Very plaintively and touchingly does the low sigh of personal need follow this triumphant intercession for the company of the saints. Its triple elements blend in one believing aspiration, which is not impatience, though it pleads for swift help. "I am afflicted and needy"; there the psalmist turns his eye on his own sore necessity. "Jehovah has purposes for me"; there he turns to God, and links his final petitions with his earlier trust by the repetition of the word by which he described (ver. 5) the many gracious designs of God. "My God, delay not"; there he embraces both in one act of faithful longing. His need calls for, and God's loving counsels ensure, swift response. He who delights when an afflicted and poor man calls Him "my God" will not be slack to vindicate His servant's confidence, and magnify His own name. That appeal goes straight to the heart of God.
1 Happy the man who considers the helpless; In the day of calamity will Jehovah deliver him 2 Jehovah will preserve him and keep him alive, --He shall be counted happy in the land,-- And do not Thou give him up to the wrath of his enemies. 3 Jehovah will sustain him on the bed of languishing; All his lying down in his sickness Thou hast turned into health.
4 As for me, I said, Jehovah, be merciful to me, Heal my soul, for I have sinned against Thee. 5 My enemies speak evil against me: "When will he die, and his name perish?" 6 And if one [of them] comes to see [me], he speaks falsehood (insincere sympathy); His heart collects malice for itself; He goes forth, he speaks it.
7 Together against me do all my haters whisper; Against me they plan my hurt: 8 "A fatal thing is fixed upon him, And he who has [now] lain down will rise no more." 9 Even the man of my peace, in whom I trusted, who ate my bread, Has lifted his heel against me.
10 But Thou, Jehovah, be merciful to me and raise me up, That I may requite them. 11 By this I know that Thou delightest in me, Since my enemy triumphs not over me. 12 And as for me, in my integrity Thou upholdest me, And settest me before Thy face for ever.
13 Blessed be Jehovah, the God of Israel, From everlasting and to everlasting Amen and Amen.
The central mass of this psalm describes the singer as suffering from two evils: sickness and treacherous friends. This situation naturally leads up to the prayer and confidence of the closing strophe (vv. 10-12). But its connection with the introductory verses (1-3) is less plain. A statement of the blessings ensured to the compassionate seems a singular introduction to the psalmist's pathetic exhibition of his sorrows. Cheyne thinks that the opening verses were added by the framer of the collection to adapt the poem to the use of the Church of his own time, and that "the original opening must have been different" ("Orig. of Psalt.," 246, _n._). It is to be observed, however, that the two points of the psalmist's affliction are the two from which escape is assured to the compassionate, who shall not be "delivered to the desire of his enemies," and shall be supported and healed in sickness. Probably, therefore, the general promises of vv. 1-3 are silently applied by the psalmist to himself; and he is comforting his own sorrow with the assurance which in his humility he casts into impersonal form. He has been merciful, and believes, though things look dark, that he will obtain mercy. There is probably also an intentional contrast with the cruel exacerbation of his sufferings by uncompassionate companions, which has rubbed salt into his wounds. He has a double consciousness in these opening verses, inasmuch as he partly thinks of himself as the compassionate man and partly as the "weak" one who is compassionated.