Psalms 41:4

_I SAID, LORD, BE MERCIFUL UNTO ME: HEAL MY SOUL; FOR I HAVE SINNED AGAINST THEE._ I said, Lord, be merciful unto me. The "I" is emphatic in the Hebrew - i:e., What I "said" in general of the mercy promised in distress to those who are merciful to others in their distress, applies to ME: it is I who thereby claim thy promise, "Lord be merciful unto me." HEAL MY SOUL, FOR I HAVE SINNED AGAINST THEE. David, the type, rightly regards sufferings as designed by God to bring sins to remembrance, that the sufferer may confess his guiltiness, and seek healing of soul, as the necessary preliminary to temporal healing. The sufferings of the Antitype, Christ, were the penalty of our sins, which He appropriated as our Sin-bearer....

4._I have said, O Jehovah! have mercy upon me. _By this verse he shows that in his adversity he did not seek to soothe his mind by flattery, as the greater part of men do, who endeavor to assuage their sorrows by some vain consolation. And, certainly, the man who is guided by the Spirit of God will, when warned of God by the afflictions with which he is visited, frankly acknowledge his sins, and quietly submit to the admonitions of his brethren, nay, he will even anticipate them by a voluntary confession. David here lays down a mark by which he distinguishes himself from the reprobate and wicked, when he tells us that he earnestly entreated that his sin might not be laid to his charge, and that he had sought refuge in the mercy of God. He indeed requests that some alleviation might be granted to him under the affliction which he endured: but he rises to a higher source of relief, when he...

1-4 The people of God are not free from poverty, sickness, or outward affliction, but the Lord will consider their case, and send due supplies. From his Lord's example the believer learns to consider his poor and afflicted brethren. This branch of godliness is usually recompensed with temporal blessings. But nothing is so distressing to the contrite believer, as a fear or sense of the Divine displeasure, or of sin in his heart. Sin is the sickness of the soul; pardoning mercy heals it, renewing grace heals it, and for this spiritual healing we should be more earnest than for bodily health....

Verse Psalms 41:4. _I SAID, LORD, BE MERCIFUL UNTO ME_] I need thy mercy especially, because I have sinned against thee, and my sin is a _deadly wound_ to my _soul_; therefore _heal_ my _soul, for it has_ _sinned against thee_....

I SAID, LORD - I said in my sickness, or in the trial referred to in the psalm. I called on God to be merciful to me when others had no mercy; to be near to me when others turned away; to save me when pressed down with disease on account of my sins. All that follows relates, like this passage, to what occurred when he was sick; to the thoughts that passed through his mind, and to the treatment which he then experienced from others. BE MERCIFUL UNTO ME - In forgiving my sins, and restoring me to health. HEAL MY SOUL - In restoring my soul to spiritual health by forgiving the sin which is the cause of my sickness; or it may mean, Restore my life - regardng his life as (as it were) diseased and in danger of extinction. The probability, however, is that he had particular reference to the soul as the word is commonly understood, or as designating himself; heal, or

EXPOSITION THE forty-first psalm completes the first book of the Psalter. All the psalms contained in it are assigned to David by the titles, except Psalms 1:1; Psalms 2:1; Psalms 10:1; Psalms 33:1. The present psalm is closely connected with the other psalms of the concluding group (Psalm 38-41.), which seem to have been all composed a little before, during, or just after the revolt of Absalom. It consists of an introduction (Psalms 33:1), respecting the blessedness of those who "consider the poor;" a bitter c

I SAID, LORD, BE MERCIFUL UNTO ME,.... Psalms 40:11; HEAL MY SOUL; not that it was diseased with sin in such sense as the souls of other men are; but it is to be understood as a petition for comfort while bearing the sins of others, and which Christ as man stood in need of when in the garden and on the cross; so healing signifies comfort in trouble, as in Isaiah 57:18; FOR I HAVE SINNED AGAINST THEE; or "unto thee", or "before thee", as the Targum; not that any sin was committed by him in his own person, but he having all the sins of his people on him, which he calls his own, Psalms 40:12; he was treated as a sinner, and as guilty before God,...

You will see, dear friends, from these holy songs, that the saints of God in those olden days were not screened from trials and troubles, but were tempted in all points like as we are. If we happen to be in similar trying circumstances, let us take comfort from their experiences; the footsteps of the flock that has gone before should make the sheep feel that it is not lost. Psalms 41:1 To the chief Musician. A Psalm of David. Psalms 41:1. _Blessed is he that considereth the poor: the Lord will deliver him in time of trouble._ David delivered others, and God will deliver him. When he is poor and needy, God will think upon him, even as he considered the poor and the needy when they cried unto him. P

Psalms 41 Faith and Unbelief in View of the Cross _ 1. Faith in Him and the Results (Psalms 41:1)_ 2. Unbelief and its hatred (Psalms 41:4) 3. The vindication of the Christ of the cross (Psalms 41:10) The poor one (literally: the miserable, exhausted one) is the Lord Jesus suffering on the cross. Blessed are they who understand as to Him, who consider Him, for it means deliverance, salvation, preservation, victory and happiness. But unbelief mocks and sneers at Him. They speak against Him, make evil devices against Him, the sin-bearer, that an evil disease (literally: a thing of Belial) is upon Him and that H

XLI. THE PRAYER OF A SICK MAN AGAINST CRUEL AND TREACHEROUS FOES. Psalms 41:1. Kindness to the poor is a favourite virtue in the OT, but seems to have no natural place at the beginning of this Ps. We gain a better connexion by reading: Blessed is he who acts circumspectly though poor. Psalms 41:3. thou makest all his bed is a rendering which the Heb. scarcely admits, and the change from the third to the second person is suspicious. A plausible conjecture is, On his couch he supporteth him in his sickness. Psalms 41:8. Follow _mg._ Psalms 41:9. lifted up his heel: read probably, Made his mouth (?) agai