Psalm 91:9

Because thou hast made the LORD, which is my refuge, even the most High, thy habitation;

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(9) Thou . . . my.—The difficulty of the change of person is avoided by the Authorised Version, but only with violence to the text, which runs, “For thou, Jehovah, my refuge; thou hast made the Most High thy habitation.” It is best to take the first line as a kind of under-soliloquy. The poet is assuring himself of the protection which will be afforded one who trusts in God; and he interrupts his soliloquy, as it were, with a comment upon it: “Yes, this is true of myself, for Thou Jehovah art indeed my refuge.” (For the Most High as a dwelling place, see Psalm 90:1.)

MacLaren's Expositions

Psalms

THE HABITATION OF THE SOUL

Psalm 91:9 - Psalm 91:10.

It requires a good deal of piecing to make out from the Hebrew the translation of our Authorised Version here. The simple, literal rendering of the first words of these verses is, ‘Surely, Thou, O Lord! art my Refuge’; and I do not suppose that any of the expedients which have been adopted to modify that translation would have been adopted, but that these words seem to cut in two the long series of rich promises and blessings which occupy the rest of the psalm. But it is precisely this interruption of the flow of the promises which puts us on the right track for understanding the words in question, because it leads us to take them as the voice of the devout man, to whom the promises are addressed, responding to them by the expression of his own faith.

The Revised Version is much better here than our Authorised Version, for it has recognised this breach of continuity of sequence in the promises, and translated as I have suggested; making the first words of my text, ‘Thou, O Lord! art my Refuge,’ the voice of one singer, and ‘Because thou hast made the Most High thy habitation, there shall no evil befall thee, neither shall any evil come nigh thy dwelling,’ the voice of another.

Whether or no it be that in the Liturgical service of the Temple this psalm was sung by two choirs which answered one another, does not matter for our purpose. Whether or no we regard the first clause as the voice of the Psalmist speaking to God, and the other as the same man speaking to himself, does not matter. The point is that, first, there is an exclamation of personal faith, and that then that is followed and answered, as it were, by the further promise of continual blessings. One voice says, ‘Thou, Lord! art my Refuge,’ and then another voice-not God’s, because that speaks in majesty at the end of the psalm-replies to that burst of confidence, ‘Thou hast made the Lord thy habitation’ {as thou hast done by this confession of faith}, ‘there shall no evil come nigh thy dwelling.’

I. We have here the cry of the devout soul.

I observed that it seems to cut in two the stream of promised blessings, and that fact is significant. The psalm begins with the deep truth that ‘He that dwelleth in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.’ Then a single voice speaks, ‘I will say of the Lord, He is my Refuge and my Fortress, my God, in Him will I trust.’ Then that voice, which thus responds to the general statement of the first verse, is answered by a stream of promises. The first part of our text comes in as the second speech of the same voice, repeating substantially the same thing as it said at first.

Now, notice that this cry of the soul, recognising God as its Asylum and Home, comes in response to a revelation of God’s blessing, and to large words of promise. There is no true refuge nor any peace and rest for a man unless in grasping the articulate word of God, and building his assurance upon that. Anything else is not confidence, but folly; anything else is building upon sand, and not upon the Rock. If I trust my own or my brother’s conception of the divine nature, if I build upon any thoughts of my own, I am building upon what will yield and give. For all peaceful casting of my soul into the arms of God there must be, first, a plain stretching out of the hands of God to catch me when I drop. So the words of my text, ‘Thou art my Refuge,’ are the best answer of the devout soul to the plain words of divine promise. How abundant these are we all know, how full of manifold insight and adaptation to our circumstances and our nature we may all experience, if we care to prove them.

But let us be sure that we are hearkening to the voice with which He speaks through our daily circumstances as well as by the unmistakable revelation of His will and heart in Jesus Christ. And then let us be sure that no word of His, that comes fluttering down from the heavens, meaning a benediction and enclosing a promise, falls at our feet ungathered and unregarded, or is trodden into the dust by our careless heels. The manna lies all about us; let us see that we gather it. ‘When Thou saidst, Seek ye My Face, my heart said unto Thee, Thy Face, Lord, will I seek.’ When Thou saidst, ‘I will be thy Strength and thy Righteousness,’ have I said, ‘Surely, O Jehovah! Thou art my Refuge’? Turn His promises into your creed, and whatever He has declared in the sweet thunder of His voice, loud as the voice of many waters, and melodious as ‘harpers harping with their harps,’ do you take for your profession of faith in the faithful promises of your God.

Still further, this cry of the devout soul suggests to me that our response ought to be the establishment of a close personal relation between us and God. ‘Thou, O Lord! art my Refuge.’ The Psalmist did not content himself with saying ‘Lord! Thou hast been our Dwelling-place in all generations,’ or as one of the other psalmists has it, ‘God is our Refuge and our Strength.’ That thought was blessed, but it was not enough for the Psalmist’s present need, and it is never enough for the deepest necessities of any soul. We must isolate ourselves and stand, God and we, alone together-at heart-grips-we grasping His hand, and He giving Himself to us-if the promises which are sent down into the world for all who will make them theirs can become ours. They are made payable to your order; you must put your name on the back before you get the proceeds. There must be what our good old Puritan forefathers used to call, in somewhat hard language, ‘the appropriating act of faith,’ in order that God’s richest blessings may be of any use to us. Put out your hand to grasp them, and say, ‘Mine,’ not ‘Ours.’ The thought of others as sharing in them will come afterwards, for he who has once realised the absolute isolation of the soul and has been alone with God, and in solitude has taken God’s gifts as his very own, is he who will feel fellowship and brotherhood with all who are partakers of like precious faith and blessings. The ‘ours’ will come; but you must begin with the ‘mine’-’my Lord and my God.’ ‘He loved me, and gave Himself for me.’

Just as when the Israelites gathered on the banks of the Red Sea, and Miriam and the maidens came out with songs and timbrels, though their hearts throbbed with joy, and music rang from their lips for national deliverance, their hymn made the whole deliverance the property of each, and each of the chorus sang, ‘The Lord is my Strength and my Song, He also is become my Salvation,’ so we must individualise the common blessing. Every poor soul has a right to the whole of God, and unless a man claims all the divine nature as his, he has little chance of possessing the promised blessings. The response of the individual to the worldwide promises and revelations of the Father is, ‘Thou, O Lord! art my Refuge.’

Further, note how this cry of the devout soul recognises God as He to whom we must go because we need a refuge. The word ‘refuge’ here gives the picture of some stronghold, or fortified place, in which men may find security from all sorts of dangers, invasions by surrounding foes, storm and tempest, rising flood, or anything else that threatens. Only he who knows himself to be in danger bethinks himself of a refuge. It is only when we know our danger and defencelessness that God, as the Refuge of our souls, becomes precious to us. So, underlying, and an essential part of, all our confidence in God, is the clear recognition of our own necessity. The sense of our own emptiness must precede our grasp of His fulness. The conviction of our own insufficiency and sinfulness must precede our casting ourselves on His mercy and righteousness. In all regions the consciousness of human want must go before the recognition of the divine supply.

II. Now, note the still more abundant answer which that cry evokes.

I said that the words on which I have been commenting thus far, seem to break in two the continuity of the stream of blessings and promises. But there may be observed a certain distinction of tone between those promises which precede and those which follow the cry. Those that follow have a certain elevation and depth, completeness and fulness, beyond those that precede. This enhancing of the promises, following on the faithful grasp of previous promises, suggests the thought that, when God is giving, and His servant thankfully accepts and garners up His gifts, He opens His hand wider and gives more. When He pours His rain upon the unthankful and the evil, and they let the precious, fertilising drops run to waste, there comes after a while a diminution of the blessing; but they who store in patient and thankful hearts the faithful promises of God, have taken a sure way to make His gifts still larger and His promises still sweeter, and their fulfilment more faithful and precious.

But now notice the remarkable language in which this answer is couched. ‘Thou hast made the Most High thy Habitation, there shall no evil befall thee, neither shall any plague come nigh thy dwelling.’

Did you ever notice that there are two dwelling-places spoken of in this verse? ‘Thou hast made the Most High thy Habitation’; ‘There shall no plague come nigh thy dwelling.’ The reference of the latter word to the former one is even more striking if you observe that, literally translated, as in the Revised Version, it means a particular kind of abode-namely, a tent. ‘Thou hast made the Most High thy habitation.’ The same word is employed in the 90th Psalm: ‘Lord, Thou hast been our Dwelling-place in all generations.’ Beside that venerable and ancient abode, that has stood fresh, strong, incorruptible, and unaffected by the lapse of millenniums, there stands the little transitory canvas tent in which our earthly lives are spent. We have two dwelling-places. By the body we are brought into connection with this frail, evanescent, illusory outer world, and we try to make our homes out of shifting cloud-wrack, and dream that we can compel mutability to become immutable, that we may dwell secure. But fate is too strong for us, and although we say that we will make our nest in the rocks, and shall never be moved, the home that is visible and linked with the material passes and melts as a cloud. We need a better dwelling-place than earth and that which holds to earth. We have God Himself for our true Home. Never mind what becomes of the tent, as long as the mansion stands firm. Do not let us be saddened, though we know that it is canvas, and that the walls will soon rot and must some day be folded up and borne away, if we have the Rock of Ages for our dwelling-place.

Let us abide in the Eternal God by the devotion of our hearts, by the affiance of our faith, by the submission of our wills, by the aspiration of our yearnings, by the conformity of our conduct to His will. Let us abide in the Eternal God, that ‘when the earthly house of this tabernacle is dissolved,’ we may enter into two buildings ‘eternal in the heavens’-the one the spiritual body which knows no corruption, and the other the bosom of the Eternal God Himself. ‘Because thou hast made Him thy Habitation,’ that Dwelling shall suffer no evil to come near it or its tenant.

Still further, notice the scope of this great promise. I suppose there is some reference in the form of it to the old story of Israel’s exemption from the Egyptian plagues, and a hint that that might be taken as a parable and prophetic picture of what will be true about every man who puts his trust in God. But the wide scope and the paradoxical completeness of the promise itself, instead of being a difficulty, point the way to its true interpretation. ‘There shall no plague come nigh thy dwelling’-and yet we are smitten down by all the woes that afflict humanity. ‘No evil shall befall thee’-and yet ‘all the ills that flesh is heir to’ are dealt out sometimes with a more liberal hand to them who abide in God than to them who dwell only in the tent upon earth. What then? Is God true, or is He not? Did this psalmist mean to promise the very questionable blessing of escape from all the good of the discipline of sorrow? Is it true, in the unconditional sense in which it is often asserted, that ‘prosperity is the blessing of the Old Testament, and adversity of the New’? I think not, and I am sure that this psalmist, when he said, ‘there shall no evil befall thee, nor any plague come nigh thy dwelling,’ was thinking exactly the same thing which Paul had in his mind when he said, ‘All things work together for good to them that love God, to them that are called according to His purpose.’ If I make God my Refuge, I shall get something a great deal better than escape from outward sorrow-namely, an amulet which will turn the outward sorrow into joy. The bitter water will still be given me to drink, but it will be filtered water, out of which God will strain all the poison, though He leaves plenty of the bitterness in it; for bitterness is a tonic. The evil that is in the evil will be taken out of it, in the measure in which we make God our Refuge, and ‘all will be right that seems most wrong’ when we recognise it to be ‘His sweet will.’

Dear brother! the secret of exemption from every evil lies in no peculiar Providence, ordering in some special manner our outward circumstances, but in the submission of our wills to that which the good hand of the Lord our God sends us for our good; and in cleaving close to Him as our Refuge. Nothing can be ‘evil’ which knits me more closely to God; and whatever tempest drives me to His breast, though all the four winds of the heavens strive on the surface of the sea, it will be better for me than calm weather that entices me to stray farther away from Him.

We shall know that some day. Let us be sure of it now, and explain by it our earthly experience, even as we shall know it when we get up yonder and ‘see all the way by which the Lord our God has led us.’

Benson Commentary

Psalm 91:9-12. Because thou hast made the Most High thy habitation — Which is the only ground and reason of that safety here mentioned; there shall no evil befall thee — Namely, so as to destroy or really hurt thee. Though affliction befall thee, yet there shall be no real evil in it; for it shall come from the love of God, and shall be sanctified; it shall come, not for thy hurt, but for thy good; and though for the present it be not joyous but grievous, yet, in the end, it shall yield so well that thou thyself shalt own no evil befell thee. Neither shall any plague come nigh thy dwelling — This promise is not made to all that dwell nigh a righteous man, as, suppose, to his children, servants, and neighbours, who may, possibly, be wicked persons, and so strangers from God’s covenant and promises. How far it secures his own person, see on Psalm 91:7. For he shall give his angels charge over thee — Those blessed, powerful, and watchful spirits, whom God hath appointed to minister to, and take care of, the heirs of salvation. To keep thee in all thy ways — In the whole course of thy life, and in all thy lawful undertakings. They shall bear thee up in their hands — Sustain or uphold thee in thy goings, as we do a child or a weakly man, especially in uneven or dangerous paths; lest thou dash thy foot against a stone — So as to hurt it, or to cause thee to fall. Satan, it is well known, tempted Christ to cast himself from a pinnacle of the temple upon the presumption of this promise, which he quoted, implying, that angels should guard and support him in all dangers whatever. “But Christ, in answer, at once detected and exposed the sophistry of the grand deceiver, by showing that the promise belonged only to those who fell unavoidably into danger, in the course of duty; such might hope for the help and protection of Heaven; but that he who should wantonly and absurdly throw himself into peril, merely to try whether Providence would bring him out of it, must expect to perish for his pains.’” — Horne.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

91:9-16 Whatever happens, nothing shall hurt the believer; though trouble and affliction befal, it shall come, not for his hurt, but for good, though for the present it be not joyous but grievous. Those who rightly know God, will set their love upon him. They by prayer constantly call upon him. His promise is, that he will in due time deliver the believer out of trouble, and in the mean time be with him in trouble. The Lord will manage all his worldly concerns, and preserve his life on earth, so long as it shall be good for him. For encouragement in this he looks unto Jesus. He shall live long enough; till he has done the work he was sent into this world for, and is ready for heaven. Who would wish to live a day longer than God has some work to do, either by him or upon him? A man may die young, yet be satisfied with living. But a wicked man is not satisfied even with long life. At length the believer's conflict ends; he has done for ever with trouble, sin, and temptation.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Because thou hast made the Lord, which is my refuge - literally, "For thou, O Jehovah, (art) my refuge." The Chaldee Paraphrase regards this as the language of Solomon, who, according to that version, is one of the speakers in the psalm: "Solomon answered and said, 'Since thou, O Lord, art my refuge,'" etc. Tholuck regards this as the response of the choir. But this is unnecessary. The idea is, that the psalmist "himself" had made Yahweh his refuge, or his defense. The language is an expression of his own feeling - of his own experience - in having made God his refuge, and is designed here to be a ground of exhortation to others to do the same thing. He could say that he had made God his refuge; he could say that God was now his refuge; and he could appeal to this - to his own experience - when he exhorted others to do the same, and gave them assurance of safety in doing it.

Even the Most High thy habitation - literally, "The Most High hast thou made thy habitation;" or, thy home. On the word habitation, see the notes at Psalm 90:1. The idea is, that he had, as it were, chosen to abide with God, or to dwell with him - to find his home with him as in a father's house. The consequence of this, or the security which would follow, he states in the following verses.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

9-12. This exemption from evil is the result of trust in God, who employs angels as ministering spirits (Heb 1:14).

The Treasury of David

9 Because thou hast made the Lord which is my refuge, even the most High, thy habitation;

10 There shall no evil befall thee, neither shall any plague come nigh thy dwelling.

Psalm 91:9, Psalm 91:10

Before expounding these verses I cannot refrain from recording a personal incident illustrating their power to soothe the heart, when they are applied by the Holy Spirit. In the year 1854, when I had scarcely been in London twelve months, the neighbourhood in which I laboured was visited by Asiatic cholera, and my congregation suffered from its inroads. Family after family summoned me to the bedside of the smitten, and almost every day I was called to visit the grave. I gave myself up with youthful ardour to the visitation of the sick, and was sent for from all corners of the district by persons of all ranks and religions. I became weary in body and sick at heart. My friends seemed falling one by one, and I felt or fancied that I was sickening like those around me. A little more work and weeping would have laid me low among the rest; I felt that my burden was heavier than I could bear, and I was ready to sink under it. As God would have it, I was returning mournfully home from a funeral, when my curiosity led me to read a paper which was wafered up in a shoemaker's window in the Dover Road. It did not look like a trade announcement, nor was it, for it bore in a good bold handwriting these words: - "Because thou hast made the Lord, which is my refuge, even the most High, thy habitation; there shall no evil befall thee, neither shall any plague come nigh thy dwelling." The effect upon my heart was immediate. Faith appropriated the passage as her own. I felt secure, refreshed, girt with immortality. I went on with my visitation of the dying in a calm and peaceful spirit; I felt no fear of evil, and I suffered no harm. The providence which moved the tradesman to place those verses in his window I gratefully acknowledge, and in the remembrance of its marvellous power I adore the Lord my God.

The Psalmist in these verses assures the man who dwells in God that he shall be secure. Though faith claims no merit of its own, yet the Lord rewards it wherever he sees it. He who makes God his refuge shall find him a refuge; he who dwells in God shall find his dwelling protected. We must make the Lord our habitation by choosing him for our trust and rest, and then we shall receive immunity from harm; no evil shall touch us personally, and no stroke of judgment shall assail or household. The dwelling here intended by the original was only a tent, yet the frail covering would prove to be a sufficient shelter from harm of all sorts. It matters little whether our abode be a gipsy's hut or a monarch's palace if the soul has made the Most High its habitation. Get into God and you dwell in all good, and ill is banished far away. It is not because we are perfect or highly esteemed among men that we can hope for shelter in the day of evil, but because our refuge is the Eternal God, and our faith has learned to hide beneath his sheltering wing.

"For this no ill thy cause shall daunt,

No scourge thy tabernacle haunt."

It is impossible that any ill should happen to the man who is beloved of the Lord; the most crushing calamities can only shorten his journey and hasten him to his reward. Ill to him is no ill, but only good in a mysterious form. Losses enrich him, sickness is his medicine, reproach is his honour, death is his gain. No evil in the strict sense of the word can happen to him, for everything is overruled for good. Happy is he who is in such a case. He is secure where others are in peril, he lives where others die.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

Or, as the words lie in the Hebrew, and others render them, Because thou, O Lord, are my refuge, thou, O my soul, (which is easily understood out of the foregoing words, and to which David oft suddenly turneth his speech,) hast made the Most High thine habitation; which is the only ground and reason of that safety last mentioned. As for the variation of persons, that he sometimes speaketh to and of others, and sometimes to and of himself, nothing is more frequent in this book; nor doth it make any alteration in the sense.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

Because thou hast made the Lord which is my refuge,.... So the words, according to Kimchi, also are directed to the good man; giving the reason of his safety, because he trusts in the Lord, and puts himself under his protection: but they should rather be rendered, and the accents require such a reading, "because thou, Lord, art my refuge" (t); and so are either the words of the good man that trusts in the Lord; or rather of the psalmist himself, seeing his safety in the midst of danger, and ascribing it to the Lord; whose providence was in a peculiar manner over him, whose power protected him, and he was as an asylum or city of refuge to him; so that nothing could hurt him:

even the most High, thy habitation; it should be rendered, "thou hast made the most High thy habitation"; being an apostrophe of the psalmist to his own soul, observing the ground of his security; the most high God being made and used by him as his habitation, or dwelling place, where he dwelt, as every good man does, safely, quietly, comfortably, pleasantly, and continually: the Targum makes them to be the words of Solomon, paraphrasing them thus,

"Solomon answered, and thus he said, thou thyself, O Lord, art my confidence; in an high habitation thou hast put the house of thy majesty.''

(t) "quniam tu Domine spes mea", Pagninus, Montanus, Musculus; "nam tu O Jehova es receptus meus", Cocceius; so Piscator; "quia tu Domine, es perfugium meum", De Dieu, Gejerus.

Geneva Study Bible

Because thou hast made the LORD, which is my refuge, even the most High, thy habitation;

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

9. For thou, Jehovah, art my refuge!

Thou hast made the Most High thy habitation.

So we must render. The A.V. is an attempt to escape from the difficulties of the verse, but it involves an intolerably harsh construction. As the text stands, the Psalmist begins the second division of the Psalm by repeating the profession of Psalm 91:2, and then, as before, addresses Israel as a whole, or the godly Israelite. Psalm 91:9 b is virtually a protasis;—If or since thou hast made … there shall no evil befall thee.

Here too some critics would cut the knot of the change of persons by emending, Because thou hast said, Jehovah is my refuge, and hast made the Most High thy habitation; or, For as for thee, Jehovah is thy refuge. But the change is unnecessary. The word for habitation is the same as that rendered dwelling-place in Psalm 90:1. The rendering of the P.B.V., “thou hast set thine house of defence very high,” is probably a misunderstanding of the Vulg. altissimum posuisti refugium tuum, which, as the LXX, τὸν ὕψιστον ἔθου καταφυγήν σου, shews, means, Thou hast made the Most High thy refuge. It is supported by the Targum (see note [52] p. 554), but in view of the use of ‘Most High’ in Psalm 91:1 and Psalm 92:1 can hardly be right.

[52] The Targum recognises the idea of a plurality of speakers, explaining the Ps. as a dialogue between David and Solomon. Psalm 91:2-3, “David said, ‘I will say to Jehovah,’ &c. ‘For He shall deliver thee, Solomon my son,’ &c.” Psalm 91:9, “Solomon answered and said thus, ‘For thou Jehovah art my refuge, in a lofty dwelling hast Thou placed the abode of Thy Majesty’ (Shechinah).” Psalm 91:10, “The Lord of the world answered and said thus, ‘There shall no evil befall thee,’ &c.”

9–16. Renewed assurances of Divine protection, ratified by a Divine promise.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 9. - Because thou hast made the Lord, which is my Refuge, even the Most High, thy Habitation; literally, for thou, O Lord, art my Refuge; thou hast made the Most High thy Dwelling place, which can scarcely be made to yield a tolerable sense. It is supposed that a word - אָמַרְתָּ- has dropped out, and that the verse originally ran thus: "Because thou hast said, Jehovah is my Refuge, and hast made the Most High thy Dwelling place" (comp. vers. l, 2). The second speaker for a second time addresses the first. Psalm 91:9

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

The first voice continues this ratification, and goes on weaving these promises still further: thou hast made the Most High thy dwelling-place (מעון); there shall not touch thee.... The promises rise ever higher and higher and sound more glorious. The Pual אנּה, prop. to be turned towards, is equivalent to "to befall one," as in Proverbs 12:21; Aquila well renders: ου ̓ μεταχθήσεται πρὸς σὲ κακία. לא־יקרב reminds one of Isaiah 54:14, where אל follows; here it is בּ, as in Judges 19:13. The angel guardianship which is apportioned to him who trusts in God appears in Psalm 91:11, Psalm 91:12 as a universal fact, not as a solitary fact and occurring only in extraordinary instances. Haec est vera miraculorum ratio, observes Brentius on this passage, quod semel aut iterum manifeste revelent ea quae Deus semper abscondite operatur. In ישּׂאוּנך the suffix has been combined with the full form of the future. The lxx correctly renders Psalm 91:12: μήποτε προσκόψῃς πρὸς λίθον τὸν πόδα σου, for נגף everywhere else, and therefore surely here too and in Proverbs 3:23, has a transitive signification, not an intransitive (Aquila, Jerome, Symmachus), cf. Jeremiah 13:16. Psalm 91:13 tells what he who trusts in God has power to do by virtue of this divine succour through the medium of angels. The promise calls to mind Mark 16:18, ὄφεις ἀροῦσι, they shall take up serpents, but still more Luke 10:19 : Behold, I give you power to tread ἐπάνω ὄφεων καὶ σκορπίων καὶ ἐπὶ πᾶσαν τὴν δύναμιν τοῦ ἐχθροῦ. They are all kinds of destructive powers belonging to nature, and particularly to the spirit-world, that are meant. They are called lions and fierce lions from the side of their open power, which threatens destruction, and adders and dragons from the side of their venomous secret malice. In Psalm 91:13 it is promised that the man who trusts in God shall walk on over these monsters, these malignant foes, proud in God and unharmed; in Psalm 91:13, that he shall tread them to the ground (cf. Romans 16:20). That which the divine voice of promise now says at the close of the Psalm is, so far as the form is concerned, an echo taken from Psalm 50. Psalm 50:15, Psalm 50:23 of that Psalm sound almost word for word the same. Genesis 46:4, and more especially Isaiah 63:9, are to be compared on Psalm 50:15. In B. Taanith 16a it is inferred from this passage that God compassionates the suffering ones whom He is compelled by reason of His holiness to chasten and prove. The "salvation of Jahve," as in Psalm 50:23, is the full reality of the divine purpose (or counsel) of mercy. To live to see the final glory was the rapturous thought of the Old Testament hope, and in the apostolic age, of the New Testament hope also.