Psalms 116:1-8

1 Alleluia. I loved the Lord; for the Lord shall hear the voice of my prayer. (Alleluia. I love the Lord; for the Lord hath heard the words of my prayer.)

2 For he bowed down his ear to me; and I shall inwardly call him in my days (and I shall call to him in all my days).

3 The sorrows of death (en)compassed me; and the perils of hell found me. I found tribulation and sorrow; (The sorrows of death surrounded me; and the perils of Sheol, or the land of the dead, took hold of me. And I found myself in trouble and in sorrow;)

4 and I called inwardly the name of the Lord. Thou, Lord, deliver my soul; (and I called on the name of the Lord, saying, O Lord, save my soul!/O Lord, save me!)

5 the Lord is merciful, and just (the Lord is merciful, and he is good); and our God doeth mercy.

6 And the Lord keepeth little children; I was meeked, and he delivered me. (And the Lord keepeth safe the simple-hearted; yea, I was brought down low, but he saved me.)

7 My soul, turn thou (again) into thy rest; for the Lord hath done well to thee. (My soul, return to thy rest; for the Lord hath been good to thee.)

8 For he hath delivered my soul from death; mine eyes from weepings, and my feet from falling down. (For he hath saved me from death; yea, he stopped my eyes from weeping, and my feet from slipping, or stumbling.)

Psalms 116:1-8 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.