Psalms 86 KJV
A Prayer of David
About This Psalm
A personal prayer combining praise and petition. Teach me your way, O LORD, and unite my heart to fear your name.
1ow down thine ear, O LORD, hear me: for I am poor and needy.
2 Preserve my soul; for I am holy: O thou my God, save thy servant that trusteth in thee.
3 Be merciful unto me, O Lord: for I cry unto thee daily.
4 Rejoice the soul of thy servant: for unto thee, O Lord, do I lift up my soul.
5 For thou, Lord, art good, and ready to forgive; and plenteous in mercy unto all them that call upon thee.
6 Give ear, O LORD, unto my prayer; and attend to the voice of my supplications.
7 In the day of my trouble I will call upon thee: for thou wilt answer me.
8 Among the gods there is none like unto thee, O Lord; neither are there any works like unto thy works.
9 All nations whom thou hast made shall come and worship before thee, O Lord; and shall glorify thy name.
10 For thou art great, and doest wondrous things: thou art God alone.
11 Teach me thy way, O LORD; I will walk in thy truth: unite my heart to fear thy name.
12 I will praise thee, O Lord my God, with all my heart: and I will glorify thy name for evermore.
13 For great is thy mercy toward me: and thou hast delivered my soul from the lowest hell.
14 O God, the proud are risen against me, and the assemblies of violent men have sought after my soul; and have not set thee before them.
15 But thou, O Lord, art a God full of compassion, and gracious, long suffering, and plenteous in mercy and truth.
16 O turn unto me, and have mercy upon me; give thy strength unto thy servant, and save the son of thine handmaid.
17 Shew me a token for good; that they which hate me may see it, and be ashamed: because thou, LORD, hast holpen me, and comforted me.
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Did You Know?
Psalm 86 is the sole Davidic psalm in Book III of the Psalter (73-89), a collection otherwise dominated by Asaphite and Korahite material that likely reflects post-exilic temple guilds.
The psalm functions as an anthological composition, weaving near-verbatim echoes of earlier texts such as Psalm 54:3 in verse 14 and Exodus 34:6 in verse 15 to create a new prayer from existing liturgical fragments.
Its sevenfold use of the divine title Adonai, clustered especially in the opening and closing sections, underscores a deliberate emphasis on covenantal lordship rather than the tetragrammaton found elsewhere in Davidic psalms.
Verse 11's petition to 'unite my heart' draws on a rare Hebrew idiom that may evoke either the gathering of scattered inner faculties or the forging of an undivided allegiance amid polytheistic cultural pressures.
The reference to 'gods' in verse 8 situates the prayer within the ancient Near Eastern divine council motif, affirming Yahweh's incomparability while preserving linguistic traces of an older henotheistic framework.