Psalms 31:7-17

7 I will be glad and rejoice in thy mercy, for thou hast considered my trouble; thou hast known my soul in adversities

8 and hast not shut me up into the hand of the enemy; thou hast set my feet in a wide place.

9 Have mercy upon me, O LORD, for I am in trouble: my eye is consumed with grief, yea, my soul and my belly.

10 For my life is spent with grief and my years with sighing: my strength fails because of my iniquity, and my bones are consumed.

11 I was a reproach among all my enemies, but especially among my neighbours, and a fear to my acquaintances: those that see me without flee from me.

12 I am forgotten as a dead man out of mind: I have become like a lost vessel.

13 For I have heard the slander of many; fear was on every side; while they took counsel together against me, they devised to take away my life.

14 But I trusted in thee, O LORD; I said, Thou art my God.

15 My times are in thy hand: deliver me from the hand of my enemies and from those that persecute me.

16 Make thy face to shine upon thy slave; save me for thy mercies’ sake.

17 Let me not be ashamed, O LORD, for I have called upon thee; let the wicked be ashamed, and let them be cut off for Sheol.

Psalms 31:7-17 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.