Psalm 116:16

16 O Lord, I am your ¹servant; I am your servant, ²the son of your maidservant. You have ³loosed my bonds.

Psalm 116:16 Meaning and Commentary

Psalms 116:16

O Lord, truly I [am] thy servant, I [am] thy servant
Not merely by creation, and as obliged by providential favours; but by the grace of God, which made him a willing one: and he was so, not nominally only, but in reality; not as those who say Lord, Lord, but do not the will of God; whereas he served the Lord cheerfully and willingly, in righteousness and true holiness: and this he repeats for the confirmation of it, and to show his heartiness in the Lord's service, and his zealous attachment to him; and which he mentions, not as though he thought his service meritorious of anything at the hand of God; but that his being in this character was an obligation upon him to serve the Lord, and him only, and might expect his protection in it;

[and] the son of thy handmaid;
his mother was also a servant of the Lord; and had trained him up in his infancy in the nurture and admonition of the Lord; so that he was inured to it early, and could not easily depart from it;

thou hast loosed my bonds;
the bonds of affliction and death in which he was held; these were loosed, being delivered from them, ( Psalms 116:3 Psalms 116:8 ) ; and the bonds of sin, and Satan, and the law, in whose service he had been, which was no other than a bondage; but now was freed from the servitude and dominion of sin, from the captivity of Satan, and the bondage of the law; and therefore, though a servant, yet the Lord's free man.

Psalm 116:16 In-Context

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

15 Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints.

16 O Lord, I am your servant; I am your servant, the son of your maidservant. You have loosed my bonds.

17 I will offer to you the sacrifice of thanksgiving and call on the name of the Lord.

18 I will pay my vows to the Lord in the presence of all his people,

Cross References

• 1. 116:16 Ps. 119:125; 143:12; [Ps. 113:1]
• 2. 116:16 Ps. 86:16
• 3. 116:16 [Job 12:18]