Psalm 31:10-20

10 My life leaks away, groan by groan; my years fade out in sighs. My troubles have worn me out, turned my bones to powder.

11 To my enemies I'm a monster; I'm ridiculed by the neighbors. My friends are horrified; they cross the street to avoid me.

12 They want to blot me from memory, forget me like a corpse in a grave, discard me like a broken dish in the trash.

13 The street-talk gossip has me "criminally insane"! Behind locked doors they plot how to ruin me for good.

14 Desperate, I throw myself on you: you are my God!

15 Hour by hour I place my days in your hand, safe from the hands out to get me.

16 Warm me, your servant, with a smile; save me because you love me.

17 Don't embarrass me by not showing up; I've given you plenty of notice. Embarrass the wicked, stand them up, leave them stupidly shaking their heads as they drift down to hell.

18 Gag those loudmouthed liars who heckle me, your follower, with jeers and catcalls.

19 What a stack of blessing you have piled up for those who worship you, Ready and waiting for all who run to you to escape an unkind world.

20 You hide them safely away from the opposition. As you slam the door on those oily, mocking faces, you silence the poisonous gossip.

Psalm 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.