Psalms 116 KJV
Thanksgiving for Deliverance
About This Psalm
I love the LORD because He heard my cry. A personal testimony of being saved from death. Gratitude in action.
1 love the LORD, because he hath heard my voice and my supplications.
2 Because he hath inclined his ear unto me, therefore will I call upon him as long as I live.
3 The sorrows of death compassed me, and the pains of hell gat hold upon me: I found trouble and sorrow.
4 Then called I upon the name of the LORD; O LORD, I beseech thee, deliver my soul.
5 Gracious is the LORD, and righteous; yea, our God is merciful.
6 The LORD preserveth the simple: I was brought low, and he helped me.
7 Return unto thy rest, O my soul; for the LORD hath dealt bountifully with thee.
8 For thou hast delivered my soul from death, mine eyes from tears, and my feet from falling.
9 I will walk before the LORD in the land of the living.
10 I believed, therefore have I spoken: I was greatly afflicted:
11 I said in my haste, All men are liars.
12 What shall I render unto the LORD for all his benefits toward me?
13 I will take the cup of salvation, and call upon the name of the LORD.
14 I will pay my vows unto the LORD now in the presence of all his people.
15 Precious in the sight of the LORD is the death of his saints.
16 O LORD, truly I am thy servant; I am thy servant, and the son of thine handmaid: thou hast loosed my bonds.
17 I will offer to thee the sacrifice of thanksgiving, and will call upon the name of the LORD.
18 I will pay my vows unto the LORD now in the presence of all his people,
19 In the courts of the LORDโs house, in the midst of thee, O Jerusalem. Praise ye the LORD.
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Did You Know?
Psalm 116 forms part of the Egyptian Hallel (113-118), whose Passover liturgy links the psalmist's personal rescue from death to Israel's corporate exodus deliverance, a connection Jesus and the disciples would have enacted during the Last Supper.
Verse 10 is quoted verbatim by Paul in 2 Corinthians 4:13, transforming the psalmist's testimony of faith under pressure into a warrant for Gentile mission and resurrection hope.
The vow to 'take the cup of salvation' (v.13) occurs within a Hallel context that early Christians read eucharistically, contrasting the psalmist's cup of deliverance with the cup Jesus accepts in Gethsemane.
Although an individual thanksgiving psalm, it twice insists that vows be paid 'in the presence of all his people' (vv.14,18), deliberately shifting private experience into public temple witness.
Medieval Jewish commentators such as Rashi linked the psalm to Hezekiah's near-death experience (Isaiah 38), reading the 'cords of death' as a typological anticipation of the king's illness and the nation's later exile.
Commentary & Study Notes Jamieson-Fausset-Brown (1871) ยท Public Domain A truly grateful love will be evinced by acts of worship, which calling on God expresses (Ps 116:13; Ps 55:16; 86:7; compare Ps 17:6; 31:2).
Classic verse-by-verse commentary on Psalms 116 from Jamieson, Fausset & Brown (1871). Covers: The writer celebrates the deliverance from extreme perils by which he was favored, and pledges grateful and pious public acknowledgments.
- 1,2
- A truly grateful love will be evinced by acts of worship, which calling on God expresses (Ps 116:13; Ps 55:16; 86:7; compare Ps 17:6; 31:2).
- 3,4
- For similar figures for distress see Ps 18:4,
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