Biblion Bible Commentary
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You Will Revive Me
Psalms 138:1-8
1 By David. I will give you thanks with my whole heart. Before the gods, I will sing praises to you. · WEB
A short thanksgiving with a large claim in the middle: the high God's attention is on the low.
I will give you thanks with my whole heart. Before the gods, I will sing praises to you Psalms 138:1.
The last group of psalms attributed to David begins here. Singing before the gods means in the presence of whatever else claims the title, which in practice meant anywhere in the ancient world.
I will bow down toward your holy temple, and give thanks to your Name for your loving kindness and for your truth; for you have exalted your Name and your Word above all Psalms 138:2.
The covenant pair again, and then an unusual statement: the name and the word are exalted above everything. What God has said is placed alongside what God is called.
In the day that I called, you answered me. You encouraged me with strength in my soul Psalms 138:3.
The answer was not a change in the situation. It was strength given inside it, and the psalm reports that as the answer rather than as a consolation prize.
All the kings of the earth will give you thanks, Yahweh, for they have heard the words of your mouth Psalms 138:4.
The collection's persistent expectation. What the kings will have heard is not a report of God's power but the words of his mouth — the same thing Israel had.
For though Yahweh is high, yet he looks after the lowly; but he knows the proud from afar Psalms 138:6.
The verse the psalm exists for, and it is the hundred and thirteenth psalm's stooping stated as a principle. Height and attention usually work the other way: the more elevated a person is, the less of the ground they see. This one is described as looking after exactly what his elevation should have made invisible.
And the second clause is the sharper half. The proud he knows from afar — not that he cannot see them, but that they are kept at a distance they arranged themselves.
Though I walk in the middle of trouble, you will revive me Psalms 138:7.
In the middle of it, not around it.
Yahweh will fulfill that which concerns me... Don't forsake the works of your own hands Psalms 138:8.
The last line is an argument as well as a request. He is one of the works of those hands, and the psalm's closing appeal is that God does not abandon what he has made.
settled What this mark means