Psalm 25:2

O my God, I trust in thee: let me not be ashamed, let not mine enemies triumph over me.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

25:1-7 In worshipping God, we must lift up our souls to him. It is certain that none who, by a believing attendance, wait on God, and, by a believing hope, wait for him, shall be ashamed of it. The most advanced believer both needs and desires to be taught of God. If we sincerely desire to know our duty, with resolution to do it, we may be sure that God will direct us in it. The psalmist is earnest for the pardon of his sins. When God pardons sin, he is said to remember it no more, which denotes full remission. It is God's goodness, and not ours, his mercy, and not our merit, that must be our plea for the pardon of sin, and all the good we need. This plea we must rely upon, feeling our own unworthiness, and satisfied of the riches of God's mercy and grace. How boundless is that mercy which covers for ever the sins and follies of a youth spent without God and without hope! Blessed be the Lord, the blood of the great Sacrifice can wash away every stain.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

O my God, I trust in thee - This is the first thought - a feeling that he had true confidence in God, and that in all the duties of life, in all his trials, and in all his hopes for the future, his reliance was on God alone.

Let me not be ashamed - That is, let me never be so forsaken by thee as to have occasion for shame that I have thus trusted in thee. The prayer is not that he might never be ashamed to avow and confess his trust in God, but that he might "find" God to be such a helper and friend that he might never be ashamed on account of the trust which he had put in Him, as if it had been a false reliance; that he might not be disappointed, and made to feel that he had done a foolish thing in confiding in One who was not able to help him. See the word explained in the notes at Job 6:20. Compare Isaiah 30:5; Jeremiah 8:9; Jeremiah 14:3-4.

Let not mine enemies triumph over me - This explains what the psalmist meant by his prayer that he might not be "ashamed," or put to shame. He prayed that he might not be vanquished by his foes, and that it might not appear that he had trusted in a Being who was unable to defend him. Applied now to us, the prayer would imply a desire that we may not be so overcome by our spiritual foes as to bring dishonor on ourselves and on the cause which we profess to love; that we may not be held up to the world as those who are unable to maintain the warfare of faith, and exposed to scorn as those who are unfaithful to their trust; that we may not be so forsaken, so left to trial without consolation, so given over to sadness, melancholy, or despair, as to leave the world to say that reliance on God is vain, and that there is no advantage in being his friends.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

2. not be ashamed—by disappointment of hopes of relief.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

Ashamed, i.e. disappointed of my hope, which will be reproachful to me, not without reflection upon thee, of whose power and faithfulness I have made my boast.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

O my God, I trust in thee,.... He claims his interest in God, and expresses his faith and confidence in him, in the midst of all his troubles; See Gill on Psalm 7:1;

let me not be ashamed; meaning of his trust in God, by being disappointed of the help, deliverance, and salvation from him, which he trusted in him for; and the believer, as he has no reason to be ashamed of God, the object of his trust; so neither of the act of his hope or trust in him; nor shall he; for hope makes not ashamed; see Psalm 119:116, Romans 5:5;

let not mine enemies triumph over me; either his temporal enemies, his subjects that were risen up against him; or his spiritual enemies, Satan, and the men of the world, who rejoice and triumph when the saints are forsaken by God; and they are ready to say, as David's enemies did of him, there is no help or salvation for him in God, Psalm 3:2; and when they fall into their hands, or fall by them.

Geneva Study Bible

O my God, I {b} trust in thee: let me not be ashamed, let not mine enemies triumph over me.

(b) That you will take away my enemies, which are your rods.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

2. This verse should begin with the letter Beth in the word for in thee. It has been suggested that the first word O my God was disregarded in the alphabetic arrangement; but it is more probable that it originally belonged to the second line of the preceding verse (so codd. אBA of the LXX), which has now been lost or misplaced. Otherwise it must be omitted. Psalm 25:2 then forms a proper distich:

In thee have I trusted, let me not be ashamed:

Let not mine enemies triumph over me.

Cp. Psalm 25:20; Psalm 22:5; Psalm 31:1; Psalm 31:17.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 2.- O my God, I trust in thee (comp. Psalm 7:1; Psalm 11:1; Psalm 31. I, 6, etcPsalm 25:2

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

The Psalm begins, like Psalm 16:1-11; Psalm 23:1, with a monostich. Psalm 25:2 is the ב strophe, אלהי (unless one is disposed to read בך אלהי according to the position of the words in Psalm 31:2), after the manner of the interjections in the tragedians, e.g., oo'moi, not being reckoned as belonging to the verse (J. D. Kצhler). In need of help and full of longing for deliverance he raises his soul, drawn away from earthly desires, to Jahve (Psalm 86:4; Psalm 143:8), the God who alone can grant him that which shall truly satisfy his need. His ego, which has the soul within itself, directs his soul upwards to Him whom he calls אלהי, because in believing confidence he clings to Him and is united with Him. The two אל declare what Jahve is not to allow him to experience, just as in Psalm 31:2, Psalm 31:18. According to Psalm 25:19, Psalm 25:20; Psalm 38:17, it is safer to construe לי with יעלצוּ (cf. Psalm 71:10), as also in Psalm 27:2; Psalm 30:2, Micah 7:8, although it would be possible to construe it with אויבי (cf. Psalm 144:2). In Psalm 25:3 the confident expectation of the individual is generalised.