Psalms 116:2-12

2 Because he bends down to listen, I will pray as long as I have breath!

3 Death wrapped its ropes around me; the terrors of the grave overtook me. I saw only trouble and sorrow.

4 Then I called on the name of the LORD : “Please, LORD, save me!”

5 How kind the LORD is! How good he is! So merciful, this God of ours!

6 The LORD protects those of childlike faith; I was facing death, and he saved me.

7 Let my soul be at rest again, for the LORD has been good to me.

8 He has saved me from death, my eyes from tears, my feet from stumbling.

9 And so I walk in the LORD ’s presence as I live here on earth!

10 I believed in you, so I said, “I am deeply troubled, LORD .”

11 In my anxiety I cried out to you, “These people are all liars!”

12 What can I offer the LORD for all he has done for me?

Psalms 116:2-12 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.

Footnotes

• [a]. Hebrew of Sheol.