Psalm 57:9

I will praise thee, O Lord, among the people: I will sing unto thee among the nations.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

57:7-11 By lively faith, David's prayers and complaints are at once turned into praises. His heart is fixed; it is prepared for every event, being stayed upon God. If by the grace of God we are brought into this even, composed frame of mind, we have great reason to be thankful. Nothing is done to purpose, in religion, unless it is done with the heart. The heart must be fixed for the duty, put in frame for it; fixed in the duty by close attention. Our tongue is our glory, and never more so than when praising God; dull and sleepy devotions will never be acceptable to God. Let us awake early in the morning, to begin the day with God; early in the beginning of a mercy. When God comes toward us with his favours, let us go forth to meet him with our praises. David desired to bring others to join in praising God; and in his psalms, he is still praising God among the people, singing to Him among the nations. Let us seek to have our hearts fixed to praise his boundless mercy and unfailing faithfulness; and to glorify him with body, soul, and spirit, which are his. Let us earnestly pray that the blessings of the gospel may be sent through every land.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

I will praise thee, O Lord, among the people - So great a deliverance as he here hoped for, would make it proper that he should celebrate the praise of God in the most public manner; that he should make his goodness known as far as possible among the nations. See the notes at Psalm 18:49.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

9, 10. As His mercy and truth, so shall His praise, fill the universe.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

Among the people; in the great congregations; amongst the Israelites of all tribes, who are called by this name, Deu 33:19, and amongst the heathens, as I shall have occasion, as he often had.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

I will praise thee, O Lord, among the people,.... Either among the people of Israel, as Aben Ezra, when each of the tribes meet together; and so it denotes the public manner in which he would praise God for his salvation: or among the Gentiles, as the following clause shows;

I will sing unto thee among the nations: the Apostle Paul seems to have reference to this passage in Romans 15:9; which he produces as a proof of the Gentiles glorifying God for his mercy in sending the Gospel among them, and calling them by his grace; by which they appeared to be his chosen and redeemed ones; and in forming them into Gospel churches, among whom his praise was sung: for this supposes something to be done among the Gentiles, which should occasion praise; and here the psalmist represents the Messiah, who in his ministers and members praise God for his wonderful mercy to the Gentile world, as follows.

Geneva Study Bible

I will praise thee, O Lord, among the people: I will sing unto thee among the nations.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

9. I will give thanks unto thee, O Lord, among the peoples:

I will make melody unto thee among the nations.

This verse at any rate, it is said, could never have been written by David, and is only really intelligible, if the Psalmist speaks in the name of the nation. But the words are not unsuitable for one who was chosen to be king over a nation which had a special calling in relation to the nations of the world. If the nations were to be brought under the sway of Israel that they might be taught to know Jehovah, it was fitting that they should hear of Jehovah’s faithfulness exhibited in the deliverance of His servant. Cp. Psalm 18:49 (with the context); Psalm 9:11.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 9. - I will praise thee, O Lord, among the people (rather, peoples); I will sing unto thee among the nations. The psalmist's joy is toe great to be confined within any narrower limits than those of the entire earth. He will have his hymn of praise go forth to all "peoples," "nations," and languages. Michaelis notes that his desire has had a full accomplishment. Psalm 57:9

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

In this second half of the Psalm the poet refreshes himself with the thought of seeing that for which he longs and prays realized even with the dawning of the morning after this night of wretchedness. The perfect in Psalm 57:7 is the perfect of certainty; the other perfects state what preceded and is now changed into the destruction of the crafty ones themselves. If the clause כּפף נפשׁי is rendered: my soul was bowed down (cf. חלל, Psalm 109:22), it forms no appropriate corollary to the crafty laying of snares. Hence kpp must be taken as transitive: he had bowed down my soul; the change of number in the mention of the enemies is very common in the Psalms relating to these trials, whether it be that the poet has one enemy κατ ̓ ἐξοχήν before his mind or comprehends them all in one. Even the lxx renders καὶ κατέκαμψαν τὴν ψυχὴν μου, it is true, as though it were וכפפו, but can scarcely have read it thus. This line is still remarkable; one would expect for Psalm 57:7 a thought parallel with Psalm 57:7, and perhaps the poet wrote כפף נפשׁו, his (the net-layer's) own soul bends (viz., in order to fall into the net). Then כפף like נפל would be praet. confidentiae. In this certainty, to express which the music here becomes triumphantly forte, David's heart is confident, cheerful (Symmachus ἐδραία), and a powerful inward impulse urges him to song and harp. Although נכון may signify ready, equipped (Exodus 34:2; Job 12:5), yet this meaning is to be rejected here in view of Psalm 51:12, Psalm 78:37, Psalm 112:7 : it is not appropriate to the emphatic repetition of the word. His evening mood which found expression in Psalm 57:4, was hope of victory; the morning mood into which David here transports himself, is certainty of victory. He calls upon his soul to awake (כּבודי as in Psalm 16:9; Psalm 30:13), he calls upon harp and cithern to awake (הנּבל וכנּור with one article that avails for both words, as in Jeremiah 29:3; Nehemiah 1:5; and עוּרה with the accent on the ultima on account of the coming together of two aspirates), from which he has not parted even though a fugitive; with the music of stringed instruments and with song he will awake the not yet risen dawn, the sun still slumbering in its chamber: אעירה, expergefaciam (not expergiscar), as e.g., in Sol 2:7, and as Ovid (Metam. xi. 597) says of the cock, evocat auroram.

(Note: With reference to the above passage in the Psalms, the Talmud, B. Berachoth 3b, says, "A cithern used to hang above David's bed; and when midnight came, the north wind blew among the strings, so that they sounded of themselves; and forthwith he arose and busied himself with the Tra until the pillar of the dawn (עמוד השׁחר) ascended." Rashi observes, "The dawn awakes the other kings; but I, said David, will awake the dawn (אני מעורר את השׁחר).")

His song of praise, however, shall not resound in a narrow space where it is scarcely heard; he will step forth as the evangelist of his deliverance and of his Deliverer in the world of nations (בעמּים; and the parallel word, as also in Psalm 108:4; Psalm 149:7, is to be written בּלעמּים with Lamed raphatum and Metheg before it); his vocation extends beyond Israel, and the events of his life are to be for the benefit of mankind. Here we perceive the self-consciousness of a comprehensive mission, which accompanied David from the beginning to the end of his royal career (vid., Psalm 18:50). What is expressed in v. 11 is both motive and theme of the discourse among the peoples, viz., God's mercy and truth which soar high as the heavens (Psalm 36:6). That they extend even to the heavens is only an earthly conception of their infinity (cf. Ephesians 3:18). In the refrain, v. 12, which only differs in one letter from Psalm 57:6, the Psalm comes back to the language of prayer. Heaven and earth have a mutually involved history, and the blessed, glorious end of this history is the sunrise of the divine doxa over both, here prayed for.