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John Gill
INTRODUCTION TO Psalms 31 To the chief Musician, a Psalm of David. This psalm, according to Arama, was composed by David when in Keilah; but, according to Kimchi and others, when the Ziphites proposed to deliver him up into the hands of Saul; and who, upon their solicitations, came down and surrounded him with his army, from whom in haste he made his escape, and to which he is thought to refer in...
John Gill
For I have heard the slander of many,.... Both enemies and neighbours; fear [was] on every side; his enemies were a "Magormissabib" to him, Jeremiah 20:3; encompassed him around, so that he was in fear from every quarter; while they took counsel together against me; how to apprehend him, and what to do with him; they devised to take away my life; nothing short of that would satisfy; but life is...
Matthew Henry
It is probable that David penned this psalm when he was persecuted by Saul; some passages in it agree particularly to the narrow escapes he had, at Keilah (1 Sam. xxiii. 13), then in the wilderness of Maon, when Saul marched on one side of the hill and he on the other, and, soon after, in the cave in the wilderness of En-gedi; but that it was penned upon any of those occasions we are not told. It...
Charles H. Spurgeon
For I have heard the slander of many: To have one slanderer attacking your character, is bad enough, but to have many such cruel enemies about you, to have a whole brood of hell’s hornets, as it were, stinging you, oh, what misery is this! You who, happily, have never experienced this torture, cannot imagine what agony it causes; I hope you never may know it.
Charles H. Spurgeon
Fear was on every side: while they took counsel together against me, they devised to take away my life. But I trusted in thee, O LORD. Here he is back on the old rock, and rejoicing as his feet stand once more on this firm foundation: “I trusted in thee, O Jehovah.”
Charles H. Spurgeon
For I have heard the slander of many: fear was on every side: awhile they took counsel together against me, they devised to take away my life. Bet I trusted in thee, O LORD: Now the strain will mount again. It is faith that tunes the royal singer, so that he rises to heights of joy though just now he had sunk so low.
Charles H. Spurgeon
For I have heard the slander of many: fear was on every side: The very best of men have had to smart under the wounds caused by that cruel, accursed thing slander. No quality of purity, no degree of piety, can screen a man from the tongue of slander; in fact, as the birds peck most at the ripest fruit, it is often the best of men who are most slandered.
Charles H. Spurgeon
While they took counsel together against me, they devised to take away my life. But I trusted in thee, O LORD: I said, Thou art my God. That is a grand utterance of the psalmist; now he is coming back to the point where he began; the Psalm is now in harmony with its keynote.