Psalms 41 KJV
A Prayer in Sickness
About This Psalm
Blessed are those who consider the poor. David is sick and betrayed by a close friend - yet trusts God will raise him up.
1lessed is he that considereth the poor: the LORD will deliver him in time of trouble.
2 The LORD will preserve him, and keep him alive; and he shall be blessed upon the earth: and thou wilt not deliver him unto the will of his enemies.
3 The LORD will strengthen him upon the bed of languishing: thou wilt make all his bed in his sickness.
4 I said, LORD, be merciful unto me: heal my soul; for I have sinned against thee.
5 Mine enemies speak evil of me, When shall he die, and his name perish?
6 And if he come to see me, he speaketh vanity: his heart gathereth iniquity to itself; when he goeth abroad, he telleth it.
7 All that hate me whisper together against me: against me do they devise my hurt.
8 An evil disease, say they, cleaveth fast unto him: and now that he lieth he shall rise up no more.
9 Yea, mine own familiar friend, in whom I trusted, which did eat of my bread, hath lifted up his heel against me.
10 But thou, O LORD, be merciful unto me, and raise me up, that I may requite them.
11 By this I know that thou favourest me, because mine enemy doth not triumph over me.
12 And as for me, thou upholdest me in mine integrity, and settest me before thy face for ever.
13 Blessed be the LORD God of Israel from everlasting, and to everlasting. Amen, and Amen.
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Did You Know?
Psalm 41 closes Book I of the Psalter with its double Amen doxology in v. 13, the first of five such markers that later editors used to divide the collection into five books mirroring the Torah.
Verse 9โs phrase about the trusted friend โlifting up his heelโ against the psalmist is the only Old Testament text Jesus explicitly quotes as fulfilled by Judas (John 13:18), linking Davidic betrayal to the passion narrative.
The opening beatitude on considering the poor (v. 1) uses the rare Hebrew verb maskil, the same root that titles several wisdom psalms, implying that genuine insight into the vulnerable is itself a mark of covenant wisdom.
The psalmโs movement from sickness-bed (v. 3) to table fellowship (v. 9) to public praise (v. 11-12) mirrors ancient Israelite ritual patterns in which recovery from illness required both divine healing and restored social commensality.
Its attribution to David during Absalomโs revolt gains texture from the detail that Ahithophel, the betrayer, was previously Davidโs counselor who shared royal meals, making the psalm a possible lament over political as well as physical betrayal.