16 Come, hearken, and I will recount, all ye that fear God, What He has done for my soul. 17 To Him did I cry with my mouth, And a song extolling [Him] was [already] under my tongue. 18 If I had intended iniquity in my heart, The Lord would not hear: 19 But surely God has heard, He has attended to the voice of my prayer. 20 Blessed be God, Who has not turned away my prayer, nor His loving-kindness from me. The most striking feature of this psalm is the transition from the plural "we" and "our," in vv. 1-12, to the singular "I" and "my," in vv. 13-20. Ewald supposes that two independent psalms have been united, but ver. 12 is as abrupt for an ending as ver. 13 is for a beginning; and the "Come, hear," of ver. 16 echoes the "Come, and see," of ver. 5. It is possible that "the 'I' of the second part is identical with the 'we' of the first; in other words, that the personified community speaks here" (Baethgen); but the supposition that the psalm was meant for public worship, and is composed of a choral and a solo part, accounts for the change of number. Such expressions as "my soul" and "my heart" favour the individual reference. Of course, the deliverance magnified by the single voice is the same as that celebrated by the loud acclaim of many tongues; but there is a different note in the praise of the former--there is a tone of inwardness in it, befitting individual appropriation of general blessings. To this highest point, that of the action of the single soul in taking the deliverances of the community for its very own, and pouring out its own praise, the psalm steadily climbs. It begins with the widest outlook over "all the earth," summoned to ring forth joyous praise. It ends focussed to one burning point, in a heart fired by the thought that God "has not turned away his loving-kindness from _me_." So we learn how each single soul has to claim its several part in world-wide blessings, as each flower-calyx absorbs the sunshine that floods the pastures. The psalm has no superscription of date or author, and no clue in its language to the particular deliverance that called it forth. The usual variety of conjectures have been hazarded. The defeat of Sennacherib occurs to some; the return from Babylon to others; the Maccabean period to yet another school of critics. It belongs to a period when Israel's world-significance and mission were recognised (which Cheyne considers a post-exilic feature, "Orig. of Psalt.," 176), and when the sacrificial worship was in full force; but beyond these there are no clear data for period of composition.