Commentary on Psalms Volume 3 John Calvin
Psalm 116
PSALM 116
David, being delivered out of very great dangers, relates what cruel torment and anguish of mind he endured, and then how remarkably he was preserved by God. The desperate state of matters with him tended to make the power of God in his preservation more conspicuous; for had not God interposed for his deliverance, all hope would have failed. In this way he stirs himself up to gratitude, and acknowledges that he can make no other return to him for his innumerable benefits. 374
Psalm 116:1-4
1. I have loved, because Jehovah shall hear the voice of my supplication. 2. Because he hath inclined his ear to me, and during my days
This psalm is without a title in the Hebrew, although the LXX. Have prefixed to it Hallelujah, with which Psalm 115 ends. There have been various conjectures among interpreters as to its author. Some ascribe it to Hezekiah, and suppose it to relate to his recovery from the dangerous sickness recorded in Isaiah 38. Others think that it was composed by David upon his deliverance from the rebellion excited by his son Absalom, after which he immediately had liberty to return to the sanctuary and public assembly at Jerusalem, verses 14, 18, and 19. This opinion is confirmed from verse 11, in which he speaks of having for a time, under the sad experience of human treachery and deception, pronounced all men to be liars; a state of feeling more applicable to David's distressed circumstances during the rebellion of his son, than to Hezekiah on his recovery from sickness.
JOHN CALVIN
I will call upon him. 3. The snares 375 of death compassed me, 376 and the sorrows of the grave found me: 377 I found tribulation and grief. 4. And I will call upon the name of Jehovah; I beseech thee, O Jehovah! deliver my soul.
1 I have loved, because Jehovah will hear the voice of my supplication. At the very commencement of this psalm David avows that he was attracted with the sweetness of God's goodness, to place his hope and confidence in him alone. This abrupt mode of speaking, I have loved, is the more emphatic, intimating that he could receive joy and repose nowhere but in God. We know that our hearts will be always wandering after fruitless pleasures, and harassed with care, until God knit them to himself. This distemper David affirms was removed from him, because he felt that God was indeed propitious towards him. And, having found by experience that, in general, they who call upon God are happy, he declares that no allurements shall draw him away from God. When, therefore, he says, I have loved, it imports that, without God, nothing would be pleasant or agreeable to him. From this we are instructed that those who have been heard by God, but do not place themselves entirely under his guidance and guardianship, have derived little advantage from the experience of his grace.
The second verse also refers to the same subject, excepting that the latter clause admits of a very appropriate meaning, which expositors overlook.
The root of the Hebrew word,חבליcheblei, here rendered snares, "is,חבלwhich signifies to bind, and in Piel conj., to pain, or torment. Geseius, in his Thesaurus, under,חבל says: — 'Pi. i. q. Kal, No. 1, torsit, inde cum tormentis et doloribus enixa est 'חבל consequently signifies pain, or cable. It would seem from the verb to which it is a subject, that the latter is the more suitable sense, whilst the parallelism is in favor of the former. The former, however, is here contained in the latter, for the expressionמות חבליalludes to the custom of binding the victims for slaughter, or malefactors when taken to the place of execution; which binding was productive of great pain." — Phillips. See volume 1, page 264. Cresswell reads, "The straits of the grave, that is, the terrors of instant death, had found me."
" — 'compassed me.' The original wordאפףexpresses the repetition of the encircling of the toils. They surrounded him again and again." — Horsley.
Fry's translation of this clause is: — "The nets of Hades had caught hold upon me;" on which he has the following note: — "Or, according to the usual meaning ofצור and' ,צררthe pangs or pains of hell.' It is not impossible, indeed, that it should be derived from;נצרwe might then render, 'The purveyors of Hades had found me:' and the imagery, at any rate, seems to be taken from the toils of the hunter. Michaelis would read ' ,מצודיnets,' instead of,מצוריpangs; but it is very probable that, without any change, מצוריsignifies some part of the apparatus of hunting. 'מצרa strait, distress, angustia ' Psalm 118:5; 116:3; Lamentations 1:3. In which last text, Mr Lowth says that 'there is a metaphor from those that hunt a prey, which they drive into some strait and narrow passage, from whence there is no making an escape.'"