Psalms 116:6-16

6 The LORD preserves ¹the simple; when ²I was brought low, he saved me.

7 Return, O my soul, to your ³rest; for the LORD has ⁴dealt bountifully with you.

8 For ⁵you have delivered my soul from death, my eyes from tears, my feet from stumbling;

9 I will walk before the LORD ⁶in the land of the living.

10 ⁷I believed, ⁸even when^[a] I spoke, "I am greatly afflicted";

11 ⁹I said in my alarm, ¹⁰"All mankind are liars."

12 What shall I ¹¹render to the LORD for all his benefits to me?

13 I will lift up ¹²the cup of salvation and ¹³call on the name of the LORD,

14 I will ¹⁴pay my vows to the LORD in the presence of all his people.

15 ¹⁵Precious in the sight of the LORD is the death of his ¹⁶saints.

16 O LORD, I am your ¹⁷servant; I am your servant, ¹⁸the son of your maidservant. You have ¹⁹loosed my bonds.

Psalms 116:6-16 Meaning and Commentary

INTRODUCTION TO PSALM 116

Theodoret applies this psalm to the distresses of the Jews in the times of the Maccabees under Antiochus Epiphanes; and R. Obadiah interprets some passages in it of the Grecians of those times; but it rather seems to have been written by David on account of some troubles of his, out of which he was delivered; and refers either to the times of Saul, and the persecutions he endured from him, particularly when he was beset round about by him and his men in the wilderness of Maon, 1Sa 23:26, to which he may have respect Ps 116:3. The inscription of the psalm in the Syriac version is,

``the progress of the new people returning to the Christian worship, as a child to understanding: and as to the letter, it was said when Saul stayed at the door of the cave where David lay hid with his men;''

see 1Sa 24:4. But since mention is made of Jerusalem, Ps 116:19, where the psalmist would praise the Lord for his deliverance, which as yet was not in his hands nor in the hands of the Israelites, but of the Jebusites; some have thought it was written on account of the conspiracy of Absalom against him, and who, hearing that Ahithophel was among the conspirators, said the words related in Ps 116:11, it is very probable it was composed after the death of Saul, and when he was settled in the kingdom, as Jarchi observes, and was delivered out of the hands of all his enemies; and very likely much about the same time as the eighteenth psalm was, which begins in the same manner, and has some expressions in it like to what are in this. David was a type of Christ, and some apply this psalm to him.

Cross References

• 1. See Psalms 19:7
• 2. Psalms 79:8; Psalms 142:6
• 3. Jeremiah 6:16; [Matthew 11:23]
• 4. See Psalms 13:6
• 5. Psalms 49:15; Psalms 56:13; [Psalms 86:13]
• 6. See Psalms 27:13
• 7. Cited 2 Corinthians 4:13
• 8. [Psalms 39:3]
• 9. Psalms 31:22
• 10. [Psalms 62:9]
• 11. 2 Chronicles 32:25
• 12. [Psalms 16:5]
• 13. See Psalms 99:6; Psalms 105:1
• 14. See Psalms 50:14
• 15. See Psalms 72:14
• 16. See Psalms 50:5
• 17. Psalms 119:125; Psalms 143:12; [Psalms 113:1]
• 18. Psalms 86:16
• 19. [Job 12:18]

Footnotes

• [a]. Or believed, indeed; Septuagint believed, therefore