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,…

Preserve my soul. Let my life be safe from my enemies, and my spiritual nature be secure from their temptations. He feels himself unsafe except he be covered by the divine protection. For I am holy.

Be merciful unto me, O Lord. The best of men need mercy, and appeal to mercy, yea to nothing else but mercy; they need it for themselves, and crave it eagerly of their God as a personal requisite. For I cry unto thee daily.

Rejoice the soul of thy servant. Make my heart glad, O my Maker, for I count it my honour to call myself again and again thy servant, and I reckon thy favour to be all the wages I could desire. I look for all my happiness in thee only, and therefore unto thee, O Lord, do I lift up my soul.

For thou, Lord, art good, and ready to forgive. Good at giving and forgiving; supplying us with his good, and removing our evil. Here was the great reason why the Psalmist looked to the Lord alone for his joy, because every joy creating attribute is to be found in perfection in Jehovah alone.

Give ear, O LORD, unto my prayer. Even the glory which his spirit had beheld did not withdraw him from his prayer, but rather urged him to be more fervent in it; hence he implores the Lord to hear his requests. Attend to the voice of my supplications. Here are repetitions, but not vain repetitions.

In the day of my trouble I will call upon thee: for thou wilt answer me. A pious resolve backed by a judicious reason. It is useless to cry to those who cannot or will not hear; once convince men that prayer has no effect upon God, and they will have no more of it.

Among the gods there is none like unto thee, O Lord. There are gods by delegated office, such as kings and magistrates, but they are as nothing in the presence of Jehovah; there are also gods by the nomination of superstition, but these are vanity itself, and cannot be compared with the living and…

All nations whom thou hast made, and these include all mankind, since they all come of the first Adam—thy creature, and their lives are all distinct creations of thine omnipotence. All these shall come with penitent hearts, in thine own way, to thine own self, and worship before thee, O Lord.

For thou art great. He had before said, "thou art good"; it is a grand thing when greatness and goodness are united; it is only in the Divine Being that either of them exists absolutely, and essentially. Happy is it for us that they both exist in the Lord to an equal degree.

Teach me thy way, O LORD. Instruct me thus at all times, let me live in thy school; but teach me now especially since I am in trouble and perplexity. Be pleased to shew me the way which thy wisdom and mercy have prepared for my escape; behold I lay aside all wilfulness, and only desire to be…

I will praise thee, O Lord my God, with all my heart. When my heart is one, I will give thee all of it. Praise should never be rendered with less than all our heart, and soul, and strength, or it will be both unreal and unacceptable.

For great is thy mercy toward me. Personal experience is ever the master singer. Whatever thou art to others, to me thy mercy is most notable. The psalmist claims to sing among the loudest, because his debt to divine mercy is among the greatest. And thou hast delivered my soul from the lowest hell.

O God, the proud are risen against me. They could not let God's poor servant alone, his walk with God was as smoke to their eyes, and therefore they determined to destroy him. None hate good men so fiercely as do the high minded and domineering.

But thou, O Lord. What a contrast! We get away from the hectorings and blusterings of proud but puny men to the glory and goodness of the Lord. We turn from the boisterous foam of chafing waves to the sea of glass mingled with fire, calm and serene.

O turn unto me. As though the face of God had been before averted in anger, the suppliant pleads for a return of conscious favour. One turn of God's face will turn all our darkness into day.

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. "Some token of thy favour show, Some sign which all my foes may see; And filled with blank confusion know, My comfort and my help in thee." What bodes…

Bow down thine ear, O Lord. As the careful physician doth to his feeble patient: so Basil glosseth here.—John Trapp. Poor, holy, trusteth, I cry. The petitioner is first described as poor, then holy, next trusting, after that crying, finally, lifted up to God.

Holy. The word has been variously translated:—Godly, De Muis, Ainsworth and others; charitable, or beneficent, Piscator; merciful or tenderhearted, Mariana; diligently or earnestly compassionate, Vatablus; meek, Calvin; a beloved one, Version of American Bible Union; one whom thou lovest, Perowne;…

Be merciful unto me. Lest any should by the former words, ("I am holy", )suspect him to be a merit monger, he beggeth mercy with instancy and constancy of request.—John Trapp. I cry unto thee daily.

Rejoice the soul of thy servant, etc. As I have not found rest in anything created, I have raised up my soul on the wings of thought and desire to thee my Creator. Love bears one's soul up; and it has been truly said, that the soul is more where it loves, than where it actually is.

For thou, Lord, art good, and whither should beggars go but to the door of the good house keeper?—Matthew Henry. Ready to forgive. The mercy of God is a ready mercy, and his pardons are ready for his people; his pardons and mercies are not to seek, he hath them at hand, he is good and ready to…

Supplications ytwnwxt, deprecations. The Psalmist forms a peculiar Hebrew word, feminine plural, not found elsewhere, to convey more impressively the idea of suppliant weakness.—A.R. Fausset.

—There are two kinds of doubt which are wont in the hour of temptation to assail the soul: the doubt as to God's willingness, and the doubt as to God's power to succour. The first of these the Psalmist has already put from him; he now shows that he has overcome the second.

All nations shall worship before thee, because as King of Nations, thou art great, thy sovereignty absolute and incontestable, thy Majesty terrible and unsupportable, thy power universal and irresistible, thy riches vast and inexhaustible, thy dominion boundless and unquestionable; and for the…

Teach me thy way: I will walk in thy truth: unite my heart. Here is the "Via, Veritas, Vita" of the Gospel . "Via tua, Veritas tua, Vita tua, Christus." Christ is our Way, Truth, and Life, because he is Man united to God, and is one substance with the Father.—Christopher Wordsworth. Teach me.

I will praise thee, O Lord my God, with all my heart: and I will glorify thy name. We glorify God by praising him. Doxology, or praise, is a God exalting work. Ps 50:23.

Hell is put metaphorically for great and extreme dangers, or miseries which seem irrecoverable and remediless; these are figuratively called hell, because hell, properly taken, is a place from whence there is no recovery.

Thou, O Lord, Adonai, art a God; El, the strong God, full of compassion; the same words as Moses useth. Instead of Jehovah, Adonai is used, "O Lord"; but then El, strong God, is the same word. The meaning is, let all the strength and power thou the strong God hast in thee be for my advantage.

Save the son of thine handmaid. Deliver me, who am as completely thy property, as the offspring of a female slave born in her master's house, and which belongs of right to him. Ge 14:14 Jer 2:14.—William Keatinge Clay.

Shew me a token for good. These words do not, as some think, necessarily imply David's asking for some specific or miraculous token; he regards deliverance itself as a token.