Psalm 86 is a prayer attributed to David, reflecting his deep need for God's help amid affliction. It emphasizes the themes of humility and dependence on God, as David pleads for divine attention due to his state of poverty and need. The psalm combines elements of praise and supplication, showcasing the enduring nature of prayer across generations of believers.

1. PSALM 86 COMME TARY
EDITED BY GLE PEASE
A prayer of David.
I TRODUCTIO
SPURGEO , "TITLE. —A Prayer of David. We have here one of the five psalms
entitled Tephillahs or prayers. This psalm consists of praise as well as prayer, but it
is in all parts so directly addressed to God that it is most fitly called "a prayer." A
prayer is none the less but all the more a prayer because veins of praise run through
it. This psalm would seem to have been specially known as David's prayer; even as
the ninetieth is "the prayer of Moses." David composed it, and no doubt often
expressed himself in similar language; both the matter and the wording are suitable
to his varied circumstances and expressive of the different characteristics of his
mind. In many respects it resembles Psalms 17:1-15, which bears the same title, but
in other aspects it is very different; the prayers of a good man have a family
likeness, but they vary as much as they agree. We may learn from the present psalm
that the great saints of old were accustomed to pray very much in the same fashion
as we do; believers in all ages are of one genus. The name of God occurs very
frequently in this psalm, sometimes it is Jehovah, but more commomly Adonai,
which it is believed by many learned scholars was written by the Jewish transcribers
instead of the sublimer title, because their superstitious dread led them to do so: we,
labouring under no such tormenting fear, rejoice in Jehovah, our God. It is singular
that those who were so afraid of their God, that they dared not write his name, had
yet so little godly fear, that they dared to alter his word.
DIVISIO . —The psalm is irregular in its construction but may be divided into
three portions, each ending with a note of gratitude or of confidence: we shall
therefore read from Psalms 86:1-7, and then, (after another pause at the end of
Psalms 86:13), we will continue to the end.
COKE, "Title. ‫תפלה‬ ‫לדוד‬ tephiltah ledavid.— This Psalm seems to have been
composed by David during his afflictions under Saul. It was afterwards, as the Jews
relate, made use of by Hezekiah, when the Assyrians made an attempt upon
Jerusalem. The first words of it are indeed the time with Hezekiah's in 2 Kings
19:16 and the 8th and 9th verses may be very fitly accommodated to that history;
but the rest a great deal better to David; who, in this psalm, personates his great
root and offspring the man Christ Jesus, labouring in the spirit of prophesy to
express something of that earnestness and humility with which he poured out his

2. soul, while he dwelt here in the form of a servant, pursued by cruel men, and
bearing our iniquities. See Fenwick.
ELLICOTT, "This psalm is mainly composed of a number of sentences and verses
from older compositions, arranged not without art, and, where it suited the adapter,
so altered as to present forms of words peculiar to himself. (See otes on Psalms
86:5-6.) There is also evidence of design in the employment of the Divine names,
Adonai being repeatedly substituted for Jehovah.
1 Hear me, Lord, and answer me,
for I am poor and needy.
BAR ES, "Bow down thine ear, O Lord, hear me - See the notes at Psa_5:1.
For I am poor and needy - This is the reason here assigned why God should hear
him. It is not a plea of merit. It is not that there was any claim on God in the fact that he
was a poor and needy man - a sinner helpless and dependent, or that it would be any
injustice if God should not hear, for a sinner has no claim to favor; but it is that this was
a condition in which the aid of God was needed, and in which it was proper or
appropriate for God to hear prayer, and to render help. We may always make our
helplessness, our weakness, our poverty, our need, a ground of appeal to God; not as a
claim of justice, but as a case in which he will glorify himself by a gracious interposition.
It is also to be remarked that it is a matter of unspeakable thankfulness that the “poor
and needy” may call upon God; that they will be as welcome as any class of people; that
there is no condition of poverty and want so low that we are debarred from the privilege
of approaching One who has infinite resources, and who is as willing to help as he is
able.
CLARKE, "Bow down thine ear - Spoken after the manner of men: I am so low,
and so weak, that, unless thou stoop to me, my voice cannot reach thee.
Poor and needy - I am afflicted, and destitute of the necessaries of life.

3. GILL, "Bow down thine ear, O Lord, hear me,.... This is spoken of God after the
manner of men, who, when they listen and attentively hearken to what is said to them,
stoop and bow the head, and incline the ear; and it denotes condescension in the Lord,
who humbles himself as to look upon men, so to bow down the ear and hearken to them:
this favour is granted to the saints, to whom he is a God hearing and answering prayer,
and which Christ, as man and Mediator, enjoyed; see Heb_5:7,
for I am poor and needy; weak and feeble, destitute and distressed, and so wanted
help and assistance; and which carries in it an argument or reason enforcing the above
petition; for the Lord has a regard to the poor and needy; see Psa_6:2. This may be
understood literally, it being the common case of the people of God, who are generally
the poor and needy of this world, whom God chooses, calls, and makes his own; and so
was David when he fled from Saul, being often in want of temporal mercies, as appears
by his application to Ahimelech and Nabal for food; and having nothing, as Kimchi
observes, to support him, but what his friends, and the men of Judah, privately helped
him to; and the character well agrees with Christ, whose case this was; see 2Co_8:9.
Moreover, it may be taken in a spiritual sense; all men are poor and needy, though not
sensible of it; good men are poor in spirit, are sensible of their spiritual poverty, and
apply to the Lord, and to the throne of his grace, for the supply of their need; and such
an one was David, even when he was king of Israel, as well as at this time, Psa_40:17,
and may be applied to Christ; especially when destitute of his Father's gracious presence,
and was forsaken by him and all his friends, Mat_27:46.
HE RY, "This psalm was published under the title of a prayer of David; not as if
David sung all his prayers, but into some of his songs he inserted prayers; for a psalm
will admit the expressions of any pious and devout affections. But it is observable how
very plain the language of this psalm is, and how little there is in it of poetic flights or
figures, in comparison with some other psalms; for the flourishes of wit are not the
proper ornaments of prayer. Now here we may observe,
I. The petitions he puts up to God. It is true, prayer accidentally may preach, but it is
most fit that (as it is in this prayer) every passage should be directed to God, for such is
the nature of prayer as it is here described (Psa_86:4): Unto thee, O Lord! do I lift up my
soul, as he had said Psa_25:1. In all the parts of prayer the soul must ascend upon the
wings of faith and holy desire, and be lifted up to God, to meet the communications of
his grace, and in an expectation raised very high of great things from him. 1. He begs
that God would give a gracious audience to his prayers (Psa_86:1): Bow down thy ear, O
Lord! hear me. When God hears our prayers it is fitly said that he bows down his ear to
them, for it is admirable condescension in God that he is pleased to take notice of such
mean creatures as we are and such defective prayers as ours are. He repeats this again
(Psa_86:6): “Give ear, O Lord! unto my prayer, a favourable ear, though it be
whispered, though it be stammered; attend to the voice of my supplications.” Not that
God needs to have his affection stirred up by any thing that we can say; but thus we must
express our desire of his favour. The Son of David spoke it with assurance and pleasure
(Joh_11:41, Joh_11:42), Father, I thank thee that thou hast heard me; and I know that
thou hearest me always.
JAMISO , "Psa_86:1-17. This is a prayer in which the writer, with deep emotion,
mingles petitions and praises, now urgent for help, and now elated with hope, in view of

4. former mercies. The occurrence of many terms and phrases peculiar to David’s Psalms
clearly intimates its authorship.
poor and needy — a suffering child of God, as in Psa_10:12, Psa_10:17; Psa_18:27.
I am holy — or, “godly,” as in Psa_4:3; Psa_85:8.
CALVI , "1.Incline thy ear, O Jehovah! either the inscription nor the contents of
this psalm enable us to conclude with certainty what dangers David here complains
of; but the psalm in all probability refers to that period of his life when he was
persecuted by Saul, and describes the train of thought which then occupied his
mind, although it may not have been written until after his restoration to a state of
outward peace and tranquillity, when he enjoyed greater leisure. He does not
without cause allege before God the oppressions which he endured as a plea for
obtaining the divine favor; for nothing is more suitable to the nature of God than to
succor the afflicted: and the more severely any one is oppressed, and the more
destitute he is of the resources of human aid, the more inclined is God graciously to
help him. That despair therefore may not overwhelm our minds under our greatest
afflictions, let us support ourselves from the consideration that the Holy Spirit has
dictated this prayer for the poor and the afflicted.
SPURGEO , "Ver. 1. Bow down thine ear, O Lord, hear me. In condescension to
my littleness, and in pity to my weakness, "bow down thine ear, O Lord." When our
prayers are lowly by reason of our humility, or feeble by reason of our sickness, or
without wing by reason of our despondency, the Lord will bow down to them, the
infinitely exalted Jehovah will have respect unto them. Faith, when she has the
loftiest name of God on her tongue, and calls him Jehovah, yet dares to ask from
him the most tender and condescending acts of love. Great as he is he loves his
children to be bold with him.
For I am poor and needy —doubly a son of poverty, because, first, poor and
without supply for my needs, and next needy, and so full of wants, though unable to
supply them. Our distress is a forcible reason for our being heard by the Lord God,
merciful, and gracious, for misery is ever the master argument with mercy. Such
reasoning as this would never be adopted by a proud man, and when we hear it
repeated in the public congregation by those great ones of the earth who count the
peasantry to be little better than the earth they tread upon, it sounds like a mockery
of the Most High. Of all despicable sinners those are the worst who use the language
of spiritual poverty while they think themselves to be rich and increased in goods.
EXPLA ATORY OTES A D QUAI T SAYI GS.
Title. —The prophet David has penned two psalms, which he has eminently
appropriated to himself as his own: the one is styled David's prayer, though many
other psalms are prayers—it is Psalms 86:1-17; the other David's praise, Psalms
145:1-21. The first his tephilla, the latter his tehilla; in each of these he makes a
solemn rehearsal of the very words of Moses, in Exodus 34:6-7. In Psalms 86:1-17 he
brings them in as they were a support unto his faith in his distresses from sins and
miseries, to which use he puts them, Ps 86:3-4 6-7. And again, Psalms 86:16-17, he
makes a plea of these words by way of prayer. In Psalms 145:1-21, he brings them in

5. as they are an elogium or celebration of the glorious nature and excellencies of God,
to excite the sons of men to love and praise him. —Thomas Goodwin.
Title. —This Psalm was published under the title of A Prayer of David; not as if
David sung all his prayers, but into some of his songs he inserted prayers; for a
psalm will admit the expression of any pious and devout affections. But it is
observable how very plain the language of this psalm is, and how little there is in it
of poetical flights or figures, in comparison with some other psalms; for the
flourishes of wit are not the proper ornaments of prayer. —Matthew Henry.
Title. —There was much, very much, of God's peculiar character, his glorious
name, brought to view in the close of the last Psalm. This may account for its being
followed by another, A Prayer of David, almost equally full of the character of
Jehovah. The key note of this Psalm is Jehovah's name. —Andrew A. Bonar.
Whole Psalm. Christ prays throughout the whole of this Psalm. All the words are
spoken exclusively by Christ, who is both God and man. —Psalt. Cassiodori, 1491.
Whole Psalm. In this Psalm Christ the Son of God and Son of Man, one God with
the Father, one man with men, to whom we pray as God, prays in the form of a
servant. For he prays for us, and he prays in us, and he is prayed to by us. He prays
for us as our Priest. He prays in us as our Head. He is prayed to by us as our God. â
€”Psalt. Pet. Lombard. 1474.
Ver. 1. Bow down thine ear, O Lord. As the careful physician doth to his feeble
patient: so Basil glosseth here. —John Trapp.
Ver. 1-4. Poor, holy, trusteth, I cry. The petitioner is first described as poor, then
holy, next trusting, after that crying, finally, lifted up to God. And each epithet has
its fitting verb; bow down to the poor, preserve the holy, save the trusting, be
merciful to him who cries, rejoice the lifted up. It is the whole gamut of love from
the Incarnation to the Ascension; it tells us that Christ's humiliation will be our
glory and joy. — eale and Littledale's Commentary.
BE SO , "Psalms 86:1. Bow down thine ear, O Lord — When God hears our
prayers he is fifty said to bow down his ear to them, for it is great condescension in
him even to take notice of such mean creatures as we are, and much more to hear
our defective and unworthy prayers. For I am poor and needy — Forsaken and
persecuted by men, and utterly unable to save myself, and therefore a proper object;
in behalf of whom thy power and goodness may be exerted. Observe, reader, “All
prayer is founded on a sense of our own wants, and God’s ability to supply them. In
the sight of his Maker every sinner is poor and needy; and he must become so in his
own, that his petitions may be regarded; he must pray with the humility and
importunity of a starving beggar, at the gate of heaven, if he expect the great King
to bow down his ear and hear him.” — Horne.
COFFMA , "Verse 1
PSALM 86
A PSALM OF SUPPLICATIO A D TRUST
"This is the only Psalm of David in the Third Book of the Psalter."[1] Of course,
Kidner here was following the superscription which thus assigns it. Jones also

6. accepted this, stating that, "There is no sufficient grounds for disputing David's
authorship of it."[2] Rawlinson likewise affirmed that, "The Psalm contains
nothing, either in matter or style, to make the ascription unlikely."[3]
This being true, why then, do most modern commentators reject the Davidic
authorship of this Psalm? Delitzsch declared that, "It can be called `A Psalm of
David' as having grown out of Davidic and other model passages."[4] He then went
on to point out at least 30 allusions and/or quotations from other Biblical passages,
saying that, "Almost everything is an echo of the language of other Psalms or of the
Law,"[5] McCaw referred to the psalm as "A Mosaic."[6] We agree with Miller's
comment that, "It may be that others have borrowed from this Psalm."[7] othing
in our own studies has convinced us that modern scholars are actually competent to
decide such questions upon the basis of the limited information available to them. In
the very nature of the problem, they have to do a lot of "guessing"; and the guesses
of the ancient authors of the superscription are just as good as the "guesses" men
offer so generously today.
Psalms 86:1-5
GOD'S GOOD ESS A E COURAGEME T TO SEEK HIM
"Bow down thine ear, O Jehovah, and answer me;
For I am poor and needy.
Preserve my soul; for I am godly:
O thou my God save thy servant that trusteth in thee.
Be merciful unto me, O Lord;
For unto thee do I cry all the day long.
Rejoice the soul of thy servant;
For unto thee, O Lord, do I lift up my soul.
For thou, Lord, art good, and ready to forgive,
And abundant in lovingkindness unto all them that call upon thee."
An unusual feature of this psalm is that, "Each petition is accompanied by a reason
why the petition should be granted."[8] ote the reasons given in Psalms 86:1, "I
am poor and needy"; and in Psalms 86:2, "for I am godly." etc.
"I am poor and needy" (Psalms 86:1). "These words do not necessarily reveal the
financial circumstances of the psalmist; they indicate the need of help from God, in

7. this case help because of the arrogant and violent men of (Psalms 86:14-17)."[9]
"For I am godly" (Psalms 86:2). We cannot allow these words in the mouth of David
in the sense of their ordinary meaning. What is meant is that he was loyal to God,
[10] that "I am devoted to you and trust you,."[11] or simply that he belonged to the
covenant people of Israel.
"Unto thee do I cry ... I lift up my soul" (Psalms 86:3-4). These are "reasons why"
the psalmist believes God should hear his petition.
"Thou, Lord, art good ... ready to forgive ... abundant in lovingkindness" (Psalms
86:5). The wonderful goodness, mercy, lovingkindness, and readiness of God to
forgive the penitent - all of these are abundant encouragements indeed for men to
seek God in prayer. With such a God, ready and willing to help us, who should
neglect to pray?
EXPOSITORS DICTIO ARY OF TEXTS, "A Pattern of Prayer
Psalm 86:1-5
The prayer that springs from a deep-felt need, and will not cease till that need is
supplied, may say the same things over a hundred times, and yet they shall not be
vain.
I. The Invocations. In general, this Psalm is remarkable for its frequent use of the
Divine names. In almost every verse they recur, and their frequency gives us a vivid
impression of earnestness, of consciousness of need, and of faith so sore pressed that
it could only sustain itself by perpetual renewal of its grasp of God. Five times in
these verses of our text does he invoke Him, and that by three several names—
Jehovah, my God, Lord. These three sacred names have each a distinct meaning
when used in prayer; they bring up various aspects of the character of God as the
basis of our confidence, and the ground of our petitions. Song of Solomon , then,
when we blend all these together, it is as if the Psalmist had said: "The ever living,
the covenant Jehovah, my God in whom I claim a personal interest, who loves me
with an individualizing love, and cares for me with a specific care, the absolute
monarch and sovereign of the whole universe is He to whom I come with my
supplication. I think of His names, I trust in them, I present them to Him, whom
they all but partially declare; and I ask Him—for His own name"s sake, because of
what He is and hath declared Himself to be, to hear my poor cry, to answer my
imperfect faith, to show Himself yet once again that which His name hath from old
proclaimed Him to be."
II. So much then for the invocation, and now a word or two in reference to the
petitions which these verses give us. As I have said, they are all substantially the
same, and yet they so vary as to suggest how familiar all the aspects of the
deliverance that the Psalmist desires were to him. The way in which God"s mercy is

8. to guard and save is left, with meek patience, to God"s decision. o sorrow is so
crushing and hopeless but that happiness may again visit the heart where trust and
love abide. Only let us remember that this Psalm seeks for joy, where it seeks for
help, not from earthly sources, but from God.
III. Finally, we have to consider the pleas on which these petitions are based. The
logic of prayer here is very remarkable and beautiful. Every feature of the
Psalmist"s condition and character, as well as all that he knows of God, becomes in
his life a reason with God for granting his prayer. The human side of the relation
between God and His servant is further urged in the subsequent claims which refer
to the Psalmist"s longings and efforts after fellowship with God. It is His own mercy
in Christ which we present It is the work of His own love which we bring as our
plea.
—A. Maclaren, Sermons Preached in Manchester, vol. III. p257.
EBC, "THIS psalm is little more than a mosaic of quotations and familiar phrases
of petition. But it is none the less individual, nor is the psalmist less heavily
burdened, or less truly beseeching and trustful, because he casts his prayer into
well-worn words. God does not give "originality" to every devout man; and He does
not require it as a condition of accepted prayer. Humble souls, who find in more
richly endowed men’s words the best expression of their own needs, may be
encouraged by such a psalm. Critics may think little of it, as a mere cento: but God
does not refuse to bow His ear, though He is asked to do so in borrowed words. A
prayer full of quotations may be heartfelt, and then it will be heard and answered.
This psalmist has not only shown his intimate acquaintance with earlier devotional
words, but he has woven his garland with much quiet beauty, and has blended its
flowers into a harmony of colour all his own.
There is no fully developed strophical arrangement, but there is a discernible flow
of thought, and the psalm may be regarded as falling into three parts.
The first of these (Psalms 86:1-5) is a series of petitions, each supported by a plea.
The petitions are the well-worn ones which spring from universal need, and there is
a certain sequence in them. They begin with "Bow down Thine ear," the first of a
suppliant’s desires, which, as it were, clears the way for those which follow.
Trusting that he will not ask in vain, the psalmist then prays that God would "keep"
his soul as a watchful guardian or sentry does, and that, as the result of such care,
he may be saved from impending perils. or do his desires limit themselves to
deliverance. They rise to more inward and select manifestations of God’s heart of
tenderness, for the prayer "Be gracious" asks for such, and so goes deeper into the
blessedness of the devout life than the preceding. And the crown of all these requests
is "Rejoice the soul of Thy servant," with the joy which flows from experience of
outward deliverance and of inward whispers of God’s grace, heard in the silent
depths of communion with Him. It matters not that every petition has parallels in
other psalms, which this singer is quoting. His desires are none the less his, because
they have been shared by a company of devout souls before him. His expression of

9. them is none the less his, because his very words have been uttered by others. There
is rest in thus associating oneself with an innumerable multitude who have "cried to
God and been lightened." The petition in Psalms 86:1 is like that in Psalms 55:2.
Psalms 86:2 sounds like a reminiscence of Psalms 25:20; Psalms 86:3 closely
resembles Psalms 57:1.
The pleas on which the petitions are grounded are also beautifully wreathed
together. First, the psalmist asks to be heard because he is afflicted and poor.
{compare Psalms_11:17} Our need is a valid plea with a faithful God. The sense of it
drives us to Him; and our recognition of poverty and want must underlie all faithful
appeal to Him. The second plea is capable of two interpretations. The psalmist says
that he is Chasid; and that word is by some commentators taken to mean one who
exercises, and by others one who is the subject of, Chesed-i.e., lovingkindness. As
has been already remarked on Psalms 4:3, the passive meaning-i.e., one to whom
God’s lovingkindness is shown-is preferable. Here it is distinctly better than the
other. The psalmist is not presenting his own character as a plea, but urging God’s
gracious relation to him, which, once entered on, pledges God to unchanging
continuance in manifesting His lovingkindness. But though the psalmist does not
plead his character, he does, in the subsequent pleas, present his faith, his daily and
day-long prayers, and his lifting of his desires, aspirations, and whole self above the
trivialities of earth to set them on God. These are valid pleas with Him. It cannot be
that trust fixed on Him should be disappointed, nor that cries perpetually rising to
His ears should be unanswered, nor that a soul stretching its tendrils heavenward
should fail to find the strong stay, round which it can cling and climb. God owns the
force of such appeals, and delights to be moved to answer, by the spreading before
Him of His servant’s faith and longings.
SBC, "The fulness and variety of these petitions deserve careful consideration.
Notice:—
I. The invocations. Five times in these verses of the text does the Psalmist invoke God,
and that by three several names: "Jehovah," "my God," "Lord." (1) "Jehovah." The word
implies eternal, timeless being, underived self-existence. It was given as the seal of the
covenant, as the ground of the great deliverance from Egyptian bondage. The national
existence rested upon it. The vitality of Israel was guaranteed by the eternity of Israel’s
God. (2) "My God." The word implies the abundance and fulness of power, and so may
be found, and often is found, on the lips of heathens. It contemplates the almightiness
rather than the moral attributes or covenant relations of God as the ground of our hopes.
This general conception becomes special on the Psalmist’s lips by the little word which
he prefixes to it: "my God." (3) The word "Lord" is not, as a mere English reader might
suppose, the same word as that which is rendered Lord" in the first verse. That is
"Jehovah." This means just what our English word "lord" means: it conveys the general
idea of authority and dominion.
II. The petitions which these verses give us. They are all substantially the same, and yet
they so vary as to suggest how familiar all the aspects of the deliverance that the Psalmist
desired were to him. (1) There is, first, the cry that God would hear, the basis of all that
follows. Then there is a threefold description of the process of deliverance: "preserve,"
"save," "be merciful." Then there is a longing for that which comes after the help, a

10. consequence of the hearing: "Make the soul of Thy servant glad."
III. The pleas on which these petitions are based. (1) The Psalmist pleads his necessities.
He is "poor and needy," borne down by the pressure of outward calamity, and destitute
of inward resources. (2) He pleads his relation to God and his longing for communion
with Him. "I am holy." The word simply means "one who is a recipient or object of
mercy." The plea is drawn, not from the righteousness of the man, but from the mercy of
God. (3) Finally, because our necessities and our desires derive their force as pleas from
God’s own character, he urges that as his last and mightiest appeal. The name of God is
the ground of all our hope, and the motive for all His mercy.
A. Maclaren, Sermons Preached in Manchester, 3rd series, p. 257.
In this passage we are looking at one of God’s saints in the holiest of all, in the
immediate presence of his God and King.
I. The first thought that strikes us is, David takes his right place. He says, "Bow down,"
as though he would say, "I am a worm, and no man." I cannot claim an audience. If Thou
wouldst hear, Thou must bow down Thine ear, as a tender Father, to catch what Thy frail
child has to say.
II. Look at the "fors" of the passage. There are five. (1) "For I am poor and needy." If we
come to God at all, we must come as beggars. There are two words in the Greek language
which indicate poverty. One indicates respectable poverty, the poverty of a man in
humble circumstances, who is working hard to get his bread. The other signifies
"beggary," the state of the man who has got nothing, who is utterly bankrupt. In
describing the particular kind of poverty-stricken people He receives, our Lord uses the
word to indicate abject bankruptcy; and unless we come into the Divine presence in the
position of paupers, we cannot get the blessing. (2) Notice the second "for:" "Preserve
my soul, for I am holy." The first "for" is the "for" of the bankrupt; the second is the "for"
of the saint. There is no contradiction here: in my own moral character a poor beggar,
grovelling in the dust; in God’s own Divine purpose something nobler than the bright
spirits that stand around His throne, heir of God and joint heir with Christ, bound to the
everlasting Deity by indissoluble bonds. (3) "Be merciful unto me, O Lord, for I cry unto
Thee daily." This third "for" points out to us what is to be the law of our life. If we want
to be kept in constant safety, we must be calling unto Him "daily." (4) "Rejoice the soul
of Thy servant, for unto Thee, O Lord, do I lift up my soul." The Psalmist begins by
asking the Lord to "bow down His ear unto him," but he goes on till he gets to such a
point of believing expectation that he dares to lift up his soul into the presence of God. It
is lifted up in order that it may become a partaker of God’s joy. God is the centre of
eternal joy. "At Thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore.’ (5) "For Thou, Lord,
art good and ready to forgive, and plenteous in mercy unto all them that call upon Thee."
We are so poor in our mercy. The richness of God’s mercy lies in this point: the Lord
never gives a mercy till He has taken care that it shall be a real mercy. His favours shall
only be received by those who will take them in His own way, and thus the blessing is
doubled.
W. Hay Aitken, Mission Sermons, 1st series, p. 220.

11. SIMEO , "A PRAYI G SPIRIT EXEMPLIFIED
Psalms 86:1-5. Bow down thine ear, O Lord! hear me; for I am poor and needy.
Preserve my soul; for I am holy O thou my God, save thy servant that trusteth in
thee! Be merciful unto me, O Lord! for I cry unto thee daily. Rejoice the soul of thy
servant: for unto thee, O Lord, do I lift up my soul. For thou, Lord, art good, and
ready to forgive; plenteous in mercy unto all them that call upon thee.
TRUE and genuine piety cannot always be certainly known by men’s intercourse
with their fellow-creatures. Appearances may be so plausible, that they cannot,
except by Him who searcheth the heart, be distinguished from realities. But in their
intercourse with the Deity, the truth or falsehood of their profession may be clearly
discerned. The most refined hypocrite may, by examining the state of his soul in his
private devotions, obtain the certain means of discovering his proper character,
provided he have his standard rightly fixed, and his test impartially applied. To
furnish such a standard, is our object in the present discourse. We here behold the
man after God’s own heart drawing nigh to a throne of grace, and pouring out his
soul in supplications before God: and we wish to call your attention especially to the
spirit which he manifested in this sacred duty, since it will serve as an excellent
criterion whereby to try and judge ourselves.
Let us then consider,
I. The subject-matter of his prayer—
It should seem that David was now under great affliction, either from the
persecutions of Saul, or from the unnatural rebellion of his son Absalom: and his
prayers may well be understood, in the first instance, as relating to his temporal
trials. But, as it is of his soul that he chiefly speaks, we shall dwell upon his prayer
principally in that view. Let us notice then,
1. His petitions—
[St. Paul, in both his Epistles to Timothy, prays, that “grace, and mercy, and peace”
may be multiplied upon him. These three terms comprehend the substance of the
Psalmist’s petitions. He desired “grace,” to “preserve and save his soul.” He desired
“mercy;” “Be merciful unto me, O Lord!” And he desired “peace;” “Rejoice the
soul of thy servant, O Lord!” ow these are such petitions as every sinner in the
universe should offer. There are no other that can be compared with them, in point
of importance to the souls of men. As for all the objects of time and sense, they sink
into perfect insignificance before the things which appertain to our everlasting
salvation. To all therefore I would say, Seek what David sought. Cry mightily to
God to have mercy upon you, and to preserve and save your soul: and when you
have done that, you may fitly pray also for that consolation and joy, which a sense of
his pardoning love will produce in the soul.]
2. His pleas—

12. [These are taken, partly, from what he experienced in his own soul; and, partly,
from the character of God himself.
Observe how he urges, what he experienced in his own soul. The things which God
himself requires from us, in order to the acceptance of our prayers, are, a deep sense
of our necessities, an entire surrender of our souls to him, a reliance on him for all
needful blessings, and a continual application to him in a way of fervent and
believing prayer. Behold, these are the very things which David at this time
experienced, and which therefore he pleaded before God as evidences of the
sincerity of his prayers: “Bow down thine ear, O Lord, and hear me; for I am poor
and needy!” And who is there that must not adopt the same acknowledgment? Who
that considers, how destitute his soul is of all that is truly good, will not find these
words exactly descriptive of his state? Again, the Psalmist prays, “Preserve my soul;
for I am holy” We must not imagine that David here meant to boast of his high
attainments in holiness: the term “holy” is applied in Scripture to every thing that is
dedicated to God, though from its very nature it cannot possess any inherent
sanctity: the temple of God, the vessels of the sanctuary, and all the offerings, were
holy, because they were set apart for God. So David here speaks of himself as “set
apart for God [ ote: See Psalms 4:3.]:” and his expression is exactly equivalent to
that which he uses in another place; “I am thine; save me [ ote: Psalms 119:94.].”
This then is another plea which it becomes us all to use. As the Israelites were “a
holy nation [ ote: Exodus 19:6.],” so are we [ ote: 1 Peter 2:9.]: and if we have
given up ourselves unreservedly to God, we may well hope, that he will hear and
answer our petitions. Once more David says, “Save me; for I trust in Thee.” This
also was a most acceptable plea. If we ask with a wavering and doubtful mind, we
can never succeed [ ote: James 1:6-7.]: but the prayer of faith must of necessity
prevail [ ote: Matthew 21:22. Mark 11:24.]. The suppliant who truly and habitually
trusts in God, can never be disappointed. Lastly, David says, “I cry unto thee daily:”
“Unto thee, O Lord, do I lift up my soul.” God “will be inquired of, to do for us the
things that he has promised.” “If we ask, we shall have; if we seek, we shall find; if
we knock, it shall be opened unto us [ ote: Matthew 7:7-8.]:” but, if we ask not, we
shall not, we cannot, have [ ote: James 4:2.].
But David’s chief plea is taken from the character of God himself: and this is, in
reality, the most satisfactory to the human mind, and most acceptable to the Divine
Majesty, who “will work for his own great ame’s sake,” when all other grounds of
hope are subverted and lost. Towards his creatures generally, whether rational or
irrational, God is “good;” but towards the children of men he is “ready to forgive,
and plenteous in mercy unto all that call upon him.” o mother is so tender towards
her new-born child, as God is towards his penitent and believing people. He is far
more “ready to forgive,” than they are to ask forgiveness; and will multiply his
pardons beyond all the multitude of their offences [ ote: Isaiah 55:7-9.]. “Where sin
has abounded, his grace shall much more abound [ ote: Romans 5:20.].” The
freeness and fulness of God’s grace should be clearly seen, and confidently relied
upon: but then we must never forget, that this glorious perfection shines only in the
face of Jesus Christ. It is in Christ only that God can pardon sinners in consistency

13. with his justice: but in Christ, “he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to
cleanse us from all unrighteousness [ ote: Romans 3:24-25.].” In Christ therefore,
and in God as reconciled to us through the blood of his Son, must be all our hope. If
we rest solely on Christ’s obedience unto death, all will be well; for “in him all the
promises of God are yea, and amen [ ote: 2 Corinthians 1:20.].” But, if we look at
God in any way but as in the person of Christ, we shall surely find him “a
consuming fire [ ote: Hebrews 12:29.].”]
The prayer itself not calling for any farther elucidation, we proceed to notice,
II. The spirit manifested in it—
Here the subject is peculiarly important, because it exhibits in so striking a view the
dispositions of mind which we should invariably exercise in our approaches to the
Divine Majesty. In this example of David, then observe,
1. His meekness and modesty—
[He approaches God, as a sinner ought to do, with reverential awe. He exhibits none
of that unhallowed boldness, and indecent familiarity, which are so commonly to be
noticed in the prayers of many at this day. It is much to be lamented that many
address God almost as if he were an equal. We speak not now of that irreverence
with which people, altogether ignorant of religion, conduct themselves in the public
services of the church; (though that is deeply to be deplored;) but of the state of
mind manifested by many religious people, ministers, as well as others, in their
public and social addresses to the throne of Heaven. How different, alas! is it from
that which is inculcated, both in the Scriptures [ ote: Psalms 89:7. Ecclesiastes
5:2.], and in the Liturgy of our Church! In the Liturgy, the people are exhorted to
“accompany their minister with a pure heart and humble voice to the throne of the
heavenly grace:” and, in another place, “to make their humble confession to
Almighty God, meekly kneeling on their knees.” This is a lovely state of mind, and
as opposite to that which many religious people manifest, as light to darkness. Many
whose religious principles differ widely from the self-applauding Pharisee, resemble
him very nearly in his spirit and conduct: but let us, on the contrary, imitate the
publican, who, “not venturing so much as to lift up his eyes to heaven, smote upon
his breast, and cried, God be merciful to me a sinner.”]
2. His humility and contrition—
[He felt himself a guilty and undone creature, deserving of God’s everlasting
displeasure: and hence he cried so repeatedly for mercy and salvation, And here
again we see how the same views and dispositions are inculcated in the services of
our Church. Let any one peruse the confession which is daily offered — — — or
that which we are taught to utter at the table of the Lord — — — or let him read
the responses after every one of the Ten Commandments — — — or the repeated
cries, “Lord, have mercy upon me! Christ, have mercy upon me! Lord, have mercy
upon me!” and he will see at once, what a beautiful harmony there is between our

14. Liturgy and the Holy Scriptures; and what distinguished saints all her members
would be, if the Spirit of her Liturgy were transfused into their minds. This is the
state of mind which, above all, we would recommend to those who desire to find
acceptance with God: for “to this man will God look, even to him who is of a broken
and contrite spirit [ ote: Isaiah 57:15; Isaiah 65:2.]:” this is the sacrifice which,
above all, God requires, and which he has assured us “he will never despise [ ote:
Psalms 51:17.].”]
3. His faith and love—
[David did not so view his own sinfulness as to distrust the mercy of his heavenly
Father; but rather took occasion from his own sinfulness to magnify still more the
free and supera-bounding grace of God. In this, his example is especially to be
followed. othing can warrant us to limit the mercy of our God. O how “ready is he
to forgive” returning penitents! Of this, the conduct of the father towards the
repenting prodigal is a lively and instructive image. In that parable, the compassion
of God towards returning sinners is, as it were, exhibited even to the eye of sense.
Let us then, whatever be our state, bear this in mind, that unbelief is a sin which
binds all our other sins upon us. ever, under any circumstances, should we
harbour it for a moment. It is enough to have resisted God’s authority, without
proceeding further to rob him of the brightest jewels of his crown—his grace and
mercy. The goodness of God, as described in our text, and in another subsequent
part of this psalm [ ote: ver. 15.], — — — is a sufficient pledge to us, that of those
who come to him in his Son’s name, he never did, nor ever will, cast out to much as
one.]
4. His zeal and earnestness—
[The diversified petitions and pleas which we have already considered, together with
the renewed urgency of his supplications in the verse following my text [ ote: ver.
6.], shew, how determined David was not to rest, till he had obtained favour of the
Lord. And thus must we also “continue instant in prayer:” we must “watch unto it
with all perseverance;” we must “pray always, and not faint.” Alas! how are we
condemned in our own minds for our manifold neglects, and for our lukewarmness
in prayer to God! But we must not rest satisfied with confessing these neglects: we
should remedy them, and break through this supineness, and correct this
negligence, and lie at Bethesda’s pool till the angel come for our relief. This is
suggested to us in our text. What we translate, “I cry unto thee daily,” is, in the
margin, “I cry unto thee all the day.” O that there were in us such a heart! O that
our sense of need were so deep, our desire of mercy so ardent, and our faith in God
so assured, that we were drawn to God with an irresistible and abiding impulse; and
that, like Jacob of old, we “wrestled with him day and night, saying, I will not let
thee go except thou bless me [ ote: Genesis 32:24; Genesis 32:26; Genesis 32:28.
with Hosea 12:3-5.].” Such prayer could not but prevail; and such a suppliant could
not but find everlasting acceptance with God, who is so “plenteous in mercy, so
ready to forgive [ ote: Luke 18:1-8.].”]

15. PULPIT, "THIS is the prayer of an afflicted and humble soul in a time of
persecution (Psalms 86:14), intermixed with outbursts of praise (Psalms 86:5,
Psalms 86:8-10, Psalms 86:15) and thankfulness (Psalms 86:12, Psalms 86:13). It is
assigned in the title to David, and contains nothing, either in matter or style, to
make the ascription unlikely. Still, most modern critics regard the psalm as
probably of a later date, and consider it the work of a less gifted psalmist than
David. If not the production of a "great original mind," the psalm is nevertheless
one of singular sweetness and beauty.
Metrically, it seems to divide itself, like Psalms 85:1-13; into three strophes, two
shorter, and one longer, the former being of five verses each, and the latter of seven.
Psalms 86:1-5
Prayer, the predominant note of the entire psalm, holds almost exclusive possession
of the first strophe, only passing into praise when the last verse is reached, where
the petitioner reminds God of his loving kindness and readiness to forgive.
Psalms 86:1
Bow down thine ear, O Lord, hear me (comp. Psalms 31:2; Proverbs 22:17). For I
am poor and needy; or, "I am afflicted and in misery." Poverty in the ordinary
sense is scarcely intended.
2 Guard my life, for I am faithful to you;
save your servant who trusts in you.
You are my God;
BAR ES, "Preserve my soul - Preserve, or keep, my life; for so the word rendered
soul means in this place, as it does commonly in the Scriptures.
For I am holy - Margin, “One whom thou favorest.” The Hebrew word - ‫חסיד‬ châsıyd
- means properly, benevolent, kind; then, good, merciful, gracious; and then pious,
godly. Psa_30:4; Psa_31:23; Psa_37:28. The ground of the plea here is, that he was a
friend of God; and that it was proper on that account to look to him for protection. He
does not say that he was holy in such a sense that he had a claim on that account to the
favor of God, or that his personal holiness was a ground of salvation; but the idea is, that

16. he had devoted himself to God, and that it was, therefore, proper to look to him for his
protection in the time of danger. A child looks to a parent for protection, because he is a
child; a citizen looks to the protection of the laws, because he is a citizen; and so the
people of God may look to him for protection, because they are his people. In all this
there is no plea of merit, but there is the recognition of what is proper in the case, and
what may he expected and hoped for.
Save thy servant - Save him from threatening danger and from death.
That trusteth in thee - Because I trust or confide in thee. I go nowhere else for
protection; I rely on no one else. I look to thee alone, and I do this with entire
confidence. A man who does this has a right to look to God for protection, and to expect
that God will interpose in his behalf.
CLARKE, "Preserve my soul - Keep it as in a strong place.
For I am holy - ‫אני‬ ‫חשיד‬ ‫כי‬ ki chasid ani, for I am merciful. The spirit of this prayer is,
“The mercy I to others show,
That mercy show to me!”
Save thy servant - I have long taken thee as my Master and Lord; I receive the word
from thy mouth, and obey thee.
GILL, "Preserve my soul,.... Or life, which Saul sought after; and this prayer was
heard: David was often remarkably preserved by the Lord from his attempts upon him;
and so was the soul or life of Christ preserved in his infancy from Herod's malice; in the
wilderness from wild beasts, and from perishing with hunger; and often from the
designs of the Jews, to take away his life before his time; and he was supported in death,
preserved from corruption in the grave, and raised from thence: instances there are of
his praying for the preservation of his life, with submission to the will of God, in which
he was heard, Mat_26:39. The Lord is not only the preserver of the lives of men in a
temporal sense, but he is the preserver of the souls of his people, their more noble part,
whose redemption is precious; he keeps them from the evil of sin, and preserves them
safe to his kingdom and glory; yea, their whole soul, body, and spirit, are preserved by
him blameless, unto the coming of Christ:
for I am holy; quite innocent, as to the crime that was laid to his charge by Saul and his
courtiers; or was kind, beneficent, and merciful, to others, and to such God shows
himself merciful, they obtain mercy: or was favoured of God, to whom he had been
bountiful, on whom he had bestowed many mercies and blessings; and therefore desires
and hopes that, to the rest of favours, this of preservation might be added; or, as he was
a sanctified person, and God had begun his work of grace in him, he therefore entreats
the Lord would preserve him, and perfect his own work in him: some, as Aben Ezra
observes, would have the sense to be,
"keep my soul until I am holy:''
so Arama interprets it,

17. "keep me unto the world to come, where all are holy:''
the character of an Holy One eminently and perfectly agrees with Christ, as well as the
petition; see Psa_16:1.
O thou, my God, save thy servant that trusteth in thee; both temporally and
spiritually: the arguments are taken from covenant interest in God, which is a strong
one; from relation to him as a servant, not by nature only, but by grace; and from his
trust and confidence in him; all which, as well as the petition, agree with Christ; see Psa_
22:1.
HE RY, "He begs that God would take him under his special protection, and so be the
author of his salvation (Psa_86:2): Preserve my soul; save thy servant. It was David's
soul that was God's servant; for those only serve God acceptably that serve him with
their spirits. David's concern is about his soul; if we understand it of his natural life, it
teaches us that the best self-preservation is to commit ourselves to God's keeping and by
faith and prayer to make our Creator our preserver. But it may be understood of his
spiritual life, the life of the soul as distinct from the body: “Preserve my soul from that
one evil and dangerous thing to souls, even from sin; preserve my soul, and so save me.”
All those whom God will save he preserves, and will preserve them to his heavenly
kingdom.
CALVI , "2.Preserve my soul, for I am meek. Here the Psalmist adduces two other
arguments by which to stir up God to grant him succor, — his own gentleness
towards his neighbors, and the trust which he reposed in God. In the first clause he
may seem at first sight to make some pretensions to personal worth; yet he plainly
shows that nothing was farther from his intention than to insinuate that by any
merits of his own he had brought God under obligations to preserve him. But the
particular mention made of his clemency or meekness tends to exhibit in a more
odious light the wickedness of his enemies, who had treated so shamefully, and with
such inhumanity, a man against whom they could bring no well-founded charge,
and who had even endeavored to the utmost of his power to please them. (481) Since
God then has avowed himself to be the defender both of good causes and of those
who follow after righteousness, David, not without good reason, testifies that he had
endeavored to exercise kindness and gentleness; that from this it may appear that he
was basely requited by his enemies, when they gratuitously acted with cruelty
towards a merciful man. But as it would not be enough for our lives to be
characterised by kindness and righteousness, an additional qualification is
subjoined — that of trust or confidence in God, which is the mother of all true
religion. Some, we are aware, have been endued with so high a degree of integrity,
as to have obtained among men the praise of being perfectly just, even as Aristides
gloried in having never given any man cause of sorrow. But as those men, with all
the excellence of their virtues, were either filled with ambition, or inflated with
pride, which made them trust more to themselves than to God, it is not surprising to
find them suffering the punishment of their vanity. In reading profane history, we
are disposed to marvel how it came to pass that God abandoned the honest, the
grave, and the temperate, to the enraged passions of a wicked multitude; but there is
no reason for wondering at this when we reflect that such persons, relying on their

18. own strength and virtue, despised the grace of God with all the superciliousness of
impiety. Making an idol of their own virtue they disdained to lift up their eyes to
Him. Although, therefore, we may have the testimony of an approving conscience,
and although He may be the best witness of our innocence, yet if we are desirous of
obtaining his assistance, it is necessary for us to commit our hopes and anxieties to
him. If it is objected, that in this way the gate is shut against sinners, I answer, that
when God invites to himself those who are blameless and upright in their
deportment, this does not imply that he forthwith repels all who are punished on
account of their sins; for they have an opportunity given them, if they will improve
it, for prayer and the acknowledgement of their guilt. (482), But if those whom we
have never offended unrighteously assail us, we have ground for double confidence
before God.
SPURGEO , "Ver. 2. Preserve my soul. Let my life be safe from my enemies, and
my spiritual nature be secure from their temptations. He feels himself unsafe except
he be covered by the divine protection.
For I am holy. I am set apart for holy uses, therefore do not let thine enemies
commit a sacrilege by injuring or defiling me: I am clear of the crimes laid to my
charge, and in that sense innocent; therefore, I beseech thee, do not allow me to
suffer from unjust charges: and I am inoffensive, meek, and gentle towards others,
therefore deal mercifully with me as I have dealt with my fellow men. Any of these
renderings may explain the text, perhaps all together will expound it best. It is not
self righteous in good men to plead their innocence as a reason for escaping from the
results of sins wrongfully ascribed to them; penitents do not bedaub themselves with
mire for the love of it, or make themselves out to be worse than they are out of
compliment to heaven. o, the humblest saint is not a fool, and he is as well aware of
the matters wherein he is clear as of those wherein he must cry "peccavi." To plead
guilty to offences we have never committed is as great a lie as the denial of our real
faults.
O thou my God, save thy servant that trusteth in thee. Lest any man should suppose
that David trusted in his own holiness he immediately declared his trust in the Lord,
and begged to be saved as one who was not holy in the sense of being perfect, but
was even yet in need of the very clements of salvation. How sweet is that title, "my
God", when joined to the other, "thy servant"; and how sweet is the hope that on
this ground we shall be saved; seeing that our God is not like the Amalekitish
master who left his poor sick servant to perish. ote how David's poor I am (or
rather the I repeated without the am) appeals to the great I AM with that sacred
boldness engendered by the necessity which breaks through stone walls, aided by
the faith which removes mountains.
EXPLA ATORY OTES A D QUAI T SAYI GS.
Ver 2. Holy. The word has been variously translated: —Godly, De Muis,
Ainsworth and others; charitable, or beneficent, Piscator; merciful or
tenderhearted, Mariana; diligently or earnestly compassionate, Vatablus; meek,
Calvin; a beloved one, Version of American Bible Union; one whom thou lovest,
Perowne; a devoted or dedicated man, —Weiss.
Ver. 2. For I am Holy. Some have objected to David's pleading his own good
character; but if he did not go beyond the truth, and the occasion called for it, there

19. was nothing wrong in his so doing. Job, David, Peter, John and Paul all did it, Job
27:5, Psalms 116:16, John 21:15-17, Revelation 1:10, 1 Corinthians 9:1. or is it
presumptuous to ask God to show mercy to us for we show it to others; or to forgive
us for we forgive others, Mt 5:7 6:14-15. —William S. Plumer.
Ver. 2. I am holy...thy servant which trusteth in thee. They that are holy, yet must
not trust in themselves, or in their own righteousness, but only in God and his grace.
—Matthew Henry.
Ver. 2. Save thy servant that trusteth in thee. When God saves his servant, he saves
what belongs to himself; and, when he saves him that trusts in him, he shows himself
to be just and faithful, in carrying out what he promised. —Bellarmine.
Ver. 2-5. The aspirations after holiness which are found in this Psalm, coupled with
its earnest invocation of mercy from the God with whom there is forgiveness, render
it peculiarly applicable to those whose daily access is to a throne of needed grace.
Christians know that while their standing is the blameless perfection of the Lord
their righteouness, they are in many things offenders still. or do we ever fully
prove the preciousness of Jesus as our portion, except we are drawn to him by that
Spirit which reveals to us a nakedness and poverty within ourselves, which his
blessed fulness can alone redress.
There is a consciousness of personal sanctification through faith (Psalms 86:2)
associated with an acutely sensitive perception of intrinsic worthlessness, such as
only finds relief in the remembrance of unaltered grace (Psalms 86:5), which, to the
exercised spirit of one really growing in the knowledge of God, will address itself
with an especial acceptance. —Arthur Pridham.
COKE, "Psalms 86:2. For I am holy— For I am thy favoured one. Mudge. For I am
merciful. Green; which seems a very proper translation; and is as if the Psalmist
had said, "Shew that mercy to me which I am so ready and willing to shew to
others." It appears, however, from Psalms 16:10 that the same word is peculiarly
appropriated to Christ, the Holy one of God: in which sense it may well be
understood, according to what we have observed on the title.
BE SO , "Psalms 86:2. Preserve my soul, for I am holy — Sanctified in some
measure by thy grace, and sincerely devoted to thy service. Hebrew, ‫חסיד‬ ‫,אני‬ ani
chasid, I am good, merciful, or pious. Show that mercy to me which I am willing and
ready to show to others. This David mentions, not in a way of vain ostentation, but
as an argument to move God to answer his prayers, because he was one of that sort
of men whose prayers God had engaged himself, by his promise and covenant, to
hear; and partly by way of just and necessary vindication of himself from the
censures of his enemies, who represented him to the world as a dissembler, and
secretly a very wicked man; concerning which he here makes a solemn appeal to
God, desiring audience and help from him upon no other condition than that he was
truly upright and righteous before him. Which, by the way, manifests no more
arrogance than when he elsewhere professes his great love to, and longing after,
God; his sincere obedience to all God’s commands, and his hatred of every false
way, and the like.
WHEDO , "2. Preserve—David’s prayer for protection points to his danger.

20. (Psalms 86:14; Psalms 86:17.)
For I am holy—Dedicated to God, a God-worshipper. But the word ‫חסיד‬ is as often
used in the sense of merciful. “Keep my soul, for I am merciful;” as in Psalms 97:10,
“He preserveth the souls of his saints”—better, of his merciful ones. This suits the
connexion and scope. The issue between David and his enemies was, not that he was
irreligious, but that he had been unjust to man by superseding the house of Saul in
the dynasty, and the tribe of Ephraim in the supremacy, to which slander had added
many other false accusations. See 2 Samuel 15:2-6. The word in question is often
used to cover the great principle of the second table of the decalogue— “Thou shall
love thy neighbour as thyself.” David pleads that he had been merciful to men as a
reason for now obtaining mercy of God. See Matthew 5:7; James 2:13, and notes on
Psalms 4:3; Psalms 12:1. ‫,כי‬ (kee,) “for,” because, in the text, as a causal particle,
does not assign as a reason for acceptance good works as a ground of merit, as the
papists hold, but as a proof of moral fitness, the promise being to such. He appeals
to his works as evidence of the purity and sincerity of his intentions and heart.
Trusteth in thee—Another reason of fitness.
EXPOSITORS DICTIO ARY OF TEXTS, "Religious Concentration
Psalm 86:2
To a writer of such broad sympathies as the Psalmist, the doctrine of the Divine
unity suggests a prophetic picture of the gathering together of all nations for God"s
worship. From the north and the south, the east and the west, he sees many races
flowing together with one consent and bowing reverently before the Lord God of
Israel. And as he contemplates the glory of the coming days he longs to realize an
earnest of its peace in his own undivided consecration to God.
I. Various powers belong to us between which no true bond of coherence makes
itself felt. Our minds seem to have suffered dismemberment, and we watch ourselves
discharging God"s service with little bits of our being only. There can be no
complete oneness of character till we adopt the Psalmist"s prayer and persevere till
it is answered.
(a) That power of religious concentration for which the Psalmist prays is the just
tribute to God"s greatness. The worship and service of the Most High must absorb
us and will even then be tremendously inadequate.
(b) A religion illimitable in the range of its interests demands a service into which all
the forces of life gather themselves. Isolated acts of worship do not satisfy the spirit
of its requirements. The homage Jehovah seeks is many-sided, including praise,
faith, reverence, contemplation, obedience, philanthropy, and consuming love.
II. This united and mutually consistent action of all the powers of the soul is
necessary to religious perfecting. Some parts of the nature are more predisposed to

21. God and religious exercise and pursuits than others, but the goal is not reached
whilst they act in isolation.
III. What is the difficulty which hinders this unification of all the forces of the
nature in the Divine service. It is obvious that the impediment is not deficiencies of
intellectual training. The mental powers do not act together in close file at a word of
command from the hidden life, and it will be some years before that comes to pass.
And this fact has its counterpart in the processes through which the art of religious
concentration is attained. If sin had not introduced a fixed discord into man"s
nature it might still have been needful for him to acquire unity of thought and life
by a term in the school of experience.
IV. The grace for which the Psalmist prays is one and the same with the power
which sanctifies. Holiness is practical religious concentration, achieved through the
commanding motive of love to God. When the heart is united to fear God"s name all
social and secular pursuits become indirect forms of worship, binding more closely
to God and awakening delight at the thought of His presence.
V. The inevitable set of the human mind is towards concentration, and if we do not
acquire the habit for good it will master us for evil. One man"s nature specializes
itself into the pursuit of pleasure, another"s into the acquisition of power, and that
of a third into money-getting, divorced even from the satisfaction of spending. It
behoves us to see that it is the best within us which becomes dominant, and that this
supreme concentration chooses for its processes the things which are pure, lovely,
and sacred, rather than the things which are evil.
—T. G. Selby, The God of the Frail, p330.
3 have mercy on me, Lord,
for I call to you all day long.
BAR ES, "Be merciful unto me, O Lord - It was mercy after all that he relied on,
and not justice. It was not because he had any claim on the ground that he was “holy,”
but all that he had and hoped for was to be traced to the mercy of God.
For I cry unto thee daily - Margin, as in Hebrew, “All the day.” The meaning is,
that he did this constantly, or without intermission.
CLARKE, "Be merciful unto me - I have no merit; I plead none, but trust in thee

22. alone.
I cry unto thee daily - My state deeply affects me; and I incessantly cry for thy
salvation.
GILL, "Be merciful unto me, O Lord,.... In my distressed and miserable condition,
being an object of mercy, pity, and compassion; this petition is used by Christ in Psa_
41:10.
for I cry unto thee daily; or "all the day"; every day, and several times in a day, Psa_
55:17 constant and importunate prayer is the duty of saints, and available with God,
1Th_5:17. Christ was much in the exercise of it, Luk_6:12.
HE RY, " He begs that God would look upon him with an eye of pity and compassion
(Psa_86:3): Be merciful to me, O Lord! It is mercy in God to pardon our sins and to help
us out of our distresses; both these are included in this prayer, God be merciful to me.
“Men show no mercy; we ourselves deserve no mercy, but, Lord, for mercy-sake, be
merciful unto me.”
CALVI , "3Have mercy upon me, O Jehovah! The Psalmist again betakes himself
to the mercy of God. The word ‫,חנן‬ chanan, which I have rendered have mercy, is
substantially the same as to gratify, to do a pleasure. It is as if he had said, I bring
no merit of my own, but humbly pray for deliverance solely on the ground of thy
mercy. When he speaks of crying daily, it is a proof of his hope and confidence, of
which we have spoken a little before. By the word cry, as I have already had
occasion frequently to remark, is denoted vehemence and earnestness of soul. The
saints do not indeed always pray with a loud voice; but their secret sighs and
groanings resound and echo upwards, and, ascending from their hearts, penetrate
even into heaven. The inspired suppliant not only represents himself as crying, but
as persevering in doing so, to teach us that he was not discouraged at the first or
second encounter, but continued in prayer with untiring earnestness. In the
following verse, he expresses more definitely the end for which he besought God to
be merciful to him, which was, that his sorrow might be removed. In the second
clause, he declares that there was no hypocrisy in his crying; for he lifted up his soul
to God, which is the chief characteristic of right prayer.
SPURGEO , "Ver. 3. Be merciful unto me, O Lord. The best of men need mercy,
and appeal to mercy, yea to nothing else but mercy; they need it for themselves, and
crave it eagerly of their God as a personal requisite.
For I cry unto thee daily. Is there not a promise that importunity shall prevail? May
we not, then, plead our importunity as an argument with God? He who prays every
day, and all the day, for so the word may mean, may rest assured that the Lord will
hear him in the day of his need. If we cried sometimes to man, or other false
confidences, we might expect to be referred to them in the hour of our calamity, but
if in all former times we have looked to the Lord alone, we may be sure that he will
not desert us now. See how David pleaded, first that he was poor and needy, next
that he was the Lord's set apart one, then that he was God's servant and had

23. learned to trust in the Lord, and lastly that he had been taught to pray daily; surely
these are such holy pleadings as any tried believer may employ when wrestling with
a prayer hearing God, and with such weapons the most trembling suppliant may
hope to win the day.
EXPLA ATORY OTES A D QUAI T SAYI GS.
Ver. 3. Be merciful unto me. Lest any should by the former words, ("I am holy", )
suspect him to be a merit monger, he beggeth mercy with instancy and constancy of
request. —John Trapp.
Ver. 3. I cry unto thee daily. A great difference between saints and sinners in prayer
is that sinners who pray at all, pray only when they are in trouble, whereas saints
cry daily unto God. Compare Job 27:10. —William S. Plumer.
ISBET, "DAILY PRAYER
‘I cry unto Thee daily.’
Psalms 86:3
I. This is the only psalm in the third book ascribed to David.—It sounds like his.
There is a lyric beauty and pathos about it which are so characteristic of his work.
He speaks of himself in the second verse as ‘godly,’ not that he arrogated some
special saintliness as his portion, but that he was conscious that his life was
distinctly Godward and dependent on the supplies that God communicated.
II. It is remarkable to contrast his statement that he prayed all the day long with the
frequent statements scattered through Bramwell’s letters. ‘My dear brother,’ he
says, ‘my life is prayer. I assure you that I am just in heaven. It is the Lord.’ Again,
‘I never lived with God as at present. I can say, my life is prayer, and much in
agony. It is continual prayer that brings the soul into all the glory.’ And yet again, ‘I
see more than ever that those who are given up to God in continual prayer are men
of business, both for earth and heaven. They go through the world with composure,
are resigned to every cross, and make the greatest glory of the greatest cross.’
But in order to have this life of prayer we must know the character of God, and base
our prayers upon our knowledge. otice that the Psalmist says in the fifth verse,
‘Thou, Lord, art good’; in the tenth verse, ‘Thou art great’; and in the fifteenth
verse, ‘Thou art full.’ Meditate on these qualities of the Divine ature, and you will
not find it difficult to pray or praise with your whole heart.
Illustration
‘This psalm is called in the superscription “A Prayer of David.” Whether it is by
David or not we need scarcely take the trouble to inquire; but it is a prayer, and
conveys a valuable lesson in the art of praying. We are in the habit of making a
distinction between prayer and praise, and, of course, it is quite easy to distinguish
them in a definition; but, in fact, the limits between them are of a very fluid
description. There is no prayer without elements of praise, and, as a rule, the
greater the amount of praise in a prayer the better. On the other hand, praise is full
of prayer; the Psalms would be reckoned the praises of God, but there are very few
of them in which there is no prayer, and in many instances this is the predominating

24. element. In the present case it is clearly predominant.’
4 Bring joy to your servant, Lord,
for I put my trust in you.
BAR ES, "Rejoice the soul of thy servant - Cause me to rejoice; to wit, by thy
gracious interposition, and by delivering me from danger and death.
For unto thee, O Lord, do I lift up my soul - Compare the notes at Psa_24:4. The
idea is that of arousing himself, or exerting himself, as one does who makes strenuous
efforts to obtain an object. He was not languid, or indifferent; he did not put forth
merely weak and fitful efforts to find God, but he bent his whole powers to that end; he
arouses himself thoroughly to seek the divine help. Languid and feeble efforts in seeking
after God will be attended with no success. In so great a matter - when so much depends
on the divine favor - when such great interests are at stake - the whole soul should be
roused to one great and strenuous effort; not that we can obtain his favor by force or
power, and not that any strength of ours will prevail of itself, but
(a) because nothing less will indicate the proper intensity of desire; and
(b) because such is his appointment in regard to the manner in which we are to seek
his favor.
Compare Mat_7:7-8; Luk_13:24; Luk_16:16.
CLARKE, "Rejoice the soul of thy servant - I want spiritual blessings; I want
such consolations as thou dost impart to them that love thee; I present that soul to thee
which I wish thee to console.
GILL, "Rejoice the soul of thy servant,.... With the discoveries of love, of
pardoning grace, and mercy, before made sad with sin or sufferings; and with the light of
God's countenance, before troubled with the hidings of his face: this may be applied to
Christ, in sorrowful circumstances, who was made full of joy with his Father's
countenance, Mat_26:37.
for unto thee, O Lord, do I lift up my soul: in prayer, as the Targum adds; and it
denotes the devotion, fervency, heartiness, and sincerity, of his prayer; the doing of it
with a true heart, the lifting up of the heart with the hands unto God, Lam_3:41 or by
way of offering unto the Lord, not the body only, but the soul or heart also; or as a
depositum committed into his hands; so Christ lifted up his eyes, and his heart and soul,

25. to his divine Father; and also made his soul an offering for sin, and at death commended
his spirit into his hands, Joh_17:1; see Gill on Psa_25:1.
HE RY, " He begs that God would fill him with inward comfort (Psa_86:4): Rejoice
the soul of thy servant. It is God only that can put gladness into the heart and make the
soul to rejoice, and then, and not till then, the joy is full; and, as it is the duty of those
who are God's servants to serve him with gladness, so it is their privilege to be filled
with joy and peace in believing, and they may in faith pray, not only that God will
preserve their souls, but that he will rejoice their souls, and the joy of the Lord will be
their strength. Observe, When he prays, Rejoice my soul, he adds, For unto thee do I lift
up my soul. Then we may expect comfort from God when we take care to keep up our
communion with God: prayer is the nurse of spiritual joy.
JAMISO , "lift up my soul — with strong desire (Psa_25:1).
SPURGEO , "Ver. 4. Rejoice the soul of thy servant. Make my heart glad, O my
Maker, for I count it my honour to call myself again and again thy servant, and I
reckon thy favour to be all the wages I could desire. I look for all my happiness in
thee only, and therefore
unto thee, O Lord, do I lift up my soul. As the heliotrope looks to the sun for its
smile, so turn I my heart to thee. Thou art as the brazen serpent to my sick nature,
and I lift up my soul's eye to thee that I may live. I know that the nearer I am to thee
the greater is my joy, therefore be pleased to draw me nearer while I am labouring
to draw near. It is not easy to lift a soul at all; it needs a strong shoulder at the wheel
when a heart sticks in the miry clay of despondency: it is less easy to lift a soul up to
the Lord, for the height is great as well as the weight oppressive; but the Lord will
take the will for the deed, and come in with a hand of almighty grace to raise his
poor servant out of the earth and up to heaven.
EXPLA ATORY OTES A D QUAI T SAYI GS.
Ver. 4. Rejoice the soul of thy servant, etc. As I have not found rest in anything
created, I have raised up my soul on the wings of thought and desire to thee my
Creator. Love bears one's soul up; and it has been truly said, that the soul is more
where it loves, than where it actually is. Thought and desire are the wings of love;
for he that loves is borne on to, and abides in, what he loves, by thinking constantly
on, and longing for, the object of his love. Whoever truly, and from his heart, loves
God, by thinking on him and longing for him lifts up his soul to God; while, on the
contrary, whoever loves the earth, by thinking on and coveting the things of the
earth, lets his soul down to its level. —Bellarmine.
Ver. 4. Unto thee, Lord, do I lift my soul. If thou hadst corn in thy rooms below,
thou wouldest take it up higher, lest it should grow rotten. Wouldest thou remove
thy corn, and dost thou suffer thy heart to rot on the earth? Thou wouldest take thy
corn up higher: lift up thy heart to heaven. And how can I, dost thou say? What
ropes are needed? What machines? What ladders? Thy affections are the steps; thy
will the way. By loving thou mountest, by neglect thou descendest. Standing on the
earth thou art in heaven, if thou lovest God. For the heart is not so raised as the

26. body is raised: the body to be lifted up changes its place: the heart to be lifted up
changes its will. —Augstine.
Ver. 4. Unto thee, O Lord, do I lift my soul, intimates that he had brought himself to
the Lord as a living sacrifice, even as the heave offering in the tabernacle—to show
that it belonged to God and to his altar, and, that man had no part in it—was lifted
up by the hands of the priests. —Benjamin Weiss.
Ver. 4. —I lift up my soul. It denotes the devotion, fervency, heartiness, and
sincerity of his prayer; the doing of it with a true heart, the lifting up of the heart
with the hands unto God, La 3:41; or by way of offering unto the Lord, not the body
only, but the soul or heart also; or as a deposition committed into is hands. —John
Gill.
Ver. 4. Lord. Here, and in all the verses in this psalm where ynda Adonai, occurs,
many MSS read hwhy, Yehovah. The Jews, out of reverence to the incommunicable
name Jehovah pronounce ynda where hwhy is in the text. It is, therefore, not
improbable that hwhy is in the true reading in all these places. — ote to Calvin in
loc.
BE SO , "Psalms 86:4-5. Rejoice the soul of thy servant — It is God only that can
put gladness into the heart, and make the soul rejoice; and it is the privilege of his
servants to have joy, as well as peace, in believing: and they may pray in faith, not
only that God would preserve their souls, but that he would rejoice their souls, and
then the joy of the Lord will be their strength. For unto thee do I lift up my soul —
Then we may expect comfort from God, when we take care to keep up our
communion with him: prayer is the nurse of spiritual joy. For thou, Lord, art good
— o less bountiful than I am indigent, which is a great encouragement to me in
calling upon thee; and ready to forgive — Those that have offended thee; and
plenteous in mercy unto all that call upon thee — Always prepared to show
abundant kindness to them in their distresses, when with sincere desire, and true
faith, they call upon thee.
PULPIT, "Rejoice the soul of thy servant. The prayer rises from mere entreaties for
relief and recovery from a state of suffering, into an earnest request for that which
the heart of man is ever longing for and seeking after—gladness and joy. The
faithful are promised that they shall come ultimately to a condition of exceeding
great joy; but even saints are sometimes impatient, and want their joy in this world
and at once. For unto thee, O Lord, do I lift up my soul (comp. Psalms 25:1, entitled,
like this, "a Psalm of David"). There is no more likely way of attaining to spiritual
joy than to be always lifting up the soul to God.
5 You, Lord, are forgiving and good,
abounding in love to all who call to you.

27. BAR ES, "For thou, Lord, art good ... - This is another reason why God should
hear his prayer; and it is a reason which may be properly urged at all times, and by all
classes of persons. It is founded on the benevolence of God; on the fullness of his mercy
to all that invoke his name. We should call in vain on a God who was not merciful and
ready to forgive; but in the divine character there is the most ample foundation for such
an appeal. In his benevolence; in his readiness to forgive; in the plenitude of his mercy,
God is all that a penitent sinner could wish him to be. For if such a sinner should
endeavor to describe what he would desire to find in God as a ground of appeal in his
prayers, he could not express his feelings in language more full and free than God has
himself employed about his own readiness to pardon and save. The language of the Bible
on this subject would express, better than any language which he could himself employ,
what in those circumstances he would wish to find God to be.
CLARKE, "For thou, Lord, art good - I found my expectations of help on thy own
goodness through which thou art always ready to forgive. And I found it also on thy well-
known character, to which all thy followers bear testimony, viz., that “thou art plenteous
in mercy unto all them that call upon thee.”
GILL, "For thou, Lord, art good,.... Essentially and independently good, from
whom every good and perfect gift comes; good in himself, and good to others; good to
all, in a providential way; and good to his own special people in a way of grace: this is
asserted by Christ, Mat_19:17.
and ready to forgive; there is forgiveness with him, and it is to be had without
difficulty; he has largely provided for it; he is forward unto it, he freely giving it; it is
according to the riches of his grace; he does abundantly pardon; no sooner is it asked but
it is had; this David knew by experience, Psa_32:5,
and plenteous in mercy unto all them that call upon thee; in truth, in sincerity,
in a right way, through Christ, and faith in him; to such not only the Lord shows himself
merciful, but is rich and abundant in mercy; he has a multitude of tender mercies, and
abounds in his grace and goodness, and in the donation of it to his people; all which
encourage their faith and hope in their petitions to him.
HE RY, "The pleas with which he enforces these petitions. 1. He pleads his relation to
God and interest in him: “Thou art my God, to whom I have devoted myself, and on
whom I depend, and I am thy servant (Psa_86:2), in subjection to thee, and therefore
looking for protection from thee.” 2. He pleads his distress: “Hear me, for I am poor and
needy, therefore I want thy help, therefore none else will hear me.” God is the poor
man's King, whose glory it is to save the souls of the needy; those who are poor in spirit,
who see themselves empty and necessitous, are most welcome to the God of all grace. 3.
He pleads God's good will towards all that seek him (Psa_86:5): “To thee do I lift up my

28. soul in desire and expectation; for thou, Lord, art good;” and whither should beggars go
but to the door of the good house-keeper? The goodness of God's nature is a great
encouragement to us in all our addresses to him. His goodness appears in two things,
giving and forgiving. (1.) He is a sin-pardoning God; not only he can forgive, but he is
ready to forgive, more ready to forgive than we are to repent. I said, I will confess, and
thou forgavest, Psa_32:5.
JAMISO , "unto all ... that call upon thee — or, “worship Thee” (Psa_50:15;
Psa_91:15) however undeserving (Exo_34:6; Lev_11:9-13).
CALVI , "5For thou, O Lord! art good and propitious. (483) We have here a
confirmation of the whole preceding doctrine, derived from the nature of God. It
would avail the afflicted nothing to have recourse to him, and to lift up their desires
and prayers to heaven, were they not persuaded that he is a faithful rewarder of all
who call upon him. The point upon which David now insists is, that God is bountiful
and inclined to compassion, and that his mercy is so great, as to render it impossible
for him to reject any who implore his aid. He calls God propitious, or ascribes to
him the attribute of pardoning sin, which is a modification of his goodness. It were
not enough for God to be good in general, did he not also extend to sinners his
forgiving mercy, which is the meaning of the word ‫,סלה‬ salach. Farther, although
David magnifies the plenteousness of God’s mercy, yet he immediately after
represents this plenteousness as restricted to the faithful who call upon him, to teach
us that those who, making no account of God, obstinately chafe upon the bit,
deservedly perish in their calamities. At the same time, he uses the term all, that
every man, without exception, from the greatest to the least, may be encouraged
confidently to betake himself to the goodness and mercy of God.
SPURGEO , "Ver. 5. For thou, Lord, art good, and ready to forgive. Good at
giving and forgiving; supplying us with his good, and removing our evil. Here was
the great reason why the Psalmist looked to the Lord alone for his joy, because
every joy creating attribute is to be found in perfection in Jehovah alone. Some men
who would be considered good are so self exultingly indignant at the injuries done
them by others, that they cannot forgive; but we may rest assured that the better a
being is, the more willing he is to forgive, and the best and highest of all is ever
ready to blot out the transgressions of his creatures.
And plenteous in mercy unto all them that call upon thee. God does not dispense his
mercy from a slender store which perchance may be so impoverished as to give out
altogether, but out of a cornucopiae he pours forth the infinite riches of his mercy:
his goodness flows forth in abounding streams towards those who pray and in
adoring worship make mention of his name. David seems to have stood in the cleft of
the rock with Moses, and to have heard the name of the Lord proclaimed even as the
great lawgiver did, for in two places in this psalm he almost quotes verbatim the
passage in Exodus 34:6 —"The Lord God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering,
and abundant in goodness and truth."
EXPLA ATORY OTES A D QUAI T SAYI GS.
Ver. 5. For thou, Lord, art good, and whither should beggars go but to the door of

29. the good house keeper? —Matthew Henry.
Ver. 5. Ready to forgive. The mercy of God is a ready mercy, and his pardons are
ready for his people; his pardons and mercies are not to seek, he hath them at hand,
he is good and ready to forgive. Whereas most men, though they will forgive, yet
they are not ready to forgive, they are hardly brought to it, though they do it at last.
But God is "ready to forgive"; he hath, as it were, pardons ready drawn (as a man
who would be ready to do a business, he will have such writings as concern the
passing of it ready); there is nothing to do but to put in the date and the name; yea
indeed, the date and the name are put in from all eternity. Thus the Scripture
speaks to show how forward God is to do good; he needs not set his heart to it; his
heart is ever in the exactest fitness. —Joseph Caryl.
Ver. 5. Plenteous in mercy. It is a thing marvellously satisfactory and pleasing to the
heart of a man to be still taking from a great heap; and upon this ground are those
proverbial sayings, There is no fishing like to a fishing in the sea; no service like the
service of a king: because in one there is the greatest plenty and abundance of that
kind of pleasure that fishers look after; and for them that serve, and must live by
their service, there is none like that of princes, because they have abundance of
reward and opportunity whereby to recompense the services of those that do wait
and attend upon them...
And upon the same ground is it that the Scriptures, in several places, do not only
assert and testify that God is merciful and gracious, but abundant in mercy and full
of grace; and not simply that there is redemption in him, but plenteousness of
redemption: Ps 103:8 130:7 Isaiah 55:7; "Let the wicked forsake his way", etc.;
"Let him return unto the Lord and he will have mercy; and unto our God, for lie
will abundantly pardon." The commodity which we stand in need of is mercy and
the pardon of our sins, in case we have been unholy and ungodly creatures; this
commodity is abundantly in God. There it is treasured up as waters are in the store
house of the sea; there is no end of the treasures of his grace, mercy, pardon, and
compassion. There is no man, being in want, but had ten times rather go to a rich
man's door to be relieved, than to the door of a poor man, if he knoweth the rich
man to be as liberal and bountifully disposed as the poor man can be. —John
Goodwin.
ELLICOTT, "(5) For thou.—Up to this time the psalmist has only put forward his
needs in various aspects as a plea for God’s compassion. ow, not without art, he
clenches his petition by an appeal to the nature itself of the Divine Being. The
originals of the expressions in this verse will be found in Exodus 20:6; Exodus 34:6-
9; umbers 14:18-19.
Ready to forgive.—The Hebrew word occurs nowhere else in the form found here.
Etymologically it means remitting. The LXX. have ἐπιεικὴς, a word for which
perhaps our considerate is the nearest equivalent, implying that legal right is
overlooked and suspended in consideration of human weakness. Wisdom of
Solomon 12:18 gives a good description of this Divine attribute.
EBC, "But all the psalmist’s other pleas are merged at last in that one contained in
Psalms 86:5, where he gazes on the revealed ame of God, and thinks of Him as He

30. had been described of old, and as this suppliant delights to set to his seal that he has
found. Him to be-good and placable, and rich in lovingkindness. God is His own
motive, and Faith can find nothing mightier to urge with God, nor any surer answer
to its own doubts to urge with itself, than the unfolding of all that lies in the ame of
the Lord. These pleas, like the petitions which they support, are largely echoes of
older words. "Afflicted and poor" comes, as just noticed, from Psalms 40:17. The
designation of "one whom God favours" is from Psalms 4:3, "Unto Thee do I lift up
my soul" is taken verbatim from Psalms 25:1. The explication of the contents of the
ame of the Lord, like the fuller one in Psalms 86:15, is based upon Exodus 34:6.
PULPIT, "For thou, Lord, art good, and ready to forgive. The word translated
"ready to forgive," ‫ָח‬‫ל‬ַ‫ס‬, occurs here only; but the context sufficiently fixes its
meaning, which is well expressed by the ἐπιεικὴς of the LXX. As God was "good"
and "forgiving," he would be likely to grant the petitions just addressed to him. And
plenteous in mercy unto all them that call upon thee (comp. Exodus 34:6; Joel 2:13).
SBC, "In this passage we are looking at one of God’s saints in the holiest of all, in the
immediate presence of his God and King.
I. The first thought that strikes us is, David takes his right place. He says, "Bow down,"
as though he would say, "I am a worm, and no man." I cannot claim an audience. If Thou
wouldst hear, Thou must bow down Thine ear, as a tender Father, to catch what Thy frail
child has to say.
II. Look at the "fors" of the passage. There are five. (1) "For I am poor and needy." If we
come to God at all, we must come as beggars. There are two words in the Greek language
which indicate poverty. One indicates respectable poverty, the poverty of a man in
humble circumstances, who is working hard to get his bread. The other signifies
"beggary," the state of the man who has got nothing, who is utterly bankrupt. In
describing the particular kind of poverty-stricken people He receives, our Lord uses the
word to indicate abject bankruptcy; and unless we come into the Divine presence in the
position of paupers, we cannot get the blessing. (2) Notice the second "for:" "Preserve
my soul, for I am holy." The first "for" is the "for" of the bankrupt; the second is the "for"
of the saint. There is no contradiction here: in my own moral character a poor beggar,
grovelling in the dust; in God’s own Divine purpose something nobler than the bright
spirits that stand around His throne, heir of God and joint heir with Christ, bound to the
everlasting Deity by indissoluble bonds. (3) "Be merciful unto me, O Lord, for I cry unto
Thee daily." This third "for" points out to us what is to be the law of our life. If we want
to be kept in constant safety, we must be calling unto Him "daily." (4) "Rejoice the soul
of Thy servant, for unto Thee, O Lord, do I lift up my soul." The Psalmist begins by
asking the Lord to "bow down His ear unto him," but he goes on till he gets to such a
point of believing expectation that he dares to lift up his soul into the presence of God. It
is lifted up in order that it may become a partaker of God’s joy. God is the centre of
eternal joy. "At Thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore.’ (5) "For Thou, Lord,
art good and ready to forgive, and plenteous in mercy unto all them that call upon Thee."
We are so poor in our mercy. The richness of God’s mercy lies in this point: the Lord
never gives a mercy till He has taken care that it shall be a real mercy. His favours shall
only be received by those who will take them in His own way, and thus the blessing is
doubled.
W. Hay Aitken, Mission Sermons, 1st series, p. 220.

31. MACLARE , "A SHEAF OF PRAYER ARROWS
Psalms 86:1 - Psalms 86:5.
We have here a sheaf of arrows out of a good man’s quiver, shot into heaven. This
series of supplications is remarkable in more than one respect. They all mean
substantially the same thing, but the Psalmist turns the one blessing round in all
sorts of ways, so great does it seem to him, and so earnest is his desire to possess it.
They are almost all quotations from earlier psalms, just as our prayers are often
words of Scripture, hallowed by many associations, and uniting us with the men of
old who cried unto God and were answered.
The structure of the petitions is remarkably uniform. In each there are a prayer and
a plea, and in most of them a direct invocation of God. So I have thought that, if we
put them all together now, we may get some lessons as to the invocations, the
petitions, and the pleas of true prayer; or, in other words, we may be taught how to
lay hold of God, what to ask from Him, and how to be sure of an answer.
I. First, the lesson as to how to lay hold upon God.
The divine names in this psalm are very frequent and significant, and the order in
which they are used is evidently intentional. We have the great covenant name of
Jehovah set in the very first verse, and in the last verse; as if to bind the whole
together with a golden circlet. And then, in addition, it appears once in each of the
other two sections of the psalm, with which we have nothing to do at present. Then
we have, further, the name of God employed in each of the sections; and further, the
name of Lord, which is not the same as Jehovah, but implies the simple idea of
superiority and authority. In each portion of the psalm, then, we see the writer
laying his hand, as it were, upon these three names-’Jehovah,’ ‘my God,’ ‘Lord’-and
in all of them finding grounds for his confidence and reasons for his cry.
othing in our prayers is often more hollow and unreal than the formal repetitions
of the syllables of that divine name, often but to fill a pause in our thoughts. But to
‘call upon the ame of the Lord’ means, first and foremost, to bring before our
minds the aspects of His great and infinite character, which are gathered together
into the ame by which we address Him. So when we say ‘Jehovah!’ ‘Lord!’ what
we ought to mean is this, that we are gazing upon that majestic, glorious thought of
Being, self-derived, self-motived, self-ruled, the being of Him whose ame can only
be, ‘I am that I am.’ Of all other creatures the name is, ‘I am that I have been
made,’ or ‘I am that I became,’ but of Him the ame is, ‘I am that I am.’ owhere
outside of Himself is the reason for His being, nor the law that shapes it, nor the aim
to which it tends. And this infinite, changeless Rock is laid for our confidence,
Jehovah the Eternal, the Self-subsisting, Self-sufficing One.
There is more than that thought in this wondrous ame, for it not only expresses the
timeless, unlimited, and changeless being of God, but also the truth that He has
entered into what He deigns to call a Covenant with us men. The name Jehovah is
the seal of that ancient Covenant, of which, though the form has vanished, the
essence abides for ever, and God has thereby bound Himself to us by promises that
cannot be abrogated. So that when we say, ‘O Lord!’ we summon up before
ourselves, and grasp as the grounds of our confidence, and we humbly present

32. before Him as the motives, if we may so call them, for His action, His own infinite
being and His covenanted grace.
Then, further, our psalm invokes ‘my God.’ That names implies in itself, simply, the
notion of power to be reverenced. But when we add to it that little word ‘my,’ we
rise to the wonderful thought that the creature can claim an individual relation to
Him, and in some profound sense a possession there. The tiny mica flake claims
kindred with the Alpine peak from which it fell. The poor, puny hand, that can
grasp so little of the material and temporal, can grasp all of God that it needs.
Then, there is the other name, ‘Lord,’ which simply expresses illimitable
sovereignty, power over all circumstances, creatures, orders of being, worlds, and
cycles of ages. Wherever He is He rules, and therefore my prayer can be answered
by Him. When a child cries ‘Mother!’ it is more than all other petitions. A dear
name may be a caress when it comes from loving lips. If we are the kind of
Christians that we ought to be, there will be nothing sweeter to us than to whisper to
ourselves, and to say to Him, ‘Abba! Father!’ See to it that your calling on the ame
of the Lord is not formal, but the true apprehension, by a believing mind and a
loving heart, of the ineffable and manifold sweetnesses which are hived in His
manifold names.
II. ow, secondly, we have here a lesson as to what we should ask.
The petitions of our text, of course, only cover a part of the whole field of prayer.
The Psalmist is praying in the midst of some unknown trouble, and his petitions are
manifold in form, though in substance, as I have said, they may all be reduced to
one. Let me run over them very briefly. ‘Bow down Thine ear and hear me.’ That is
not simply the invocation of the omniscience of a God, but an appeal for loving,
attentive regard to the desires of His poor servant. The hearing is not merely the
perception in the divine mind of what the creature desires, but it is the answer in
fact, or the granting of the petition. The best illustration of what the Psalmist desires
here may be found in another psalm, where another Psalmist tells us his experience
and says, ‘My cry came unto His ears, and the earth shook and trembled.’ You put a
spoonful of water into a hydraulic press at the one end, and you get a force that
squeezes tons together at the other. Here there is a poor, thin stream of the voice of a
sorrowful man at the one end, and there is an earthquake at the other. That is what
‘hearing’ and ‘bowing down the ear’ means.
Then the prayers go on to three petitions, which may be all regarded as diverse acts
of deliverance or of help. ‘Preserve my soul.’ The word expresses the guardianship
with which a garrison keeps a fortress. It is the Hebrew equivalent of the word
employed by Paul-’The peace of God shall keep your hearts and minds in Christ
Jesus.’ The thought is that of a defenceless man or thing round which some strong
protection is cast. And the desire expressed by it is that in the midst of sorrow,
whatever it is, the soul may be guarded from evil. Then, the next petition-’Save Thy
servant’-goes a step further, and not only asks to be kept safe in the midst of
sorrows, but to be delivered out of them. And then the next petition-’Be merciful
unto me, O Lord!’-craves that the favour which comes down to inferiors, and is
bestowed upon those who might deserve something far otherwise, may manifest
itself, in such acts of strengthening, or help, or deliverance, as divine wisdom may
see fit. And then the last petition is-’Rejoice the soul of Thy servant.’ The series
begins with ‘hearing,’ passes through ‘preserving,’ ‘saving,’ showing ‘mercy,’ and

33. comes at last to ‘rejoice the soul’ that has been so harassed and troubled. Gladness
is God’s purpose for us all; joy we all have a right to claim from Him. It is the
intended issue of every sorrow, and it can only be had when we cleave to Him, and
pass through the troubles of life with continual dependence on and aspiration
towards Himself.
So these are the petitions massed together, and out of them let me take two or three
lessons. First, then, let us learn to make all wishes and annoyances material of
prayer. This man was harassed by some trouble, the nature of which we do not
know; and although the latter portion of his psalm rises into loftier regions of
spiritual desire, here, in the first part of it, he is wrestling with his afflicting
circumstances, whatever they were, and he has no hesitation in spreading them all
out before God and asking for His delivering help. Wishes that are not turned into
prayers irritate, disturb, unsettle. Wishes that are turned into prayers are calmed
and made blessed. Stanley and his men lived for weeks upon a poisonous root,
which, if eaten crude, brought all manner of diseases, but, steeped in running water,
had all the acrid juices washed out of it, and became wholesome food. If you steep
your wishes in the stream of prayer the poison will pass out of them. Some of them
will be suppressed, all of them will be hallowed, and all of them will be calmed.
Troubles, great or small, should be turned into prayers. Breath spent in sighs is
wasted; turned into prayers it will swell our sails. If a man does not pray ‘without
ceasing,’ there is room for doubt whether he ever prays at all. What would you
think of a traveller who had a valuable cordial of which he only tasted a drop in the
morning and another in the evening; or who had a sure staff on which to lean which
he only employed at distant intervals on the weary march, and that only for a short
time? Let us turn all that we want into petitions, and all that annoys us let us spread
before God.
Learn, further, that earnest reiteration is not vain repetition. ‘Use not vain
repetitions as the heathen do, for they think they shall be heard for their much
speaking,’ said the Master. But the same Master ‘went away from them and prayed
the third time, using the same words.’ As long as we have not consciously received
the blessing, it is no vain reiteration if we renew our prayers that it may come upon
our heads. The man who asks for a thing once, and then gets up from his knees and
goes away, and does not notice whether he gets the answer or not, does not pray.
The man who truly desires anything from God cannot be satisfied with one languid
request for it. But as the heart contracts with a sense of need, and expands with a
faith in God’s sufficiency, it will drive the same blood of prayer over and over again
through the same veins; and life will be wholesome and strong.
Then learn, further, to limit wishes and petitions within the bounds of God’s
promises. The most of these supplications of our text may be found in other parts of
Scripture, as promises from God. Only so far as an articulate divine word carries
my faith has my faith the right to go. In the crooked alleys of Venice there is a thin
thread of red stone, inlaid in the pavement or wall, which guides through all the
devious turnings to the Piazza, in the centre, where the great church stands. As long
as we have the red line of promise on our path, faith may follow it and will come to
the Temple. Where the line stops it is presumption, and not faith, that takes up the
running. God’s promises are sunbeams flung down upon us. True prayer catches
them on its mirror, and signals them back to God. We are emboldened to say, ‘Bow

34. down Thine ear!’ because He has said, ‘I will hear.’ We are encouraged to cry, ‘Be
merciful!’ because we have our foot upon the promise that He will be; and all that
we can ask of Him is, ‘Do for us what Thou hast said; be to us what Thou art.’
The final lesson is, Leave God to settle how He answers your prayer. The Psalmist
prayed for preservation, for safety, for joy; but he did not venture to prescribe to
God how these blessings were to be ministered to him. He does not ask that the
trouble may be taken away. That is as it may be; it may be better that it shall be left.
But he asks that in it he shall not be allowed to sink, and that, however the waves
may run high, they shall not be allowed to swamp his poor little cockle-shell of a
boat. This is the true inmost essence of prayer-not that we should prescribe to Him
how to answer our desires, but that we should leave all that in His hands. The
Apostle Paul said, in his last letter, with triumphant confidence, that he knew that
God would ‘deliver him and save him into His everlasting kingdom.’ And he knew,
at the same time, that his course was ended, and that there was nothing for him now
but the crown. How was he ‘saved into the kingdom’ and ‘delivered from the mouth
of the lion’? The sword that struck off the wearied head that had thought so long for
God’s Church was the instrument of the deliverance and the means of the salvation.
For us it may be that a sharper sorrow may be the answer to the prayer, ‘Preserve
Thy servant.’ It may be that God’s ‘bowing down His ear’ and answering us when
we cry shall be to pass us through a mill that has finer rollers, to crush still more the
bruised corn. But the end and the meaning of it all will be to ‘rejoice the soul of the
servant’ with a deeper joy at last.
III. Finally, mark the lesson which we have here as to the pleas that are to be urged,
or the conditions on which prayer is answered.
‘I am poor and needy,’ or, as perhaps the words more accurately mean, ‘afflicted
and poor.’ The first condition is the sense of need. God’s highest blessings cannot be
given except to the men who know they want them. The self-righteous man cannot
receive the righteousness of Christ. The man who has little or no consciousness of
sin is not capable of receiving pardon. God cannot put His fulness into our
emptiness if we conceit ourselves to be filled and in need of nothing. We must know
ourselves to be ‘poor and naked and blind and miserable’ ere He can make us rich,
and clothe us, and enlighten our eyes, and flood our souls with His own gladness.
Our needs are dumb appeals to Him; and in regard to all outward and lower things,
they bind Him to supply us, because they themselves have been created by Him. He
that hears the raven’s croak satisfies the necessities that He has ordained in man
and beast. But, for all the best blessings of His providence and of His love, the first
steps towards receiving them are the knowledge that we need them and the desire
that we should possess them.
Then the Psalmist goes on to put another class of pleas derived from his relation to
God. These are mainly two-’I am holy,’ and ‘Thy servant that trusteth in Thee.’
ow, with regard to that first word ‘holy,’ according to our modern understanding
of the expression it by no means sets forth the Psalmist’s idea. It has an unpleasant
smack of self-righteousness, too, which is by no means to be found in the original.
But the word employed is a very remarkable and pregnant one. It really carries with
it, in germ, the great teaching of the Apostle John. ‘We love Him because He first
loved us.’ It means one who, being loved and favoured by God, answers the divine
love with his own love. And the Psalmist is not pleading any righteousness of his

35. own, but declaring that he, touched by the divine love, answers that love, and looks
up; not as if thereby he deserved the response that he seeks, but as knowing that it is
impossible but that the waiting heart should thus be blessed. They who love God are
sure that the answer to their desires will come fluttering down upon their heads, and
fold its white wings and nestle in their hearts. Christian people are a great deal too
much afraid of saying, ‘I love God.’ They rob themselves of much peace and power
thereby. We should be less chary of so saying if we thought more about God’s love
to us, and poked less into our own conduct.
Again, the Psalmist brings this plea-’Thy servant that trusteth in Thee.’ He does not
say, ‘I deserve to be answered because I trust,’ but ‘because I trust I am sure that I
shall be answered’; for it is absurd to suppose that God will look down from heaven
on a soul that is depending upon Him, and will let that soul’s confidence be put to
shame. Dear friend! if your heart is resting upon God, be sure of this, that anything
is possible rather than that you should not get from Him the blessings that you need.
The Psalmist gathers together all his pleas which refer to himself into two final
clauses-’I cry unto Thee daily,’ ‘I lift up my soul unto Thee’-which, taken together,
express the constant effort of a devout heart after communion with God. To
withdraw my heart from the low levels of earth, and to bear it up into communion
with God, is the sure way to get what I desire, because then God Himself will be my
chief desire, and ‘they who seek the Lord shall not want any good.’
But the true and prevailing plea is not in our needs, desires, or dispositions, but in
God’s own character, as revealed by His words and acts, and grasped by our faith.
Therefore the Psalmist ends by passing from thoughts of self to thoughts of God,
and builds at last on the sure foundation which underlies all his other ‘fors’ and
gives them all their force-’For Thou, Lord, art good, and ready to forgive, and
plenteous in mercy unto all them that call upon Thee.’
Brethren! turn all your wishes and all your annoyances into prayers. If a wish is not
fit to be prayed about, it is not fit to be cherished. If a care is too small to be made a
prayer, it is too small to be made a burden. Be frank with God as God is frank with
you, and go to His throne, keeping back nothing of your desires or of your troubles.
To carry them there will take the poison and the pain out of wasps’ stings, and out
of else fatal wounds. We have a ame to trust to, tenderer and deeper than those
which evoked the Psalmist’s triumphant confidence. Let us see to it that, as the basis
of our faith is firmer, our faith be stronger than his. We have a plea to urge, more
persuasive and mighty than those which he pressed on God and gathered to his own
heart. ‘For Christ’s sake’ includes all that he pled, and stretches beyond it. If we
come to God through Him who declares His name to us, we shall not draw near to
the Throne with self-willed desires, nor leave it with empty hands. ‘If ye ask
anything in My ame, I will do it.’
6 Hear my prayer, Lord;
listen to my cry for mercy.

36. BAR ES, "Give ear, O Lord, unto my prayer ... - See the notes at Psa_5:1.
CLARKE, "Give ear, O Lord - Attend to me. Millions call upon thee for help and
mercy; but who has more need than myself? That the psalmist was deeply in earnest, his
conduct shows.
1. He prayed.
2. His prayer was vehement; he lifted up his voice.
3. He continued in prayer; he abounded in supplications.
GILL, "Give ear, O Lord, unto my prayer,.... As this psalm is called, in the title of
it; his own prayer, and not another's, not one composed for him, but what was composed
by him; this petition is repeated, as to the sense of it, from Psa_86:1 to show his
importunity to be heard:
and attend to the voice of my supplications; which proceeded from the spirit of
grace and supplication, put up in an humble manner, in a dependence on the mercy of
God, which the word used has the signification of, and were attended with thanksgiving,
Psa_86:12, according to the apostle's rule, Phi_4:6, these were vocal prayers, and not
mere mental ones; see Heb_5:7.
HE RY, "He is a prayer-hearing God; he is plenteous in mercy, very full, and very
free, both rich and liberal unto all those that call upon him; he has wherewithal to
supply all their needs and is openhanded in granting that supply. 4. He pleads God's
good work in himself, by which he had qualified him for the tokens of his favour. Three
things were wrought in him by divine grace, which he looked upon as earnests of all
good: - (1.) A conformity to God (Psa_86:2): I am holy, therefore preserve my soul; for
those whom the Spirit sanctifies he will preserve. He does not say this in pride and vain
glory, but with humble thankfulness to God. I am one whom thou favourest (so the
margin reads it), whom thou hast set apart for thyself. If God has begun a good work of
grace in us, we must own that the time was a time of love. Then was I in his eyes as one
that found favour, and whom God hath taken into his favour he will take under his
protection. All his saints are in thy hand, Deu_33:3. Observe, I am needy (Psa_86:1),
yet I am holy (Psa_86:2), holy and yet needy, poor in the world, but rich in faith. Those
who preserve their purity in their greatest poverty may assure themselves that God will
preserve their comforts, will preserve their souls. (2.) A confidence in God: Save thy
servant that trusteth in thee. Those that are holy must nevertheless not trust in
themselves, nor in their own righteousness, but only in God and his grace. Those that
trust in God may expect salvation from him. (3.) A disposition to communion with God.
He hopes God will answer his prayers, because he had inclined him to pray. [1.] To be
constant in prayer: I cry unto thee daily, and all the day, Psa_86:3. It is thus our duty to
pray always, without ceasing, and to continue instant in prayer; and then we may hope

37. to have our prayers heard which we make in the time of trouble, if we have made
conscience of the duty at other times, at all times. It is comfortable if an affliction finds
the wheels of prayer a-going, and that hey are not then to be set a-going. [2.] To be
inward with God in prayer, to lift up his soul to him, Psa_86:4. Then we may hope that
God will meet us with his mercies, when we in our prayers send forth our souls as it were
to meet him. [3.] To be in a special manner earnest with God in prayer when he was in
affliction (Psa_86:7): “In the day of my trouble, whatever others do, I will call upon
thee, and commit my case to thee, for thou wilt hear and answer me, and I shall not seek
in vain, as those did who cried, O Baal! hear us; but there was no voice, nor any that
regarded,” 1Ki_18:29.
CALVI , "6Listen, O Jehovah! to my prayer. From the earnest repetition of his
former requests in this and the subsequent verse, it is evident that he was oppressed
with no ordinary degree of grief, and also agitated with extreme anxiety, From this
example, we are taught that those who, having engaged in prayer once, allow
themselves immediately to give over that exercise, provided God does not at once
grant them their desire, betray the coldness and inconstancy of their hearts. or is
this repetition of the same requests to be thought superfluous; for hereby the saints,
by little and little, discharge their cares into the bosom of God, and this importunity
is a sacrifice of a sweet savor before Him. When the Psalmist says, God will hear me
when I cry in the day of trouble, he makes a particular application to himself of the
truth which he had just now stated, That God is merciful and gracious to all who
call upon him.
SPURGEO , "Ver. 6. Give ear, O LORD, unto my prayer. Even the glory which his
spirit had beheld did not withdraw him from his prayer, but rather urged him to be
more fervent in it; hence he implores the Lord to hear his requests.
Attend to the voice of my supplications. Here are repetitions, but not vain
repetitions. When a child cries it repeats the same note, but it is equally in earnest
every time, and so was it with the suppliant here. ote the expression, "the voice of
my supplications", as if they were not all voice but were partly made up of
inarticulate noise, yet amid much that was superfluous there really was a distinct
voice, an inner meaning, a living sense which was the heart's intention. This he
would have the Lord sift out from the chaff, and hear amid the mingled din. May
our prayers never be voiceless; may the soul's intent always give them a live core of
meaning.
EXPLA ATORY OTES A D QUAI T SAYI GS.
Ver 6. Supplications ytwnwxt, deprecations. The Psalmist forms a peculiar Hebrew
word, feminine plural, not found elsewhere, to convey more impressively the idea of
suppliant weakness. —A.R. Fausset.
BE SO , "Verse 6-7
Psalms 86:6-7. Give ear, O Lord, &c. — He repeats and multiplies his requests, both
to ease his own troubled mind, and prevail with God, who is well pleased with his
people’s importunity in prayer, Luke 18:1, &c. For thou wilt answer me — Whereof

38. I have assurance, both from the benignity of thy nature, and from the truth and
certainty of thy promises, and from my own experience, and that of others in former
times
PULPIT, "Give ear, O Lord, unto my prayer. An echo of Psalms 86:1. The psalmist
begins, as it were, afresh, calling God's attention to himself, as if he had not yet
spoken. And attend to the voice of my supplications (comp. Psalms 17:1; Psalms
55:2; Psalms 61:1, etc.). That God's ear is always attent to the prayers of his people
does not make it superfluous for them to entreat his attention. He will listen more
favourably when besought to listen.
COFFMA , "Verse 6
GOD'S OM IPOTE CE E COURAGEME T TO SEEK HIM
"Give ear, O Jehovah, unto my prayer;
And hearken unto the voice of my supplications.
In the day of my trouble, I will call upon thee;
For thou wilt answer me.
There is none like unto thee among the gods, O Lord;
either are there any works like unto thy works.
All nations whom thou has made shall come and worship before thee, O Lord;
And they shall glorify thy name.
For thou art great, and doest wondrous things:
Thou art God alone."
The supremacy of the One God, his eternal omnipotence, his unlimited authority,
his very uniqueness - all these are encouragements for me to seek God and turn to
him for help, for forgiveness and salvation. There is none other from whom men
could expect the slightest help or attention of any kind.
"There is none like unto thee among the gods" (Psalms 86:8). "It is probable that
David is here speaking of angels,"[12] was the opinion of Kidner; but we cannot
accept this. owhere in the entire Bible, as far as this writer has been able to
determine, are angels called "gods." The evil judges Of Israel were sarcastically
called `gods'; and aside from that, only the false deities of the pagan world are
referred to as `gods.' Besides that, it would be utterly meaningless for the psalmist to
have declared that there were none among the "angels" like God! How could

39. Almighty God be thus compared to his creatures? We appreciate Miller's
discernment: "Psalms 86:8 is a reference to pagan gods."[13]
"All the nations whom thou hast made shall come and worship before thee" (Psalms
86:9). Such an expression as this is indeed worthy of David himself. ot only is God
extolled here as the creator of all nations, but there is anticipated the magnificent
promises of the ew Testament that "In the name of Jesus, every knee shall bow ...
and every tongue shall confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the
Father" (Philippians 2:10-11).
"Thou art great... Thou art God alone" (Psalms 86:10). In the same verse, the
wonderful works of God are mentioned. Such works of God as the Creation, the
ordering of the whole cosmos with clock-like precision, and the providential
oversight of all men and of all nations - such wonderful works as these surpass, by
far, the most fantastic and extravagant false claims in the mythological falsehoods of
the pagan gods.
Only the God of Abraham, and of Isaac, and of Jacob, in short, the God of the
Hebrew Scriptures and of the ew Testament is indeed God alone. This is the most
important fact known to mankind. Is there really and truly an omnipotent GOD
who created and sustains all things? who holds every man ever born accountable for
his deeds, and who at the end of the age will summons the myriads of the earth to
the Judgment of the Great Day, and upon that occasion will appoint every man to
the eternal destiny which he deserves?
If one is looking for the "Sixty-Four Trillion Dollar Question," we have just stated
it. As Robert Flynt, the president of the University of Scotland once said, "Is there
any such thing as the supernatural? In the final analysis, all other questions finally
fade into the cosmic background." It is the genius of the Holy Bible that this soul-
searching question is intelligently and logically answered. YES! God is, and is a
Rewarder of them that diligently seek him."
EBC, "Psalms 86:6-13 may be taken together, as the prayer proper, to which Psalms
86:1-5 are introductory. In them there is first, a repetition of the cry for help, and of
the declaration of need (Psalms 86:6-7); then a joyful contemplation of God’s
unapproachable majesty and works, which insure the ultimate recognition of His
ame by all nations (Psalms 86:8-10); then a profoundly and tenderly spiritual
prayer for guidance and consecration-wants more pressing still than outward
deliverance (Psalms 86:11); and, finally, as in so many psalms, anticipatory
thanksgivings for deliverance yet future, but conceived of as present by vivid faith.
Echoes of earlier psalms sound through the whole; but the general impression is not
that of imitation, but of genuine personal need and devotion. Psalms 86:7 is like
Psalms 17:6 and other passages; Psalms 86:8 a is from Exodus 15:11; Psalms 86:8 b
is modelled on Deuteronomy 3:24; Psalms 86:9, on Psalms 22:27; Psalms 86:11 a, -
on Psalms 27:11; Psalms 86:11 b, on Psalms 26:3; "Sheol beneath" is from

40. Deuteronomy 32:22. But, withal, there are unity and progress in this cento of
citations. The psalmist begins with reiterating his cry that God would hear, and in
Psalms 86:7 advances to the assurance that He will. Then in Psalms 86:8-10 he turns
from all his other pleas to dwell on his final one (Psalms 86:5) of the Divine
character. As, in the former verse, he had rested his calm hope on God’s willingness
to help. so now he strengthens himself, in assurance of art answer, by the thought of
God’s unmatched power, the unique majesty of His works and His sole Divinity.
Psalms 86:8 might seem to assert only Jehovah’s supremacy above other gods of the
heathen; but Psalms 86:10 shows that the psalmist speaks the language of pure
Monotheism. Most naturally the prophetic assurance that all nations shall come and
worship Him is deduced from His sovereign power and incomparableness. It cannot
be that "the nations whom Thou hast made" shall forever remain ignorant of the
hand that made them. Sooner or later that great character shall be seen by all men
in its solitary elevation; and universal praise shall correspond to His sole Divinity.
K&D 6-13, "Here, too, almost everything is an echo of earlier language of the Psalms
and of the Law; viz., Psa_86:7 follows Psa_17:6 and other passages; Psa_86:8 is taken
from Exo_15:11, cf. Psa_89:9, where, however, ‫,אלהים‬ gods, is avoided; Psa_86:8 follows
Deu_3:24; Psa_86:9 follows Psa_22:28; Psa_86:11 is taken from Psa_27:11; Psa_86:11
from Psa_26:3; Psa_86:13, ‫ה‬ָ ִ ְ‫ח‬ ַ ‫ּול‬‫א‬ ְ‫שׁ‬ from Deu_32:22, where instead of this it is ‫ית‬ ִ ְ‫ח‬ ַ ,
just as in Psa_130:2 ‫י‬ָ‫נוּנ‬ ֲ‫ֽח‬ ַ (supplicatory prayer) instead of ‫י‬ ָ‫ּות‬‫נ‬‫נוּ‬ ֲ‫ֽח‬ ַ (importunate
supplications); and also Psa_86:10 (cf. Psa_72:18) is a doxological formula that was
already in existence. The construction ְ ‫הקשׁיב‬ is the same as in Psa_66:19. But although
for the most part flowing on only in the language of prayer borrowed from earlier
periods, this Psalm is, moreover, not without remarkable significance and beauty. With
the confession of the incomparableness of the Lord is combined the prospect of the
recognition of the incomparable One throughout the nations of the earth. This clear
unallegorical prediction of the conversion of the heathen is the principal parallel to Rev_
15:4. “All nations, which Thou hast made” - they have their being from Thee; and
although they have forgotten it (vid., Psa_9:18), they will nevertheless at last come to
recognise it. ‫ם‬ִ‫ּוי‬ ‫ל־‬ ָⅴ, since the article is wanting, are nations of all tribes (countries and
nationalities); cf. Jer_16:16 with Psa_22:18; Tobit 13:11, ᅞθνη πολλά, with ibid. Psa_14:6,
πάντα τᆭ ᅞθνη. And how weightily brief and charming is the petition in Psa_86:11 : uni
cor meum, ut timeat nomen tuum! Luther has rightly departed from the renderings of
the lxx, Syriac, and Vulgate: laetetur ( ְ ַ‫ח‬ִ‫י‬ from ‫ה‬ ָ‫ד‬ ָ‫.)ח‬ The meaning, however, is not so
much “keep my heart near to the only thing,” as “direct all its powers and concentrate
them on the one thing.” The following group shows us what is the meaning of the
deliverance out of the hell beneath (‫ה‬ָ ִ ְ‫ח‬ ַ ‫ּול‬‫א‬ ְ‫,שׁ‬ like ‫ית‬ ִ ְ‫ח‬ ַ ‫ץ‬ ֶ‫ר‬ ֶ‫,א‬ the earth beneath, the
inner parts of the earth, Eze_31:14.), for which the poet promises beforehand to
manifest his thankfulness (‫י‬ ִⅴ, Psa_86:13, as in Ps 56:14).

41. 7 When I am in distress, I call to you,
because you answer me.
BAR ES, "In the day of my trouble I will call upon thee - That is, I do it now; I
have done it; I will do it. The language implies a habit, or a steady purpose of mind, that
in all times of trouble he would make God his refuge. It was this fixed purpose - this
regular habit - which was now the ground of his confidence. A man who always makes
God his refuge, who has no other ground of reliance, may feel assured that God will
interpose and save him.
For thou wilt answer me - This also implies a fixed and steady assurance of mind,
applicable not only to this case, but to all similar cases. He had firm confidence in God at
all times; an unwavering belief that God is a hearer of prayer. This is a just foundation of
hope when we approach God. Compare Jam_1:6-7.
CLARKE, "Thou wilt answer me - Because thou art good, merciful, and ready to
forgive; and I call upon thee fervently, and seek thee in thy own way.
GILL, "In the day of my trouble I will call upon thee,.... David had his troubles,
both inward and outward, before and after he came to the throne, in private and public
life; and every good man has his troubles; and there are some particular times or days of
trouble; which trouble arises from different causes; sometimes from themselves, their
corruptions, the weakness of their grace, and the poor performance of their duties;
sometimes from others; from the persecutions of the men of the world; from the wicked
lives of profane sinners, and especially professors of religion, and from the spread of
false doctrine; sometimes from Satan and his temptations; and sometimes from the
more immediate hand of God in afflictions, and from the hidings of his face: these
troubles do not last always; they are but for a day, for a particular time; and such a
season is a fit one for prayer, and the Lord invites and encourages his people to call upon
him in prayer when this is the case, Psa_50:15. Christ had his times of trouble, in which
he called upon his divine Father, Joh_11:33.
for thou wilt answer me; which the idols of the Gentiles could not do; Baal could not
answer his priests, 1Ki_18:26, this the psalmist concluded, both from the promise of
God, Psa_50:15, and from his frequent experience, Psa_138:3, a very encouraging
reason or argument this to call on the Lord: Christ was always heard and answered,
Joh_11:41.
HE RY, " To be in a special manner earnest with God in prayer when he was in
affliction (Psa_86:7): “In the day of my trouble, whatever others do, I will call upon
thee, and commit my case to thee, for thou wilt hear and answer me, and I shall not seek

42. in vain, as those did who cried, O Baal! hear us; but there was no voice, nor any that
regarded,” 1Ki_18:29.
SPURGEO , "Ver. 7. In the day of my trouble I will call upon thee: for thou wilt
answer me. A pious resolve backed by a judicious reason. It is useless to cry to those
who cannot or will not hear; once convince men that prayer has no effect upon God,
and they will have no more of it. In these busy days and especially in troublous
times, men cannot afford to waste time in entreaties which must be unavailing. Our
experience confirms us in the belief that Jehovah the living God really does aid those
who call upon him, and therefore we pray and mean to pray, not because we are so
fascinated by prayer that for its own sake we would continue in it if it proved to be
mere folly and superstition, as vain philosophers assert; but because we really,
indeed, and of a truth, find it to be a practical and effectual means of obtaining help
from God in the hour of need. There can be no reason for praying if there be no
expectation of the Lord's answering. Who would make a conscience of pleading with
the winds, or find a solace in supplicating the waves? The mercy seat is a mockery if
there be no hearing nor answering. David, as the following verses show, believed the
Lord to be a living and potent God, and indeed to be "God alone", and it was on
that account that he resolved in every hour of trouble to call upon him.
8 Among the gods there is none like you, Lord;
no deeds can compare with yours.
BAR ES, "Among the gods there is none like unto thee, O Lord - Among all
those which are worshipped as gods there is no one that can hear and save. The psalmist,
in respect to prayer, and to help to be obtained by prayer, compares his own condition
with that of those who worshipped false gods. He had a God who could hear; they had
none. A true child of God now in trouble may properly compare his condition in this
respect with that of those who make no profession of religion; who do not profess to
worship God, or to have a God. To him there is a throne of grace which is always
accessible; to them there is none. There is One to whom he may always pray; they
profess to have no one on whom they can call.
Neither are there any works like unto thy works - That is, as done by those
“gods.” There is nothing they have done which can be a ground of confidence that can be
compared with what thou hast done. The allusion is to the power, the wisdom, and the
skill evinced in the works of creation, and in the merciful interpositions of Providence.
From these the psalmist derives a proof that God is able to save. There is no such

43. argument to which the worshippers of false gods can appeal in the time of trouble.
CLARKE, "Among the gods there is none like unto thee, O Lord - None that
trusted in an idol ever had help in time of need; none that prayed to any of them ever
had an answer to his petitions. Thou savest; they cannot; thou upholdest; they must be
upheld by their foolish worshippers. Thou art my Director, ‫אדני‬ Adonai; but they cannot
direct nor teach; they have mouths, but they speak not.
GILL, "Among the gods there is none like unto thee, O Lord,.... Among the
angels of heaven, as the Targum, in the king's Bible; see Mat_24:36, and who are
sometimes called gods, and among whom there is none like to the Lord; see Psa_97:7 or
among civil magistrates, he being King of kings, and Lord of lords, the only Potentate;
among whom he judges, over whom he presides, and whom he sets up and puts down at
pleasure, Psa_82:1, or among all those that are named gods in heaven, or on earth, the
nominal and fictitious gods of the Gentiles, who are vanity, and the work of error: the
portion of Jacob is not like them, Jer_10:15, there is none like him, for the perfections of
his nature, his power, wisdom, faithfulness, holiness, justice, mercy, grace, and
goodness; Exo_15:11.
neither are there any works like unto thy works; as the works of creation and
providence, and those of redemption and grace, in which there is such a manifest display
of the perfections of his nature, Deu_3:24.
HE RY, "David is here going on in his prayer.
I. He gives glory to God; for we ought in our prayers to praise him, ascribing kingdom,
power, and glory, to him, with the most humble and reverent adorations. 1. As a being of
unparalleled perfection, such a one that there is none like him nor any to be compared
with him, Psa_86:8. Among the gods, the false gods, whom the heathens worshipped,
the angels, the kings of the earth, among them all, there is none like unto thee, O Lord!
none so wise, so mighty, so good; neither are there any works like unto thy works,
which is an undeniable proof that there is none like him; his own works praise him, and
the best way we have of praising him is by acknowledging that there is none like him.
JAMISO , "neither ... works — literally, “nothing like thy works,” the “gods” have
none at all.
CALVI , "8Among the gods there is none like unto thee, O Lord! Here the Psalmist
may be considered either as bursting forth into thanksgivings, after having obtained
what he desired, or else as gathering courage and new strength for prayer. The
latter opinion I am most inclined to adopt; but perhaps it may be preferable to
regard both views as included. Some understand the word ‫,אלהום‬ Elohim, as
denoting angels — There is none like unto thee, O Lord! among the angels — as if
David compared them with the Most High God; but this does not seem to agree so
well with the passage. He does not humble the angels, representing them as inferior

44. gods, that they may give place to the power of God; but he holds up to contempt and
derision all the false gods in whom the heathen world imagined some help was to be
found; (484) and he does this because they could supply no evidence of their being
gods from their works. Had he distributed the power of working between them and
the true God in different degrees, assigning less to the former and more to the latter,
he would not have attributed to God that which is naturally and exclusively his own.
He therefore affirms, without qualification, that no characteristic of Deity could be
perceived in them, or traced in any works performed by them. In calling us to the
consideration of works, he clearly shows, that those who indulge in ingenious
speculations about the occult or secret essence of God, and pass over the
unequivocal traces of his majesty which are to be seen beaming forth in bright
effulgence in his works, do but trifle and spend their time to no purpose. As the
Divine nature is infinitely exalted above the comprehension of our understanding,
David wisely confines his attention to the testimony of God’s works, and declares
that the gods who put forth no power are false and counterfeit. If it is objected that
there is no comparison between God and the silly inventions of men, the answer is
obvious, That this language is employed in accommodation to the ignorance of the
generality of men. The effrontery with which the superstitious exalt the spurious
fabrications of their own brain above the heavens is well known; and David very
justly derides their madness in forging gods to themselves, which in reality are no
gods.
SPURGEO , "Ver. 8. Among the gods there is none like unto thee, O Lord. There
are gods by delegated office, such as kings and magistrates, but they are as nothing
in the presence of Jehovah; there are also gods by the nomination of superstition,
but these are vanity itself, and cannot be compared with the living and true God.
Even if the heathen idols were gods, none of them in power or even in character,
could be likened unto the self existent, all creating God of Israel. If every imaginary
deity could start into actual existence, and become really divine, yet would we
choose Jehovah to be our God, and reject all others.
either are there any works like unto thy works. What have the false gods ever
made or unmade? What miracles have they wrought? When did they divide a sea,
or march through a wilderness scattering bread from the skies? O Jehovah, in thy
person and in thy works, thou art as far above all gods as the heavens are above the
nethermost abyss.
EXPLA ATORY OTES A D QUAI T SAYI GS.
Ver. 8-10. —There are two kinds of doubt which are wont in the hour of
temptation to assail the soul: the doubt as to God's willingness, and the doubt as to
God's power to succour. The first of these the Psalmist has already put from him; he
now shows that he has overcome the second. God is able as well as willing to help,
and every being on the face of the earth who receives help, receives it from the hand
of Him who is the only God, and who shall one day be recognized (so speaks the
strong prophetic hope within him, Psalms 86:9) as the only God. —J.J.S. Perowne.
BE SO , "Psalms 86:8. Among the gods — The false gods, whom the heathen
worship; there is none like unto thee — one so wise, so mighty, so good; none so
able and willing to hear and answer prayer. I am not now calling on a deaf and

45. impotent idol, for then my prayers, however fervent and importunate, would be in
vain, (as those of Baal’s worshippers were, 1 Kings 18:26,) but I am calling on the
almighty and most gracious God. either are there any works like unto thy works
— This is an undeniable proof that there is none like thee. Thy own works praise
thee, and demonstrate that thou art infinitely superior to, and different from, all
other beings.
PULPIT, "Among the gods there is none like unto thee, O Lord (see the Song of
Moses, Exodus 15:11). The imaginary gods of the heathen—not, perhaps, known to
the psalmist to be wholly imaginary—are probably meant (comp. Psalms 77:19;
Psalms 89:6; Psalms 95:3). either are there any works like unto thy works. So in
Deuteronomy 3:24, "What god is there in heaven or in earth that can do according
to thy works?"
9 All the nations you have made
will come and worship before you, Lord;
they will bring glory to your name.
BAR ES, "All nations whom thou hast made shall come ... - In this verse the
psalmist expresses his belief that the conviction which he entertained about the ability of
God to save - about his being the only true God - would yet pervade all the nations of the
earth; that they all would yet be convinced that he was the true God, and would come
and worship him alone. So clear to him seemed to be the evidence of the existence and
perfections of God that he did not doubt that all people would come yet to see it also, and
to acknowledge him. Compare Isa_2:2-3; Isa_60:3-14; Psa_2:8; Psa_72:17.
And shall glorify thy name - Shall honor thee as the true God. They will renounce
their idols; they will come and worship thee. This belief - this hope - is held out through
the entire volume of revealed truth. It cheered and encouraged the hearts of the saints of
the Old Testament and the New; and it may and should cheer and encourage our hearts.
It is not less certain because it seems to be long delayed. To the view of man this is all
that is certain in the future. No man can predict what will occur in regard to any of the
existing political institutions on the earth - either the monarchies of the old world, or the
republics of the new. No man can tell in reference to the arts; to the sciences; to social
life; to manners; to the cities and towns which now exist on the earth, what they will be
in the far distant future. Only one thing is certain in that future - that the kingdom of
God will be set up, and that the Redeemer’s throne will be established over all the earth;
that the time is to come when “all nations shall come and worship before God, and shall
glorify his name.”

46. CLARKE, "All nations - Thy word shall be proclaimed among all the Gentiles: they
shall receive thy testimony, and worship thee as the only true and living God.
GILL, "All nations whom thou hast made,.... All nations, or the inhabitants of all
nations, are made by the Lord, and of the blood of one man, Act_17:26, and which as it
shows the obligation of all men to come and worship, as is said should be; so likewise
that the Lord, who has made them, is able to make them come to do homage to him, as
follows:
shall come and worship before thee, O Lord; "come", spiritually, by faith and
repentance, to the Lord himself, being drawn by the power of his efficacious grace
through the ministry of the word; and, locally, to the house and ordinances of God, to
attend upon them, and wait on him in them; and "worship" both externally, according to
his revealed will; and internally in the exercise of grace, in spirit and in truth: this is
prophetically said of the conversion of the Gentiles in Gospel times, especially in the
latter day; see Rev_15:4. Kimchi and Arama say this will be in the time of the Messiah:
and shall glorify thy name; the Lord himself, with their bodies and spirits, which are
his; and ascribe the glory of their salvation to him, and glorify him for his mercy towards
them in their redemption and conversion; glorify that and every perfection of his,
displayed in their salvation; and also his Gospel, which brings them the news of it; see
Rom_15:9.
HE RY, "As the fountain of all being and the centre of all praise (Psa_86:9): “Thou
hast made all nations, made them all of one blood; they all derive their being from thee,
and have a constant dependence on thee, and therefore they shall come and worship
before thee and glorify thy name.” This was in part fulfilled in the multitude of
proselytes to the Jewish religion in the days of David and Solomon, but was to have its
full accomplishment in the days of the Messiah, when some out of every kingdom and
nation should be effectually brought in to praise God, Rev_7:9. It was by Christ that God
made all nations, for without him was not any thing made that was made, and therefore
through Christ, and by the power of his gospel and grace, all nations shall be brought to
worship before God, Isa_66:23.
JAMISO , "The pious Jews believed that God’s common relation to all would be
ultimately acknowledged by all men (Psa_45:12-16; Psa_47:9).
SBC, "This Psalm is not usually numbered, but it might well be, amongst the penitential
psalms. Its pensiveness is that of contrition. From the Divine attributes which it
accentuates, and from its expressions, as well as from the tone that runs through it, we
see a tender conscience, healed and lowly, sensible of fault, rejoicing in forgiveness. The
Psalmist dwells on God’s mercy, on His longsuffering, on His readiness to forgive, as
only they dwell who have the broken and contrite heart.
I. Observe that wherever you find contrition you find a light peculiarly its own, an
unusual brightness, a lofty hope; a vision of God amazing in its clearness, and a vision of

47. man remarkable for its brightness and its faith. We cannot by searching find out God,
but we can by trusting.
II. Observe the hope which is expressed in the text, "All nations whom Thou hast made
shall come and worship before Thee.’ It is a great dream; it is a dream of universal
religion—one creed for every variety of man, in all conditions, in all stages of civilisation;
one vision of God to charm them; one song of praise and triumph rising over all
mankind. Concerning this hope, we remark: (1) that all the holy have cherished it; (2)
that it has been marvellously realised in the history of the world in the past; (3) that it is
a consummation devoutly to be wished. (4) Think what might have been accomplished
already if the Church had done her work.
III. Notice the lessons which these things enforce. (1) Let us repent of our despair and
believe in the truth of God; (2) let us repent of the little we have done to speed forward
the work; (3) let us labour at home and abroad, expecting not failure, but the thirty-fold,
the sixty-fold, the hundred-fold, promised by our Lord.
R. Glover, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxvii., p. 260.
CALVI , "9All nations which thou hast made shall come. (485) If any would rather
limit what is here stated to David’s present case, this view does not seem liable to
any material objection. He, in fact, often enhances the Divine goodness of which he
himself had experience by the like magnificent strain. It may, however, be fitly
extended to the universal power of God; but whether he speaks of the grace that was
bestowed upon himself alone, or treats, in general, of the works of God, we must
bear in mind what has been observed in another place, that whenever he celebrates
the prevalence of true godliness among the heathen, he has an eye to the kingdom of
Christ, prior to whose coming God gave only the initial or dawning manifestation of
his glory, which at length was diffused through the whole world by the preaching of
the Gospel. David was not ignorant of the future calling of the Gentiles; but this
being a doctrine with which Jewish ears were not familiar, that people would have
felt it a disagreeable announcement, to have been told that the Gentiles should come
to worship God indiscriminately with the children of Abraham, and, all distinction
being removed, become partakers with them of heavenly truth. To soften the
announcement, he asserts that the Gentiles also were created by God, so that it
ought not to be accounted strange if they, being enlightened also, should at length
acknowledge Him who had created and fashioned them.
SPURGEO , "Ver. 9. All nations whom thou hast made, and these include all
mankind, since they all come of the first Adam—thy creature, and their lives are
all distinct creations of thine omnipotence. All these shall come with penitent hearts,
in thine own way, to thine own self, and worship before thee, O Lord. Because thou
art thus above all gods, the people who have been so long deceived shall at last
discover thy greatness, and shall render thee the worship which is thy due: thou hast
created them all, and unto thee shall they all yield homage. This was David's reason
for resorting to the Lord in trouble, for he felt that one day all men would
acknowledge the Lord to be the only God. It makes us content to be in the minority
today, when we are sure that the majority will be with us tomorrow, ay, and that the
truth will one day be carried unanimously and heartily. David was not a believer in

48. the theory that the world will grow worse and worse, and that the dispensation will
wind up with general darkness, and idolatry. Earth's sun is to go down amid tenfold
night if some of our prophetic brethren are to be believed. ot so do we expect, but
we look for day when the dwellers in all lands shall learn righteousness, shall trust
in the Saviour, shall worship thee alone, O God, and shall glorify thy name. The
modern notion has greatly damped the zeal of the church for missions, and the
sooner it is shown to be unscriptural the better for the cause of God. It neither
consorts with prophecy, honours God, nor inspires the church with ardour. Far
hence be it driven.
EXPLA ATORY OTES A D QUAI T SAYI GS.
Ver. 9-10. All nations shall worship before thee, because as King of ations, thou art
great, thy sovereignty absolute and incontestable, thy Majesty terrible and
unsupportable, thy power universal and irresistible, thy riches vast and
inexhaustible, thy dominion boundless and unquestionable; and for the proof of
this, thou doest wondrous things, which all nations admire, and from whence they
might easily infer that thou art God alone; not only none like thee, but none beside
thee. —Matthew Henry.
PULPIT, "All nations whom thou hast made shall come and worship before thee, O
Lord (comp. Psalms 72:11, Psalms 72:17; Psalms 82:8, etc.). Since God had made all
nations (Acts 17:26), it was safe to conclude that they would all one day worship
him. The prophecy, however, still remains unfulfilled. And shall glorify thy ame.
Either with their lips, or in their lives, or in both ways. Compare the anticipations of
Isaiah (Isaiah 66:23), Zephaniah (Zephaniah 2:10), and Zechariah (Zechariah 14:9,
Zechariah 14:16).
BE SO , "Verse 9-10
Psalms 86:9-10. All nations whom thou hast made — For, as thou hast made them,
thou canst easily convince and convert them to thyself; shall come and worship
before thee — Shall forsake their impotent idols, and shall worship thee alone:
being enlightened by thy word and Spirit to see, and induced to own, that there is
none like thee. This was, in part, fulfilled in the multitude of proselytes to the Jewish
religion, in the days of David and Solomon, but it was to have its full
accomplishment in the days of the Messiah, when some out of every kingdom and
nation should be effectually brought to praise God, Revelation 7:9. It was by Christ
that God made all nations, for without him was not any thing made that was made,
and therefore, through Christ, and by the power of his gospel and grace, all nations
shall be brought to worship before God, Isaiah 66:23. For thou art great —
Therefore shall all nations worship before thee, because, as king of all nations, thou
art great; thy sovereignty absolute and incontestable; thy majesty terrible and
insupportable; thy power universal and irresistible; thy riches vast and
inexhaustible; thy dominion boundless and unquestionable; and, as a proof of this,
thou doest wondrous things — Which all nations admire, and from whence they
may easily infer that thou art God alone, and that not only there is none like thee,
but none besides thee. They shall see thy wonderful works, and hence shall be led to
acknowledge both that thou art infinitely great, and that thou art the only true God.
Or, this may be alleged as a reason why it was not incredible, that all nations should

49. be converted from idolatry to the worship of the true God. As if he had said, God
doth wondrous things, and he will do this among the rest: The idols he will utterly
abolish, and he alone shall be exalted, as king over all the earth. In that day shall
there be one Lord, and his name one.
10 For you are great and do marvelous deeds;
you alone are God.
BAR ES, "For thou art great, and doest wondrous things - Things suited to
excite wonder or admiration; things which lie beyond the power of any creature, and
which could be performed by no one but a being of almighty power. A God who could do
these things could also do that which the psalmist asked of him, for what God actually
does proves that there is nothing within the limits of possibility which he cannot
perform. The greatness and the power of God are reasons why we should appeal to him
in our weakness, and in our times of trouble.
Thou art God alone - Thou only canst do what a God can do, or what belongs to
God. In those things, therefore, which require the interposition of divine power our
appeal must be to thee alone. So in the matter of salvation.
CLARKE, "For thou art great - Almighty, infinite, eternal.
And doest wondrous things - ‫נפלאות‬ ‫ועשה‬ veoseh niphlaoth; thou art the Worker of
miracres. This thou hast done in numerous instances, and thereby showed thy infinite
power and wisdom.
This appears to be a prophecy of the calling of the Gentiles to the faith of Christ, and
the evidence to be given to his Divine mission by the miracles which he should work.
Thou art God alone - Συ ει ᆇ Θεος µονος ᆇ µεγας - Sept. Thou art the only, The Great
God. In this the Ethiopic and Arabic agree.
GILL, "For thou art great,.... In his nature, and the perfections of it; in his power,
wisdom, truth, faithfulness, love, grace, and mercy; and in all his persons; the Father is
great, greater than all; the Son is the great God, and our Saviour; and the Spirit, which is
in his people, is greater than he that is in the world:
and doest wondrous things; in nature and providence; such as the forming of all

50. things out of nothing; upholding all things by the word of his power; the formation of
man, soul and body, and the union of both; and the constant government of the world;
and more especially in grace, as the provision in the covenant in eternity, the mission of
Christ in time, the conversion of a sinner, and bringing him to eternal glory:
thou art God alone; to the exclusion of all such who are not gods by nature; but not to
the exclusion of the Son and Spirit, who are, with the Father, the one God, 1Jo_5:7.
HE RY, "As a being infinitely great (Psa_86:10): “Therefore all nations shall worship
before thee, because as King of nations thou art great, thy sovereignty absolute and
incontestable, thy majesty terrible and insupportable, thy power universal and
irresistible, thy riches vast and inexhaustible, thy dominion boundless and
unquestionable; and, for the proof of this, thou doest wondrous things, which all nations
admire, and whence they might easily infer that thou art God alone, not only none like
thee, but none besides thee.” Let us always entertain great thoughts of this great God,
and be filled with holy admiration of this God who doeth wonders; and let him alone
have our hearts who is God alone.
CALVI , "10.For thou art great, and thou alone, O God! doest wondrous things. In
this verse there is again repeated the cause which will bring all nations to worship
before the Lord, namely, the discovery made of his glory by the greatness of his
works. The contemplation of God’s glory in his works is the true way of acquiring
genuine godliness. The pride of the flesh would always lead it to wing its way into
heaven; but, as our understandings fail us in such an extended investigation, our
most profitable course is, according to the small measure of our feeble capacity, to
seek God in his works, which bear witness of him. Let us therefore learn to awaken
our understandings to contemplate the divine works, and let us leave the
presumptuous to wander in their own intricate mazes, which, in the end, will
invariably land them in an abyss from which they will be unable to extricate
themselves. To incline our hearts to exercise this modesty, David magnificently
extols the works of God, calling them wondrous things, although to the blind, and
those who have no taste for them, they are destitute of attraction. In the meantime,
we ought carefully to attend to this truth, That the glory of Godhead belongs
exclusively to the one true God; for in no other being is it possible to find the
wisdom, or the power, or the righteousness, or any of the numerous marks of
divinity which shine forth in his wonderful works. Whence it follows, that the
Papists are chargeable with rendering, as much as in them lies, his title to true
Godhead nugatory, when despoiling him of his attributes they leave him almost
nothing but the bare name.
SPURGEO , "Ver. 10. For thou art great. He had before said, "thou art good"; it is
a grand thing when greatness and goodness are united; it is only in the Divine Being
that either of them exists absolutely, and essentially. Happy is it for us that they
both exist in the Lord to an equal degree. To be great and not good might lead to
tyranny in the King, and for him to be good and not great might involve countless
calamities upon his subjects from foreign foes, so that either alternative would be
terrible; let the two be blended, and we have a monarch in whom the nation may
rest and rejoice.

51. And doest wondrous things. Being good, he is said to be ready to forgive: being
great, he works wonders: we may blend the two, for there is no wonder so
wonderful as the pardon of our transgressions. All that God does or makes has
wonder in it; he breathes, and the wind is mystery; he speaks, and the thunder
astounds us; even the commonest daisy is a marvel, and a pebble enshrines wisdom.
Only to fools is anything which God has made uninteresting: the world is a world of
wonders. ote that the verb doest is in the present, the Lord is doing wondrous
things, they are transpiring before our eyes. Where are they? Look upon the
bursting buds of spring or the maturing fruits of autumn, gaze on the sky or skim
the sea, mark the results of providence and the victories of grace, everywhere at all
times the great Thaumaturge stretches forth his rod of power.
Thou art God alone. Alone wast thou God before thy creatures were; alone in
godhead still art thou now that thou hast given life to throngs of beings; alone for
ever shalt thou be, for none can ever rival thee. True religion makes no
compromises, it does not admit Baal or Dagon to be a god; it is exclusive and
monopolizing, claiming for Jehovah nothing less than all. The vaunted liberality of
certain professors of modern thought is not to be cultivated by believers in the truth.
"Philosophic breadth" aims at building a Pantheon, and piles a Pandemonium; it is
not for us to be helpers in such an evil work. Benevolently intolerant, we would, for
the good of mankind, as well as for the glory of God, undeceive mankind as to the
value of their compromises, —they are mere treason to truth. Our God is not to be
worshipped as one among many good and true beings, but as God alone; and his
gospel is not to be preached as one of several saving systems, but as the one sole way
of salvation. Lies can face each other beneath one common dome; but in the temple
of truth the worship is one and indivisible.
PULPIT, "For thou art great, and doest wondrous things. The" greatness" of God,
in reality most clearly manifested by the facts of his ordinary providence, seems to
men in general, as it seemed to this psalmist, especially indicated by the "wonders,"
or "miracles"— ‫נפלאוֹת‬ —which he wrought (comp. Exodus 15:11; Psalms 72:18;
Psalms 77:14). Thou art God alone (see 2 Kings 19:15; Isaiah 37:16; Isaiah 44:6,
Isaiah 44:8).
11 Teach me your way, Lord,
that I may rely on your faithfulness;
give me an undivided heart,
that I may fear your name.

52. BAR ES, "Teach me thy way, O Lord - That is, in the present emergency. Show
me what thou wouldst have me to do that I may obtain thy favor, and thy gracious help.
I will walk in thy truth - I will live and act in accordance with what thou dost
declare to be true. Whatever that may be, I will pursue it, having no will of my own.
Unite my heart to fear thy name - That is, to worship, obey, and honor thee.
(a) The end which he desired to secure was that he might truly fear God, or properly
reverence and honor him;
(b) the means which he saw to be necessary for this was that his “heart” might be
“united” in this one great object; that is, that his heart might be single in its views and
purposes; that there might be no distracting purposes; that one great aim might be
always before him.
The word rendered “unite” - ‫יחד‬ yāchad - occurs as a verb only in three places. In Gen_
49:6, it is rendered united: “Unto their assembly, mine honor, be not thou united.” In
Isa_14:20, it is translated joined: “Thou shalt not be joined with them.” The adverb - ‫יחד‬
yachad, occurs often, and is rendered together, Gen_13:6; Gen_22:6, Gen_22:8,Gen_
22:19; Gen_36:7; et saepe. The idea is that of union, or conjunction; of being together; of
constituting one; and this is accomplished in the heart when there is one great ruling
object before the mind which nothing is allowed to interfere with. It may be added, that
there is no more appropriate prayer which a man can offer than that his heart may have
such a unity of purpose, and that nothing may be allowed to interfere with that one
supreme purpose.
CLARKE, "Teach me thy way - Instruct me in the steps I should take; for without
thy teaching I must go astray.
Unite my heart - ‫לבבי‬ ‫יחד‬ yached lebabi, join all the purposes, resolutions, and
affections of my heart together, to fear and to glorify thy name. This is a most important
prayer. A divided heart is a great curse; scattered affections are a miserable plague.
When the heart is not at unity with itself, the work of religion cannot go on. Indecision of
mind and division of affections mar any work. The heart must be one, that the work may
be one. If this be wanting, all is wrong. This is a prayer which becomes the mouth of
every Christian.
GILL, "Teach me thy way, O Lord,.... The methods of thy grace, which thou hast
taken, and dost take, in the salvation of men, in the contrivance, impetration, and
application of it; or the way which thou hast marked out for thy people to walk in, the
way of thy commandments: each of these the psalmist had knowledge of before; but he
desires to be more and more instructed therein, as every good man does; see Psa_25:4.
I will walk in thy truth; in Christ, the truth of types, and by whom grace and truth
came, and who is truth itself, and the true way to eternal life; and to walk in him is to
walk by faith in him, in hope of eternal happiness through him, Joh_1:17 or in the truth
of the Gospel, of Gospel doctrine, Gospel worship, and Gospel conversation; to walk in it
is to walk becoming it, and abide by it, its truths and ordinances; see 2Jo_1:4.

53. unite my heart to fear thy name; there must be an heart given to man to fear the
Lord; for the fear of the Lord is not naturally in their hearts, or before their eyes; and
they should have, not a divided and distracted heart, an heart divided between God and
the world, between the fear of God and the fear of man; but a heart united to the Lord,
that cleaves to him, and him only; a single and a sincere heart; a heart that has a single
view to his glory, and a sincere affection for him; and such a heart the Lord has promised
to give to his people, in order to fear
JAMISO , "Teach — Show, point out.
the way — of Providence.
walk in thy truth — according to its declarations.
unite my heart — fix all my affections (Psa_12:2; Jam_4:8).
to fear thy name — (compare Psa_86:12) to honor Thy perfections.
CALVI , "11.Show me thy ways, O Jehovah! David now rises higher, praying that
he may be governed by the spirit of sound understanding, in order to his living a
holy life, and that he may be strengthened in his endeavors thereto by the spirit of
fortitude. He tacitly contrasts the ways of God with all the counsels which he could
derive from carnal reason. In submitting himself to God, and in imploring Him to
be his guide, he confesses that the only possible way by which we can be enabled to
live a holy and an upright life is, when God goes before us, while we follow after
him; and, accordingly, that those who deviate, let it be never so little, from the law
through a proud conceit of their own wisdom, wander from the right path. This he
more fully confirms, by adding immediately after, I will walk in thy truth. He
pronounces all to be guilty of vanity and lying who observe not this rule of truth.
Farther, his prayer to be taught in the ways of the Lord does not imply that he had
been previously altogether ignorant of divine truth; but well aware of the much
darkness — of the many clouds of ignorance in which he was still enveloped, he
aspires after greater improvement. Let it also be observed, that he is not to be
understood as speaking only of external teaching: but having the law among his
hands, he prays for the inward light of the Holy Spirit, that he may not labor in the
unprofitable task of learning only the letter; according as he prays in another place,
“Open thou mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of thy law,” (Psalms
119:18.)
If a prophet so distinguished, and so richly endued with the graces of the Holy
Spirit, makes such a frank and cordial confession of his own ignorance, how great
our folly if we feel not our own deficiency, and are not stirred up to greater diligence
in self-improvement from the knowledge of our slender attainments! And,
assuredly, the more progress a man has made in the knowledge of the true religion,
the more sensible will he be that he is far from the mark. Secondly, it is necessary to
add, that reading or hearing is not enough, unless God impart to us inward light by
his Spirit.
In addition to this, the Psalmist desires that his heart may be framed for yielding

54. obedience to God, and that it may be firmly established therein; for as our
understanding has need of light, so has our will of uprightness. The original words
which I have translated, unite my heart, are translated by some, rejoice my heart, as
if the verb were from the root, ‫,חדה‬ chadah, to rejoice; (486) but it rather comes
from ‫יחד‬ , yachad, to unite — a sense which is very suitable to the passage before us.
(487) This word contains a tacit contrast, which has not been sufficiently attended
to, between the unwavering purpose with which the heart of man cleaves to God
when it is under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, and the disquietude with which it is
distracted and tossed so long as it fluctuates amidst its own affections. It is therefore
indispensably requisite, that the faithful, after having learned what is right, should
firmly and cordially embrace it, that the heart may not break forth in impetuous
desire after unhallowed lusts. Thus, in the word unite, there is a very beautiful
metaphor, conveying the idea, that the heart of man is full of tumult, drawn
asunder, and, as it were, scattered about in fragments, until God has gathered it to
himself, and holds it together in a state of steadfast and persevering obedience.
From this also, it is manifest what free will is able to do of itself. Two powers are
ascribed to it; but David confesses that he is destitute of both; setting the light of the
Holy Spirit in opposition to the blindness of his own mind; and affirming that
uprightness of heart is entirely the gift of God.
SPURGEO , "Ver. 11. Teach me thy way, O LORD. Instruct me thus at all times,
let me live in thy school; but teach me now especially since I am in trouble and
perplexity. Be pleased to shew me the way which thy wisdom and mercy have
prepared for my escape; behold I lay aside all wilfulness, and only desire to be
informed as to thy holy and gracious mind. ot my way give me, but thy way teach
me, I would follow thee and not be wilful.
I will walk in thy truth. When taught I will practise what I know, truth shall not be
a mere doctrine or sentiment to me, but a matter of daily life. The true servant of
God regulates his walk by his master's will, and hence he never walks deceitfully,
for God's way is ever truth. Providence has a way for us, and it is our wisdom to
keep in it. We must not be as the bullock which needs to be driven and urged
forward because it likes not the road, but be as men who voluntarily go where their
trusted friend and helper appoints their path.
Unite my heart to fear thy name. Having taught me one way, give me one heart to
walk therein, for too often I feel a heart and a heart, two natures contending, two
principles struggling for sovereignty. Our minds are apt to be divided between a
variety of objects, like trickling streamlets which waste their force in a hundred
runnels; our great desire should be to have all our life floods poured into one
channel and to have that channel directed towards the Lord alone. A man of divided
heart is weak, the man of one object is the man. God who created the bands of our
nature can draw them together, tighten, strengthen, and fasten them, and so braced
and inwardly knit by his uniting grace, we shall be powerful for good, but not
otherwise. To fear God is both the beginning, the growth, and the maturity of
wisdom, therefore should we be undividedly given up to it, heart, and soul.
EXPLA ATORY OTES A D QUAI T SAYI GS.
Ver. 11. Teach me thy way: I will walk in thy truth: unite my heart. Here is the

55. "Via, Veritas, Vita" of the Gospel (John 14:6). "Via tua, Veritas tua, Vita tua,
Christus." Christ is our Way, Truth, and Life, because he is Man united to God,
and is one substance with the Father. —Christopher Wordsworth.
Ver. 11. Teach me. There is no point on which the world is more dark than that of
its own ignorance—we might truly say, "it is ignorant of its ignorance" —it
knows enough when it learns by rote a few first principles of religion; it comforts
itself that it is not atheistical because it believes that there is a God; but as to
knowing his ways, laws, mind, or any such things, with them it has nothing at all to
do. The people of the world do not care for enlightenment; they feel no pressing
need for it; in all probability they have an instinctive feeling that if enlightened they
would know a little more than they wish to know, that their newly acquired
knowledge would interfere with their old habits and ways, and this is one reason
why all spiritual teaching which goes beneath the surface is distasteful to the
majority of men. They cannot bear to be brought into contact with God, in anything
but a general way; the particulars of his character may not agree over well with the
particulars of their lives!
It is the fashion in the present day to talk of man's enlightenment, and to represent
human nature as upheaving under its load, as straining towards a knowledge of
truth; such is not in reality the case, and whenever there is an effort in the mind
untaught of the Spirit, it is directed towards God as the great moral and not as the
great spiritual Being. A man untaught of the Holy Ghost may long to know a moral,
he can never desire to know a spiritual Being. —John Hyatt, 1767-1826.
Ver. 11. Teach. The common version of the verb here is too vague, as it fails to bring
out the peculiar suitableness of the term to express the kind of teaching here
specifically meant. The original meaning of the Hebrew word is to point out or mark
the way. —J.A. Alexander.
Ver. 11. I will walk in thy truth. Conform to Scripture. Let us lead Scripture lives.
Oh that the Bible might be seen to be printed in our lives! Do what the Word
commands. Obedience is an excellent way of commenting upon the Bible.
Let the Word be the sun dial by which you set your life. What are we the better for
having the Scriptures, if we do not direct all our speeches and actions according to
it? What is a carpenter better for his rule about him, if he sticks it at his back, and
never makes use of it for measuring and squaring? So, what are we the better for
the rule of the Word, if we do not make use of it, and regulate our lives by it? —
Thomas Watson.
Ver. 11. I will walk in thy truth. Walking, in the Scripture, takes in the whole of our
conversation or conduct: and to walk in anything, intends a fulness of it. For a man
to walk in pride, is something more than to be proud: it says, that pride is his way,
his element; that he is wholly under the influence of it. —William Jay.
Ver. 11. Unite my heart to fear thy name. The end which he desired to secure was
that he might truly fear God, or properly reverence and honour him; the means
which he saw to be necessary for this was that his "heart" might be "united" in this
one great object; that is, that his heart might be single in its views and purposes;
that there might be no distracting purposes; that one great aim might be always
before him. The word rendered unite — dxy, yahhad —occurs as a verb only in
three places. In Genesis 49:6 it is rendered united: "Unto their assembly, mine
honour, be not thou united." In Isaiah 14:20 it is translated joined: "Thou shalt not

56. be joined unto them." The adverb —dxy ya-hhad —occurs often, and is rendered
together, Ge 13:6 22:6,8,19 36:7; et soepe. The idea is that of union, or conjunction;
of being together; of constituting one; and this is accomplished in the heart when
there is one great ruling object before the mind which nothing is allowed to interfere
with. It may be added, that there is no more appropriate prayer which a man can
offer than that his heart may have such unity of purpose, and that nothing may be
allowed to interfere with that one supreme purpose. —Albert Barnes.
Ver. 11. Unite my heart, etc. Sincerity drives but one design, and that is to please
and enjoy God; and what can more establish and fix the soul in the hour of
temptation than this? The reason why the hypocrite is unstable in all his ways, is
given us by the apostle: he is "a double minded man", a man of two souls in one
body; as a profane wretch once boasted, that he had one soul for God, and another
for anything. But all the designs of a gracious heart are united in one; and so the
entire stream of his affections runs strong.
It is base by ends and self interests, that, like a great many ditches cut out of the
bank of a river, draw away the stream out of its proper channel, and make its
waters fail. But if the heart be united for God, then we may say of such a Christian,
as was said of a young Roman, "What he does is done with all his might." A man of
only one design, puts out all his strength to carry it; nothing can stand before him.
Sincerity brings a man's will into subjection to the will of God; and this being done,
the greatest danger and difficulty is over with such a man. This is that holy oil
which makes the wheels of the soul run nimbly, even in the difficult paths of
obedienee. —John Flavel.
Ver. 11. Unite my heart.
Give me thine heart but as I gave it thee:
Or give it me at least as I
Have given mine
To purchase thine.
I halved it not when I did die;
But gave myself wholly to set thee free.
The heart I gave thee was a living heart;
And when thy heart by sin was slain,
I laid down mine
To ransom thine,
That thy dead heart might live again,
And live entirely perfect, not in part.
But whilst thine heart's divided, it is dead;
Dead unto me, unless it live
To me alone,
It is all one
To keep all, and a part to give:
For what's a body worth without an head!
Yet, this is worse, that what thou keepest from me
Thou dost bestow upon my foes
And those not mine
Alone, but thine;
The proper causes of thy woes,

57. From whom I gave my life to set thee free.
Have I betrothed thee to myself, and shall
The devil, and the world, intrude
Upon my right,
Eeen in my sight?
Think not thou canst me so delude:
I will have none, unless I may have all.
I made it all, I gave it all to thee,
I gave all that I had for it:
If I must lose,
I would rather choose
Mine interest in all to quit:
Or keep it whole, or give it whole to me.
—Francis Quarles, in "The School of the Heart."
Ver. 11. Unite my heart to fear thy name.
In knotts, to be loosed never,
Knitt my heart to thee forever,
That I to thy name may beare
Fearful love and loving feare.
—Francis Davison.
PULPIT, "Teach me thy way, O Lord; I will walk in thy truth (comp. Psalms 25:4;
Psalms 27:11; Psalms 119:33). Man cannot know "the way of the Lord," unless he is
taught of God. The inward anointing of the Spirit is needful to teach us what God
would really have us do (1 John 2:27). It is only when we are thus taught that we
can "walk in his truth." Unite my heart to fear thy ame. So Symmachus, who has
ἕνωσον; Canon Cook, Dr. Kay, Hupfeld, Professor Alexander, and the Revised
Version. Hengstenberg prefers "incline my heart;" and Professor Cheyne would
alter the text into accordance with the LXX; εὐφρανθήτω ἡ καρδία µου, "Make my
heart to rejoice." But the textual reading has the weight of authority in its favour,
and gives an excellent sense, "Bring all my heart into unison, that it may be wholly
fixed on thee." Compare the following verse.
BE SO , "Psalms 86:11. Teach me thy way — Wherein thou wouldst have me to
walk. As thou hast taught me by thy word, so also teach me by thy Spirit, that I may
clearly discern thy will and my duty, in all conditions and circumstances. I will walk
in thy truth — In the way of thy testimonies and precepts, which are true and right
in all things; and the only true rule of thy worship and service, and the only true
way to happiness. Unite my heart to fear thy name — Engage and knit my whole
heart to thyself and service, and deliver me from inconstancy and wavering, that I
may not, at any time, or in the least degree, be withdrawn from thee, either to any
corrupt worship, or to the love and pursuit of the lusts and vanities of this present
evil world. Observe, reader, it is the continual subject of the Mediator’s intercession
above, and should be the subject of our prayers below, “that we may be taught the
way of Jehovah, the way to life eternal, prepared for us, through faith and love,
which is in Christ Jesus,” and that we may walk therein “without error in doctrine,

58. or deviation in practice, believing all things which God hath revealed, and doing
whatsoever he hath commanded us; that the affections of our hearts may be
withdrawn from other objects, and, being no longer divided between God and the
world, may become united in the filial fear of his name: as the grand principle of
action.”
COFFMA , "Verse 11
GOD'S PRIOR MERCIES E COURAGEME T TO SEEK HIM
"Teach me thy way, O Jehovah; I will walk in thy truth:
Unite my heart to fear thy name.
I will praise thee, O Lord my God, with my whole heart;
And I will glorify thy name forevermore.
For great is thy lovingkindness toward me;
And thou hast delivered my soul from the lowest Sheol.
O God, the proud are risen up against me,
And a company of violent men have sought after my soul,
And have not set thee before them.
But thou, O Lord, art a God merciful and gracious.
Slow to anger, and abundant in lovingkindness and truth.
Oh turn unto me, and have mercy upon me
Give thy strength unto thy servant,
And save the son of thy handmaid.
Show me a token for good,
That they who hate me may see it, and be put to shame,
Because thou, Jehovah, has helped me and comforted me."
"Teach me thy way ... I will walk in thy truth" (Psalms 86:11). "David is here
praying for God to help him form the right habits."[14] Anchor Bible renders this
verse: "Teach me your way, that I may walk faithful to you alone."[15]

59. "Great is thy lovingkindness toward me" (Psalms 86:13). We have often commented
upon David's frequent use of this term in psalms that are admittedly his; and we
find the term in this psalm no less than three times in Psalms 86:5,13,15.
"The proud ... a company of violent men ... who set not thee before them" (Psalms
86:14). The evil men described here were proud (arrogant), violent (ruthless),
unbelievers who took not God into their thoughts.
"But thou, O lord, art a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abundant in
lovingkindness" (Psalms 86:15). This verse is a quotation verbatim from Exodus
34:6b.
"Save the son of thy handmaid" (Psalms 86:16). Delitzsch explained this "The
psalmist calls himself the `son of thy handmaid,' as having been born into his
personal relation to God, as a servant, a relation that came to him by birth. How
beautifully does the word "Lord" come in here for the seventh time. He is even from
his mother's womb the servant of the Sovereign Lord, from whose omnipotence he
can therefore look for a miracle on his behalf."[16]
"Show me a token ... that they who hate me may see and be put to shame" (Psalms
86:17). The Anchor Bible's translation of this is
Work a miracle for me, O Good One,
That mine enemies might see and be humiliated.[17
EBC, "The thought of God’s sovereign power carries the psalmist beyond
remembrance of his immediate outward needs, and stirs higher desires in him.
Hence spring the beautiful and spiritual petitions of Psalms 86:11, which seek for
clearer insight into God’s will concerning the psalmist’s conduct, breathe
aspirations after a "walk" in that God-appointed way and in "Thy troth," and
culminate in one of the sweetest and deepest prayers of the Psalter: "Unite my heart
to fear Thy ame." There, at least, the psalmist speaks words borrowed from no
other, but springing fresh from his heart’s depths. Jeremiah 32:39 is the nearest
parallel, and the commandment Deuteronomy 6:5, to love God "with all thine
heart," may have been in the psalmist’s mind; but the prayer is all his own. He has
known the misery of a divided heart, the affections and purposes of which are
drawn in manifold directions, and are arrayed in conflict against each other. There
is no peace nor blessedness, neither is any nobility of life possible, without whole-
hearted devotion to one great object; and there is no object capable of evoking such
devotion or worthy to receive it, except Him who is "God alone." Divided love is no
love. It must be "all in all, or not at all." With deep truth, the command to love God
with all the heart is based upon his Unity-"Hear, O Israel: The Lord Thy God is one
Lord; and thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart". [Deuteronomy
6:4-5] The very conception of religion requires that it should be exclusive, and
should dominate the whole nature. It is only God who is great enough to fill and

60. engage all our capacities. Only the mass of the central sun is weighty enough to
make giant orbs its satellites, and to wheel them in their courses. There is no
tranquility nor any power in lives frittered away on a thousand petty loves. The
river that breaks into a multitude of channels is sucked up in the sand without
reaching the ocean, and has no force in its current to scour away obstructions.
Concentration makes strong men; consecration makes saints. "This one thing I do"
is the motto of all who have done anything worthy. "Unite my heart to fear Thy
ame" is the prayer of all whose devotion is worthy of its object, and is the source
of joy and power to themselves. The psalmist asks for a heart made one with itself in
the fear of God, and then vows that, with that united heart, he will praise his
delivering God. As in many other psalms, he anticipates the answers to his prayers,
and in Psalms 86:13 speaks of God’s lovingkindness as freshly manifested to him,
and of deliverance from the dismal depths of the unseen world, which threatened to
swallow him up. It seems more in accordance with the usage in similar psalms to
regard Psalms 86:13 as thus recounting, with prophetic certainty, the coming
deliverance as if it were accomplished, than to suppose that in it the psalmist is
‘falling back on former instances of God’s rescuing grace.
SIMEO , "HOW TO WALK WITH GOD
Psalms 86:11. Teach me thy way, O Lord! I will walk in thy truth: unite my heart to
fear thy name.
I mercy, no less than in judgment, does God see fit to afflict his people: he does it
“for their profit, that they may in a more abundant measure be partakers of his
holiness [ ote: Hebrews 12:10.].” And when we are brought nigh to him by means
of our afflictions, then have they answered the great end for which they were sent.
David was a man who enjoyed much communion with God; and probably it was to
the extraordinary trials with which, for many years, he was visited, that he was
indebted, under God, for that sublime piety which shone so conspicuously in him. In
the psalm before us, he pours out his soul before God under some great and heavy
affliction, probably under the persecutions of Saul: but it had produced the most
beneficial effect upon his mind; seeing that it stirred up within him more ardent
desires after God, and determined him, through grace, to walk more diligently in
the ways of God: “Teach me thy way, O Lord! I will walk in thy truth: unite my
heart to fear thy name.”
In these words we see the two great requisites for an acceptable walk with God;
which are,
I. An illumination of mind, that we may know His ways—
[We know nothing of God or his ways, any farther than he has seen fit to reveal
himself to us — — — (How little our unassisted reason can teach us, has abundantly
appeared in all the philosophers of Greece and Rome.) Least of all can we know any
thing of the way which he has appointed for our reconciliation with him through the

61. blood of his Son: respecting that no finite intelligence could have formed any
conception, if it had not been made known to us by a special communication from
heaven — — — But we need also, yet further, a special revelation of it to our own
souls. The mere report, as contained in the written word, is not of itself sufficient to
bring us to a saving knowledge of these sublime truths: Christ must be revealed in
us [ ote: Galatians 1:16.], as well as to us, or we shall never “know him as we
ought.” These great things are, indeed, “freely given to us of God:” yet must we
“receive the Spirit of God, in order that we may know them” aright [ ote: 1
Corinthians 2:12.]: He must, as “a Spirit of wisdom and revelation,” open the eyes
of our understanding, before we can comprehend [ ote: Ephesians 1:17-18.] this
great mystery, so as really to acquiesce in it, and cordially to come to Christ as “the
way, the truth, and the life [ ote: John 14:6.]” — — — If the Apostles themselves,
after above three years’ attendance on the public and private instructions of our
Lord, yet needed to nave “their understandings opened, in order that they might
understand the Scriptures [ ote: Luke 24:45.],” there can be no doubt but that the
same is necessary for us all; and that we all need to cry with David, “Open thou
mine eyes, that I may see wondrous things out of thy law [ ote: Psalms 119:18.];”
or, as he speaks more fully in another psalm, “Shew me thy ways, O Lord; teach me
thy paths; lead me in thy truth, and teach me: for thou art the God of my salvation:
on thee do I wait all the day [ ote: Psalms 25:4-5.].”]
To this must be added,
II. A concentration of our souls, that we may walk in it—
[Our heart by nature is divided amongst ten thousand vanities, all of which are
sought in preference to God. What ever can contribute to the satisfaction of the
carnal mind be comes, on that account, an object of desire; and according as our
prospects of attaining it are varied, our hopes and fears, our joys and sorrows, are
called forth into powerful and successive operation. But the powers of the soul are
not to be so abused: they were given by God in order that they might be employed in
his service: and in order to an acceptable walk with him, they must all centre in him.
He will not accept a divided heart. Whosoever possesses that, “will be found faulty
[ ote: Hosea 10:2.]. God says, “My son, give me thine heart [ ote: Proverbs
23:26.]:” and it must be given to him entire. To him it must be exclusively devoted,
in all its faculties: at least, nothing must be an object of hope or fear, joy or sorrow,
but in subserviency to his glory, and in obedience to his command. “We cannot
serve God and Mammon too [ ote: Matthew 6:24.].” There is “a singleness of eye,”
and “a singleness of heart,” that is indispensable to a right walking with God [ ote:
Acts 2:46. Colossians 3:22.]: without that we cannot be “Israelites indeed [ ote:
John 1:47.]” or approve ourselves to “Him who searcheth the heart and trieth the
reins” — — —]
Address—
1. Those who think it an easy thing to serve God—

62. [Many have an idea that this is so easy a matter, that they may execute it at any
time, whenever satiety shall have rendered them less anxious about carnal
enjoyments, or the approach of death shall render a preparation for eternity more
an object of desire. But supposing it to be so easy, how great must be their guilt in
neglecting it! Is it so easy a matter to please, and serve, and honour God: and will
they not do it? Then “out of their own mouth shall they be judged:” and the heaviest
condemnation shall be awarded to them, because they would rather rebel against
their God and “provoke the eyes of his glory” by their impieties, than they would
take on them, what they themselves acknowledged to be, his “light and easy yoke.”
But if it be, indeed, so easy, try it; and see if it be so easy to come to God in his
appointed “way.” See, if you can come with brokenness of heart to the Lord Jesus
Christ, and to the Father through him, imploring mercy solely through the blood
and righteousness of your adorable Saviour — — — You will soon find that the
proud heart of man does not easily stoop to so humiliating a way of approaching
God. If you might come in your own name, and in your own righteousness, you
would perhaps consent to do it: but to come with penitential sorrow in the name of
the Lord Jesus Christ, and in a simple dependence on his atoning sacrifice, is a work
to which you are utterly averse, and which none but God can enable you to perform.
Again, if it be so easy to gather in all the affections of the soul, and to fix them
exclusively on God, do it. But you will find that this is far beyond the power of man
to effect. In order to this, you must have “a new heart given you, and a right spirit
renewed within you:” nor can any power short of that which created the world at
first form such a new creation within you. Lay aside, then, your vain conceits
respecting this matter; and begin, without delay, that work, which a whole life is
short enough to accomplish, and which, if not wrought speedily, may soon become a
subject of remediless and endless woe — — —]
2. Those who desire, but find it difficult to serve him—
[You, probably, have depended too much on the resolutions you have formed. I am
far from disapproving of resolutions, if formed in dependence upon God. Joshua’s
has been the just subject of applause in all ages: “As for me and my house, we will
serve the Lord [ ote: Joshua 24:15.].” But Peter has sufficiently shewn how weak
all human strength is, when unaided from on high. It is by prayer alone that we can
hope to prevail, either for the illumination of our minds, or the concentration of our
souls, both of which are so necessary in this good work. David was no novice in the
divine life; yet did he cry, “Teach me thy way, O Lord; and unite my heart to fear
thee!” And, if he had not so cried to the Lord, in vain would he have said, “I will
walk in thy truth.” If then he, notwithstanding his attainments, still had recourse to
God in prayer, know, that there is no other way for us to prevail; and that, if you
would succeed according to your desire, you must cry day and night to God in
prayer, and bring down from him those supplies of grace and strength which are so
needful for you — — —]
3. Those who are really walking with God according to his command—

63. [Be not discouraged, if you should find that, notwithstanding your good endeavours,
you make not all the advance that you could wish. You yet have flesh, as well as
spirit; and “if the spirit lust against the flesh, so will the flesh still strive against the
spirit [ ote: Galatians 5:17.].” You will yet find a law of sin in your members,
warring against the law of your minds, and constraining you at times to cry out, “O!
wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me [ ote: Romans 7:23-24.]?” But go
forward, in humble dependence on God. “Continue instant in prayer.” Let not your
hands hang down; but let them be stretched forth to God in continual supplications;
and he will come to your relief. He will embitter to you the vanities on which you are
tempted to set your affections, and will gradually get himself the victory over all the
enemies of your souls. It was only “by little and little that he drove out the
Canaanites” before his people of old; and it is not to be expected that you should
have no difficulties to contend with, no conflicts to sustain. But remember where
your strength is; and, “as ye have received the Lord Jesus Christ, so walk ye in him,
rooted and built up in him, and established in the faith as ye have been taught, and
abounding therein with thanksgiving [ ote: Colossians 2:6-7.]:” so will he “preserve
you blameless unto his heavenly kingdom,” and “present you faultless before the
presence of his glory with exceeding joy.”]
SBC, "In the expressions "teach," "fear," "walk," we have religion presented to us in the
three aspects of knowledge, feeling, and conduct; in other words, religion in the head, in
the heart, and in the feet. Religion affects the whole circle of man’s activity. As
knowledge, it illumines his intellect or guides his thinking in relation to those matters of
which religion takes cognisance; as feeling, it awakens right promptings within him in
relation to those matters; as conduct, it furnishes rules for his doing.
I. Religion as a matter of knowledge, a process of instruction. "Teach me Thy way, O
Lord." (1) The Teacher: "the Lord." Religious illumination comes from God, the Father
of lights. He graciously assumes the character of Teacher to men in the way of salvation.
To this end He has provided for them a great lesson-book, none other than the Bible.
When we read this book, we sit, in effect, like Mary of old, at the feet of the Divine
Teacher to learn "His way." (2) The learner: man. Man displays the first essential of a
true learner: a keen desire for his lesson. The scholar casts himself at the feet of his
Divine Teacher, and entreats to be taught. Meekness and fear—that is, docility and
reverence—are qualities in the pupil which unlock the secrets of the Divine heart.
II. Religion in the heart, or religion as a matter of feeling. Religion here has made its way
from the head into the heart; from the light of knowledge it has become the warmth of
emotion. The particular emotion into which the knowledge develops is fear. (1) This is
not fear in the sense of terror or dismay, but love. It is heart-fear, not conscience-fear. It
is the child-disposition, sweet, trustful, and penetrated with holy, subduing reverence.
(2) The condition of its development. The essential condition of this beautiful
disposition is a heart at peace with all its passions, in thorough harmony with God.
III. Religion in the life, or as a matter of conduct. Divine truth is first light in relation to
men; this truth or light received into the hearts of men becomes converted into love; and
this love becomes a mighty propelling force, impelling them irresistibly along the line of
truth and righteousness.

64. A. J. Parry, Phases of Christian Truth, p. 158.
Psalms 86:11
This prayer begins with a general request, and then points it to a particular object:
"Unite my heart"—make it one; and for what?—"to fear Thy name."
I. "Unite my heart." Who that knows the fickleness and inconsistency of the human
character, of his own character, will not join in this prayer? Anything is better for a man
than a distracted, unharmonised, inconsistent character. To spend precious time in
counteracting and crossing out ourselves is more than any of us can afford in this short
life, in which so much is to be done. One very prevailing form of this inconsistency is a
trifling, wavering, inconstant spirit, the standing idle in the marketplace of the world of a
man who has not yet found his vineyard to work in, or who, having found it, is weary of
the work. It is very often incident to youth and inexperience. With the young especially
one of the first conditions of unity of heart is a humble and conscientious adoption of
opinions. Do not entangle yourselves, in the battle before you, with armour which you
have not proved. Better defence to you will be the simple sling and stone of one
conviction tried by your own experience than all the panoply of Saul.
II. While on this matter, it seems in the course of our subject to put in a warning against
two mistaken lines of conduct which we see around us: (1) a listless apathy to the
formation and expression of opinion; a carrying out of an idea that a man may be
consistent by being nothing. It is not thus that we pray that our hearts may be united.
Better even be inconsistent among the energies of life than faultless, because motionless,
in the slumbers of death. (2) The other alternative is that of cherishing an artificial
consistency, for mere consistency’s sake. It is lamentable to see men punctiliously
upholding an accredited opinion which we have reason to know they do not themselves
hold. It is by such men and such lives that mighty systems of wrong have grown up
under the semblance of right; it is in spite of such men that the God of truth has broken
these systems to pieces one after another, and has strewn the history of His world with
the wrecks of these fair-seeming fabrics.
III. "Unite my heart to fear Thy name." If we would be consistent men, God must be first
in everything. (1) If this is so, the first consequence will be that our motives will be
consistent. The fear of God will abide as a purifying influence in the very centre of our
springs of action, His eye ever looking on us, His benefits ever constraining us. (2) Union
of the heart in God’s fear will save us from grievous or fatal inconsistency in opinion. He
whose heart is united to fear his God, though not exempt from other men’s failings, is
saved from other men’s recklessness, and has a tenderer and a safer conscience in the
matter of forming and holding opinion.
H. Alford, Quebec Chapel Sermons, vol. iii., p. 256.
12 I will praise you, Lord my God, with all my

65. heart;
I will glorify your name forever.
BAR ES, "I will praise thee, O Lord my God, with all my heart - This is but
carrying out the idea in the previous verse. He would give his whole heart to God. He
would allow nothing to divide or distract his affections. He would withhold nothing from
God.
And I will glorify thy name for evermore - Not merely in the present emergency;
but I will do it ever onward - even to eternity. The meaning is, that he would in all cases,
and at all times - in this world and in the world to come - honor God. He would
acknowledge no God but him, and he would honor him as God.
CLARKE, "I will praise thee - with all my heart - When my heart is united to
fear thy name, then shall I praise thee with my whole heart.
GILL, "I will praise thee, O Lord my God, with all my heart,.... And under that
consideration, that he was his God, and which itself is sufficient matter of praise; this
makes him amiable, and such he is, love itself: this is a blessing of pure grace, and is the
foundation of all other blessings, and continues for ever: this work of praise, which is no
other than ascribing glory to God, and giving thanks unto him for mercies received, the
psalmist determines to do with his whole heart, which is to be engaged in every spiritual
service; even all of it, all that is within it, every power and faculty of the soul, Psa_103:1,
which is expressive not of perfection, but sincerity:
and I will glorify thy name for evermore; by celebrating the perfections of his
nature, by giving him the glory of the works of his hands, by praising him for all favours,
by devoting himself unto him, and by doing all things for his glory, and that for ever, in
time as long as he lived, and to all eternity.
HE RY 12-13, "As a kind friend and bountiful benefactor to him. We ought to praise
God as good in himself, but we do it most feelingly when we observe how good he has
been to us. This therefore the psalmist dwells upon with most pleasure, Psa_86:12, Psa_
86:13. He had said (Psa_86:9), All nations shall praise thee, O Lord! and glorify thy
name. It is some satisfaction to a good man to think that others shall praise and glorify
God, but it is his greatest care and pleasure to do it himself. “Whatever others do” (says
David), “I will praise thee, O Lord my God! not only as the Lord, but as my God; and I
will do it with all my heart; I will be ready to do it and cordial in it; I will do it with
cheerfulness and liveliness, with a sincere regard to thy honour; for I will glorify thy
name, not for a time, but for evermore. I will do it as long as I live, and hope to be doing
it to eternity.” With good reason does he resolve to be thus particular in praising God,
because God had shown him particular favours: For great is thy mercy towards me. The

66. fountain of mercy is inexhaustibly full; the streams of mercy are inestimably rich. When
we speak of God's mercy to us, it becomes us thus to magnify it: Great is thy mercy
towards me. Of the greatness of God's mercy he gives this instance, Thou hast delivered
my soul from the lowest hell, from death, from so great a death, as St. Paul (2Co_1:10),
from eternal death, so even some of the Jewish writers understand it. David knew he
deserved to be cast off for ever into the lowest hell for his sin in the matter of Uriah; but
Nathan assured him that the Lord had taken away his sin, and by that word he was
delivered from the lowest hell, and herein God's mercy was great towards him. Even the
best saints owe it, not to their own merit, but to the mercy of God, that they are saved
from the lowest hell; and the consideration of that should greatly enlarge their hearts in
praising the mercy of God, which they are obliged to glorify for evermore. So glorious; so
gracious, a rescue from everlasting misery, justly requires the return of everlasting
praise.
CALVI , "12.I will praise thee, O Lord my God! David engages, when he shall have
experienced God to be in all respects a beneficent father, to yield to him the tribute
of gratitude. He expressed in the preceding verse a desire to have his heart united to
God, that he might fear him; and now he affirms it to be his resolution to publish or
celebrate his praises, not only with the mouth or tongue, but also with sincere
affection of heart; yea, even to continue with steadfast perseverance in that exercise.
SPURGEO , "Ver. 12. I will praise thee, O Lord my God, with all my heart. When
my heart is one, I will give thee all of it. Praise should never be rendered with less
than all our heart, and soul, and strength, or it will be both unreal and
unacceptable. This is the second time in the psalm that David calls the Lord "my
God", the first time he was in an agony of prayer (Psalms 86:2), and now he is in an
ecstacy of praise. If anything can make a man pray and praise, it is the knowledge
into that the Lord is his God.
And I will glorify thy name for evermore, eternity gratitude will prolong its praise.
God has never done blessing us, let us never have done blessing him. As he ever
gives us grace, let us ever render to him the glory of it.
EXPLA ATORY OTES A D QUAI T SAYI GS.
Ver. 12. I will praise thee, O Lord my God, with all my heart: and I will glorify thy
name. We glorify God by praising him. Doxology, or praise, is a God exalting work.
Psalms 50:23. "Whoso offereth praise glorifieth me." The Hebrew word, Bara, to
create, and Barak, to praise, are little different, because the end of creation is to
praise God. Though nothing can add to God's essential glory, yet praise exalts him
in the eyes of others. When we praise God, we spread his fame and renown, we
display the trophies of his excellency. In this manner the angels glorify him; they are
the choristers of heaven, and do trumpet forth his praise. Praising God is one of the
highest and purest acts of religion. In prayer we act like men; in praise we act like
angels. Believers are called "temples of God", 1 Corinthians 3:16. When our
tongues praise, then the organs of God's spiritual temple are sounding. How sad it is
that God hath no more glory from us in this way! Many are full of murmuring and
discontent, but seldom bring glory to God, by giving him the praise due to his name.
We read of the saints having harps in their hands, the emblems of praise. Many
have tears in their eyes and complaints in their mouths, but few have harps in their

67. hands, blessing and glorifying God. Let us honour God this way. Praise is the quit
rent we pay to God: while God renews our lease, we must renew our rent. —
Thomas Watson.
Ver. 12. I will praise thee, O Lord, & c. Such a soul as David was is enlarged to talk
high of God: I will praise thee, O Lord my God, with all my heart; and I will glorify
thy name for evermore. Alas! poor creature, how canst thou proclaim him "for
evermore"? A soul fired with desire to praise God, burns after both more perfect
things and more lasting than it is able to perform. "To will is present with it", etc.
See but the reachings and longings of such a soul, how it swells in desires to glorify
God! —Thomas Goodwin.
Ver. 12. With all my heart. When my heart is united to fear thy name, then shall I
praise thee with my whole heart. —Adam Clarke.
BE SO , "Verse 12-13
Psalms 86:12-13. I will praise thee, O Lord, &c. — ot only as the Lord, but as my
God. And I will do it with all my heart — That is, with readiness, cheerfulness, and
fervency, and with a sincere regard to thy honour; for I will glorify thy name —
And that not for a time merely, but for evermore — I will glorify thee as long as I
live, and hope to be glorifying thee to all eternity. For great is thy mercy toward me
— It is a fountain inexhaustibly full, sending forth streams inestimably rich, and the
benefits which I have derived from it are as invaluable as they are innumerable, and
lay me under unspeakable obligations to praise and glorify the giver of them. or is
this more my duty than my interest; for I know that gratitude for mercies already
received will be recompensed by a continuance and increase of those mercies. Of the
greatness of God’s mercy the psalmist gives this instance. Thou hast delivered my
soul from the lowest hell — Hebrew, ‫תחתיה‬ ‫,משׁאול‬ mesheol tachtijah, which Green
renders, From the grave beneath: “Thou hast often snatched me from extreme
dangers, which, like an abyss, or bottomless pit, were ready to swallow me up.” But
sheol often means hell, properly so called, or eternal death; and of this even some of
the Jewish writers understand the word here. David knew he had deserved to be
cast off for ever, and to be doomed to the lowest hell for his sin in the matter of
Uriah; but athan assured him the Lord hath taken away thy sin: and by that word
he was delivered from the lowest hell, and herein God’s mercy was great toward
him. Even the best saints, we must remember, owe it, not to their own merit, but to
the mercy of God, that they are saved from the lowest hell; and the consideration of
that should greatly enlarge their hearts in praising the mercy of God, which they are
obliged to glorify for evermore. So glorious, so gracious a rescue from everlasting
misery, justly requires the return of everlasting praise.
13 For great is your love toward me;
you have delivered me from the depths,

68. from the realm of the dead.
BAR ES, "For great is thy mercy toward me - In respect to me; or, Thou hast
manifested great mercy to me; to wit, in past times. He makes use of this now as an
argument or reason why God should interpose again.
(a) He had shown on former occasions that he had power to save;
(b) the fact that he had thus treated him as his friend was a reason why he should now
befriend him.
And thou hast delivered my soul - My life. The meaning is, that he had kept him
alive in times of imminent danger. At the same time David could say, as every child of
God can say, that God had delivered his soul in the strict and proper sense of the term -
from sin, and death, and hell itself.
From the lowest hell - Margin, grave; Hebrew, ‫שׁאול‬ she
'ôl; Greek, ᇀδης Hadēs. See
the word explained in the notes at Isa_14:9. Compare the notes at Job_10:21-22. The
word rendered “lowest” means simply under, or beneath: the grave or hades beneath.
The idea of lowest, or the superlative degree, is not necessarily implied in the word. The
idea of the grave as deep, or as under us, however, is implied, and the psalmist means to
say that he had been saved from that deep dwelling-place - from the abode of departed
spirits, to which the dead descend under ground. The meaning is, that he had been kept
alive; but the greatness of the mercy is designed to be set forth by having before the
mind a vivid idea of the darkness, the horror, and the gloom of the world to which the
dead descend, and where they dwell.
CLARKE, "Thou hast delivered my soul from the lowest hell - This must
mean more than the grave; a hell below hell - a place of perdition for the soul, as the
grave is a place of corruption for the body.
GILL, "For great is thy mercy toward me,.... Both in things temporal and
spiritual; an instance of which follows:
and thou hast delivered my soul from the lowest hell; from a very distressed and
disconsolate condition, being almost in despair, under a deep sense of sin, and a fearful
apprehension of the wrath of God, as, particularly, when he was charged by Nathan; or
from hell itself, and the severest punishment in it; from the second and eternal death,
which every man is deserving of, and are only delivered from by the grace of God, and
blood of Christ: this shows the sense the psalmist had of the just demerit of sin, and his
thankfulness for deliverance from it; see Psa_56:13. Kimchi interprets it of the grave;
but says, there are some that interpret it of the judgment, or condemnation of hell: such
who have escaped great dangers in long and perilous journeys, or have been delivered
from threatening diseases, are said to be saved from hell (r).

69. JAMISO , "The reason: God had delivered him from death and the power of
insolent, violent, and godless persecutors (Psa_54:3; Eze_8:12).
CALVI , "In the 13th verse, he sets forth the reason of this, which is, because, in
delivering him, God had given a singular and remarkable proof of his mercy. To
place in a stronger light the greatness of this benefit, he describes the dangers from
which he had been delivered, by the expression, the lower grave; as if he had said, I
have not been held down by one death only, but have been thrust down into the
lowest depths of the grave, so that my circumstances required the hand of God to be
stretched out to me in a wonderful manner. By the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ
we are delivered from a still deeper abyss of death; and such being the case, our
ingratitude will be inexcusable, unless each of us exercise himself to the utmost of
his power in celebrating this deliverance. If David so highly magnified the name of
God merely on account of the prolongation of his life for a short time, what praises
are due for this unparalleled redemption by which we are drawn from the depths of
hell and elevated to heaven? The Papists attempt to found an argument on this
passage in support of their doctrine of Purgatory, as if that were an upper hell,
while there was another lower; (490) but this argument is too rotten to stand in need
of refutation.
SPURGEO , "Ver. 13. For great is thy mercy toward me. Personal experience is
ever the master singer. Whatever thou art to others, to me thy mercy is most
notable. The psalmist claims to sing among the loudest, because his debt to divine
mercy is among the greatest.
And thou hast delivered my soul from the lowest hell. From the direst death and the
deepest dishonour David had been kept by God, for his enemies would have done
more than send him to hell had they been able. His sense of sin also made him feel as
if the most overwhelming destruction would have been his portion had not grace
prevented, therefore does he speak of deliverance from the nethermost abode of lost
spirits. There are some alive now who can use this language unfeignedly, and he
who pens these lines most humbly confesses that he is one. Left to myself to indulge
my passions, to rush onward with my natural vehemence, and defy the Lord with
recklessness of levity, what a candidate for the lowest abyss should I have made
myself by this time. For me, there was but one alternative, great mercy, or the lowest
hell. With my whole heart do I sing, "Great is thy mercy towards me, and thou hast
delivered my soul from the lowest hell."
The psalmist here again touches a bold and joyful note, but soon he exchanges it for
the mournful string.
EXPLA ATORY OTES A D QUAI T SAYI GS.
Ver. 13. Hell is put metaphorically for great and extreme dangers, or miseries which
seem irrecoverable and remediless; these are figuratively called hell, because hell,
properly taken, is a place from whence there is no recovery. There's no release from
the chains of darkness: all changes are on earth; heaven and hell know none. When
David praises the Lord for delivering his soul from the lowest hell, he meaneth an
estate on earth of the lowest and deepest danger imaginable: mercy helped him at
the worst. To be as low as hell, is to be at the lowest. —Joseph Caryl.

70. Ver. 13. The lowest hell. According to Jewish traditions, there are seven different
regions, in the abode of departed souls. —Daniel Creswell.
Ver. 13. Thou hast delivered my soul from the lowest hell. Someone having a
troublesome cause was to be sent to prison: another comes and defends him; what
does he say when he thanks him? Thou hast delivered my soul out of prison. A
debtor was to be tortured: his debt is paid; he is said to be delivered from being
tortured. They were not in all these evils; but because they were in such due course
towards them, that unless aid had been brought, they would have been in them, they
rightly say that they are delivered from thence, whither they were not suffered by
their deliverers to be taken. —Augustine.
Ver. 13,16. There is no stronger argument of God's infallible readiness to grant our
requests, than the experience of his former concessions. So David reasons, "The
Lord that delivered me out of the paw of the lion, and out of the paw of the bear, he
will deliver me out of the hand of this Philistine", 1 Samuel 17:37. This is the
argument a priori, the voice of a strong faith, that persuades the conscience God will
be gracious to him, because he hath been gracious. The prophet thus often
comforted his soul: "Thou hast enlarged me when I was in distress"; therefore,
"have mercy upon me, and hear my prayer", Psalms 4:1. So, Thou hast delivered
my soul from the lowest hell; therefore, O turn unto me, and have mercy upon me.
Let the justiciaries deduce arguments from their own present merits, my soul from
God's former mercies. Thou, O Lord, madest me good, restoredst me when I was
evil; therefore have mercy upon me, miserable sinner, and give me thy salvation.
Thus Paul grounded his assurance: because the Lord had stood with him, and
delivered him out of the lion's mouth; therefore the Lord shall deliver me still, from
every evil work, and preserve me unto his heavenly kingdom. 2 Timothy 4:17-18. â
€”Thomas Adams.
WHEDO , "13. Lowest hell—The lowest grave, or pit. ‫,שׁאול‬ (sheol,) is generally
used in this sense, and the same form of confession as in the text occurs Psalms 30:3,
where the common version has grave— “Thou hast brought up my soul from the
grave.” And in Hosea 13:14, “I will ransom them from the power of the grave… O
grave I will be thy destruction.” This deliverance from “the deepest sheol” (grave)
was a rescue from imminent and terrible destruction; it was as a resurrection from
the dead. The remembrance of it now comes up to the psalmist, and becomes a
ground of hope and pledge of renewed mercy.
PULPIT, "Psalms 86:13
For great is thy mercy toward me (see Psalms 86:5). And thou hast delivered my
soul from the lowest hell. The actual deliverance was from death (Psalms 86:14); but
death involved descent into Hades, so that those who were delivered from the one
were at the same time delivered from the other. The expression translated "the
lowest hell" means no more than "Hades which is beneath the earth." o
comparison is made of one part of Hades with another.

71. 14 Arrogant foes are attacking me, O God;
ruthless people are trying to kill me—
they have no regard for you.
BAR ES, "O God, the proud are risen against me - People who are self-
confident, ambitious, haughty; who do not regard the welfare or the rights of others;
who are disposed to trample down all others in order that they may accomplish their
own purposes; these are the people who have opposed me and sought my life. This
would apply either to the time of Saul or of Absalom. In both these cases there were men
who would correspond to this description.
And the assemblies of violent men - Margin,” terrible.” The Septuagint and the
Vulgate render this, “the synagogue of the wicked.” The word rendered violent means
properly terrible, inspiring terror; then, violent, fierce, lawless, tyrants. The idea here is
that they pursued their object by violence and not by right; they did it in a fierce and
savage manner, or in such a way as to inspire terror. The word assembly here means
merely that they were banded together; what was done was the result of a conspiracy or
combination.
Have sought after my soul - After my life.
And have not set thee before them - They do not fear thee; they do not act as if in
thy presence; they have no regard for thee, for thy law, for thy favor, for thy
threatenings.
CLARKE, "The assemblies of violent men - ‫עריצים‬ ‫עדת‬ adath aritsim, the
congregation of the terrible ones. Men of violent passions, violent counsels, and violent
acts; and, because they have power, terrible to all.
Have not set thee before them - Who sins that sets God before his eyes? Who
does not sin that has no consciousness of the Divine presence?
GILL, "O God, the proud are risen against me,.... As all men naturally are, and as
all are without the grace of God; and because they are, they deal in proud wrath: as,
through the pride of their heart, they seek not after God; so, through the same, they
persecute his people, treating them with the utmost contempt, and as the offscouring of
all things. Jarchi interprets this particularly of Doeg and Ahithophel:
and the assemblies of violent men have sought after my soul; or "terrible" (s)
ones, who breathed out nothing but cruelty, threatenings, and slaughter; and who were
many, and got together in bodies, and entered into combinations and conspiracies; and
whom nothing would satisfy but the taking away of his life, which they sought after; see
Psa_22:12.

72. and have not set thee before them; they did not consider the omniscience of God,
that he knew and took notice of all they did; nor his omnipresence, that he was
everywhere, and there was no fleeing from him; nor his omnipotence, who was able to
crush them to pieces; nor his justice, which will render tribulation to them that trouble
his; nor his goodness, which should lead to repentance; nor had they any fear of him,
nor respect to his glory: in short, they were like the unjust judge, who neither feared God
nor regarded men, Luk_18:4.
HE RY 14-15, ". He prays earnestly for mercy and grace from God. He complains of
the restless and implacable malice of his enemies against him (Psa_86:14): “Lord, be
thou for me; for there are many against me.” He then takes notice of their character;
they were proud men that looked with disdain upon poor David. (Many are made
persecutors by their pride.) They were violent men, that would carry all before them by
force, right or wrong. They were terrible formidable men (so some), that did what they
could to frighten all about them. He notices their number: There were assemblies of
them; they were men in authority and met in councils and courts, or men for
conversation, and met in clubs; but, being assembled, they were the more capable of
doing mischief. He notices their enmity to him: “They rise up against me in open
rebellion; they not only plot, but they put their plots in execution as far as they can; and
the design is not only to depose me, but to destroy me: they seek after my life, to slay me;
after my soul, to damn me, if it lay in their power.” And, lastly, He notices their distance
and estrangement from God, which were at the bottom of their enmity to David: “They
have not set thee before them; and what good can be expected from those that have no
fear of God before their eyes? Lord, appear against them, for they are thy enemies as well
as mine.” His petitions are,
As a being infinitely good. Man is bad, very wicked and vile (Psa_86:14); no mercy is to
be expected from him; but thou, O Lord! art a God full of compassion, and gracious,
Psa_86:15. This is that attribute by which he proclaims his name, and by which we are
therefore to proclaim it, Exo_34:6, Exo_34:7. It is his goodness that is over all his
works, and therefore should fill all our praises; and this is our comfort, in reference to
the wickedness of the world we live in, that, however it be, God is good. Men are
barbarous, but God is gracious; men are false, but God is faithful. God is not only
compassionate, but full of compassion, and in him mercy rejoiceth against judgment.
He is long-suffering towards us, though we forfeit his favour and provoke him to anger,
and he is plenteous in mercy and truth, as faithful in performing as he was free in
promising
CALVI , "14.O God! the proud are risen up against me. Instead of ‫זדים‬ , zedim, the
proud, some read, ‫,זרים‬ zarim, strangers; and, undoubtedly, the Scriptures often
employ this word to denote barbarous cruelty, so that it is the same as if it had been
said, the cruel. I, however, prefer following the generally received reading. As
between the Hebrew word ‫,זדים‬ zedim, the proud, and ‫,זרים‬ zarim, strangers, there is
only the difference of a single letter, the one having the letter ‫,ד‬ daleth, where the
other has the letter ‫,ר‬ resh, it is obvious that, from the similarity of these two letters,
the former might easily have been changed into the latter. Besides, the word, proud,
agrees better with the scope of the passage; for, in the same sense, the Psalmist
immediately after applies the epithet, strong, to those who, with headlong

73. impetuosity and fierceness, rushed upon him to destroy him; and we know that
where pride reigns no moderation is observed. He expresses without figure what he
had just now said respecting the grave. Being as a lamb in the midst of wolves, he
would have been quickly swallowed up, had not God miraculously delivered him, as
it were, from the jaws of death. In representing his enemies as having no regard to
God, he means to set forth the extreme excess of their cruelty. The fury of our lusts,
unless we are restrained by the fear of God and the sense of his judgment, will
become so great as to dare any thing, however atrocious. For these calamities he
seeks a remedy, in the Divine mercy, in the following verse.
SPURGEO , "Ver. 14. O God, the proud are risen against me. They could not let
God's poor servant alone, his walk with God was as smoke to their eyes, and
therefore they determined to destroy him. one hate good men so fiercely as do the
high minded and domineering.
And the assemblies of violent men have sought after my soul. Unitedly oppressors
sought the good man's life; they hunted in packs, with keen scent, and eager foot. In
persecuting times many a saint has used these words in reference to Papal bishops
and inquisitors.
And have not set thee before them. They would not have molested the servant if they
had cared one whit for the master. Those who fear not God are not afraid to commit
violent and cruel acts. An atheist is a misanthrope. Irreligion is akin to inhumanity.
WHEDO , "14. Proud… violent… have not set thee before them—A threefold
description of David’s enemies.
Proud—The fundamental idea is contempt of all authority, restraint, or obligation.
Violent—One who inspires terror by his power and his contempt of the rights of
men—a tyrant. The word is always translated terrible, terrible ones, in the
prophets, in our common version, conformably to its radical sense.
Assemblies—Must be understood of the bands or companies of conspirators, as in
Psalms 22:16; umbers 16:6.
And have not set thee before them—This clause gives at once their character and
the cause of it. Humanity shudders when such men rule. In this verse David repeats
himself from Psalms 54:3, which is not a rare practice.
BE SO , "Verse 14-15
Psalms 86:14-15. O God, the proud are risen against me — Behold, O God, a new
opportunity to glorify that mercy, for ambitious men have risen up against me in
open rebellion, and have not only plotted against me, but endeavoured to put their
plots in execution, and both to depose and destroy me. The assemblies of violent men
have sought after my soul — That is, after my life: to take it away; and have not set
thee before them — They have no reverence nor regard for thee, neither for thy
word, which hath conferred the kingdom upon me, nor for thine all-seeing eye,
which beholds all their wicked devices and practices against me, nor for thy justice,

74. which will undoubtedly bring their mischief upon their own heads. But thou art a
God full of compassion, &c. — amely, to thy people, and to me in particular, and
therefore thou wilt forgive my manifold sins, for which thou mightest justly reject
me, and wilt save me from my cruel enemies. Thus, from praises, the psalmist
returns again to prayer, as all the people of God are frequently compelled to do. In
the opposition he met with he was a type of the Messiah, his seed according to the
flesh, and his church. “We know the treatment which Christ met with, when he was
upon earth, from proud and violent men, who had not set God before their eyes;
from self-righteous Jews, and conceited Gentiles, who rose up, and look counsel
together against him. What his church afterward suffered, at the hands of the same
enemies, is likewise well known. How much more she is to undergo in the latter days
we know not as yet; but this we know, that the spirit of the world stands, now and
ever, in opposition to the Spirit of God; its design is always the same, although its
methods of working be divers.” — Horne. So that, even from without, and from
visible enemies, not to mention those within the human heart, and such as are
invisible, every one, who is a Christian indeed, shall be sure to find his state on earth
a warfare, and to have his portion of tribulation in this life. But, like David, he may,
in the midst of all the trials and oppositions he meets with, find a place of sure
refuge, and an almighty helper, in that Being who is here said to be full of
compassion and gracious, long-suffering, and plenteous in goodness and truth.
EBC, "In the closing part (Psalms 86:14-17), the psalmist describes more precisely
his danger. He is surrounded by a rabble rout of proud and violent men, whose
enmity to him is, as in so many of the psalms of persecuted singers, a proof of their
forgetfulness of God. Right against this rapid outline of his perils, he sets the grand
unfolding of the character of God in Psalms 86:15. It is still fuller than that in
Psalms 86:5, and like it, rests on Exodus 34:1-35. Such juxtaposition is all that is
needed to show how little he has to fear from the hostile crew. On one hand are they
in their insolence and masterfulness, eagerly hunting after his life; on the other is
God with His infinite pity and lovingkindness. Happy are they who can discern high
above dangers and foes the calm presence of the only God, and, with hearts
undistracted and undismayed, can oppose to all that assails them the impenetrable
shield of the ame of the Lord! It concerns our peaceful fronting of the darker facts
of life, that we cultivate the habit of never looking at dangers or sorrows without
seeing the helping God beside and above them.
The psalm ends with prayer for present help. If God is, as the psalmist has seen Him
to be, "full of compassion and gracious," it is no presumptuous petition that the
streams of these perfections should be made to flow towards a needy suppliant. "Be
gracious to me" asks that the light which pours through the universe, may fall on
one heart, which is surrounded by earth-born darkness. As in the introductory
verses, so in the closing petitions, the psalmist grounds his prayer principally on
God’s manifested character, and secondarily on his own relation to God. Thus in
Psalms 86:16 he pleads that he is God’s servant, and "the son of Thy handmaid".
{compare Psalms 116:16} That expression does not imply any special piety in the
psalmist’s mother, but pleads his hereditary relation as servant to God, or, in other
words, his belonging by birth to Israel, as a reason for his prayers being heard. His

75. last petition for "a sign" does not necessarily mean a miracle, but a clear
manifestation of God’s favour, which might be as unmistakably shown by an
everyday event as by a supernatural intervention. To the devout heart, all common
things are from God, and bear witness for Him. Even blind eyes and hard hearts
may be led to see and feel that God is the helper and comforter of humble souls who
trust in Him. A heart that is made at peace with itself by the fear of God, and has
but one dominant purpose and desire, will long for God’s mercies, not only because
they have a bearing on its own outward well-being, but because they will
demonstrate that it is no vain thing to wait on the Lord, and may lead some, who
cherished enmity to God’s servant and alienation from Himself, to learn the
sweetness of His ame and the security of trust in Him.
K&D 14-17, "The situation is like that in the Psalms of the time of Saul. The writer is
a persecuted one, and in constant peril of his life. He has taken Psa_86:14 out of the
Elohimic Psa_54:5, and retained the Elohim as a proper name of God (cf. on the other
hand Psa_86:8, Psa_86:10); he has, however, altered ‫ים‬ ִ‫ר‬ָ‫ז‬ to ‫ים‬ ִ‫ר‬ְ‫,ז‬ which here, as in Isa_
13:11 (cf. however, ibid. Psa_25:5), is the alternating word to ‫.עריצים‬ In Psa_86:15 he
supports his petition that follows by Jahve's testimony concerning Himself in Exo_34:6.
The appellation given to himself by the poet in Psa_86:16 recurs in Psa_116:16 (cf. Wisd.
9:5). The poet calls himself “the son of Thy handmaid” as having been born into the
relation to Him of servant; it is a relationship that has come to him by birth. How
beautifully does the Adonaj come in here for the seventh time! He is even from his
mother's womb the servant of the sovereign Lord, from whose omnipotence he can
therefore also look for a miraculous interposition on his behalf. A “token for good” is a
special dispensation, from which it becomes evident to him that God is kindly disposed
towards him. ‫ה‬ ָ‫ּוב‬‫ט‬ ְ‫ל‬ as in the mouth of Nehemiah, Neh_5:19; Neh_13:31; of Ezr_8:22;
and also even in Jeremiah and earlier. ‫ּשׁוּ‬‫ב‬ֵ‫י‬ְ‫ו‬ is just as parenthetical as in Isa_26:11.
PULPIT, "
Psalms 86:14
O God, the proud are risen against me (comp. Psalms 119:51, Psalms 119:69, Psalms
119:85, Psalms 119:122; and also Psalms 54:3). And the assemblies of violent men
have sought after my soul; rather, a crew of violent ones have sought after my soul,
or "plotted against my life" (comp. Psalms 7:1, Psalms 7:2; Psalms 17:13; Psalms
35:3, Psalms 35:4, etc.). And have not set thee before them; i.e. "have given no
thought to God, or how he would act, whether he would allow their wickedness or
prevent it."
15 But you, Lord, are a compassionate and

76. gracious God,
slow to anger, abounding in love and
faithfulness.
BAR ES, "But thou, O Lord, art a God full of compassion ... - See the notes at
Psa_86:5. The words rendered “long-suffering” mean that there was and would be delay
in his anger; that it was not soon excited; that he did not act from passion or sudden
resentment; that he endured the conduct of sinners long without rising up to punish
them; that he was not quick to take vengeance, but bore with them patiently. On this
account the psalmist, though conscious that he was a sinner, hoped and pleaded that
God would save him.
Plenteous in ... truth - That is, in faithfulness. When thou hast made a promise,
thou wilt faithfully keep it.
CLARKE, "But thou, O Lord - What a wonderful character of God is given in this
verse! ‫אדני‬ Adonai, the Director, Judge, and Support; - but instead of ‫אדני‬ Adonai, thirty-
four of Kennicott’s MSS. have ‫יהוה‬ Jehovah, the self-existent and eternal Being; - ‫אל‬ El,
the strong God; ‫רחום‬ rachum, tenderly compassionate; ‫חנון‬ channun, the Dispenser of
grace or favor; ‫אפים‬ ‫ארך‬ erech appayim, suffering long, not easily provoked; ‫חמד‬ ‫רב‬ rab
chesed, abundant in blessings; and ‫אמת‬ emeth, faithful and true. Such is the God who has
made himself more particularly known to us in Christ. The scanty language of our
ancestors was not adequate to a full rendering of the original words: “And thu driht God
gemildsiend, and mildheort, gethyldig and mucel mildheortnysse and sothfaest - And
thou, Lord God, art mild, and mildhearted, patient, and of much mildheartedness, and
soothfast,” - steady in truth.
In the old Psalter the language is but little improved: And thou Lorde God mercier,
and mercyful, sufferand, and of mykel mercy, and sothefast.
The word mercier is interpreted, do and dede of mercy.
GILL, "But thou, O Lord, art a God full of compassion,.... Or merciful (t), in the
most affectionate and tender manner, as a parent to its child, or particularly as a mother
to the son of her womb; and is rich and plenteous in his mercy, and freely bestows it;
and this was the support of the psalmist under his troubles from his enemies, that
though they were cruel the Lord was merciful:
and gracious; so he has been in eternity, as appears by his election of grace, by the
covenant of his grace, and the provisions of it in his Son; and so he is in time, as is
manifest from his kindness in Christ Jesus, from his justification, pardon, adoption,
effectual calling and salvation of his people, which are all of grace;

77. longsuffering; not only to wicked men, but to his chosen ones; which longsuffering of
his is salvation to them; he bears with them, and waits to be gracious to them, to bring
them to repentance, and save them, 2Pe_3:9,
plenteous in mercy; or goodness; See Gill on Psa_86:5, and truth: in fulfilling
promises; see Exo_34:6, to which these words refer.
JAMISO , "Contrasts God with his enemies (compare Psa_86:5).
CALVI , "15.And thou, O Lord! art God, merciful, ready to forgive. By
immediately passing on to the celebration of these divine attributes, he would
intimate, that we have adequate strength and protection against the audacity and
rage of the wicked, in the divine goodness, mercy, and faithfulness. Perhaps, also,
from his feeling that the wicked were scourges in the hand of God, he set before
himself the divine goodness and mercy, to allay the excess of terror with which he
might be seized; for this is the true and the only source of comfort, that although
God chastise us he does not forget his mercy. This sentence, as is well known, is
taken from Exodus 34:6, where we meet with a very remarkable description of the
nature of God. First, he is called merciful; in the next place, ready to forgive, which
he manifests by compassionating our distresses. In the third place, he is described as
long-suffering; for he is not angry whenever an offense is committed against him,
but pardons us according to the greatness of his loving-kindness. In short, he is said
to be abundant in mercy and truth; by which I understand, that his beneficence is
continually exercised, and that he is always true. He is indeed no less worthy to be
praised on account of his rigour, than on account of his mercy; but as it is our wilful
obstinacy alone which makes him severe, compelling him, as it were, to punish us,
the Scriptures, in representing him as by nature merciful and ready to forgive, teach
us, that if he is at any time rigorous and severe, this is, as it were, accidental to him.
I am speaking, it is true, in popular language, and such as is not strictly correct; but
still, these terms by which the divine character is described amount in effect to this,
That God is by nature so gracious and ready to forgive, that he seems to connive at
our sins, delays the infliction of punishment, and never proceeds to execute
vengeance unless compelled by our obstinate wickedness. Why the truth of God is
joined with his mercy has been considered in another place. As even those who are
most generous sometimes desire to retract the promises which they have made,
repenting of their too great facility, we who are accustomed unreasonably to judge
of God by ourselves, distrust his promises. God therefore declares, that he is unlike
men, because he is as firm to his purpose in abundantly performing whatever he has
promised, as he is distinguished for promising liberally.
SPURGEO , "Ver. 15. But thou, O Lord. What a contrast! We get away from the
hectorings and blusterings of proud but puny men to the glory and goodness of the
Lord. We turn from the boisterous foam of chafing waves to the sea of glass mingled
with fire, calm and serene. "Art a God full of compassion, and gracious, long
suffering, and plenteous in mercy and truth." A truly glorious doxology, in which
there is not one redundant word. As we have before observed, it is mainly

78. transcribed from Exodus 34:6. Here is compassion for the weak and sorrowing,
grace for the undeserving, longsuffering for the provoking, mercy for the guilty, and
truth for the tried. God's love assumes many forms, and is lovely in them all. Into
whatsoever state we may be cast, there is a peculiar hue in the light of love which
will harmonize with our condition; love is one and yet sevenfold, its white ray
contains the chromatic scale. Are we sorrowful? We find the Lord full of
compassion. Are we contending with temptation? His grace comes to our aid. Do we
err? He is patient with us. Have we sinned? He is plenteous in mercy. Are we resting
on his promise? He will fulfil it with abundant truth.
EXPLA ATORY OTES A D QUAI T SAYI GS.
Ver. 15. Thou, O Lord, Adonai, art a God; El, the strong God, full of compassion;
the same words as Moses useth. Instead of Jehovah, Adonai is used, "O Lord"; but
then El, strong God, is the same word.
The meaning is, let all the strength and power thou the strong God hast in thee be
for my advantage. ow, is it not a bold request to say, Lord, wilt thou give me all
thy strength to help me? A very bold request indeed; but his mercy moves him to
grant it. Thus then petition him: Thou art a God merciful and gracious, give thy
strength to me! Thou, O God, givest all thy attributes up to thy children, to serve
their advantage, as well as to serve thy own glory; give me thy strength! —Thomas
Goodwin.
Ver. 15. Full of compassion. The original word Rachum is very emphatical; it
signifies such tenderness as parents have toward their children when their bowels
yearn within them. —"Critical and Practical Exposition of the Pentateuch." 1748.
PULPIT, "Psalms 86:15
But thou, O Lord, art a God full of compassion. The appeal is to God's own
revelation of himself. He had declared that he was "merciful and gracious, long
suffering, and abundant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands,
forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin" (Exodus 34:6, Exodus 34:7); he could
not, therefore, desert the psalmist in his need. And gracious, long suffering, and
plenteous in mercy and truth (comp. above, Psalms 86:5; and see also umbers
14:18; Joel 2:13; Jonah 4:2).
16 Turn to me and have mercy on me;
show your strength in behalf of your servant;
save me, because I serve you
just as my mother did.

79. BAR ES, "O turn unto me, and have mercy upon me - Look upon me; as if
God were now turned away, and were unmindful of his danger, his needs, and his
pleading. The expression is equivalent to those in which he prays that God would incline
his ear to him. See Psa_86:1, Psa_86:6, and the notes at Psa_5:1.
Give thy strength unto thy servant - Give such strength as proceeds from thee,
and such as will accomplish what thou alone canst effect. Enable me to act as if clothed
with divine power. The ground of the plea here is, that he was the “servant” of God, and
he might, therefore, hope for God’s interposition.
And save the son of thine handmaid - This is, as far as I know, the only separate
allusion which David ever makes to his mother individually, unless the passage in Psa_
35:14 - “I bowed down heavily as one that mourneth for his mother” - be supposed to
refer to his own mother. But we have elsewhere no such mention of his mother as can
give us any idea of her character, and indeed it is not easy to determine who she was. The
language here, however, would seem to imply that she was a pious woman, for the words
“thy handmaid,” as employed in the Scriptures, would most naturally suggest that idea.
If so, then the ground of the plea here is that his mother was a child of God; that she had
lived for his service; and that she had trained up her children for him. David now prays
that, as he had been devoted to God by her, and had thus been trained up, God would
remember all this, and would interfere in his behalf. Can it be wrong to urge before God,
as a reason for his interposition, that we have been devoted to him by parental
faithfulness and prayer; that we have been consecrated to him by baptism; that we have
been trained up for his service; that in reference to us high hopes were cherished that we
might carry out the purposes of pious parents, and live to accomplish what was so dear
to their hearts? He who has had a pious mother has entered on life under great
advantages; he has been placed under solemn responsibilites; he is permitted to hope
that a mother’s prayers will not be forgotten, but that her example, her teachings, and
her piety will shed a hallowed influence on all the paths of life until he joins her in
heaven.
CLARKE, "O turn unto me - He represents himself as following after God; but he
cannot overtake him; and then he plays that he would turn and meet him through pity;
or give him strength that he might be able to hold on his race.
Give thy strength unto thy servant - The Vulgate renders, Daniel imperium tuum
puero tuo, “Give thy empire to thy child.” The old Psalter. Gyf empyre to thi barne, and
make safe the son of thi hand mayden. Thi barne - thy tender child. Anglo-Saxon; thy
knave; signifying either a serving man or a male child. As many servants were found to
be purloiners of their masters’ property, hence the word knave, became the title of an
unprincipled servant. The term fur, which signifies a thief in Latin, for the same reason
became the appellative of a dishonest servant.
Quid domini facient, audent cum talia Fures?
When servants (thieves) do such things, what may not be expected from the

80. masters?
Virg. Ecl. 3:16.
So Plautus, speaking of a servant, Aulul. 2:46, says: Homo es trium literarum, “Thou
art a man of three letters,” i.e., Fur, a thief. The word knave is still in use, but is always
taken in a bad sense. The paraphrase in the old Psalter states the handmaid to be the
kirk, and the son of this handmaid to be a true believer.
GILL, "O turn unto me, and have mercy upon me,.... For it seems the Lord had
turned away from him, and had hid his face, and withheld the manifestation of his grace
and mercy from him, and had not yielded him the help and assistance he expected; and
therefore entreats that he would turn again to him, and show him his face and favour,
and be merciful to him:
give thy strength unto thy servant; spiritual strength, strength in his soul, to
exercise grace, perform duty, bear the cross, and stand up against all enemies, and hold
out to the end: this is God's gift; and the psalmist pleads his relation to him as his
servant, not merely by creation, but by grace; this is interpreted by the Jews of the King
Messiah (u):
and save the son of thine handmaid; out of the hands of those that were risen up
against him; see Psa_119:94. Some think this has a special reference to Christ, who was
made of a woman, called an handmaid, Luk_1:48, born of a virgin, the son of Mary:
Arama says David uses the word "handmaid", because he sprung from Ruth the
Moabitess.
HE RY 16-17, " For the tokens of God's favour to him, Psa_86:16, Psa_86:17. Three
things he here prays for: - (1.) That God would speak peace and comfort to him: “O turn
unto me, as to one thou lovest and hast a kind and tender concern for. My enemies turn
against me, my friends turn from me; Lord, do thou turn to me and have mercy upon
me; it will be a comfort to me to know that thou pitiest me.” (2.) That God would work
deliverance for him, and set him in safety: “Give me thy strength; put strength into me,
that I may help myself, and put forth thy strength for me, that I may be saved out of the
hands of those that seek my ruin.” He pleads relation: “I am thy servant; I am so by
birth, as the son of thy handmaid, born in thy house, and therefore thou art my rightful
owner and proprietor, from whom I may expect protection. I am thine; save me.” The
children of godly parents, who were betimes dedicated to the Lord, may plead it with
him; if they come under the discipline of his family, they are entitled to the privileges of
it. (3.) That God would put a reputation on him: “Show me a token for good; make it to
appear to others as well as to myself that thou art doing me good, and designing further
good for me. Let me have some unquestionable illustrious instances of thy favour to me,
that those who hate me may see it, and be ashamed of their enmity to me, as they will
have reason to be when they perceive that thou, Lord, hast helped me and comforted
me, and that therefore they have been striving against God, opposing one whom he
owns, and that they have been striving in vain to ruin and vex one whom God himself
has undertaken to help and comfort.” The joy of the saints shall be the shame of their
persecutors.

81. JAMISO , "son ... handmaid — homeborn servant (compare Luk_15:17).
CALVI , "16.Look to me, and have pity upon me. Here the Psalmist makes a more
distinct application to himself of what he had said concerning the divine mercy and
goodness. As God is merciful, he assures himself that his welfare will be the object of
the divine care. The second verb in the verse, ‫,חנן‬ chanan, which I have rendered
have pity, signifies to gratify, to do one a pleasure; and is intended to convey the
idea, that the succor which God affords to his people proceeds from his free
goodness. (491) Finally, the Psalmist concludes, that the only way in which he can be
preserved is by the divine aid, which he seeks to obtain by prayer; and thus he
confesses his utter destitution of any strength of his own. In applying to himself the
appellation of God’s servant, and the son of his handmaid, he does not boast of his
own services, but urges as a plea, for obtaining greater favor at the divine hand, the
long line of his ancestors, and the continual course of God’s grace; setting forth, that
he was from his mother’s womb a household-servant of God, and, as it were, born
one of his servants in his house: (492) a point of which we have already spoken
elsewhere.
SPURGEO , "Ver. 16. O turn unto me. As though the face of God had been before
averted in anger, the suppliant pleads for a return of conscious favour. One turn of
God's face will turn all our darkness into day.
And have mercy upon me, that is all he asks, for he is lowly in heart; that is all he
wants, for mercy answereth all a sinner's needs.
Give thy strength unto thy servant. Gird me with it that I may serve thee, guard me
with it that I may not be overcome. When the Lord gives us his own strength we are
sufficient for all emergencies, and have no cause to fear any adversaries.
And save the son of thine handmaid. He meant that he was a home born servant of
God. As the sons of slaves were their master's property by their birth, so he gloried
in being the son of a woman who herself belonged to the Lord. What others might
think a degrading illustration he uses with delight, to show how intensely he loved
the Lord's service; and also as a reason why the Lord should interpose to rescue
him, seeing that he was no newly purchased servant, but had been in the house from
his very birth.
EXPLA ATORY OTES A D QUAI T SAYI GS.
Ver. 16. Save the son of thine handmaid. Deliver me, who am as completely thy
property, as the offspring of a female slave born in her master's house, and which
belongs of right to him. Genesis 14:14, Jeremiah 2:14. —William Keatinge Clay.
WHEDO , "16. The son of thine handmaid—A servant born in the house. See
Genesis 17:12; Genesis 17:27, and compare Exodus 23:12; Exodus 20:10. The
psalmist takes the lowest place. But it was an honour to his mother to confess her
the servant in God’s family before him, and the fact that David was thus descended
proved a historic family connexion with the Church and covenant which he pleads
as evidence of his sincere and faithful attachment. In the same sense apply Psalms
116:16; compare 2 Timothy 1:5

82. BE SO , "Verse 16-17
Psalms 86:16-17. O turn unto me — As to one thou lovest, and hast a kind and
tender concern for. And have mercy upon me — Pity and graciously pardon me,
though I have highly offended thee. Give thy strength unto thy servant — To assist,
support, and deliver me; and save the son of thy handmaid — Me, who, by thy
gracious providence, was born, not of heathen, but of Israelitish parents, and
therefore was in covenant with thee from my birth, and whose mother was thy
faithful servant, and did entirely devote me to thy service. Show me a token for
good, &c. — Vouchsafe me some evident and eminent token of thy good-will to me,
for the conviction of mine enemies, and my own comfort; that they who hate me may
be ashamed — Of their enmity to me, as they will have reason to be when they
perceive that thou, Lord, hast holpen me, and comforted me — And that therefore
they have been striving against thee, in opposing one whom thou ownest; and have
been striving, in vain, to vex and ruin one whom thou thyself hast undertaken to
help and comfort. The joy of the saints shall hereafter be the shame of their
persecutors.
PULPIT, "Psalms 86:16
Oh turn unto me, and have mercy upon me. God had for a time turned his face
away from his servant; now he is entreated to turn it towards him, and, as a
consequence, to "have mercy upon him" and deliver him. Give thy strength unto thy
servant. Only in God's strength can we effectually contend against either our
spiritual or our temporal foes. If, however, we ask him for strength, his strength will
be "sufficient for us" (2 Corinthians 12:9). And save the son of thine handmaid.
Either "the son of one who was specially religious," like the mother of Timothy (2
Timothy 1:5). or" the son of an Israelitish mother," therefore born and bred up in
thy household.
17 Give me a sign of your goodness,
that my enemies may see it and be put to
shame,
for you, Lord, have helped me and comforted
me.

83. BAR ES, "Shew me a token for good ... - Hebrew, “Make me a sign for good;”
that is, Do that for me in my trouble which will be an evidence that thou dost favor me,
and wilt save me. Let there be such a manifest interposition in my behalf that others may
see it, and may be convinced that thou art God, and that thou art the Protector and
Friend of those who put their trust in thee. We need not suppose that the psalmist refers
here to a miracle in his behalf. Any interposition which would save him from the hands
of his enemies - which would defeat their purposes - which would rescue him when there
seemed to be no help, would be such an evidence that they could not doubt that he was
the friend of God. Thus they would be made “ashamed” of their purposes; that is, they
would be disappointed and confounded; and there would be furnished a new proof that
God was the protector of all who put their trust in him.
CLARKE, "Show me a token for good - ‫אוה‬ ‫עמי‬ ‫עשה‬ aseh immi oth “Make with me
a sign.” Fix the honourabie mark of thy name upon me, that I may be known to be thy
servant. There seems to be an allusion here to the marking of a slave, to ascertain whose
property he was. The Anglo-Saxon, “do with me a token in good.’ Old Psalter: Do with
me signe in gude. From tacn we have our word token, which signifies a sign, mark, or
remembrancer of something beyond itself; a pledge that something, then specified, shall
be done or given. Give me, from the influence of thy Spirit in my heart, a pledge that the
blessings which I now ask shall be given in due time. But he wished for such a sign as his
enemies might see; that they might know God to be his helper, and be confounded when
they sought his destruction.
GILL, "Show me a token for good,.... Not only one by which he might know that his
sins were pardoned, and his person accepted with God, and that he should be saved; but
one visible to others, even to his enemies, by which they might know that God was on his
side, and would verily do him good: Kimchi interprets it of the kingdom; and his being
raised to the throne of Israel was a token of the Lord's goodness to him, and showed that
he had a delight in him, and meant to do him good:
that they which hate me may see it, and be ashamed; of their envy of him, their
combinations and conspiracies against him, and of all their efforts to distress him, to
hinder him of the kingdom, or deprive him of it, or make him uncomfortable in it:
because thou, Lord, hast holpen me, and comforted me; he comforted him by
helping him against his enemies, and out of his troubles; and, by doing both, showed
him a token for good, and filled his enemies with shame and confusion.
HE RY, "That God would put a reputation on him: “Show me a token for good;
make it to appear to others as well as to myself that thou art doing me good, and
designing further good for me. Let me have some unquestionable illustrious instances of
thy favour to me, that those who hate me may see it, and be ashamed of their enmity to
me, as they will have reason to be when they perceive that thou, Lord, hast helped me
and comforted me, and that therefore they have been striving against God, opposing one
whom he owns, and that they have been striving in vain to ruin and vex one whom God
himself has undertaken to help and comfort.” The joy of the saints shall be the shame of

84. their persecutors.
JAMISO , "
Show me — literally, “Make with me a token,” by Thy providential care. Thus in and
by his prosperity his enemies would be confounded.
CALVI , "The last verse contains an additional confirmation of the statement, that
he was in a manner forsaken of God. He would not have desired to be favored with
some token of the divine favor, had he not been on all sides driven to despair, and
had not the divine favor been hidden from him to try his patience. It was a proof of
no ordinary steadfastness to maintain the conflict with this temptation, and to do
this so successfully, as not to cease to descry light in the midst of darkness. He
desires that his enemies may be put to shame, because they assailed his simplicity
with mockery and scoffing, as if he had acted a foolish part by trusting in God. The
miserable and distressing condition in which the Church was placed after the
Babylonish captivity, might be apt to sink the minds of the godly into despondency;
and, accordingly, the Holy Spirit here promises her restoration in a wonderful and
incredible manner, so that nothing would be more desirable than to be reckoned
among the number of her members.
Psalms 85
PsalmsPsalms 87
SPURGEO , "Ver. 17. Shew to me a token for good. Let me be assured of thy
mercy by being delivered out of trouble.
That they which hate me may see it, and be ashamed.
"Some token of thy favour show,
Some sign which all my foes may see;
And filled with blank confusion know,
My comfort and my help in thee."
What bodes good to me shall make them quail and blush. Disappointed and
defeated, the foes of the good man would feel ashamed of what they had designed.
"Because thou, LORD, hast holpen me, and comforted me." God doth nothing by
halves, those whom he helps he also consoles, and so makes them not merely safe but
joyful. This makes the foes of the righteous exceedingly displeased, but it brings to
the Lord double honour. Lord, deal thou thus with us evermore, so will we glorify
thee, world without end. Amen.
EXPLA ATORY OTES A D QUAI T SAYI GS.
Ver. 17. Shew me a token for good. These words do not, as some think, necessarily
imply David's asking for some specific or miraculous token; he regards deliverance
itself as a token. We ask whether it be not true, that in the same measnre as we
recognise the mysteriously governing influence of God in every day events, we
regard those things as signs and miracles, which to others appear common place? â
€”Augustus F. Tholuck.
Ver. 17. Perhaps, the token for good means that spiritual joy which he asked for in
the beginning of the Psalm, when he said, "Rejoice the soul of thy servant" for such

85. joy to a holy soul in tribulation is the clearest sign of the grace of God, and on the
sight of it all manner of persecutors are confounded; and then the meaning would
be, "shew me a token for good"; give me the grace of that spiritual joy that will
appear exteriorily in my countenance, "that they which hate me may see" such
calmness and tranquillity of soul, "and be confounded"; for thou, O Lord, hast
helped me in the struggle, consoled me in my sorrow, and hast already converted my
sadness into interior joy and gladness. —Robert Bellarmine.
Ver. 17. Shew me a token for good, may be rendered "make me a sign for good."
Weiss paraphrases it, "make of me such a sign or monument of good that all my
enemies may be arrested by it, and be daunted at injuring a man so assisted by the
Lord."
Ver. 17. Hast holpen me, in struggle; and comforted me, in sorrow. —Augustine.
WHEDO , "17. Token for good—Such a turn of affairs as shall prove to my
enemies, not only that I am successful against all their power and strategy, but that
my prosperity is of God. It was not enough to succeed against the conspiracy, but it
must appear that God was on his side. This alone could restore public order, give
sanction to law, and re-establish his authority.
Comforted me—A beautiful instance of David’s deep heart and real piety. The verb
denotes such consolation as flows from true sympathy. It was not a demonstration of
the divine power simply that he asked, but of the divine sympathy also. Let my
enemies see that thou hast consoled me, as one that heartily and lovingly enters into
the righteousness of my cause and the depth of my afflictions. The past tense of the
verbs is delicately put for the present by the lively anticipations of faith
ELLICOTT, "(17) A token for good—i.e., some sign of continued or renewed
providential care and love, such, indeed, as an Israelite under the old covenant saw,
and every pious heart under the new sees, in what to others is an every-day
occurrence. The expression for good is a favourite one with ehemiah ( ehemiah
5:19; ehemiah 13:31) and Jeremiah (Jeremiah 24:5-6, and comp. Romans 8:28.
&c).
COKE, "Psalms 86:17. Shew me a token for good— Vouchsafe me a token of thy
goodness, that they who hate me may see it and be ashamed, and be convinced that
thou, O Lord, art he who helpest me and comfortest me. Bishop Hare and Green.
REFLECTIO S.—1st, The same composition may breathe the language of prayer
and praise, and our hymns speak our request for mercy, as well as our thankfulness
for what we have received.
1. He intermixes his prayers and pleas for mercy and salvation. Bow down thine ear,
O Lord, and hear me, speaking after the manner of men, and intimating the great
condescension of God, when he takes notice of such poor worms as we are, and
vouchsafes a hearing to our imperfect supplications; for I am poor and needy; this is
his plea, for God hath promised to hear such, and will be magnified in his mercy

86. towards them who have nothing but their wants and miseries to bring to him.
Preserve my soul, or my life, the life of his body, from Saul's enmity, or the more
precious life of his spirit, which, in his sojourning among idolaters, amid
temptations, and far from the ordinances of the sanctuary, was in danger; for the
greatest saint, without God's continual preservation, would quickly fall. His plea is,
for I am holy, innocent of all the accusations laid against him by Saul and his
courtiers; and also being renewed by divine grace, he pleads it as an argument for
God's carrying on his work in his soul. ote; However poor we are, yet, if rich in
grace, we need never repine at our lot. O thou, my God, save thy servant; he
expected not salvation in any other, but hoped to find it in him, his reconciled God;
in whose love he had a precious interest, as being his servant, and therefore entitled
to his protection; and that trusteth in thee, not in his own holiness, but God's grace,
and therefore God's faithfulness was engaged to him for the fulfilment of his
promises. Be merciful unto me, O Lord, for merit he utterly disclaimed, and now in
time of need sought the promised mercy; for I cry unto thee daily, and therefore,
waiting on God in his appointed way, was emboldened to expect the help he wanted.
Rejoice the soul of thy servant with discoveries of thy pardoning love, with thy
comforting Spirit, and with deliverance from his present trouble: and he urges this
argument, for unto thee, O Lord, do I lift up my soul, as an oblation on God's altar,
devoted to his service; and whoever thus continues instant in prayer, will be sent
away rejoicing in God.
2. He expresses his confidence in God's grace and help. For thou, Lord, art good,
essentially so in himself, and manifesting in innumerable instances his goodness to
his believing people, and ready to forgive, which is an especial proof of it, nothing
being so desirable to a guilty soul as the pardon of sins; and plenteous in mercy unto
all them that call upon thee: knowing the riches of God's grace, his heart rested
satisfied in him, and left his case contentedly in God's hands. Give ear, O Lord, unto
my prayer, and attend to the voice of my supplications; and being fully persuaded of
God's willingness to hear and help him, he professes it as his continual purpose to
wait upon God, In the day of my trouble; for such must every faithful soul more or
less expect, from temptation, opposition, and affliction. I will call upon thee,
committing all the concerns of body and soul into thy hands; for thou wilt answer
me, of this I rest assured, and therefore wait in confidence to see the salvation of
God.
2nd, Having professed his own dependance upon God, the Psalmist,
1. Ascribes to him the glory due unto his name, and therein shews what ground he
had to trust, and not be afraid, when this glorious God was his support. Among
angels, or men, none can be found comparable with him, or who can presume to
rival his stupendous works of creation, providence, and redemption. All nations are
the work of his hands, and must own him their great Creator: They shall come and
worship him alone, and glorify his name, by yielding themselves up to his service, in
body, soul, and spirit, as bound for ever to approve themselves his faithful servants,
which prophesy will receive its full and most glorious accomplishment in the latter
days of the Messiah's kingdom. Infinitely great in his adorable perfections, he

87. worketh wonders in nature, providence, and grace; which angels, as well as men,
behold with admiration: and as there is none like him, neither is there any besides
him: thou art God alone!
2. He prays for a heart to fear and follow him. Teach me thy way, O Lord; for we
are blind and ignorant without divine teaching, and never else could know the way
of salvation. I will walk in thy truth; when taught of God what is truth, he would
follow it, particularly when instructed in the knowledge of Christ, the way, the
truth, and the life, in whom we must walk, believing in him, and expecting
happiness from him. Unite my heart to fear thy name, solely and sincerely attached
to God, fearing nothing but to offend him, desiring nothing so much as to please
him; and this can only be received from God, whose grace can alone enable us thus
to walk.
3. He acknowledges the everlasting obligations lying on him to bless and praise
God's name, and declares it is his full purpose of heart to do so. I will praise thee, O
Lord my God, with all my heart, most cordially, and with delight; and I will glorify
thy name for evermore, whilst I have a being upon earth, and through the days of
eternity; and with abundant reason: For great is thy mercy toward me, yea, greater
than I am able to express; and to me in such an astonishing manner declared; thou
hast delivered my soul from the lowest hell, when by his sins, especially in the
matter of Uriah, he had so justly deserved the wrath of God, and yet had obtained
mercy, and, plucked as a brand from the burning, stood a monument of God's
infinitely rich and free grace. ote; The greatest saints of God reflect with deepest
gratitude on the mercies they have experienced; and it heightens the songs of
heaven, when those who are advanced to that glorious place look down on the
flames beneath, and see on what a precipice of misery they stood when God
snatched them from the everlasting burnings.
4. He lodges his complaint with God against his enemies. O God, the proud are risen
against me, who could not bear the thoughts of his exaltation; and the assemblies of
violent men, or terrible ones, have sought after my soul, confederate to destroy him,
plotting his ruin, and with cruelty and malice breathing forth slaughter; and have
not set thee before them, regardless of God's omniscience, and fearless of his
vengeance. ote; (1.) Proud men cannot bear the rebuke of a holy conversation, and
therefore turn persecutors of the righteous. (2.) Though the wicked forget God, he
does not forget them; but will, to their confusion, return their mischievous devices
upon their own heads.
5. He professes his dependance on God's kindness, to save him from their malice.
But thou, O Lord, art a God full of compassion, and gracious; though they were
cruel, he was kind; though they persecuted, he would protect: longsuffering, even to
the wicked, and much more to his believing people; plenteous in mercy, to redeem
them from every misery, and truth, to engage their reliance on the faithfulness of his
promises. ote; They who are under the care of this good God, need not fear the
enmity of evil and malicious men.

88. 6. He renews his prayer. O turn unto me with kind regard, and have mercy upon
me, for thereon my hope is placed; give thy strength unto thy servant, for my own is
weakness itself, but thine almighty, and save the son of thine handmaid, as one born
in God's house, from days of infancy devoted to his service, and who had taken the
Lord by choice for his blessed master. Shew me a token for good, both for his own
comfort, and visibly for his enemies' confusion, that they which hate me may see it,
and be ashamed of their malice and enmity; because thou, Lord, hast holpen me,
and comforted me; and therefore in fighting against his believing servant, they will
find they have been impotently struggling against that omnipotent arm which
protected him. ote; (1.) All our spiritual strength is from God alone; without him,
we are weak and helpless as infancy. (2.) Whom God helps, he comforts; his
assistance being the pledge of his love. (3.) Sooner or later the enemies of God's
people will be ashamed of their impotent malice.
PULPIT, "Psalms 86:17
Show me a token for good; i.e. give me some sign—not necessarily a miraculous
one—that thou art dealing with me, not for evil, but "for good" (Jeremiah 24:6),
and that thou wilt grant me that which I have requested of thee. That they which
hate me may see it. A visible token is therefore requested, not a mere inward
conviction or assurance (see 2 Kings 20:8; Isaiah 7:11). And be ashamed (comp.
Psalms 6:10; Psalms 56:1-13 :17; Psalms 119:78, etc.). Because thou, Lord, hast
holpen me, and comforted me. The psalmist's deliverance would be his enemies'
shame; it would show that God was on his side, and against them.
SBC, "I. "Show me a token for good." The want thus expressed is a spiritual want; the
prayer therefore is for spiritual relief. It is a token of love to his soul, a token of spiritual
and eternal good, for which the Psalmist prays.
II. Suppose that some particular tendency of our evil nature has long held us in bondage,
and that we are conscious of what the Apostle calls "a sin which easily besets us." What
in such a case would be the right use of the words before us? Surely they should suggest
to us an earnest prayer to God to show us one of His special tokens, to encourage our
weak faith, to animate our feeble efforts, by a season of unwonted success—I mean by
enabling us but for once so to overcome our sin, that we may see for ourselves how near
help really is, and how surely He hears our prayers.
III. It may be said indeed, and said truly, that such tokens ought not to be needed. We
must beware of perverting the text so as to suppose that our Christian faith is to be built
upon so unstable a foundation as the impressions and feelings of our own minds, or that
our struggles with evil can safely be postponed until some such special help be
vouchsafed to us.
IV. The time, and the manner, and the degree of our comfort in spiritual things, as in
earthly, must be left implicitly at God’s disposal. While this is remembered and
confessed, the prayer of the Psalmist is safe and wise. What God desires is that we
should seek our happiness in Him; and then He sets no bounds to prayer or expectation.
C. J. Vaughan, Harrow Sermons, 2nd series, p. 223

89. Psalms 86:17
I. Look, first, at Divine help. "Thou, Lord, hast holpen me!" (1) It is in the very nature
and disposition of God to give help. (2) Sin is a hindrance to our reception of Divine
help, but for the removal of this obstacle God has made a large provision in the
redemption which He has provided. (3) God’s ability to help is perfect, and His
resources unlimited, almighty. (4) God helps by various agencies; and these are chosen
by His own wisdom, superintended by His own eye, and made efficient by His own
power. (5) God helps us individually. (6) God helps us perfectly and efficiently.
II. Look, next, at godly consolation. "Thou hast comforted me." (1) God comforts by the
undergrowth of small alleviations in trouble. (2) God comforts by calling our attention to
some solace present with us which we have overlooked. (3) God comforts us by
revelations of a bright future. (4) God comforts us in trouble, and He comforts us by
taking away trouble. (5) God comforts us by the direct action of His mind Upon our
mind; by His word, especially by His word of promise; and by our fellow-men, especially
by our fellow-Christians. (6) God comforts us by drawing us near to Himself. (7) God
gives help and comfort from the sanctuary.
S. Martin, Comfort in Trouble, p. 120.