Psalm 116

1 I am well pleased, because the Lord will hearken to the voice of my supplication.

2 Because he has inclined his ear to me, therefore will I call upon him while I live.

3 The pangs of death compassed me; the dangers of hell found me: I found affliction and sorrow.

4 Then I called on the name of the Lord: O Lord, deliver my soul.

5 The Lord is merciful and righteous; yea, our God has pity.

6 The Lord preserves the simple: I was brought low, and he delivered me.

7 Return to thy rest, O my soul; for the Lord has dealt bountifully with thee.

8 For he has delivered my soul from death, mine eyes from tears, and my feet from falling.

9 I shall be well-pleasing before the Lord in the land of the living.

10 I believed, wherefore I have spoken: but I was greatly afflicted.

11 And I said in mine amazement, Every man is a liar.

12 What shall I render to the Lord for all the things wherein he has rewarded me?

13 I will take the cup of salvation, and call upon the name of the Lord.

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 thy servant; I am thy servant, and the son of thine handmaid: thou hast burst by bonds asunder.

17 I will offer to thee the sacrifice of praise, and will call upon the name of the Lord.

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

19 in the courts of the Lord’s house, in the midst of thee, Jerusalem.

Psalm 116 Meaning and Commentary

INTRODUCTION TO PSALM 116

Theodoret applies this psalm to the distresses of the Jews in the times of the Maccabees under Antiochus Epiphanes; and R. Obadiah interprets some passages in it of the Grecians of those times; but it rather seems to have been written by David on account of some troubles of his, out of which he was delivered; and refers either to the times of Saul, and the persecutions he endured from him, particularly when he was beset round about by him and his men in the wilderness of Maon, 1Sa 23:26, to which he may have respect Ps 116:3. The inscription of the psalm in the Syriac version is,

``the progress of the new people returning to the Christian worship, as a child to understanding: and as to the letter, it was said when Saul stayed at the door of the cave where David lay hid with his men;''

see 1Sa 24:4. But since mention is made of Jerusalem, Ps 116:19, where the psalmist would praise the Lord for his deliverance, which as yet was not in his hands nor in the hands of the Israelites, but of the Jebusites; some have thought it was written on account of the conspiracy of Absalom against him, and who, hearing that Ahithophel was among the conspirators, said the words related in Ps 116:11, it is very probable it was composed after the death of Saul, and when he was settled in the kingdom, as Jarchi observes, and was delivered out of the hands of all his enemies; and very likely much about the same time as the eighteenth psalm was, which begins in the same manner, and has some expressions in it like to what are in this. David was a type of Christ, and some apply this psalm to him.