Psalm 31

Psalms 31:1-2

The psalm opens on trust rather than complaint, In thee, O Lord, do I put my trust, and asks first for speed and shelter rather than for an outcome, deliver me speedily, be thou my strong rock. A house of defence renders a single Hebrew word for a fortress built into the rock itself, the image the next two verses go on to develop.

Psalms 31:3-4

Rock and fortress restate the request of verse 2 as settled fact, and lead me, and guide me is asked for thy name's sake, the plea resting on God's own reputation rather than on the sufferer's merit. The net laid privily in verse 4 is a hunter's trap, hidden and set by another's hand, and the prayer to be pulled out of it assumes the danger has not yet passed.

Psalms 31:5

Into thine hand I commit my spirit is the prayer the Lord took onto his own lips at the cross, quoted at Luke 23:46, Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit, the last words the Gospel records him saying before he died. The title Lord God of truth renders the Hebrew El Emet, the God who can be built on, and the verb commit is a legal word for handing something over for safekeeping rather than merely releasing it into the dark. Thou hast redeemed me stands already in the past tense, the deliverance claimed before it is described.

Psalms 31:6-8

Lying vanities are the empty idols of verse 6, and the sufferer's hatred of them stands directly against his own trust in the Lord, one allegiance displacing the other. Verses 7 and 8 look back on mercy already shown, thou hast considered my trouble, thou hast known my soul in adversities, and not shut up into the hand of the enemy but set in a large room, the Hebrew image of a spacious place standing against the net of verse 4 and the narrow strait of distress.

Psalms 31:9-10

The prayer turns back to present distress, and the toll is named on the body itself, the eye consumed with grief, the soul and belly with it, strength failing and bones wasting under a grief the psalm ties directly to mine iniquity, sin and suffering held together rather than kept apart. Years with sighing marks the trouble as a long wearing rather than a single blow.

Psalms 31:11-13

Isolation deepens by degrees, a reproach to enemies, worse among neighbours, a fear to acquaintance who flee at the sight of him, until he is forgotten as a dead man out of mind, a broken vessel fit only for the potsherd heap. Fear on every side in verse 13 is a phrase the prophet Jeremiah later makes his own refrain under his own persecution, verified at Jeremiah 20:10, and the slander and secret counsel named here are the same conspiracy of speech the sufferer names again at verse 20.

Psalms 31:14-16

My times are in thy hand answers the net and the pit of the earlier verses with the widest claim the psalm makes, not merely deliverance but the whole shape of his days held rather than only rescued. Make thy face to shine upon thy servant asks for the priestly blessing of Numbers 6:25 in the sufferer's own words, and save me for thy mercies' sake keeps the plea resting on God's character rather than on the sufferer's case.

Psalms 31:17-18

The prayer against shame returns to where the psalm began at verse 1, and now asks it be turned onto the wicked instead, let them be silent in the grave, an imprecation stated but left undeveloped. Lying lips speak proudly and contemptuously against the righteous, the same slander named at verse 13 named again here, deceit set against the God of truth confessed at verse 5.

Psalms 31:19-20

Goodness laid up pictures a store kept in reserve, available to them that fear thee and wrought before the sons of men, a public deliverance rather than a private one. The secret of thy presence and the pavilion of verse 20 are the same shelter under two images, God's own nearness hiding the sufferer from the pride of man and the strife of tongues that has driven the whole psalm.

Psalms 31:21-22

Blessed be the Lord: A strong city in verse 21 answers the house of defence asked for at verse 2, the prayer now confessed as already answered. I said in my haste, I am cut off admits that the earlier despair was itself mistaken, haste meaning the panic of the moment rather than sober judgment, and the psalm corrects its own worst line with nevertheless thou heardest the voice of my supplications.

Psalms 31:23-24

The psalm closes turned outward, no longer prayer but instruction to the whole congregation of the faithful, drawn from what has just been lived through. The Lord preserveth the faithful, and plentifully rewardeth the proud doer states the same two outcomes the psalm has just prayed for, and the final word, be of good courage, and he shall strengthen your heart, hands the sufferer's own experience on to all ye that hope in the Lord after him.