There is nothing to discredit the Davidic authorship. The singer's enemies are "nations," and the destruction of these foreign foes is equivalent to "maintaining his cause." That would be language natural in the mouth of a king, and there were foreign wars enough in David's reign to supply appropriate occasions for such a song. The psalm falls into two parts, vv. 1-12 and 13 to end, of which the second substantially repeats the main thoughts of the first, but with a significant difference. In the first part the sequence is praise and its occasion (Aleph and Beth verses, 1-4), triumphant recounting of accomplished judgment (Gimel verses, 5, 6), confident expectation of future wider judgment (amended He and Vav pairs, vv. 7-10), and a final call to praise (vii. 12). Thus set, as it were, in a circlet of praise, are experience of past and consequent confidence of future deliverance. The second part gives the same order, only, instead of praise, it has prayer for its beginning and end, the two central portions remaining the same as in part I. The Cheth pair (vv. 13, 14) is prayer, the deliverance not being perfected, though some foes have fallen; the past act of accomplished judgment is again celebrated in the Teth pair (vv. 15, 16), followed, as before, by the triumphant confidence of future complete crushing of enemies (Yod strain, vv. 17, 18); and all closes with prayer (Qoph pair, vv. 19, 20). Thus the same thoughts are twice dwelt on; and the different use made of them is the explanation of the repetition, which strikes a cursory reader as needless. The diamond is turned a little in the hand, and a differently tinted beam flashes from its facet. In the first pair of verses, the song rushes out like some river breaking through a dam and flashing as it hurries on its course. Each short clause begins with Aleph; each makes the same fervid resolve. Wholehearted praise is sincere, and all the singer's being is fused into it. "All Thy marvellous works" include the great deliverances of the past, with which a living sense of God's working associates those of the present, as one in character and source. To-day is as full of God to this man as the sacred yesterdays of national history, and his deliverances as wonderful as those of old. But high above the joy in God's work is the joy in Himself to which it leads, and "Thy name, O thou Most High," is the ground of all pure delight and the theme of all worthy praise.