my soul; for I am godly:
O thou my God, save thy servant that trusteth in thee.
^{Verse 3}Be merciful unto me, O Lord;
For unto thee do I cry all the day long.
^{Verse 4}Rejoice the soul of thy servant;
For unto thee, O Lord, do I lift up my soul.
^{Verse 5}For thou, Lord, art good, and ready to forgive,
And abundant in lovingkindness unto all them that call upon thee.
^{Verse 6}Give ear, O Jehovah, unto my prayer;
And hearken unto the voice of my supplications.
^{Verse 7}In the day of my trouble I will call upon thee;
For thou wilt answer me.
^{Verse 8}There is none like unto thee among the gods, O Lord;
Neither are there any works like unto thy works.
^{Verse 9}All nations whom thou hast made shall come and worship before thee, O Lord;
And they shall glorify thy name.
^{Verse 10}For thou art great, and doest wondrous things:
Thou art God alone.
^{Verse 11}Teach me thy way, O Jehovah; I will walk in thy truth:
Unite my heart to fear thy name.
^{Verse 12}I will praise thee, O Lord my God, with my whole heart;
And I will glorify thy name for evermore.
^{Verse 13}For great is thy lovingkindness toward me;
And thou hast delivered my soul from the lowest Sheol.
^{Verse 14}O God, the proud are risen up against me,
And a company of violent men have sought after my soul,
And have not set thee before them.
^{Verse 15}But thou, O Lord, art a God merciful and gracious,
Slow to anger, and abundant in lovingkindness and truth.
^{Verse 16}Oh turn unto me, and have mercy upon me;
Give thy strength unto thy servant,
And save the son of thy handmaid.
^{Verse 17}Show me a token for good,
That they who hate me may see it, and be put to shame,
Because thou, Jehovah, hast helped me, and comforted me.

Commentary

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 (שׁמרה, as in Psa 119:167, although imperative, to be read shāmerah; cf. Psa 30:4 מיּרדי, Psa 38:21 רדפי or רדפי, and what we have already observed on Psa 16:1 שׁמרני); for he is not only in need of God's help, but also because חסיד (Psa 4:4; Psa 16:10), i.e., united to Him in the bond of affection (חסד, 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 ἅπαξ γεγραμ. סלּח (root סל, של, to allow to hang loose, χαλᾶν, to give up, remittere). The Lord is good (טּוב), 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.

Here, too, almost everything is an echo of earlier language of the Psalms and of the Law; viz., Psa 86:7 follows Psa 17:6 and other passages; Psa 86:8 is taken from Exo 15:11, cf. Psa 89:9, where, however, אלהים, gods, is avoided; Psa 86:8 follows Deu 3:24; Psa 86:9 follows Psa 22:28; Psa 86:11 is taken from Psa 27:11; Psa 86:11 from Psa 26:3; Psa 86:13, שׁאול תּחתּיּה from Deu 32:22, where instead of this it is תּחתּית, just as in Psa 130:2 תּחנוּני (supplicatory prayer) instead of תּחנוּנותי (importunate supplications); and also Psa 86:10 (cf. Psa 72:18) is a doxological formula that was already in existence. The construction הקשׁיב בּ is the same as in Psa 66:19. But although for the most part flowing on only in the language of prayer borrowed from earlier periods, this Psalm is, moreover, not without remarkable significance and beauty. With the confession of the incomparableness of the Lord is combined the prospect of the recognition of the incomparable One throughout the nations of the earth. This clear unallegorical prediction of the conversion of the heathen is the principal parallel to Rev 15:4. "All nations, which Thou hast made" - they have their being from Thee; and although they have forgotten it (vid., Psa 9:18), they will nevertheless at last come to recognise it. כּל־גּוים, since the article is wanting, are nations of all tribes (countries and nationalities); cf. Jer 16:16 with Psa 22:18; Tobit 13:11, ἔθνη πολλά, with ibid. Psa 14:6, πάντα τὰ ἔθνη. And how weightily brief and charming is the petition in Psa 86:11 : uni cor meum, ut timeat nomen tuum! Luther has rightly departed from the renderings of the lxx, Syriac, and Vulgate: laetetur (יחדּ from חדה). The meaning, however, is not so much "keep my heart near to the only thing," as "direct all its powers and concentrate them on the one thing." The following group shows us what is the meaning of the deliverance out of the hell beneath (שׁאול תּחתּיּה, like ארץ תּחתּית, the earth beneath, the inner parts of the earth, Eze 31:14.), for which the poet promises beforehand to manifest his thankfulness (כּי, Psa 86:13, as in Ps 56:14).

The situation is like that in the Psalms of the time of Saul. The writer is a persecuted one, and in constant peril of his life. He has taken Psa 86:14 out of the Elohimic Psa 54:5, and retained the Elohim as a proper name of God (cf. on the other hand Psa 86:8, Psa 86:10); he has, however, altered זרים to זרים, which here, as in Isa 13:11 (cf. however, ibid. Psa 25:5), is the alternating word to עריצים. In Psa 86:15 he supports his petition that follows by Jahve's testimony concerning Himself in Exo 34:6. The appellation given to himself by the poet in Psa 86:16 recurs in Psa 116:16 (cf. Wisd. 9:5). The poet calls himself "the son of Thy handmaid" as having been born into the relation to Him of servant; it is a relationship that has come to him by birth. How beautifully does the Adonaj come in here for the seventh time! He is even from his mother's womb the servant of the sovereign Lord, from whose omnipotence he can therefore also look for a miraculous interposition on his behalf. A "token for good" is a special dispensation, from which it becomes evident to him that God is kindly disposed towards him. לטובה as in the mouth of Nehemiah, Neh 5:19; Neh 13:31; of Ezr 8:22; and also even in Jeremiah and earlier. ויבשׁוּ is just as parenthetical as in Isa 26:11.

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