(importunate supplications); and also Psa 86:10 (cf. Psa 72:18) is a doxological formula that was already in existence. The construction הקשׁיב בּ is the same as in Psa 66:19. But although for the most part flowing on only in the language of prayer borrowed from earlier periods, this Psalm is, moreover, not without remarkable significance and beauty. With the confession of the incomparableness of the Lord is combined the prospect of the recognition of the incomparable One throughout the nations of the earth. This clear unallegorical prediction of the conversion of the heathen is the principal parallel to Rev 15:4. “All nations, which Thou hast made” - they have their being from Thee; and although they have forgotten it (vid., Psa 9:18), they will nevertheless at last come to recognise it. כּל־גּוים, since the article is wanting, are nations of all tribes (countries and nationalities); cf. Jer 16:16 with Psa 22:18; Tobit 13:11, ἔθνη πολλά, with ibid. Psa 14:6, πάντα τὰ ἔθνη. And how weightily brief and charming is the petition in Psa 86:11 : uni cor meum, ut timeat nomen tuum! Luther has rightly departed from the renderings of the lxx, Syriac, and Vulgate: laetetur (יחדּ from חדה). The meaning, however, is not so much “keep my heart near to the only thing,” as “direct all its powers and concentrate them on the one thing.” The following group shows us what is the meaning of the deliverance out of the hell beneath (שׁאול תּחתּיּה, like ארץ תּחתּית, the earth beneath, the inner parts of the earth, Eze 31:14.), for which the poet promises beforehand to manifest his thankfulness (כּי, Psa 86:13, as in Ps 56:14).
Verses 14-17
The situation is like that in the Psalms of the time of Saul. The writer is a persecuted one, and in constant peril of his life. He has taken Psa 86:14 out of the Elohimic Psa 54:5, and retained the Elohim as a proper name of God (cf. on the other hand Psa 86:8, Psa 86:10); he has, however, altered זרים to זרים, which here, as in Isa 13:11 (cf. however, ibid. Psa 25:5), is the alternating word to עריצים. In Psa 86:15 he supports his petition that follows by Jahve's testimony concerning Himself in Exo 34:6. The appellation given to himself by the poet in Psa 86:16 recurs in Psa 116:16 (cf. Wisd. 9:5). The poet calls himself “the son of Thy handmaid” as having been born into the relation to Him of servant; it is a relationship that has come to him by birth. How beautifully
