Psalms 31:8-18

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

9 Have mercy upon me, O Jehovah, for I am in distress: Mine eye wasteth away with grief, [yea], my soul and my body.

10 For my life is spent with sorrow, And my years with sighing: My strength faileth because of mine iniquity, And my bones are wasted away.

11 Because of all mine adversaries I am become a reproach, Yea, unto my neighbors exceedingly, And a fear to mine acquaintance: They that did see me without fled from me.

12 I am forgotten as a dead man out of mind: I am like a broken vessel.

13 For I have heard the defaming of many, Terror on every side: While they took counsel together against me, they devised to take away my life.

14 But I trusted in thee, O Jehovah: I said, Thou art my God.

15 My times are in thy hand: Deliver me from the hand of mine enemies, and from them that persecute me.

16 Make thy face to shine upon thy servant: Save me in thy lovingkindness.

17 Let me not be put to shame, O Jehovah; For I have called upon thee: Let the wicked be put to shame, let them be silent in Sheol.

18 Let the lying lips be dumb, Which speak against the righteous insolently, With pride and contempt.

Psalms 31:8-18 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.