Psalms 86:1
Incline Your ear, O LORD, and answer me, for I am poor and needy.
BSB
ASV
Bow down thine ear, O Jehovah, and answer me; For I am poor and needy.
KJV
Bow down thine ear, O Lord, hear me: for I am poor and needy.
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.
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.
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.
Rare words are the text's own signal of a deliberate thread: the fewer the occurrences, the more the places it appears belong together.
The walk8
Follow this verse’s cross-references two steps out. Each card is a verse this one points to, and beneath it the verses that one points to in turn. Where several different paths arrive at the same place, that place is listed first: the text keeps returning to it. Every stop shows its own words, and every stop is a page.
Through
Matthew 5:3“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
leads to
Has not My hand made all these things? And so they came into being,” declares the LORD. “This is the one I will esteem: he who is humble and contrite in spirit, who trembles…
A man’s pride will bring him low, but a humble spirit will obtain honor.
The LORD is near to the brokenhearted; He saves the contrite in spirit.
It is better to be lowly in spirit among the humble than to divide the spoil with the proud.
I tell you, this man, rather than the Pharisee, went home justified. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.”
Through
Psalms 34:6This poor man called out, and the LORD heard him; He saved him from all his troubles.
leads to
The righteous cry out, and the LORD hears; He delivers them from all their troubles.
To the LORD I cry aloud, and He answers me from His holy mountain. Selah
You have heard, O LORD, the desire of the humble; You will strengthen their hearts. You will incline Your ear,
