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Artwork for Refuge for the Oppressed

Psalm 9:1-20

Refuge for the Oppressed

Lyrics · Psalms

Refuge for the Oppressed

Psalm 9:1-20

Lyrics

About this song

About this song

This song belongs to the Psalms collection. One recording is available to play here, with the complete lyrics below.

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Psalms
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Psalms
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I will praise You with my whole heart; I will tell the wonders You have done. The Lord endures and judges rightly, A refuge for the oppressed when trouble comes. Enemies retreat before Your presence. You maintain the cause that truth defends. Cities fade and proud names are forgotten, But Your throne of justice never ends. You do not abandon those who seek You. You remember every humble cry. You lift the wounded from the gates of death So praise can rise in Zion's light. The nations fall into the pits they fashioned; Their feet are caught within the nets they laid. The needy will not always be forgotten; The hope of the poor will not be swept away. Arise, O Lord; do not let man prevail. Let every nation know that flesh is frail. I will praise You with my whole heart; You are refuge when the day is dark.

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About the passage

Psalms 9: The judge remembers the forgotten

Psalm 9 joins thanksgiving to an unfinished need for mercy. The speaker praises the LORD for maintaining his cause and contrasts vanished enemy memorials with a throne that endures for judgment. That high royal language immediately becomes shelter: the same judge is refuge for the oppressed and remembers cries that violent power would prefer to erase. The psalm then moves from the “gates of death” to Zion’s gates, where rescue would become public praise. Enemies fall into pits and nets of their own making, but the conclusion does not become simple celebration of their ruin. The final emphasis is memory and human limits. Nations may forget God, yet the needy are not finally forgotten, and human power is asked to recognize that it is still only human.

Study Psalms 9 in depth