Paraphrase Upon the Books of the Psalms, Book 3 · Psalm 86
The Eighty Sixth Psalm.
A Prayer of David.
Paraphrase. The eighty sixth Psalm was composed by David in some time of distress, probably in his flight from Absolom, and is a mixture of ardent prayer to God, and full indisturbed reliance on him, and adoration of his power and mercy.
1. Bow down thine ear, O Lord, hear me: I am poor and needy.
2. Preserve my soule,a. for I am holy: O thou my God, save thy servant that trusteth in thee.
3. Be mercifull to me, O Lord, for I cry unto thee daily.
4. Rejoyce the soule of thy servant: for unto thee, O Lord, doe I lift up my soule.
O God of all mercy, that never failest to hear and answer the prayers of those that being in distress address themselves to thy throne of grace, with humble obedient and devout hearts, with full relyance and affiance on thee, with constancy and perseverance in fervent prayer, I that am qualified by my present distress and want of thy supplies to receive this mercy from thee, that have been wonderfully favoured by thee, and do with all reverence, and yet also with confidence, and importunately, and constantly, and ardently poure out my petitions before thee, beseech thee at length that thou wilt hearken unto me, rescue me out of my present distress, refresh and comfort me in my affliction.
5. For thou, Lord, art good and‖pardoning foreign ready to forgive, and plenteous in mercy unto all them that call upon thee.
For it is thy property to hear and answer prayers, and most gratiously to pardon the sins of all humble suppliants, and to abound to them in mercy and benignity.
6. Give ear, O Lord to my prayer; and attend the voice of my supplications.
And hereon I found my trust and importunity, that thou wilt now grant this my petition.
7. In the day of my†distress foreign trouble I will call upon thee, for thou wilt answer me.
When I am in the greatest streights, then, as in thy special opportunity, I address my prayers unto thee, being then most confident that thou wilt give me an answer of mercy.
8. Amongb. the‖or, Angels Gods there is none like unto thee, O Lord; neither are there any works like unto thy works.
Of all the Angels in heaven, much more of the false heathen Idol gods, there is none fit to be compared with thee; their power to relieve is not comparable to thine, nor proportionably their readiness for such a work of mercy.
9. All nations whom thou hast made shall come and worship before thee, O Lord, and shall glorify thy name.
And this is so evident in thy works of creation (but especially in thy works of redemption, and thy strange providential dispensations, and interpositions of thy hand in behalf of thy servants) that all the blindest Idolatrous Gentiles may therein discern reasons abundantly sufficient to convince them of thy power, and to bring them, as proselytes to thy worship, to acknowledge and magnify thy divine majesty; and so at length they shall doeforeign * foreign this shall be in the dayes of the Messias. Kimchi. in the dayes of the Messias.
10. For thou art great, and dost wondrous things; thou art God alone.
For to thee only belongs the soveraign commanding controlling power, to which all creatures yeeld their obedience, as being the one only God over all the world: None but thou only hast the priviledge of working true miracles, of resisting the most puissant power of men, and so of rescuing the most disconsolate sufferers out of the utmost distresses.
11. Teach me thy way, O Lord; I will walk in thy truth:c. unite my heart to fear thy name.
O Lord, let thy spirit direct and guide all the actions of my life, that they may be acceptable to thee, that I may uniformely practice what thou requirest: O be thou pleased to purge all hypocrisy out of my soule, that I may performe a sincere universal obedience to thy commands, not taking any interest of the world or flesh into competition with thee.
12. I will praise thee, O Lord my God, with all mine heart, and I will glorify thy name for evermore.
13. For great is thy mercy toward me, and thou hast delivered my soule from the lowest hell.
This I am sure is most perfectly due to thee, and with it all the praises and acknowledgements of my whole soule, and that for ever; It being a work of thy superabundant mercy toward me thy poor indigent, helpless, and withall most unworthy servant, that thou hast not permitted me to be swallowed up with that abyss of dangers that have incompast me, but as yet preserved, and so in some degree delivered me out of them.
14. O God, the proud are risen against me, and the assembliesd. of†formidable, or p… tent. violent men have sought after my soule, and have not set thee before them.
For they are a sort of obstinate, and withall very numerous, powerfull, and formidable enemies, that have set themselves purposely to destroy me, without any fear of thee, or imagination that thou wilt interpose any hinderance to the prosperous success of their designes.
15. But thou, O Lord, art a God full of compassion, and gratious, long-suffering, and plenteous in mercy and truth.
But thou, O Lord, wilt undoubtedly relieve me, and discomfit them. Of this thy divine attributes assure me, who art so wholly made up of mercy and pity to them that are in distress, and cry to thee for helpe, that I cannot doubt of thy hearing and rescuing me at this time: and though thou deferrest the execution of thy wrath upon wicked doers, on purpose to reduce them by thy patience to repentance; yet when this work of thy long-sufferance and mercy proves ineffectual, when men goe on impenitently and obstinately in their course, thy fidelity and performance to thy servants that are opprest by such, as well as that soveraign property, thy mercy, oblige thee to discomfit and exemplarily to punish them, and relieve and deliver those that are oppressed by them.
16. O turn unto me, and have mercy upon me: give thy strength unto thy servant, and save the son of thy handmaid.
Lord, if it be thy will, may this now be thy opportunity, to restore thy wonted mercies to me, to interpose thy power for my rescue, and deliver me thy most lowly servant out of these present dangers.
17. Shew me a token for good, that they which hate me may see it and be ashamed; because thou, Lord, hast holpen me, and comforted me.
Let thy savour and kindness toward me be now by some means, as thou shalt think good, signally and illustriously exprest, that it may be effectual to worke a shame and reformation in mine enemies, so farr at least, as to give over their malitious designe, when they discern thee to espouse my cause, to take my part, to assist and support me against all their machinations.
Annotations on Psalm LXXXVI.
V. 2. For I am holy] The meaning of foreign,foreign which we render, for I am holy, may deserve to be examined. The Chaldee directly follow the Hebrew words, and are to be interpreted by them, and give no help toward the understanding them. The LXXII. read foreign, which is as literall, the very word foreign, with an aspirate for ח (as foreign with χ for ח) being most probably formed, by an easy change, from the Hebrew foreign: This signifying originally 1. piety, to God, 2. probity, 3. mercy or benignity, the Syriack, it seems, thought it so unreasonable for the Psalmist to affirme any of these of himselfe, that taking it in the third notion, that of goodness, as that is all one with mercy, they apply it not to the Psalmist, but to God, foreign thou art good; and so the Arabick also. That this was by them done either through change or misunderstanding the Hebrew, is not probable, when there is another notion of the word, which as it will best accord with this place, so it will perfectly justify this their rendring, that of foreign (see note on Ps. iv. d.) one that hath found favour with God. This best accords with the rest of the titles here given to himself, poor and needy, v. 1. thy servant that trusteth in thee, v. 2. one that cryes daily to thee, v. 3. that lifts up his soule to thee, v. 4. Which what are they but the description of Gods Eleemosynary, the notion of foreign elsewhere? Another possible notion of the word, and which recedes very little from this, (such as may be owned of the Psalmist speaking of himself) may be taken from Prov. ii. 8. For as here the prayer to God to keep or preserve his soule, is backt with this motive, for I am foreign; so there the aphorisme is delivered expresly, for he will preserve the way foreign of his pious ones, which the Lxxii. render there foreign, of them that revere, or fear, or worship him. In this sense it is used Psal. xxxii. 6. For this shall every foreign pious, godly man (that fears or worships God) pray unto thee in a time when thou mayest be found; A promise again of Gods being found granting the requests of such as these, when they pray to him. And in this notion of the word, for one that fears and reveres and humbly addresseth his prayers to God, there will be no more difficulty for the Psalmist to say this of himself, than that he trusteth in him, in the end of the verse, cries daily to him, v. 3. lifts up his soule unto him, v. 4. calls upon him, v. 5. and 7. or that he prayes and supplicates to him, v. 6.— And thus Ps. cxvi. 15. speaking of himselfe, pretious, saith he, in the sight of the Lord is the death foreign of his holy ones, those who depend, and wait and rely on him, in the former verses. Nor can it be strange that any or all of these should here be introduced with a foreign for, as the grounds of his begging an audience to his prayers, when God, who though he be not obliged by the merits of our performances, is yet by the force of his own promise, hath promised to hear the prayers of such as come thus qualified to him. The Jewish Arab renders it, Preserve my soule, and I shall be pure.
V. 8. The Gods] That by foreign foreignGods foreign high angels are to be here understood, is the gloss of the Targum, and so the word frequently signifies, see note on Psal. Lxxxii. b. yet the mention of all nations immediately following, and those evidently in the notion of the heathen Idolaters of the world, of whom it is said, that they shall come and worship thee, O Lord, i. e. forsake their Idols, and become proselytes to the true God, makes it reasonable to understand it here of those, whether good Angels or devills, which are by those nations adored, and prayed to, and depended on, that so the connexion may be evident, Among those Gods none is like to thee, O Lord; and consequently, All nations shall forsake them, and become worshippers of thee.
V. 11. Unite] For foreign foreignunite (retained also by the Chaldee,) the Lxxii. read foreign— Let my heart rejoyce, reading it seems foreign from foreign to rejoyce, as when Job iii. 6. we read in the Hebrew foreign let it not rejoyce, the Chaldee read foreign let it not be united, when yet the next verse determines it to the sense of joy, let no joyfull voice come therein. Here the points differing, the rendring must in reason be as from foreign univit, and note the contrary to hypocrisie, or unsincere, partial obedience, ordinarily exprest by the double heart.
V. 14. Violent] From foreign to fear or be frighted, is foreign foreignhere, and therefore is most literally to be rendred terrible or formidable. Yet Abu Walid and Kimchi among the significations of it, put fortis, potens; and accordingly the Lxxii. renders it foreign powerfull men, and the Chaldee foreign, which as it signifies potent, so also cruel, oppressing men, from foreign fortis & durus fuit.