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.
- Collection
- Psalms
It goes well for the one who gives a thought to the poor;
The Lord will get him out when the day turns bad.
The Lord will keep him, and keep him alive,
And it will go well for him in the land.
You will not hand him over
To what his enemies want.
The Lord will hold him up on the bed where he is wasting;
You will make up the whole of that bed while he is sick.
I said, Lord, be kind to me;
Heal me, because I have sinned against You.
The ones against me talk about me:
When is he going to die and his name go with him?
And if one of them comes to see me
He says nothing that means anything;
He is collecting something to use,
And out on the street he tells it.
Everyone who hates me whispers together about me;
They work out between them how to hurt me.
Some sickness has him now, they say;
He is lying down and he is not getting up again.
Even the friend I trusted,
The one who ate at my table,
Turned his heel on me.
But You, Lord, be kind to me. Lift me up.
This is how I know You are for me:
The one against me does not get to win over me.
As for me, You hold me up in what I am,
And You set me in front of Your face and keep me there.
Blessed be the Lord, the God of Israel,
From always and into always.
Amen. And amen.
About the passage
Psalms 41: The sickbed and the unfaithful visitor
Psalm 41 begins by blessing the person who considers the weak, then turns and places its own speaker on the weak side of that relationship. The Book of Psalms moves from promised care in trouble and sickness to a first-person plea for mercy, healing, and forgiveness. Illness becomes socially dangerous because some visitors do not come to help. They gather information, carry it outside, whisper together, and turn the sickbed into material for hostile expectation. The deepest breach comes from a familiar friend who shared bread and then lifted his heel. The closing prayer asks to be raised and vindicated, yet integrity appears beside, not instead of, confessed sin and needed mercy. Finally the scale widens from the threatened individual to "the LORD God of Israel" from everlasting to everlasting. The enemies hoped for the speaker's name to disappear; the psalm ends by giving the final word to God's enduring name.
Study Psalms 41 in depth →
