Psalm 31:1-11

Into Your Hand I Commit My Spirit

1 ¹In you, O Lord, do I ²take refuge; ³let me never be put to shame; in your ⁴righteousness deliver me!

2 Incline your ear to me; rescue me speedily! Be ⁵a rock of ⁶refuge for me, a strong fortress to save me!

3 For you are my rock and my fortress; and for your ⁷name’s sake you lead me and guide me;

4 you ⁸take me out of ⁹the net they have hidden for me, for you are my ¹⁰refuge.

5 ¹¹Into your hand I commit my spirit; you have redeemed me, O Lord, ¹²faithful God.

6 I ¹³hate^[a] those who pay ¹⁴regard to worthless ¹⁵idols, but I trust in the Lord.

7 I will rejoice and be glad in your steadfast love, because you have seen my affliction; you have ¹⁶known the distress of my soul,

8 and you have not ¹⁷delivered me into the hand of the enemy; you have set my feet in ¹⁸a broad place.

9 Be gracious to me, O Lord, for I am ¹⁹in distress; ²⁰my eye is wasted from grief; my soul and my body also.

10 For my life is spent with sorrow, and my years with sighing; my strength fails because of my iniquity, and ²¹my bones waste away.

11 Because of all my adversaries I have become ²²a reproach, especially to my ²³neighbors, and an object of dread to my acquaintances; those who see me in the street ²⁴flee from me.

Psalm 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.

Cross References

• 1. 31:1 For ver. 1-3, see Ps. 71:1-3
• 2. 31:1 See Ps. 11:1
• 3. 31:1 ver. 17
• 4. 31:1 Ps. 143:1
• 5. 31:2 See Ps. 18:2
• 6. 31:2 [Ps. 91:2]
• 7. 31:3 See Ps. 23:3
• 8. 31:4 Ps. 25:15
• 9. 31:4 See Job 18:8
• 10. 31:4 Ps. 43:2
• 11. 31:5 Cited Luke 23:46; [Acts 7:59]
• 12. 31:5 Deut. 32:4
• 13. 31:6 Ps. 26:5
• 14. 31:6 Jonah 2:8
• 15. 31:6 Deut. 32:21; Jer. 8:19; 14:22
• 16. 31:7 See Ps. 1:6
• 17. 31:8 [Deut. 32:30]
• 18. 31:8 See Job 36:16
• 19. 31:9 Ps. 66:14
• 20. 31:9 See Ps. 6:7
• 21. 31:10 Ps. 6:2; 32:3; 38:3; 102:3
• 22. 31:11 [Ps. 41:7, 8; Isa. 53:3]
• 23. 31:11 See Job 19:13, 14
• 24. 31:11 [Matt. 26:56; Mark 14:50]

Footnotes

• [a] 31:6 Masoretic Text; one Hebrew manuscript, Septuagint, Syriac, Jerome 'You hate'