Psalms 31

In you, LORD, I take refuge. Let me never be disappointed. Deliver me in your righteousness deliver me! Wesley: Ashamed—Of my confidence in thy promise. Deliver me—According to thy faithfulness and goodness. Confidence opens the psalm: refuge first, then the plea not to be shamed for trusting the promise.

Take refuge in him, not in self-defense. Ask deliverance from faithfulness and goodness; refuse a shame that would prove the promise empty.

Calvin: David takes it for a ground of hope that he trusted in the Lord—a continued act. He brings forward faith alone, promising himself deliverance only because he is persuaded he will be saved by God's help and favor. Delivered in God's righteousness means God's faithfulness in performing his promise to those who commit themselves to his guardianship—not a refinement that imports freer grace against works, nor a claim that saints earn preservation by merit.

Refuge is faith resting on God's power. Let righteousness mean the faithful God who cannot deny himself; pray from that persuasion, not from ornate rhetoric.

Be to me a strong rock, a house of defense to save me! Speed and rock mark urgency: danger is near; God alone is fortress enough.

Ask for a listening ear and swift rescue without delay. Rock and fortress are names to cling to when human defense fails.

Calvin: these words express how ardor stimulated David's soul to pray—no ornate rhetoric, only the vehemence of desire. Deliver me speedily shows greatness of danger: all will soon be over unless God makes haste. House of defense, fortress, and rock: unable to resist enemies, his hope rests only on God's protection.

Urgency is faith, not panic theater. Name God rock and fortress when you have no other house of defense.

For you are my rock and my fortress, therefore for your name’s sake lead me and guide me. Confession grounds petition: he is already rock and fortress; guidance is asked for his name's sake, not the psalmist's merit.

Lead and guide cover the whole path. Ask for name's sake so glory, not self-credit, steers the steps.

Calvin: interjecting this reflection, David encourages himself in hope of answer. He had said Be thou my rock; now Assuredly thou art my rock—not thrown out rashly like unbelievers kept in suspense. Lead and guide express one care under uneven vicissitudes: steep mountain, rough places, or thorns. He asks help for God's name's sake because God's name, opposed to all merit, is the only cause of our salvation.

Assurance that he is rock precedes asking to be led. Trace guidance to the name, never to our dignity.

“You take me out of the net that they have laid secretly for me, for you are my stronghold.” Hidden nets name craft as well as force; refuge must be strong enough to pluck him out.

Ask extraction from traps you cannot see in time. Refuge is not a mood; it is the One who pulls you free.

Calvin: under the metaphor of a net he designates snares and artifices; conspiracies left little room for escape. Enemies skilled in policy and bent on destruction made human rescue impossible. He calls God his strength: God alone suffices to rend asunder the snares that entangle his afflicted people.

Hidden nets need divine plucking, not clever self-untangling alone. Rest strength in the refuge who tears the mesh.

Into your hand I commend my spirit. You redeem me, LORD, God. Wesley: My spirit—My soul or life; to preserve it from the malice of mine enemies. For—Thou hast delivered me formerly, and therefore I commit myself to thee for the future. O Lord—Who hast shewed thyself so, in making good thy promise. Past redemption funds present entrusting; faithful God has already proved the hand that holds the spirit. The line is later heard on our Lord's lips and in Stephen's dying cry—a shared christological echo of the same trust, not a private invention of later systems.

Commit life into the hand that already redeemed. Let former mercies teach future trust; hold the NT echo as the same faith speaking, without forcing foreign end-times forks onto the verse.

Calvin: he who commits himself into God's hand constitutes him arbiter of life and death and calmly depends on him amidst dangers. The verb denotes a continued act. No one commits life sincerely who does not know it hangs by a thread. We must put our life into God's hand not only that he may keep it in this world but also preserve it in death itself, as Christ's own example taught us—Christ passed out of this life committing his soul to the Father, and Stephen cried, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit. Thou hast redeemed me looks back to proofs of favor already tasted; faithful God means he will continue the same. Shared christological echo: the NT use confirms, does not invent, this entrusting.

Commit spirit to the faithful Redeemer. Let Christ's commendation and Stephen's cry catechize the same trust; refuse both careless ease and despair that never hands life over.

I hate those who regard lying vanities, but I trust in the LORD. Wesley: Vanities—Idols, which are often called Vanities, as Deut 32:21. Or, curious arts, and all sorts of divinations. Trust draws a hard line against idol and occult substitutes.

Hate what rivals the LORD's trustworthiness. Idols and divinatory arts promise help they cannot give; cleave to the LORD alone.

Calvin: to show faith firmly fixed, he affirms freedom from vile affections that turn minds from God. Restricting vanities to magical arts alone is absurd; Satan's snares are innumerable. Whatever vain hopes draw us from confidence in God he calls lying vanities—they feed with magnificent promises and then beguile. Casting them away, he relies solely on God; hatred of those entangled in such lies guards the heart that trusts in Jehovah.

Trust and lying vanities cannot share the throne. Abhor whatever draws you off; do not narrow the warning to one exotic practice while softer idols remain.

I will be glad and rejoice in your loving kindness, for you have seen my affliction. You have known my soul. Wesley: Known—Loved me, and cared for me. Seen affliction and known distress become grounds for joy in steadfast love.

Rejoice because he has seen and known, not because pain never came. Let care felt in distress fuel gladness in his love.

Calvin: a thanksgiving is inserted—stopping in mid-prayer he promises himself deliverance and matter for thanks. God has regarded his affliction; different feelings mingle as faith resists temptation. Known in distresses means God has taken intimate notice and not abandoned the sufferer.

Steadfast love is celebrated because affliction was seen. Mix honest grief with decided joy; do not wait for a painless story before you rejoice.

“And you have not shut me up into the hand of the enemy.” You have set my feet in a large place. Wesley: Room—Made way for me to escape, when I was encompassed by them. Narrow siege yields to broad footing.

Thank God for the open room he made. Escape is his gift when enemies close in; walk the broad place as redeemed space.

Calvin: implied antithesis—encompassed by severe afflictions, yet marvellously not shut up in the enemy's hand. Feet set in a large place marks sudden and unexpected change from straits to freedom.

Broad place after enclosure is God's doing. Remember the contrast; refuse to credit escape to luck or enemy mercy.

Have mercy on me, LORD, for I am in distress. My eye, my soul, and my body waste away with grief. Wesley: Grief—With continual weeping. Complaint turns personal: eye, soul, and body wasted under ongoing tears.

Ask grace without hiding how deep distress runs. Continual weeping is not faithlessness; bring wasted strength to the gracious LORD.

Calvin: to move God to succor, he magnifies misery by complaints—not because God needs persuasion, but because the faithful may disburden cares. Eye, soul, and belly consumed: afflictions incredibly severe for a man of meek endurance. Anger shows he was not iron-like free from sinful passion; saints wrestle their own passions yet are not finally overwhelmed.

Name full-body grief before God. Let complaint drive you to mercy, not to peevish silence; wrestle passion without quitting prayer.

For my life is spent with sorrow, my years with sighing. My strength fails because of my iniquity. My bones are wasted away. Wesley: Iniquity—For the punishment of mine iniquity. Consumed—The juice and marrow of them bring almost dried up with grief. Years of sighing and bones wasting mark punishment felt in the body.

Confess how sin's consequences drain life without denying grace. Bring spent years and failing strength to the God who still hears.

Calvin: life wasted by grief, years with groaning; strength fails under sorrow. The Hebrew may mean offense or punishment; he prefers the sense that fits the recounting of miseries. David was not ashamed to confess infirmity while seeking a remedy; he ascribes afflictions to his fault elsewhere, yet here he piles up the felt weight of calamity.

Sorrow can spend a life and dry the bones. Seek the remedy in God; do not pretend stoic marrow when grief has wasted it.

Because of all my adversaries I have become utterly contemptible to my neighbors, a horror to my acquaintances. Those who saw me on the street fled from me. Wesley: A fear—They were afraid to give me any countenance or assistance. Fled—To prevent their own danger and ruin. Isolation deepens: neighbors dread, acquaintances flee.

Name social abandonment without bitterness alone. When friends flee for their own safety, still plead before God who does not flee.

Calvin: hated almost realm-wide, he had an evil name even among friends and neighbors—popular opinion like a tempest. Abroad they fled from the very sight of him, lest contagion of misery reach them, reckoning friendship injurious and disgraceful.

Reproach can turn neighbors into dread and street-side flight. Take the loneliness to God; do not measure his care by who still walks with you in public.

I am forgotten like a dead man, out of mind; I am like broken pottery. Wesley: A broken vessel—Which is irreparable, and useless, and therefore despised by all. Dead-to-memory and smashed pottery: utter discard.

Confess the felt uselessness without calling it God's last word. Broken vessels still cry; forgotten ones are not forgotten by the LORD.

Calvin: blotted from remembrance as if dead; the living can no longer serve the dead. Broken vessel denotes utter contempt and meanness—no longer worthy of place or respect.

Forgotten and broken are honest metaphors for contempt. Refuse self-despising as final; the God of this psalm still hears the discarded.

For I hear the slander of many, terror on every side, while they conspire together against me, they plot to take away my life. Wesley: Fear—Just cause of fear. Slander, surrounding terror, and death-plots justify the dread named.

Do not scold justified fear while plots whisper. Bring terror-on-every-side into prayer; God is not offended by naming actual danger.

Calvin: railed upon and enclosed by fear while they consult to destroy him. He prefers reading the great rather than merely many—nobles whose slander prejudices the people. Under appearance of grave counsel they cover wickedness; reputation mangled, life targeted.

Whispering and schemes are not paranoia when the great conspire. Fear on every side can be accurate; answer it with the trust of the next verses.

But I trust in you, LORD. I said, “You are my God.” The hinge turns: after terror and plots, trust speaks a fixed confession—You are my God.

Say it to God when the street has fled. Trust is not denial of verse 13; it is the better word spoken into the same danger.

Calvin: Yet I have trusted—adversative. Setting steadfast faith against assaults, he denies he fainted and maintains hope of deliverance. Not a boast of iron courage: one may pine and still call on God. I have said, Thou art my God: persuasion so entire he would not admit a suggestion to the contrary; directed to God as alone witness when the world derides faith.

Hold "You are my God" as fixed principle under fierce waves. Let conscience testify before God when public opinion mocks trust.

My times are in your hand. Deliver me from the hand of my enemies, and from those who persecute me! Wesley: My times—All the affairs and events of my life, are wholly in thy power. Hand of God versus hand of enemies: the plea rests on whose hand holds the times.

Entrust every affair and event to his power. Ask rescue from persecutors because times are already his, not theirs.

Calvin: trusting divine guardianship, he does not trouble himself about casual unforeseen events men dread. My times (plural) marks the variety of casualties that harass life—not a cold restriction to lifespan alone. Revolutions, dangers, and unlooked-for events still leave him safe under providence, arbiter of good and evil fortune. On this he founds prayer for deliverance from enemies' hand.

Times in God's hand quiet frantic dread of chance. Pray for rescue from that confidence; do not grant enemies the sovereignty God alone holds.

Let your face shine on your servant, and save me in your loving kindness! Shining face and steadfast love name the salvation asked—favor made visible, not abstract.

Plead for the face to shine when affliction feels like cloud. Save in steadfast love; servant identity is the right place to ask.

Calvin: this speech is from common apprehension—afflictions hide God's countenance as clouds obscure the sun. He asks God to make care evident by effects. Face shines when God opens care for our affairs and shows favor; the two are inseparable. Preserve me explains the former ask; when no way of safety appears, goodness of God still grounds hope.

Ask the shining face when sense says God has looked away. Rest save-me on steadfast love, not on visible exits already mapped.

Let me not be disappointed, LORD, for I have called on you; let the wicked be disappointed, and let them be silent in Sheol. Calling becomes the argument against shame; the wicked's silence in Sheol answers their noise now.

Tie "I have called on" to "let me not be shamed." Ask that insolent mouths meet silence without nursing private revenge as the main hope.

Calvin: he contrasts himself with enemies—absurd that the wicked who provoke wrath escape while the one who calls is made a laughing-stock. Instead of only "hope," he now says "I have called"—those who rely on providence flee to God with cries. Silent in the grave: death restrains further injury; silence opposes deceitful devices and outrageous insolence.

Calling on God is itself reason to plead against shame. Leave the wicked's silencing to God's justice; keep the mouth busy with prayer, not matched scorn.

Let the lying lips be mute, which speak against the righteous insolently, with pride and contempt. Lying lips, insolence, pride, and contempt—speech-weapons aimed at the righteous.

Pray for mute lying lips without becoming one. Pride breeds contemptuous speech; ask God to stop it for the righteous' sake.

Calvin: lying lips include craftiness, false pretences, calumnies, and vain boasting. They speak hard things against the just in pride and scorn; froward conceit almost always begets contempt and made David's enemies bold in lying. Whoever arrogates more than is due will treat others with contempt.

Insolent pride arms the tongue. Seek God's silencing of lies; refuse the same pride that would answer scorn with scorn.

Oh how great is your goodness, which you have laid up for those who fear you, which you have worked for those who take refuge in you, before the sons of men! Your goodness is laid up for those who fear you, worked out in plain view of the sons of men. Wesley: Laid up—His favour is not always manifested, to them, but it is laid up for them in his treasure, whence it shall be drawn forth when they need it, and he sees it fit. Before—Publickly and in the view of the world. Stored goodness awaits fearers and refugees—and the world can see it worked.

Praise abundance stored even when not yet shown. Wait for treasure drawn in need; expect public proofs that refuge was not folly.

Calvin: ravished with admiration after marvellous unexpected deliverance. Goodness hidden for servants is a treasure peculiar to them—extending in some ways to the unworthy, yet far more plenteously to the faithful who alone enjoy benefits for salvation. God knows how to reserve for his children by adoption what belongs to them. Worked before the sons of men: protection and present-life blessings so manifest even the ungodly become eyewitnesses unless they shut their eyes.

Exclaim over stored and worked goodness. Expect more than reason conceives; let public mercies catechize fear and refuge.

In the cover of your presence you will hide them from the plotting of man. You will keep them secretly in a dwelling away from the strife of tongues. Wesley: The secret—as in the secret of thy presence: presence chamber where eye and hand guard them; or secret of God's tabernacle (Ps 27:5); or secret favour and providence by hidden methods. From—vain-glorious boasting, threats, insolent attempts. Pavilion—tabernacle. Strife—contentious and slandering tongues.

Hide under presence when plots and tongues rage. Take shelter as cover, whether pictured as chamber, tabernacle, or secret providence.

Calvin: grace preserves the faithful against harm; without God's power their condition would be most miserable. Secret of thy countenance: provided the Lord takes care of them, they are safe under his protection alone—his countenance blinds the wicked and weakens their hands. Sanctuary reading is possible but not necessary. Hidden from pride of man and strife of tongues: not only violent deeds but wicked calumnies; uprightness is dearer than life, and God vindicates from unjust reproaches.

Presence-cover and pavilion beat plots and tongue-strife. Trust protection that does not always look like walls; keep uprightness under calumny.

Praise be to the LORD, for he has shown me his marvelous loving kindness in a strong city. Wesley: City—In Keilah: where God wonderfully preserved me. Personal blessing after concrete siege-mercy.

Bless the LORD for wondrous steadfast love in a tight place. Name the rescue; do not leave thanks generic.

Calvin: general truths applied to his case—goodness in preserving life wondrously displayed. Aid suddenly and unexpectedly in desperate circumstances. Prefer reading as in a fortified city: exposed and destitute, God's help was of greater service than an impregnable fortress.

Bless God for marvellous kindness under siege conditions. Let unexpected help teach that his steadfast love outranks any wall.

I said in my haste, “I am cut off from before your eyes.” But you heard the voice of my petitions when I cried to you. Wesley: Haste—When my passion took away my consideration, and weakened my faith. Cut off—Cast out of thy sight, and out of the care of thy gracious providence. Alarm spoke too much; mercy still heard the cry.

Confess alarm's false word without despairing. Passion can weaken faith's consideration; keep crying anyway—he hears pleas for mercy.

Calvin: he confesses that for distrust he deserved to be deserted—publishing the shame of his fault to magnify grace. Haste or fear: carried headlong to think himself neglected; opposed to calm deliberation. Faith was never overthrown: context shows God heard his supplications; the complaint was a lapse of the tongue in haste. Peevish hastiness can drive even a holy prophet toward despair—how much we should fear. Yet he ceased not to pray; God's immeasurable goodness strove with his unbelief.

Admit "cut off" thoughts spoken in alarm, then marvel that pleas were heard. Let grace outrun your hasty unbelief; do not stop crying when passion clouds consideration.

Love the LORD, all you his saints! The LORD preserves the faithful, and fully recompenses him who acts in pride. The psalm turns outward: saints must love the LORD; preservation and proud repayment explain why.

Love him with the company of the saints. Trust his preserving of the faithful; do not envy the proud whom he will repay.

Calvin: not chiefly a call to dread, but to confide—devote yourselves wholly, put hope in him, rely without seeking another. Love comprehends the heart's desires; scarcely one in a hundred sets the heart on God while most prefer the world's lies. He preserves the faithful—keep a good conscience; he plentifully recompenses the proud so unworthy emulation does not entice you when they prosper for a time.

Love the LORD as whole-hearted reliance. Rest in his preserving of the upright; refuse to copy proud doers whose payday is sure.

Be strong, and let your heart take courage, all you who hope in the LORD! Closing charge to all waiters: strength and courage of heart under the same waiting the psalm has practiced.

Be strong together with all who wait. Courage is communal; waiting for the LORD is the posture that steadies the heart.

Calvin: same vein as the former exhortation—steadfastness founded on love of God, renouncing worldly enticements to embrace his protection. Courage is needed because whoever relies on God must expect Satan's assaults. First commit to his guardianship; then, furnished with firmness, stand for new conflicts. No one sustains these alone—hope and ask the spirit of fortitude from God. The Spirit does not measure duty by our strength but stimulates us to pray that God would correct our defects.

Waiters need courage God supplies. Ask strength of heart; do not put private effort in the van and only later beg aid.