Psalms 31:1-11

1 In you, O Lord, have I put my hope; let me never be shamed; keep me safe in your righteousness.

2 Let your ear be turned to me; take me quickly out of danger; be my strong Rock, my place of strength where I may be safe.

3 For you are my Rock and my strong tower; go in front of me and be my guide, because of your name.

4 Take me out of the net which they have put ready for me secretly; for you are my strength.

5 Into your hands I give my spirit; you are my saviour, O Lord God for ever true.

6 I am full of hate for those who go after false gods; but my hope is in the Lord.

7 I will be glad and have delight in your mercy; because you have seen my trouble; you have had pity on my soul in its sorrows;

8 And you have not given me into the hand of my hater; you have put my feet in a wide place.

9 Have mercy on me, O Lord, for I am in trouble; my eyes are wasted with grief, I am wasted in soul and body.

10 My life goes on in sorrow, and my years in weeping; my strength is almost gone because of my sin, and my bones are wasted away.

11 Because of all those who are against me, I have become a word of shame to my neighbours; a cause of shaking the head and a fear to my friends: those who saw me in the street went in flight from me.

Psalms 31:1-11 Meaning and Commentary

To the chief Musician, a Psalm of David. This psalm, according to Arama, was composed by David when in Keilah; but, according to Kimchi and others, when the Ziphites proposed to deliver him up into the hands of Saul; and who, upon their solicitations, came down and surrounded him with his army, from whom in haste he made his escape, and to which he is thought to refer in Psalm 31:22. Theodoret supposes it was written by David when he fled from Absalom, and that it has some respect in it to his sin against Uriah, in that verse.