Psalm 71 Feb. 8  1In You, Yahweh, I take refuge. Never let me be disappointed. 2Deliver me in Your righteousness and rescue me. Turn Your ear to me and save me. 3Be to me a rock of refuge to which I may always go. Give the command to save me, for You are my rock and my fortress. 4Rescue me, my God, from the hand of the wicked, from the hand of the unrighteous and cruel man. 5For You are my hope, Lord Yahweh; my confidence from my youth. 6I have relied on You from the womb. You are He who took me out of my mother’s womb. I will always praise You. 7I am a marvel to many, but You are my strong refuge. 8My mouth shall be filled with Your praise, with Your honour all the day. 9Don’t reject me in my old age. Don’t forsake me when my strength fails. 10For my enemies talk about me, they who watch for my soul conspire together 11saying, God has forsaken him. Pursue and take him, for no one will rescue him. 12God, don’t be far from me. My God, hurry to help me. 13Let my accusers be disappointed and consumed. Let them be covered with disgrace and scorn who want to harm me. 14But I will always hope, and will add to all of Your praise. 15My mouth will tell others about Your righteousness and Your salvation all day, though I don’t know its full measure. 16I will declare the mighty acts of the Lord Yahweh. I will make mention of Your righteousness, even of Yours alone. 17God, You have taught me from my youth. Up until now I have declared Your wondrous works. 18Yes, even when I am old and gray-haired, God, don’t forsake me, until I have declared Your strength to the next generation, Your might to everyone who is to come. 19Your righteousness also, God, reaches to the heavens; You have done great things. God, who is like You? 20You, who have shown us many and bitter troubles, You will let me live. You will bring us up again from the depths of the earth, 21increase my honour, and comfort me again. 22I will praise You with the harp for Your faithfulness, my God. I sing praise to You with the lyre, Holy One of Israel. 23My lips shall shout for joy! My soul, which You have redeemed, sings praises to You! 24My tongue will also talk about Your righteousness all day long, for they are disappointed and they are confounded who want to harm me.   

Commentary

71:15 I don’t know its full measure- Like us, David preached of things which he believed and yet openly admitted he didn’t fully understand. This humility and recognition of our own limited understanding will make our witness the more compelling, rather than if we arrogantly give the impression of total knowledge.
71:11 God has forsaken him – David did indeed feel that God had forsaken him (22:1). David, like all of us, was very sensitive to what others said about him- for his many complaints at his being slandered reflect how significant it was for him. We must be secure in our relationship with God, so that others’ discounting of our relationship with Him don’t influence us.
71:18 David wanted to remain alive so that he could continue his work of teaching and preaching God’s grace and salvation to others. This too should be our purpose of living.
71:20 Bring us up again from the depths of the earth- David’s hope was clearly in the resurrection of the body, which he may have deduced as necessary on reflection that he would see with his own eyes his Messiah son reigning for ever on his throne (2 Sam. 7:16).
71:22 I will praise you... I sing praise to You- David imagines how after the resurrection at his future glorification, he will, at that future time, praise God; and yet he says he praises God now. We have here an example of living the Kingdom life now. In New Testament terms, this is how we can “have eternal life” now, even though we shall die; for we can live now the kind of life which we will eternally live, the Kingdom life.