Held in a Different Hand

The first three verses reappear almost word for word as the opening of Psalm 71, a prayer of old age. “In thy righteousness” makes God’s own justice the ground of the rescue: deliver me because you are right, not because I am.

The requests pile up: hurry, and then build. A “strong rock” is a crag to shelter on, and a “house of defence” is a fortress house, walls around him. In the next verse he says God already is both.

“Lead me” and “guide me” are the two verbs of Psalm 23:2–3, “he leadeth me beside the still waters … he leadeth me in the paths”. The guidance of a shepherd is asked “for thy name’s sake”, the phrase of 23:3.

“Privily” means they hid it. A fowler’s net was laid flat along a bird’s run and covered with dust or leaves; Hosea speaks of “a net spread upon Tabor” (Hosea 5:1). The speaker cannot see it; God can.

“Commit” is paqad, to deposit for safekeeping, the verb behind the law’s word for property “delivered him to keep” (Leviticus 6:4). The spirit is lodged with a trustee. The verse became part of the Jewish prayer said at bedtime. “God of truth” is the reliable God, as in Deuteronomy 32:4.

“Lying vanities” is literally empty breaths, a term for idols. Jonah uses the same phrase from the belly of the fish, “They that observe lying vanities forsake their own mercy” (Jonah 2:8). The ancient Greek reads “Thou hatest” instead of “I have hated”.

The words echo the burning bush: “I have surely seen the affliction of my people … for I know their sorrows” (Exodus 3:7). “Considered” is seen, “known my soul” is known me, and the speaker takes the exodus language for his own trouble.

“Shut me up into the hand” is to surrender a fugitive. David asked it at Keilah: “Will the men of Keilah deliver me up into his hand?” (1 Samuel 23:11–12), the same verb. God did not hand him over.

The line “mine eye is consumed with grief” repeats 6:7 exactly. The body is listed from the outside in: eye, then soul, then belly, grief reaching the innards.

“Because of mine iniquity” differs by one letter from “because of my affliction”, and the ancient Greek reads it that way, “in poverty”. The Hebrew as it stands brings guilt into the lament. “Spent” is used up, finished like a supply.

“Without” means outside, in the street: people who see him coming cross to the other side. Job complained of the same, “mine acquaintance are verily estranged from me” (Job 19:13). The circle narrows from enemies to neighbours to friends.

“Out of mind” is literally out of the heart, forgotten as the dead are. Jeremiah uses the broken pot of a discarded king, Jehoiachin: “Is this man Coniah a despised broken idol? is he a vessel wherein is no pleasure?” (Jeremiah 22:28).

“Fear on every side” became Jeremiah’s catchphrase, and in Jeremiah 20:10 he quotes this line almost exactly: “For I heard the defaming of many, fear on every side.” “Took counsel together” is sat down together to plan, the language of 2:2.

“Thou art my God” is two words in Hebrew, the shortest confession possible, and set against the long catalogue before it. “But I” is emphatic: they plotted, but I trusted.

“Times” is the plural of the word for a season or occasion, all the turns of a life. 1 Chronicles 29:30 sums up David’s reign as “the times that went over him”. The hand that holds the times is set against the hand of the enemy.

The priestly blessing asked face to shine on all Israel; here it is asked for one person, “thy servant”. The same prayer becomes the refrain of Psalm 80, “cause thy face to shine; and we shall be saved.”

Sheol was pictured as the land of silence; Psalm 115:17 speaks of “any that go down into silence”. The speaker asks that the silence of the grave fall on the lying mouths, while his own mouth keeps calling.

“Grievous things” is an old word for arrogant, insolent speech, the one Hannah uses in her song: “let not arrogancy come out of your mouth” (1 Samuel 2:3). “Contemptuously” is with scorn.

“Laid up” is the verb for storing away treasure, the word behind “hid treasure” in 17:14. Some goodness is kept in store; some is “wrought … before the sons of men”, done in public where everyone can see.

“Hide” and “keep secretly” come from the same root as “laid up” in verse 19: the goodness is stored away, and so are the people. “The secret of thy presence” is the hiding place of your face.

“A strong city” is literally a besieged city, a city under siege. Saul thought he had David trapped at Keilah, “a town that hath gates and bars” (1 Samuel 23:7). The inference fits the heading’s David, though the psalm names no place.

“In my haste” is in my alarm, the verb of panicked flight; at the rock of Maon “David made haste to get away for fear of Saul” (1 Samuel 23:26). The words he said in that moment are quoted against himself.

“Rewardeth” is repays, and “plentifully” is in full, with interest. It sounds like praise and is judgment: the proud get back exactly what they gave, and more. “Saints” are the chasidim, the loyal ones.

Psalm 27 ends almost the same way, but there it is said to one person; here it is plural, “your heart”, “all ye”. What one sufferer told himself is now told to the whole congregation.