Verse 12. “For he shall deliver the needy when he crieth ...” Omit prayer, and you fall out of God's testing into the devil's temptation. You get angry, hard of heart, reckless. But meet the dreadful hour with prayer, cast your care on God, claim Him as your Father though He seems cruel – and the degrading, paralysing, embittering effects of pain and sorrow pass away, and a stream of sanctifying and softening thought pours into the soul; and that which might have wrought your fall, only works in you the peaceable fruits of righteousness. You pass from bitterness into courage of endurance, and from endurance into battle, and from battle into victory, till at last the trial dignifies and blesses your life.
S. Brooks
Verse 13. “He shall … save the souls of the needy.” A famous ruler used to say, that he would rather save a single citizen than slay a thousand enemies. Of this mind ought all princes be towards their subjects. But this affection and love rose to its highest excellence and power in the breast of Jesus Christ. So ardent is His love to His own, that He suffers not one of them to perish, but leads them to full salvation.
Mollerus
Verse 16. “there shall be an handful of corn in the earth upon the top of the mountains; the fruit thereof shall shake like Lebanon: and they of the city shall flourish like grass of the earth.” No better description of the glories of the gospel, even from the beginning, could be found than this. Who would give any hope whatsoever of a harvest being reaped with only a handful of corn? And not only that, but the handful of corn being sown on a naked and storm-swept mountain top, where no depth of earth would be found, but only a shallow and rocky region? Yet, says the psalmist, “the fruit thereof” - the fruit of such a husbandry - “shall shake like Lebanon” - like the mighty cedars of that fair land. So, the gospel! Who would have given two farthings for that “handful of corn” gathered in the upper room after the Ascension of Christ to the realms of glory? And yet, within a few short weeks “they of the city” of Jerusalem itself were to “flourish like the grass of the earth.” May we know such glorious plantings in our own land again.
Verse 16. “ … an handful of corn ...” doubtless it has been familiar to you to see corn merchants carrying small bags with them, containing just a handful of corn, which they exhibit as specimens of the store which they have for sale. Now, let me beg of every one of you to carry a small bag with this precious corn of the gospel. The most difficult place, the steepest mountain, the spot where there seems the least hope of producing fruit, is to be the first place of attack. And the more labour there is required, the more is to be given, in the distribution of the seeds.
J. Sherman
Verse 17. “His name shall endure for ever ...”
The metrical rendering of the verse is beyond compare -
“His name for ever shall endure;
last like the sun it shall:
Men shall be bless'd in him, and bless'd
all nations shall him call.”
last like the sun it shall:
Men shall be bless'd in him, and bless'd
all nations shall him call.”
Verse 19. “And blessed be his glorious name for ever: and let the whole earth be filled with his glory; Amen, and Amen.” “Amen” is a short word, but marvellously pregnant, full of sense and spirit. It is a word that seals all the truths of God and every particular promise of God. But it is never likely to arise in the soul, unless there be an almighty power from heaven to make it say, “Amen.” there is such an inward opposition of the heart, and an innate rebellion against the blessed truth of God, that unless God, by His strong arm, brings the heart down, it never will nor can say, “Amen.”
Richard Sibbes
Verse 20. “the prayers of David the son of Jesse are ended.” The son of Jesse. It is the note of true humility and sincere love to God to abase ourselves, and acknowledge our low condition, wherein God did find us when He did let forth His love to us. So David does teach us here how to commend the riches of God's goodness and grace towards us.
David Dickson
Verse 20. “The prayers of David the son of Jesse are ended.” There are several other psalms of David yet to come, this conclusion must either apply to the close of this “First Book” of psalms, or else to the close of the psalms which David himself had gathered together. Whatever the case, sure it is that David came to the point where his prayers did end with his mortal breath. Not so the prayers of David's greater Son which ever plead for us.