Unite My Heart to Fear Your Name
1 A Prayer by David. Hear, Yahweh, and answer me, for I am poor and needy. 2 Preserve my soul, for I am godly. You, my God, save your servant who trusts in you. 3 Be merciful to me, Lord, for I call to you all day long. 4 Bring joy to the soul of your servant, for to you, Lord, do I lift up my soul. 5 For you, Lord, are good, and ready to forgive, abundant in loving kindness to all those who call on you. 6 Hear, Yahweh, my prayer. Listen to the voice of my petitions. 7 In the day of my trouble I will call on you, for you will answer me. 8 There is no one like you among the gods, Lord, nor any deeds like your deeds. 9 All nations you have made will come and worship before you, Lord. They shall glorify your name. 10 For you are great, and do wondrous things. You are God alone. 11 Teach me your way, Yahweh. I will walk in your truth. Make my heart undivided to fear your name. 12 I will praise you, Lord my God, with my whole heart. I will glorify your name forever more. 13 For your loving kindness is great toward me. You have delivered my soul from the lowest Sheol. 14 God, the proud have risen up against me. A company of violent men have sought after my soul, and they don’t hold regard for you before them. 15 But you, Lord, are a merciful and gracious God, slow to anger, and abundant in loving kindness and truth. 16 Turn to me, and have mercy on me! Give your strength to your servant. Save the son of your servant. 17 Show me a sign of your goodness, that those who hate me may see it, and be shamed, because you, Yahweh, have helped me, and comforted me.
A prayer assembled almost entirely out of older prayers, asking for a heart that is not divided.
A Prayer by David. Hear, Yahweh, and answer me, for I am poor and needy.
The only psalm of David in the third book, and it is a patchwork: nearly every line appears somewhere else in Scripture. A man is praying in borrowed words, which is what a hymnbook is for.
Preserve my soul, for I am godly Psalms 86:2.
The claim sounds immodest in English. The word describes someone who is the object of covenant loyalty as much as a practitioner of it, and the next clause supplies the ground: save your servant who trusts in you. The qualification offered is trust, not achievement.
For you, Lord, are good, and ready to forgive, abundant in loving kindness to all those who call on you.
The phrase ready to forgive is a single word found nowhere else in the Old Testament. It describes a disposition rather than a decision — not one who will forgive if pressed, but one already inclined that way before being asked.
All nations you have made will come and worship before you, Lord. They shall glorify your name.
In the middle of a private prayer about personal enemies, the whole world arrives. The reason given is that God made them, which in this collection is repeatedly the ground for expecting the nations to end up in the same room.
Teach me your way, Yahweh. I will walk in your truth. Make my heart undivided to fear your name.
The request that gives the psalm its center and the finest thing in it. The word means to unite, to make one — and what it assumes is that a heart naturally runs in several directions at once. He is not asking to be made good; he is asking to be made single.
The order of the verse is exact. Teach, then walk, then unify: instruction, obedience, and finally the integration of the person doing it, which is the hardest and comes last.
For your loving kindness is great toward me. You have delivered my soul from the lowest Sheol.
The past tense in the middle of a psalm still asking for rescue. As throughout the collection, previous deliverance is the argument for the next one.
But you, Lord, are a merciful and gracious God, slow to anger, and abundant in loving kindness and truth.
The self-description God gave Moses on the mountain Exodus 34:6, quoted back to him. This is the standard move of Old Testament prayer — the words God used about himself become the words people use when asking him for something, which is the safest possible ground to stand on.
Show me a sign of your goodness, that those who hate me may see it, and be shamed, because you, Yahweh, have helped me, and comforted me.
The sign asked for is not for his own reassurance.
settled What this mark means