Chapter One Hundred Fourteen

To this psalm in the Hebrew Bible is joined the following psalm according to the LXX count 115, and thus with psalm 116 according to the Greek Bible, but according to the Hebrew 117, the former count ahead by one psalm is restored.

The feeling of joy that is depicted in this and the following two (Ps 115-116) psalms shows that they were written after help had already been received from the Lord.

I rejoice, since the Lord helps me when I cried out to Him when weighed down by circumstances (1–4). The Lord is merciful and helps all who are simple before Him (5–6). I am at peace, since the Lord dried my tears and gave me in my lifetime to see the blessings sent by Him.

Psalm 114:6. The Lord guards the simple; I was brought low, and He saved me. The Lord “guards the simple”—that is, those who believe simply and deeply, like children, in Him, or the helpless, as children, and therefore in need of protection. Such simple believers and helpless as children were the Hebrews of that time, who had returned from captivity, since they lived by faith and expectation of the fulfillment of the promises predicted by the prophets; they were also helpless, since they themselves, without any outside help and in poverty, had to begin anew the ordering of their land both politically and religiously and in civil and economic respects.

Psalm 114:7. Return, O my soul, to your rest, for the Lord has done good to you. “Return, O my soul, to your rest”—the period of suffering and danger has passed, the time of prosperity and favorable flow of life has come, since the Lord “has done good.”

Psalm 114:9. I will walk before the face of the Lord on the land of the living. “To walk before the face of God”—to serve Him with one’s life; on the “land of the living,” on the land of the people of His nation, now prosperous and blessed.