81 My soul has pined for Thy salvation, For Thy word have I waited. 82 My eyes have pined for Thy promise, Saying, When wilt Thou comfort me? 83 For I am become like a wine-skin in the smoke; Thy statutes have I not forgotten. 84 How many are the days of Thy servant? When wilt Thou execute judgment on my persecutors? 85 The proud have digged pits for me, --They who are not according to Thy law. 86 All Thy commandments are faithfulness, Lyingly they persecute me, help Thou me. 87 They had all but made an end of me on earth, But I, I have not forgotten Thy precepts. 88 According to Thy lovingkindness revive me, And I will observe the testimonies of Thy mouth. This section has more than usual continuity. The psalmist is persecuted, and in these eight verses pours out his heart to God. Taken as a whole, they make a lovely picture of patient endurance and submissive longing. Intense and protracted yearning for deliverance has wasted his very soul, but has not merged in impatience or unbelief, for he has "waited for Thy word." His eyes have ached with straining for the signs of approaching comfort, the coming of which he has not doubted, but the delay of which has tried his faith. This longing has been quickened by troubles, which have wrapped him round like pungent smoke-wreaths eddying among the rafters, where disused wine-skins hang and get blackened and wrinkled. So has it been with him, but, through all, he has kept hold of God's statutes. So he plaintively reminds God of the brevity of his life, which has so short a tale of days that judgment on his persecutors must be swift, if it is to be of use. Vv. 85-87 describe the busy hostility of his foes. It is truculently contrary to God's law, and therefore, as is implied, worthy of God's counter-working. Ver. 85_b_ is best taken as a further description of the "proud," which is spread before God as a reason for His judicial action. The antithesis in ver. 86, between the "faithfulness" of the Law and the "lying" persecutors, is the ground of the prayer, "Help Thou me." Even in extremest peril, when he was all but made away with, the psalmist still clung to God's precepts (ver. 87), and therefore he is heartened to pray for reviving, and to vow that then, bound by new chains of gratitude, he will, more than ever, observe God's testimonies. The measure of the new wine poured into the shrivelled wine-skin is nothing less than the measureless lovingkindness of God; and nothing but experience of His benefits melts to obedience. § ל