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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 thou [art] my rock and my fortress,.... What he prayed for he knew him to be, and to have been in times past, and could claim his interest in him; and therefore entreats that he would appear to be to him what he was in himself, and what he had been to him; therefore for thy name's sake lead me, and guide me; either as a shepherd does his flock, gently, as they are able to bear it; into the...
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 thou art my rock and my fortress; therefore for thy name’s sake lead me, and guide me. David is of a logical turn of mind, notice the “therefore” in this verse. What a singular “for” there is here! “Be thou my strong rock,” “for thou art my rock.” What God is already, we may ask him to be. What we believe him to be by faith, we ask him to be in our experience. Observe that David’s appeal is...
Charles H. Spurgeon
Let me never be ashamed: deliver me in thy righteousness. Bow down thine ear to me; deliver me speedily: be thou my strong rock, for an house of defense to save me. For thou art my rock and my fortress; therefore for thy name’s sake lead me, and guide me. See how logical David is with his “for” and “therefore.” It is the very essence of prayer to be able to urge pleas with God, and to say to him,...
Charles H. Spurgeon
For thou art my rock and my fortress; Why did David just now pray God to be to him what he here says that God is? It was, surely, in order that he might know experimentally what he already knew doctrinally; he wanted the truth, in which he already believed, to be proven in his own experience, so he prayed to the Lord, “Be thou my strong rock, . . . for thou art my rock and my fortress;” —...