The Covenanter Village Voice

This psalm was, perhaps, composed on the same occasion as the former, when David fled from Absalom his son. Here, (1.) David encouraged by former experience, casts his burden on the Lord, and supplicates a merciful deliverance, ver. 1. (2.) Addressing himself to men, particularly to his persecutors, he reproves their contempt of God and religion, their delight in, and practice of vanity, fraud, and falsehood. He represents the happiness of the saints in having God their protector, and ready to hear their requests. He recommends a holy filial awe of God, and careful abstinence from sin; together with a devoting of themselves, and their conduct and substance, to the Lord, ver. 2-5. (3.) To encourage them to the study of practical religion, he remarks, what superlative satisfaction and rest himself had found in familiar fellowship with God, and in a believing dependence on him, ver. 6-8.