Salmi 116:3 Commento

This is a thanksgiving psalm; it is not certain whether David penned it upon any particular occasion or upon a general review of the many gracious deliverances God had wrought for him, out of six troubles and seven, which deliverances draw from him many very lively expressions of devotion, love, and gratitude; and with similar pious affections our souls should be lifted up to God in singing it. Observe, I. The great distress and danger that the psalmist was in, which almost drove him to despair (Psa 116:3, Psa 116:10, Psa 116:11). II. The application he made to God in that distress (Psa 116:4). III. The experience he had of God's goodness to him, in answer to prayer; God heard him (Psa 116:1, Psa 116:2), pitied him (Psa 116:5, Psa 116:6), delivered him (Psa 116:8). IV His care respecting the acknowledgments he should make of the goodness of God to him (Psa 116:12). 1. He will love God (Psa 116:1). 2. He will continue to call upon him (Psa 116:2, Psa 116:13, Psa 116:17). 3. He will rest in him (Psa 116:7). 4. He will walk before him (Psa 116:9). 5. He will pay his vows of thanksgiving, in which he will own the tender regard God had to him, and this publicly (Psa 116:13-15, Psa 116:17-19). Lastly, He will continue God's faithful servant to his life's end (Psa 116:16). These are such breathings of a holy soul as bespeak it very happy.

INTRODUCTION TO PSALM 116 Theodoret applies this psalm to the distresses of the Jews in the times of the Maccabees under Antiochus Epiphanes; and R. Obadiah interprets some passages in it of the Grecians of those times; but it rather seems to have been written by David on account of some troubles of his, out of which he was delivered; and refers either to the times of Saul, and the persecutions he endured from him, particularly when he was beset round about by him and his men in the wilderness of Maon, Sa1 23:26, to which he may have respect Psa 116:3. The inscription of the psalm in the Syriac version is, "the progress of the new people returning to the Christian worship, as a child to understanding: and as to the letter, it was said when Saul stayed at the door of the cave where David lay hid with his men;'' see Sa1 24:4. But since mention is made of Jerusalem, Psa 116:19, where the psalmist would praise the Lord for his deliverance, which as yet was not in his hands nor in the hands of the Israelites, but of the Jebusites; some have thought it was written on account of the conspiracy of Absalom against him, and who, hearing that Ahithophel was among the conspirators, said the words related in Psa 116:11, it is very probable it was composed after the death of Saul, and when he was settled in the kingdom, as Jarchi observes, and was delivered out of the hands of all his enemies; and very likely much about the same time as the eighteenth psalm was, which begins in the same manner, and has some expressions in it like to what are in this. David was a type of Christ, and some apply this psalm to him.

The sorrows of death compassed me,.... Christ, of whom David was a type, was a man of sorrows all his days; and in the garden he was surrounded with sorrow; exceeding sorrowful even unto death, in a view of the sins of his people imputed to him, and under a sense of wrath for them, he was about to bear; and his agonies in the article of death were very grievous, he died the painful and accursed death of the cross. This was true of David, when Saul and his men compassed him on every side, threatening to cut him off in a moment; when he despaired of life, and had the sentence of death in himself, and saw no way to escape; and such a case is that of the people of God, or they may be said to be compassed about with the sorrows of death, when through a slavish fear of it they are all their lifetime subject to bondage; and especially when under dreadful apprehensions of eternal death. And the pains of hell gat hold upon me; or "found me" (e); overtook him, and seized upon him; meaning either the horrors of a guilty conscience under a sense of sin, without a view of pardon; which is as it were a hell in the conscience, and like the pains and torments of it: or "the pains of the grave" (f); not that there are any pains felt there, the body being destitute of life, and senseless; but such sorrows or troubles are meant which threaten to bring down to the grave, which was the case of Jacob on the loss of his children, Gen 37:35. This applied to Christ may design the wrath of God and curse of the law, which he endured in the room and stead of his people, as their surety; and which were equivalent to the pains of the damned in hell; or it may refer to his being laid in the grave, in a strait and narrow place, as the word (g) signifies; where he lay bound in grave clothes, till he was loosed from the pains and cords of death, it being not possible he should be held by them, Act 2:24; see Gill on Psa 18:4, Psa 18:5. I found trouble and sorrow; without seeking for them; they seized and took hold of him, on David, and his antitype, when in the above circumstances; and often do the saints find trouble and sorrow from a body of sin and death, from the temptations of Satan, divine desertions, and afflictive providences. Aben Ezra refers the one to the body, the other to the soul. (e) "invenerunt me", Pagninus, Montanus, &c. (f) "sepulchri", Vatablus, Junius & Tremellius, Piscator. (g) "augustiae", Pagninus, Montanus, &c.

“The sorrows of death,” he says, “have compassed me; and the perils of hell have found me.” Properly the sorrows of death have been agreed on as the pains of childbirth, when the womb, distended with its burden, thrusts out the fetus; then, the generative parts, being compressed and stretched around the fetus by spasms and contractions of the muscles, produce in the mothers the sharpest pains and most bitter pangs. He transferred the name of these pains to those that besiege the animal in the division of soul and body at death. He says that he has suffered nothing moderately but that he has been tried even to the sorrows of death and has arrived at the peril of the descent into hell. Now, did he endure only these things for which he is exalted, or did he endure these things frequently and unwillingly? Nothing that is forced is praiseworthy. But, look at the nobility of nature of the athlete. When the sorrows of death compassed me and the perils of hell found me, I was so far from succumbing to these trials that I willingly proposed to myself even much greater trials than these. Trouble and sorrow, I, as it were, willingly devised for myself; I was not unwillingly seized by them.Indeed, in the preceding words we read, “The perils of hell have found me,” but here, “I met with trouble and sorrow.” For, since I was found to be unyielding there in regard to what was brought on by the tempter, in order that I might show the abundance of my love toward God, I added trouble to trouble and sorrow to sorrow, and I did not rise up against these sufferings by my own power, but I called upon the name of the Lord. Such is also the declaration of the apostle, who says, “But in all these things we overcome because of him who has loved us.” For he conquers who does not yield to those who lead on by force, but he is more than conqueror, who voluntarily invites sorrows for a demonstration of his endurance. Let him who was in some sin to death say, “The sorrows of death have compassed me.” “For everyone,” he says, “who commits sin has been born of the devil.” Now, when I, he says, committed sin and was pregnant by death, then also I was found by the perils of hell. How, then, did I cure myself? Because I devised trouble and sorrow through penance. I contrived for myself a suffering of penance proportionate to the greatness of the sin, and thus I dared to call on the name of the Lord. But, what was it that I said? “O Lord, deliver my soul.” I am held in this captivity, so you give ransom for me and deliver my soul.

Do you hear him [the psalmist] saying, “The sorrows of death have compassed me”? “Still, I have loved the Lord even in the sorrows of death. The perils of hell have found me, not fearing indeed, but loving, but hoping, because no distress, no persecution, no dangers, no sword shall separate me from Christ.” Therefore, he accepted tribulation and sorrow willingly, knowing that “suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope.” As a good athlete, he sought the contest that he might gain the crown, but he knew that this was given to him not through his own strength but by the aid of God. He could not have been victorious had he not called on him who helps contenders.

And what are your days, since you have said, "In my days I have called upon Him"? Are they those perchance, in which "the fullness of time came," and "God sent His Son," [Galatians 4:4] who had already said, "In an acceptable time have I heard you, and in a day of salvation have I helped you"? [Isaiah 49:8] ...I may rather call my days the days of my misery, the days of my mortality, the days according to Adam, full of toil and sweat, the days according to the ancient corruption. "For I lying, stuck fast in the deep mire," in another Psalm also have cried out, "Behold, You have made my days old;" in these days of mine have I called upon You. For my days are different from the days of my Lord. I call those my days, which by my own daring I have made for myself, whereby I have forsaken Him: and, since He reigns everywhere, and is all-powerful, and holds all things, I have deserved prison; that is, I have received the darkness of ignorance, and the bonds of mortality....For in these days of mine, "The snares of death compassed me round about, and the pains of hell gat hold upon me" [Psalm 116:3]: pains that would not have overtaken me, had I not wandered from You. But now they have overtaken me; but I found them not, while I was rejoicing in the prosperity of the world, in which the snares of hell deceive the more.

After invoking others to unite in praise, the writer celebrates God's protecting and delivering care towards him, and then represents himself and the people of God as entering the sanctuary and uniting in solemn praise, with prayer for a continued blessing. Whether composed by David on his accession to power, or by some later writer in memory of the restoration from Babylon, its tone is joyful and trusting, and, in describing the fortune and destiny of the Jewish Church and its visible head, it is typically prophetical of the Christian Church and her greater and invisible Head. (Psa. 118:1-29) The trine repetitions are emphatic (compare Psa 118:10-12, Psa 118:15-16; Psa 115:12-13). Let . . . say--Oh! that Israel may say. now--as in Psa 115:2; so in Psa 118:3-4. After "now say" supply "give thanks." that his mercy--or, "for His mercy."

For similar figures for distress see Psa 18:4-5. gat hold upon me--Another sense ("found") of the same word follows, as we speak of disease finding us, and of our finding or catching disease.