116:10-19 When troubled, we do best to hold our peace, for we are apt to speak unadvisedly. Yet there may be true faith where there are workings of unbelief; but then faith will prevail; and being humbled for our distrust of God's word, we shall experience his faithfulness to it. What can the pardoned sinner, or what can those who have been delivered from trouble or distress, render to the Lord for his benefits? We cannot in any way profit him. Our best is unworthy of his acceptance; yet we ought to devote ourselves and all we have to his service. I will take the cup of salvation; I will offer the drink-offerings appointed by the law, in token of thankfulness to God, and rejoice in God's goodness to me. I will receive the cup of affliction; that cup, that bitter cup, which is sanctified to the saints, so that to them it is a cup of salvation; it is a means of spiritual health. The cup of consolation; I will receive the benefits God bestows upon me, as from his hand, and taste his love in them, as the portion not only of mine inheritance in the other world, but of my cup in this. Let others serve what masters they will, truly I am thy servant. Two ways men came to be servants. By birth. Lord, I was born in thy house; I am the son of thine handmaid, and therefore thine. It is a great mercy to be children of godly parents. By redemption. Lord, thou hast loosed my bonds, thou hast discharged me from them, therefore I am thy servant. The bonds thou hast loosed shall tie me faster unto thee. Doing good is sacrifice, with which God is well pleased; and this must accompany giving thanks to his name. Why should we offer that to the Lord which cost us nothing? The psalmist will pay his vows now; he will not delay the payment: publicly, not to make a boast, but to show he is not ashamed of God's service, and to invite others to join him. Such are true saints of God, in whose lives and deaths he will be glorified.

Verse 19. - In the courts of the Lord's house. Thanksgiving was always most appropriately offered in the temple courts, where close at hand dwelt the mysterious presence of God, and where God had appointed that his worshippers should appear before him. In the midst of thee, O Jerusalem. This expression and the preceding suit well with Hezekiah's authorship of the psalm, as Dr. Kay well argues. Praise ye the Lord. The writer calls on all those present (see ver. 18) to join him in singing praise to God (comp. Psalm 104, 105, 106, 113, 115, 117.).

In the courts of the Lord's house,.... This is added by way of explanation of Psalm 116:18, what he meant by "the presence of all his people"; the assembly of the saints met together in the house of the Lord, at the door of the tabernacle, in the courts of it, where the people got together to worship God;

in the midst of thee, O Jerusalem; the Lord's house or tabernacle; for as yet the temple was not built, and the courts of it were in the midst of the city of Jerusalem. And this shows, as some interpreters have observed, that this psalm must have been written after David came to the kingdom, and had got this city into his hands, whither he brought the ark of the Lord. The whole signifies that he would praise the Lord publicly, as well as privately; and he concludes the psalm thus,

Praise ye the Lord; calling upon the Lord's people, in his house and courts, to join with him in this work of praise.

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