Psalm 28
1To you, Yahweh, I call. My rock, don’t be deaf to me, lest, if you are silent to me, I would become like those who go down into the pit. 2Hear the voice of my petitions, when I cry to you, when I lift up my hands toward your Most Holy Place. 3Don’t draw me away with the wicked, with the workers of iniquity who speak peace with their neighbors, but mischief is in their hearts. 4Give them according to their work, and according to the wickedness of their doings. Give them according to the operation of their hands. Bring back on them what they deserve. 5Because they don’t respect the works of Yahweh, nor the operation of his hands, he will break them down and not build them up. 6Blessed be Yahweh, because he has heard the voice of my petitions. 7Yahweh is my strength and my shield. My heart has trusted in him, and I am helped. Therefore my heart greatly rejoices. With my song I will thank him. 8Yahweh is their strength. He is a stronghold of salvation to his anointed. 9Save your people, and bless your inheritance. Be their shepherd also, and bear them up forever.
Introduction
Psalms 28
The former part of this psalm is the prayer of a saint militan and now in distress (Psa 28:1-3), to which is added the doom of God's implacable enemies (Psa 28:4, Psa 28:5). The latter part of the psalm is the thanksgiving of a saint triumphant, and delivered out of his distresses (Psa 28:6-8), to which is added a prophetical prayer for all God's faithful loyal subjects (Psa 28:9). So that it is hard to say which of these two conditions David was in when he penned it. Some think he was now in trouble seeking God, but at the same time preparing to praise him for his deliverance, and by faith giving him thanks for it, before it was wrought. Others think he was now in triumph, but remembered, and recorded for his own and others' benefit, the prayers he made when he was in affliction, that the mercy might relish the better, when it appeared to be an answer to them.
A psalm of David.
Cross-references: Ps 28:1 · Ps 28:4 · Ps 28:5 · Ps 28:6 · Ps 28:9