Psalm 17

Psalms 17:1-2

The Hebrew title, which this floor's text does not carry, reads A Prayer of David, one of only a handful of psalms so named outright, and the plea that follows asks for a fair hearing rather than for rescue. Hear the right, O Lord sets the case as a matter for judgment, prayer that goeth not out of feigned lips claiming honesty of speech rather than innocence of every fault. Let my sentence come forth from thy presence casts God as the judge whose verdict the psalmist will accept, asking only that his eyes behold the things that are equal.

Psalms 17:3-5

Thou hast proved mine heart, thou hast visited me in the night appeals to an examination already finished rather than one still pending, night visits read by the older writers as the hours when pretense cannot be kept up. Thou hast tried me, and shalt find nothing rests the claim on a specific charge, not sinlessness in general but the sin his accusers pressed against him, and I am purposed that my mouth shall not transgress states an ongoing resolve rather than a completed innocence. Hold up my goings in thy paths turns the testimony into a request, the same God who has already searched him asked to keep him from slipping next.

Psalms 17:6-7

I have called upon thee, for thou wilt hear me states the ground of prayer as God's own character rather than the psalmist's merit, confidence stated before the request itself. Shew thy marvellous lovingkindness asks for kindness distinguished above the ordinary, thou that savest by thy right hand them which put their trust in thee naming the pattern the psalmist claims for himself. From those that rise up against them sets the request inside real conflict, the mercy asked for is rescue rather than a general blessing.

Psalms 17:8-9

Keep me as the apple of the eye borrows the most guarded part of the body, the pupil an eyelid closes over by reflex before any conscious choice, for the protection now asked in prayer. Hide me under the shadow of thy wings changes the image to a mother bird, the same figure Deuteronomy 32:11 uses of the Lord over Israel in the wilderness. From the wicked that oppress me, from my deadly enemies, who compass me about names the danger the two pictures answer, enemies surrounding rather than merely opposing.

Psalms 17:10-12

They are inclosed in their own fat pictures the enemies grown thick and unfeeling on their own prosperity, a heart wrapped in its own excess, and with their mouth they speak proudly pairs that comfort with open arrogance. They have set their eyes bowing down to the earth is read by the older commentators as a hunter's watching stance, low and intent, rather than humility. The double simile that follows, a lion greedy of his prey and a young lion lurking in secret places, names patience and violence together, the ambush before the kill.

Psalms 17:13-14

Arise, O Lord: Arise, O Lord, disappoint him, cast him down opens the plea proper, the wicked named as thy sword, an instrument God himself permits to strike before it is stopped. Deliver my soul from the wicked repeats the request the psalm opened with, and men of this life, which have their portion in this life draws the line the psalm has been building toward, a portion bounded by the present world and nothing past it. They are full of children, and leave the rest of their substance to their babes names worldly success at its fullest, prosperity passed to the next generation and no further, which the closing verse answers directly.

Psalms 17:15

As for me: As for me answers the previous verse's portion in this life word for word, the psalmist's own portion set against theirs. I will behold thy face in righteousness claims access denied to the wicked just named, and I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with thy likeness closes the psalm on a hope many of the older writers read as reaching past ordinary sleep to the resurrection, awaking to bear God's likeness rather than to more of this life's portion. Delitzsch reads awake as deliberately open, a word the psalmist did not need to explain further to be understood.