Psalms 116:7-17

7 My soul, return to your rest! For ADONAI has been generous toward you.

8 Yes, you have rescued me from death, my eyes from tears and my feet from falling.

9 I will go on walking in the presence of ADONAI in the lands of the living.

10 I will keep on trusting even when I say, "I am utterly miserable,"

11 even when, in my panic, I declare, "Everything human is deceptive."

12 How can I repay ADONAI for all his generous dealings with me?

13 I will raise the cup of salvation and call on the name of ADONAI.

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

15 From ADONAI's point of view, the death of those faithful to him is costly.

16 Oh, ADONAI! I am your slave; I am your slave, the son of your slave-girl; you have removed my fetters.

17 I will offer a sacrifice of thanks to you and will call on the name of ADONAI.

Psalms 116:7-17 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.