Psalm 9

Psalms 9:1-2

The Hebrew title, which this page's text does not show, reads To the chief Musician upon Muth-labben, a phrase some read as death of the son, though what tune or occasion it names is genuinely unknown, and the honest reading states the uncertainty rather than resolving it. Psalms 9 and 10 together form a single acrostic in the Hebrew, one poem carried across two English psalms by successive letters, invisible in this translation but a fact of the source text the commentators note. The prayer opens in full-hearted praise before any petition, I will praise thee, O Lord, with my whole heart, shewing forth all thy marvellous works and singing to the name of the Most High.

Psalms 9:3-6

The ground of praise is a specific deliverance, enemies turned back and made to fall at God's own presence, thou hast maintained my right and my cause, sitting in the throne judging right. The wording moves from personal vindication to a purge God has run against nations, thou hast rebuked the heathen, thou hast destroyed the wicked, thou hast put out their name for ever and ever. Verse 6 pictures conquered cities themselves erased, their very memorial perished with them, judgment carried far enough that even the memory of the enemy is gone.

Psalms 9:7-8

Against every destroyed name and perished memorial stands the one throne that does not fall, but the Lord shall endure for ever, he hath prepared his throne for judgment. Where the nations of verse 5 are rebuked in a particular moment, this judgment is standing and universal, he shall judge the world in righteousness, he shall minister judgment to the people in uprightness. The contrast is the psalm's argument in miniature, transient thrones set against the one throne prepared to outlast them all.

Psalms 9:9-10

a refuge for the oppressed: The Lord also will be a refuge for the oppressed, a refuge in times of trouble moves the psalm from the courtroom to shelter, the same God who judges nations also hides the afflicted. They that know thy name will put their trust in thee grounds trust in knowledge rather than blind hope, and the promise that follows answers it directly, thou, Lord, hast not forsaken them that seek thee. The pairing of name and trust recurs through the Psalter as the basis of confidence, knowing who God has shown himself to be rather than an argument from feeling.

Psalms 9:11-12

Sing praises to the Lord, which dwelleth in Zion widens the praise into public testimony, declare among the people his doings, the deliverance made a matter of record rather than private relief. When he maketh inquisition for blood, he remembereth them pictures God as one who investigates violence done to his own rather than overlooking it, a legal image kept alive through the psalm's courtroom language. He forgetteth not the cry of the humble closes the pair on the same note as verse 9, God's attention landing specifically on those with no other help.

Psalms 9:13-14

The prayer turns personal again, have mercy upon me, O Lord, consider my trouble which I suffer of them that hate me, addressed to the God who already lifts up from the gates of death, the place where hope normally ends. Deliverance is asked for a purpose named in the next verse, that I may shew forth all thy praise in the gates of the daughter of Zion, one gate answering another, the gate of death exchanged for the gate of the city where praise is spoken aloud. I will rejoice in thy salvation closes the pair on the same confidence that opened the psalm.

Psalms 9:15-16

The heathen are sunk down in the pit that they made returns to the reversal theme the wisdom books and psalms both carry, judgment arriving through the enemy's own device, in the net which they hid is their own foot taken. The Lord is known by the judgment which he executeth states the principle plainly, before the same reversal is repeated in different words, the wicked is snared in the work of his own hands. Higgaion Selah, kept untranslated in this text, is read by the commentators as a musical direction, perhaps a solemn instrumental swell or a meditative pause, and no one claims certainty about its exact meaning.

Psalms 9:17-18

The wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the nations that forget God draws the boundary line of the whole psalm, not wickedness in general but forgetting God specifically as the mark of the nations under judgment. Against that stands the psalm's recurring promise to the opposite class, the needy shall not alway be forgotten, the expectation of the poor shall not perish for ever, the very people the powerful nations trampled kept in God's continuing memory. The verse pair sets memory against forgetting on both sides, nations that forget God against a God who does not forget the poor.

Psalms 9:19-20

Arise, O Lord; let not man prevail returns to the summons of judgment that runs through this section of the Psalter, asking that the heathen be judged in God's own sight rather than left to their own account. Put them in fear, O Lord closes the psalm with a plain request, that the nations may know themselves to be but men, mortal and limited against the God who has just been shown ruling from a throne that does not fall. Selah marks the final pause, the whole psalm's argument, from private deliverance to universal judgment, left to rest on that one line.