Psalms 31:10-20

10 For my life is worn out with sorrow and my years with sighing; my strength gives out under my guilt, and my bones are wasting away.

11 I am scorned by all my adversaries, and even more by my neighbors; even to acquaintances I am an object of fear when they see me in the street, they turn away from me.

12 Like a dead man, I have passed from their minds; I have become like a broken pot.

13 All I hear is whispering, terror is all around me; they plot together against me, scheming to take my life.

14 But I, I trust in you, ADONAI; I say, "You are my God."

15 My times are in your hand; rescue me from my enemies' power, from those who persecute me.

16 Make your face shine on your servant; in your grace, save me.

17 ADONAI, don't let me be put to shame, for I have called on you; let the wicked be put to shame, let them be silenced in Sh'ol.

18 May lying lips be struck dumb, that speak insolently against the righteous with such pride and contempt.

19 But oh, how great is your goodness, which you have stored up for those who fear you, which you do for those who take refuge in you, before people's very eyes!

20 In the shelter of your presence you hide them from human plots, you conceal them in your shelter, safe from contentious tongues.

Psalms 31:10-20 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.