Sermon Tone Analysis

*Psalm 86:1-12** *

1 Incline Your ear, O Lord, and answer me;

For I am afflicted and needy.

2 Preserve my soul, for I am a godly man;

O You my God, save Your servant who trusts in You.

3 Be gracious to me, O Lord,

For to You I cry all day long.

4 Make glad the soul of Your servant,

For to You, O Lord, I lift up my soul.

5 For You, Lord, are good, and ready to forgive,

And abundant in lovingkindness to all who call upon You.

6 Give ear, O Lord, to my prayer;

And give heed to the voice of my supplications!

7 In the day of my trouble I shall call upon You,

For You will answer me.

8 There is no one like You among the gods, O Lord,

Nor are there any works like Yours.

9 All nations whom You have made shall come and worship before You, O Lord,

And they shall glorify Your name.

10 For You are great and do wondrous deeds;

You alone are God.

11 Teach me Your way, O Lord;

I will walk in Your truth;

Unite my heart to fear Your name.

12 I will give thanks to You, O Lord my God, with all my heart,

And will glorify Your name forever.

* *

*PRAY*

/A./     /Prayer for protection (86:1-5)/

*86:1-5.*

In his prayer David earnestly requested that God *hear . . .

answer. . . .

guard. . . .

save. . . .

have mercy on,* and *bring joy to* him because of his *poor and needy* condition (see comments on 37:14).

Essentially in these requests he desired that God preserve him (cf.

25:20) by His mercy.

David called himself a *servant who trusts in *the Lord, one who lifts *up *his *soul* to God (cf.

25:1).

This prayer was based on the fact that God is *kind,* ready to forgive, and *abounding in love* (cf.

86:15; Ex. 34:6).

/B./     /Praise for power (86:6-13)/

*86:6-10.*

David repeated his call for the *Lord* to *hear *him.

His confidence that *in *his *trouble* God would *answer* him was strengthened by his knowledge that the Lord is incomparable (*there is none like You*; cf.

Ex. 15:11), fully able to do what he asked (*no deeds can compare with Yours*).

People from *all . . .

nations* will serve Him, and He *alone *is the *great . . .

God.*

This theme of God’s incomparable greatness is also reflected in the psalm’s sevenfold use of the word *Lord* (’ăḏōnay), which stresses His lordship and sovereignty (Ps.

86:3-5, 8-9, 12, 15).

*86:11-13.*

The psalmist prayed for instruction so that he might be even more faithful to *God* in His greatness.

He desired to know God’s *way* so that he could dedicate himself to it with *undivided* loyalty.

In addition he vowed to *praise* God’s greatness wholeheartedly (cf.

*heart,* v. 11).

Because of God’s love He *delivered* David from death.

[1]

*Ps. 86:1**–5**.*

The prayer to be heard runs like 55:3; and the statement of the ground on which it is based, v. 1/b,/ word for word like 40:18.

It is then particularly expressed as a prayer for preservation (שָׁמְרָה, as in 119:167, although imperative, to be read /shāmerah/ ; cf.

30:4 מִיָּרְדִי, 38:21 רָדְפִי or רָדֳפִי, and what we have already observed on 16:1 שָׁמְרֵנִי); for he is not only in need of God’s help, but also because חָסִיד (Ps.

4:4; 16:10), i.e., united to Him in the bond of affection (חֶסֶד, Hos.

6:4, Jer.

2:2), not unworthy of it.

In v. 2 we hear the strains of 25:20; 31:7; in v. 3, of 57:2f.: the confirmation in v. 4/b/ is taken verbally from 25:1, cf. also 130:6.

Here, what is said in v. 4 of this shorter Adonajic Psalm, 130, is abbreviated in the ἅπαξ γεγραμ.

סַלָּח (root סל, חל, to allow to hang loose, χαλᾶν, to give up, /remittere/).

The Lord is good (טֹוב), i.e., altogether love, and for this very reason also ready to forgive, and great and rich in mercy for all who call upon Him as such.

The beginning of the following group also accords with Ps. 130 in v. 2.

*Ps.

86:6**–13**.*

Here, too, almost everything is an echo of earlier language of the Psalms and of the Law; viz., v. 7 follows 17:6 and other passages; v. 8/a/ is taken from Ex. 15:11, cf.

89:9, where, however, אלהים, gods, is avoided; v. 8/b/ follows Deut.

3:24; v. 9 follows 22:28; v. 11/a/ is taken from 27:11; v. 11/b/ from 26:3; v. 13, שְׁאֹול תַּחְתִּיָּה from Deut.

32:22, where instead of this it is תַּחְתִּית, just as in 130:2 תַּחֲנוּנָי (supplicatory prayer) instead of תַּחֲנוּנֹותָי (importunate supplications); and also v. 10 (cf.

72:18) is a doxological formula that was already in existence.

The construction הקשׁיב בְּ is the same as in 66:19.

But although for the most part flowing on only in the language of prayer borrowed from earlier periods, this Psalm is, moreover, not without remarkable significance and beauty.

With the confession of the incomparableness of the Lord is combined the prospect of the recognition of the incomparable One throughout the nations of the earth.

This clear unallegorical prediction of the conversion of the heathen is the principal parallel to Apoc.

15:4.

“All nations, which Thou hast made”—they have their being from Thee; and although they have forgotten it (vid., 9:18), they will nevertheless at last come to recognise it.

כָּל־גֹּויִם, since the article is wanting, are nations of all tribes (countries and nationalities); cf.

Jer.

16:16 with Ps. 22:18; Tobit 13:11, ἔθνη πολλά, with /ibid./

14:6, πάντα τὰ ἔθνη.

And how weightily brief and charming is the petition in v. 11: /uni cor meum, ut timeat nomen tuum!/ Luther has rightly departed from the renderings of the LXX, Syriac, and Vulgate: /laetetur/ (יִחַדְּ from חָדָה).

The meaning, however, is not so much “keep my heart near to the only thing,” as “direct all its powers and concentrate them on the one thing.”

The following group shows us what is the meaning of the deliverance out of the hell beneath (שְׁאֹול תַּחְתִּיָּה , like אֶרֶץ תַּחְתִּית , the earth beneath, the inner parts of the earth, Ezek.

31:14ff.), for which the poet promises beforehand to manifest his thankfulness (כִּי, v. 13, as in 56:14).

[2]

 

Ps 86:1–17.

This is a prayer in which the writer, with deep emotion, mingles petitions and praises, now urgent for help, and now elated with hope, in view of former mercies.

The occurrence of many terms and phrases peculiar to David’s Psalms clearly intimates its authorship.

*1, 2. poor and needy*—a suffering child of God, as in Ps 10:12, 17; 18:27.

*I am holy*—or, “godly,” as in Ps 4:3; 85:8.

*4.

lift up my soul*—with strong desire (Ps 25:1).

*5–7.

unto all … that call upon thee*—or, “worship Thee” (Ps 50:15; 91:15) however undeserving (Ex 34:6; Le 11:9–13).

*8.

neither … works*—literally, “nothing like thy works,” the “gods” have none at all.

*9, 10.*

The pious Jews believed that God’s common relation to all would be ultimately acknowledged by all men (Ps 45:12–16; 47:9).

*11.

Teach*—Show, point out.

*the way*—of Providence.

*walk in thy truth*—according to its declarations.

*unite my heart*—fix all my affections (Ps 12:2; Jam 4:8).

*to fear thy name*—(compare Ps 86:12) to honor Thy perfections.

[3]

Almost every line of this psalm has been lifted out of other psalms in our collection or is a quotation from the /Torah/, the name of the first five books of the OT.

We can discover in it no less than forty quotations.

Yet the genius of its author shows itself as he welds all these scattered lines into a poem in praise of God.

We too perhaps sing snatches of hymns as we go about our work, but not many of us could fit all these separate verses into one coherent whole, and then find that our patchwork had been adopted as Holy Scripture and sung in church!

The psalm is in four parts.