Psalm 86 A Prayer of David.

 ¹Bow down Your ear, O Lord,

hear me; For I am poor and needy.

²Preserve my life, for I am holy;

You are my God;

Save Your servant who trusts in You!

³Be merciful to me, O Lord,

For I cry to You all day long.

⁴Rejoice the soul of Your servant,

For to You, O Lord, I lift up my soul.

⁵For You, Lord, are good, and ready to forgive,

And abundant in mercy to all those who call upon You.

⁶Give ear, O Lord, to my prayer;

And attend to the voice of my supplications.

⁷In the day of my trouble I will call upon You,

For You will answer me.

⁸Among the gods there is none like You, O Lord;

Nor are there any works like Your works.

⁹All nations whom You have made

Shall come and worship before You, O Lord,

And shall glorify Your name.

¹⁰For You are great, and do wondrous things;

You alone are God.

¹¹Teach me Your way, O Lord;

I will walk in Your truth;

Unite my heart to fear Your name.

¹²I will praise You, O Lord my God, with all my heart,

And I will glorify Your name forevermore.

¹³For great is Your mercy toward me,

And You have delivered my soul from the depths of Sheol.

¹⁴O God, the proud have risen against me,

And a mob of violent men have sought my life,

And have not set You before them.

¹⁵But You, O Lord, are a God full of compassion, and gracious,

Longsuffering and abundant in mercy and truth.

¹⁶Oh, turn to me, and have mercy on me!

Give Your strength to Your servant,

And save the son of Your maidservant.

¹⁷Show me a sign for good,

That those who hate me may see it and be ashamed,

Because You, Lord, have helped me and comforted me.

Commentary

Vs. 1 “Bow down Your ear, O Lord,

hear me; For I am poor and needy.”

In this Psalm David makes an impassioned appeal to the Lord. He begins by asking that the Lord bow down His ear to him and hear him; that He give him and his cause His full listening attention. “For I am poor and needy” is then David’s only declared stance before Him, which is quite a contrast to those who are self justifying, or think they are self sufficient. Thus David is a humble man before the Lord for that is the heart that God hears. And David knows his own helplessness in his situation, and he so declares this to our God.

Vs. 2 “Preserve my life, for I am holy;

You are my God;

Save Your servant who trusts in You!”

Here we see the seriousness of David’s impassioned appeal, for he was fearing for his life. Now in asking our God to preserve his life, David asks Him to do this based upon his position with Him, saying to Him, “for I am holy.” Which is not a boast of his own righteousness, but a declaration of his position with God. For it is God who makes us holy with Himself, not we ourselves. David immediately follows that by saying, “You are my God” indicating that he worshiped Him alone. That he took no other “god’s” name upon his lips, nor gave place to them in his heart. To our God then David declares that he is His servant, not a king, nor a leader of the people, but a servant of God, and that as His servant he is trusting Him alone to save him. How we view ourselves before Him will affect our own prayers to Him.

Vs. 3 “Be merciful to me, O Lord,

For I cry to You all day long.”

David’s appeal though broken down here for commentary reasons is of one impassioned plea. And so here he asks that our God be merciful to Him, something you will not hear the proud ask God, but David asks, as a poor and needful, as a man who cries to the Lord all day long.

Vs. 4 “Rejoice the soul of Your servant,

For to You, O Lord, I lift up my soul.”

The weariness from being continually stocked, hunted, and harassed by evil and violent men has brought David much sorrow of heart, therefore he asks the Lord to rejoice his soul, to cause him to sing his praises again. For nothing cheers our hearts like singing our God’s praises! And in asking for this, David asks it based upon his lifting his soul to the Lord, that is he is placing his soul's well being in the Lord’s hands.

Vs. 5 “For You, Lord, are good, and ready to forgive,

And abundant in mercy to all those who call upon You.”

It is amazing to me how God draws out of us all some of the greatest truths and insights about Himself while we are in our own places of despair. And David clearly shows that here when he says, “For You, Lord, are good, and ready to forgive, And abundant in mercy to all those who call upon You.” Ultimately then David’s appeal has nothing to do with himself, but everything to do with the Lord, with His Merciful Nature and His Abundant Grace which can be had by one and all who call upon Him.

Vs. 6-7 ⁶Give ear, O Lord, to my prayer;

And attend to the voice of my supplications.

⁷In the day of my trouble I will call upon You,

For You will answer me.

Again David wants his prayer to be heard, he wants our Lord to answer him, to attend to voice of his supplications to Him. And this he asks once again before moving to the place of confidence, the place of a strong faith in the Lord, which becomes clear in verse seven as he now confidently asserts, “In the day of my trouble I will call upon You, For You will answer me.” Know you can also get there when you yourselves also seek the Lord, for then you will find Him! 

Vs. 8 “Among the gods there is none like You, O Lord;

Nor are there any works like Your works.”

David's faith in the Lord is now shown. For all nations and all peoples have their “gods,” but among them all there is none like our Lord! Nor are there any works anywhere like His works. For there is nothing He cannot do, and there is nothing that anyone or anything can do to hinder Him!

Vs. 9-10 ⁹All nations whom You have made

Shall come and worship before You, O Lord,

And shall glorify Your name.

¹⁰For You are great, and do wondrous things;

You alone are God.

Because our God is the One True Sovereign Potentate who not only rules over His creation, but has created all things for Himself. All nations which He has made shall come and worship before Him, they shall glorify His Name! The basis for this though is not just their subjection to Him, but their adoration of Him, for they will see His great and wonderous works and they will seek Him and worship Him, for He alone is God, and He will magnify Himself to them all (See Christ’s Millennial Reign).

Vs. 11 “Teach me Your way, O Lord;

I will walk in Your truth;

Unite my heart to fear Your name.”

David’s own failures have taught him that He needs instruction, that he needs the Lord to teach and guide him so that he may walk in His truth, so that God’s truth may guide him all the days of His life. For you can either be led by God’s Word or you can mislead by this world or even your own deceitful heart. And so David asks God to unite his heart to fear His Name. For the fear of the Lord, of having reverence for His Name, is where one must begin if they which to be taught by Him.  

Vs. 12-13 ¹²I will praise You, O Lord my God, with all my heart,

And I will glorify Your name forevermore.

¹³For great is Your mercy toward me,

And You have delivered my soul from the depths of Sheol.

David in recalling his own deliverance now wants to praise the Lord with his whole heart, not half heartily, but completely! For in experiencing the grace of God, in being delivered from the depths of Sheol, David like all of us who have also experienced the same now wants to glorify His Name forever! 

Vs. 14 “O God, the proud have risen against me,

And a mob of violent men have sought my life,

And have not set You before them.”

In asking our God for His intercession, protection, and help, David now declares to Him the source of his troubles. Proud men have risen against, and violent men have sought his life. David’s fears then are very real, for these types of men are very dangerous, for they neither fear God, nor regard man, but only live by the strength and schemes of their own hands. Thus, they do not set God before them, they do not even consider what He thinks of what they are doing, or what He would have them do. For God is never in their thoughts. Therefore taking a life, or ruining a life or family, or nation then means nothing to them, for to them if the end result satisfies them, then it does not matter to them how they got there.

Vs. 15 “But You, O Lord, are a God full of compassion, and gracious,

Longsuffering and abundant in mercy and truth.”

Even though David was facing such evil and hostile opposition he remembers the Lord, that the Lord is our God who is full of compassion, that He is gracious and longsuffering, that He is abundant in mercy and truth. For God’s Good Person's Nature will always trump and triumph over the evil and sinister nature of man, which is why David seeks Him here. 

Vs. 16-17 ¹⁶Oh, turn to me, and have mercy on me!

Give Your strength to Your servant,

And save the son of Your maidservant.

¹⁷Show me a sign for good,

That those who hate me may see it and be ashamed,

Because You, Lord, have helped me and comforted me.

In concluding His prayer, David once again asks the Lord to have mercy on Him, to give strength to him, for He is His servant, and to save the son of His maidservant is David humbly requesting God’s help as one who belongs to God’s house. David also asks that God would show him a sign for good, that those who hate me may see it and be ashamed, because the Lord Himself has helped him and comforted him. God’s sign then would be to them His favoring David and his righteousness cause not theirs, amen.

Scripture Quotations

New King James (1982): Thomas Nelson.