Psalm 116:4

Then called I upon the name of the LORD; O LORD, I beseech thee, deliver my soul.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

116:1-9 We have many reasons for loving the Lord, but are most affected by his loving-kindness when relieved out of deep distress. When a poor sinner is awakened to a sense of his state, and fears that he must soon sink under the just wrath of God, then he finds trouble and sorrow. But let all such call upon the Lord to deliver their souls, and they will find him gracious and true to his promise. Neither ignorance nor guilt will hinder their salvation, when they put their trust in the Lord. Let us all speak of God as we have found him; and have we ever found him otherwise than just and good? It is of his mercies that we are not consumed. Let those who labour and are heavy laden come to him, that they may find rest to their souls; and if at all drawn from their rest, let them haste to return, remembering how bountifully the Lord has dealt with them. We should deem ourselves bound to walk as in his presence. It is a great mercy to be kept from being swallowed up with over-much sorrow. It is a great mercy for God to hold us by the right hand, so that we are not overcome and overthrown by a temptation. But when we enter the heavenly rest, deliverance from sin and sorrow will be complete; we shall behold the glory of the Lord, and walk in his presence with delight we cannot now conceive.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

Then called I upon the name of the Lord - Upon the Lord. I had no other refuge. I felt that I must perish unless he should interpose, and I pleaded with him for deliverance and life. Compare the notes at Psalm 18:6.

O Lord, I beseech thee, deliver my soul - My life. Save me from death. This was not a cry for salvation, but for life. It is an example for us, however, to call on God when we feel that the soul is in danger of perishing, for then, as in the case of the psalmist, we have no other refuge but God.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

3, 4. For similar figures for distress see Ps 18:4, 5.

gat hold upon me—Another sense ("found") of the same word follows, as we speak of disease finding us, and of our finding or catching disease.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

No text from Poole on this verse.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

Then called I upon the name of the Lord,.... Upon the Lord himself in prayer for speedy deliverance; or "in the name of the Lord" (h), in the name of the Messiah, the only Mediator between God and man; "saying", as follows, and which word may be supplied,

O Lord, I beseech thee, deliver my soul; from these sorrows and pains, from these afflictions and distresses, from death and the grave, and from wrath, and a sense of it, and fears about it.

(h) "in nomine Domini", Montanus, Musculus, Vatablus.

Geneva Study Bible

Then called I upon the name of the LORD; O LORD, I beseech thee, deliver my soul.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

4. the name of Jehovah, more emphatically than Jehovah alone, denotes His revealed character (Exodus 34:5), to which the Psalmist appealed, and not in vain.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 4. - Then celled I upon the Name of the Lord. "Hezekiah turned his face toward the wall, and prayed unto the Lord" (Isaiah 38:2). O Lord, I beseech thee, deliver my soul (compare the words of Isaiah 38:3, "Remember now, O Lord, I beseech thee"). Psalm 116:4

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

Not only is כּי אהבתּי "I love (like, am well pleased) that," like ἀγαπῶ ὅτι, Thucydides vi. 36, contrary to the usage of the language, but the thought, "I love that Jahve answereth me," is also tame and flat, and inappropriate to the continuation in Psalm 116:2. Since Psalm 116:3-4 have come from Psalm 18:5-17, אהבתּי is to be understood according to ארחמך in Psalm 18:2, so that it has the following יהוה as its object, not it is true grammatically, but logically. The poet is fond of this pregnant use of the verb without an expressed object, cf. אקרא in Psalm 116:2, and האמנתּי in Psalm 116:10. The Pasek after ישׁמע is intended to guard against the blending of the final a‛ with the initial 'a of אדני (cf. Psalm 56:1-13 :18; Psalm 5:2, in Baer). In Psalm 116:1 the accentuation prevents the rendering vocem orationis meae (Vulgate, lxx) by means of Mugrash. The ı̂ of קולי will therefore no more be the archaic connecting vowel (Ew. 211, b) than in Leviticus 26:42; the poet has varied the genitival construction of Psalm 28:6 to the permutative. The second כי, following close upon the first, makes the continuation of the confirmation retrospective. "In my days" is, as in Isaiah 39:8, Bar. 4:20, cf. בחיּי in Psalm 63:5, and frequently, equivalent to "so long as I live." We even here hear the tone of Psalm 18 (Psalm 18:2), which is continued in Psalm 18:3-4 as a freely borrowed passage. Instead of the "bands" (of Hades) there, the expression here is מצרי, angustiae, plural of meetsar, after the form מסב in Psalm 118:5; Lamentations 1:3 (Bttcher, De inferis, 423); the straitnesses of Hades are deadly perils which can scarcely be escaped. The futures אמצא and אקרא, by virtue of the connection, refer to the contemporaneous past. אנּה (viz., בלישׁן בקשׁה, i.e., in a suppliant sense) is written with He instead of Aleph here and in five other instances, as the Masora observes. It has its fixed Metheg in the first syllable, in accordance with which it is to be pronounced ānna (like בּתּים, bāttim), and has an accented ultima not merely on account of the following יהוה equals אדני (vid., on Psalm 3:8), but in every instance; for even where (the Metheg having been changed into a conjunctive) it is supplied with two different accents, as in Genesis 50:17; Exodus 32:31, the second indicates the tone-syllable.

(Note: Kimchi, mistaking the vocation of the Metheg, regards אנּה (אנּא) as Milel. But the Palestinian and the Babylonian systems of pointing coincide in this, that the beseeching אנא (אנה) is Milra, and the interrogatory אנה Milel (with only two exceptions in our text, which is fixed according to the Palestinian Masora, viz., Psalm 139:7; Deuteronomy 1:28, where the following word begins with Aleph), and these modes of accenting accord with the origin of the two particles. Pinsker (Einleitung, S. xiii.) insinuates against the Palestinian system, that in the cases where אנא has two accents the pointing was not certain of the correct accentuation, only from a deficient knowledge of the bearings of the case.)

Instead now of repeating "and Jahve answered me," the poet indulges in a laudatory confession of general truths which have been brought vividly to his mind by the answering of his prayer that he has experienced.