Precious in the sight of the LORD _is_ the death of his saints. O LORD, truly I _am_ thy servant; I _am_ thy servant, _and_ the son of thine handmaid: thou hast loosed my bonds. I will offer to thee the sacrifice of thanksgiving, and will call upon the name of LORD. I will pay my vows unto the LORD now in the presence of all his people, In the courts of the LORD’S house, in the midst of thee, O Jerusalem. Praise ye the LORD. This is a Psalm of thanksgiving, in which the Psalmist renders thanks, after coming out of a most heavy trial, and again rejoices in God; praising God for having delivered him from the terrors of death, and from the pains of hell; for by such terms does he express those deep and heavy spiritual temptations, concerning which he had spoken before, Psalm vi., which are not known unto all. And the Psalmist complains also that he suffered all these things, and was thus overwhelmed and almost destroyed by these heavy trials, because of his confession of his faith and the truth of God before the world. “I believed (saith he) and therefore have I spoken:” but I am heavily afflicted for the word’s sake. For all the saints confess and teach the righteousness of faith; and, on the other hand, they expose and condemn all the righteousness, wisdom, and holiness of the world, and also all hypocrisy, and the outside form of godliness. And this the world will by no means whatever endure: they ever rage and roar against it: and they load the godly with every kind of affliction, because of their unsocial confession: and hence arise all those terrors without and those fears within, by which the church of Christ and the saints have ever been afflicted from the kingdom of the devil, in the midst of which their confession is made. But amid all these great, and hard, and numerous afflictions of Satan and the world, the Psalmist has this firm consolation, that his work and cause are right before God; therefore he comforts and encourages himself by relying on the word of God, and stirs up and strengthens himself unto all confidence. “I will take (saith he) the cup of salvation, and call upon the name of the Lord.” As if he had said, If they drink my destruction from the cup of their fury, and hate and persecute me unto death; what then? “I will take the cup of God’s salvation and helping grace:” that is (as if he had said), Supporting and strengthening my faith with the glad word of thy promise, as with strong and generous wine, I shall be filled with the Spirit, by drinking of that cup; and, by my continuing to preach and spread the word, I shall hold out the cup to others also, who confess with me the same truth, and preach the same word; that they also may draw the same consolation with me, out of the same most blessed word of the grace of God.