5 Gracious is Jehovah and righteous, And our God is compassionate. 6 The keeper of the simple is Jehovah, I was brought low and He saved me. 7 Return, my soul, to thy rest, For Jehovah has lavished good on thee. 8 For Thou hast delivered my soul from death, My eye from tears, My foot from stumbling. 9 I shall walk before Jehovah in the lands of the living. 10 I believed when I [thus] spake, "I am greatly afflicted." 11 I said in my agitation, "All men deceive." 12 What shall I return to Jehovah, [For] all His goodness lavished on me? 13 The cup of salvations will I lift, And on the name of Jehovah will I call. 14 My vows will I repay to Jehovah, Oh! may I [do it] before all His people! 15 Precious in the eyes of Jehovah Is the death of His favoured ones. 16 I beseech Thee, Jehovah--for I am Thy servant, I am Thy servant, the son of Thy handmaid, Thou hast loosed my bonds. 17 To Thee will I offer a sacrifice of thanksgiving, And on the name of Jehovah will I call. 18 My vows will I repay to Jehovah, Oh! may I [do it] before all His people! 19 In the courts of the house of Jehovah, In the midst of thee, Jerusalem. Hallelujah. This psalm is intensely individual. "I," "me," or "my" occurs in every verse but two (vv. 5, 19). The singer is but recently delivered from some peril, and his song heaves with a ground-swell of emotion after the storm. Hupfeld takes offence at its "continual alternation of petition and recognition of the Divine beneficence and deliverance, or vows of thanksgiving," but surely that very blending is natural to one just rescued and still panting from his danger. Certain grammatical forms indicate a late date, and the frequent allusions to earlier psalms point in the same direction. The words of former psalmists were part of this singer's mental furniture, and came to his lips, when he brought his own thanksgivings. Hupfeld thinks it "strange" that "such a patched-up (_zusammengestoppelter_) psalm" has "imposed" upon commentators, who speak of its depth and tenderness; it is perhaps stranger that its use of older songs has imposed upon so good a critic and hid these characteristics from him. Four parts may be discerned, of which the first (vv. 1-4) mainly describes the psalmist's peril; the second (vv. 5-9), his deliverance; the third glances back to his alarm and thence draws reasons for his vow of praise (vv. 10-14); and the fourth bases the same vow on the remembrance of Jehovah's having loosed his bonds.