Psalms 86:17

Shew to me a token for good. Let me be assured of thy mercy by being delivered out of trouble. That they which hate me may see it, and be ashamed. What bodes good to me shall make them quail and blush. Disappointed and defeated, the foes of the good man would feel ashamed of what they had designed. "Because thou, Lord, hast holpen me, and comforted me." God doth nothing by halves, those whom he helps he also consoles, and so makes them not merely safe but joyful. This makes the foes of the righteous exceedingly displeased, but it brings to the Lord double honour. Lord, deal thou thus with us evermore, so will we glorify thee, world without end. Amen.

I WOULD have you note, beloved Friends, at the outset, how this man of God, in the hour of conflict, looks to his Divine Protector. He does not run about to consult with friends, nor does he set himself down to digest his bitter sorrow in solitude, but he gets away to the Lord, his God, who has covenanted to help him. That same God who in his brightest days was his great joy, is, in his darkest night, his surest consolation. Therefore he cries, "Lord, show me a token for good. Show it! Let it come from You. All other signs and tokens I can forego, but You show me a token for good and my spirit will be revived at once." You see, he looks away from the secondary to the Primary, from the temporal to the Eternal—from that which he could see with his eyes—to Him whom, having not seen, he trusted and rejoiced in. mourner, learn wisdom from the father of the wisest of men! We need not hesitate to copy the pattern set by the man after God's own heart! O you who are surrounded by persecutors, will you not imitate David? You cannot do better in every adversity than to look unto the Lord, the Ever-Merciful! I know you have been casting about to the right and to the left to find an anchor-hold and still the vessel drifts. Now, throw the great bower anchor into the depths! Let it go right down out of sight and let it get a grip upon eternal faithfulness and your ship shall outride both wind and tide! Trust the quicksand of human confidence no longer. Look only to the Lord! It is a severance from man, a complete deliverance from the arm of flesh that God designs by our trouble and the sooner we come to it the better for us.

Show me a token for good - עשה עמי אוה aseh immi oth “Make with me a sign.” Fix the honourabie mark of thy name upon me, that I may be known to be thy servant. There seems to be an allusion here to the marking of a slave, to ascertain whose property he was. The Anglo-Saxon, “do with me a token in good.’ Old Psalter: Do with me signe in gude. From tacn we have our word token, which signifies a sign, mark, or remembrancer of something beyond itself; a pledge that something, then specified, shall be done or given. Give me, from the influence of thy Spirit in my heart, a pledge that the blessings which I now ask shall be given in due time. But he wished for such a sign as his enemies might see; that they might know God to be his helper, and be confounded when they sought his destruction.

Shew me a token for good ... - Hebrew, “Make me a sign for good;” that is, Do that for me in my trouble which will be an evidence that thou dost favor me, and wilt save me. Let there be such a manifest interposition in my behalf that others may see it, and may be convinced that thou art God, and that thou art the Protector and Friend of those who put their trust in thee. We need not suppose that the psalmist refers here to a miracle in his behalf. Any interposition which would save him from the hands of his enemies - which would defeat their purposes - which would rescue him when there seemed to be no help, would be such an evidence that they could not doubt that he was the friend of God. Thus they would be made “ashamed” of their purposes; that is, they would be disappointed and confounded; and there would be furnished a new proof that God was the protector of all who put their trust in him.