Chapter Thirty

The content of the psalm is consistent with David’s situation during the persecutions from Saul. David speaks of his innocence (Ps 30:2), humiliation and persecution by his enemies (Ps 30:5-11), humiliation by the people (Ps 30:12). David was hiding in a fortified city (Ps 30:22), and yet despite remaining in the latter, he hates the “worshippers of vain idols” (Ps 30:7). The latter two expressions indicate the fact of David’s salvation in the Philistine Ziklag (see Ps 15).

The addition in the Russian Bible “in a time of confusion”—is taken on the basis of Ps 30:23 verse. The same addition is found in the Vulgate, in the LXX, and in the Slavonic Bible.

Since You, O Lord, are the God of truth, I trust in You alone and ask You to free me from all dangers and snares by which my enemies have surrounded me (2–5). I entrust my life to You, I hate idols, and for the mercies shown to me will sing Your praise (6–9). My present afflictions are severe; my strength is exhausted, everyone avoids me, and I hear from all sides curses and attempts to take my life (10–14). I look to You alone for protection: do not let my enemies triumph over me (15–19). Blessed is the Lord for the mercy He grants to the faithful and which He poured out upon me in my confusion. May all who hope in the Lord be courageous and strengthened (20–25)!

Psalm 30:2. In You, O Lord, I trust; let me never be ashamed; deliver me in Your righteousness; “Deliver me in Your righteousness”—because You, O Lord, love righteousness, deliver me from my enemies. Here David confesses his complete innocence before God, which is the basis of his confidence and plea for protection.

Psalm 30:4. For You are a rock of mine and a stronghold of mine; for the sake of Your name guide me and lead me. Psalm 30:6. Into Your hand I commit my spirit; You have redeemed me, O Lord, God of truth. “For the sake of Your name guide me and lead me.” God’s name is the God of truth. David is pure before Him. So that God’s name would not be scorned and mocked by enemies, David asks to “guide him,” that is, to save him from afflictions, for his ruin could be interpreted by enemies as evidence of God’s inability to save those devoted to Him (6). “Into Your hand I commit my spirit”—I entrust my life to You.

Psalm 30:7. I hate those who hold to idols, but I trust in the Lord. David found refuge in Ziklag under the protection of King Achish and the Philistines. But this protection, without depriving David of grateful feelings toward his protectors, could not bind him to them by religious conviction: they worship idols, false gods, and thus offend the one true God—the Deity. David hates these beliefs, and they cannot bring him closer to the Philistines or inspire in him love and respect for them.

Psalm 30:9. And You did not deliver me into the hand of the enemy; You set my feet in a spacious place. “You set my feet in a spacious place”—You brought me out from a confined situation into a relatively free and safe place, namely to Ziklag.

Psalm 30:11. My life is consumed by sorrow and my years by sighing; my strength fails me because of my affliction, and my bones waste away. David prays to God in the subsequent time of persecutions, after leaving Ziklag, to save him from his enemies. “My strength fails me because of my affliction”—an imprecise translation from the Hebrew; it should say “because of hardships,” or as in the Vulgate “in paupertate,” and in the LXX—“in poverty.”

Psalm 30:12. I am scorned by all my enemies and even by my neighbors; I am a dread to my acquaintances; those who see me on the street flee from me. David was avoided by those who knew him. This is understandable: Saul pursued him as his personal enemy, and close relations with David or dealings with him by anyone among the Hebrews could arouse suspicion on Saul’s part of supporting him and thus bring down the king’s wrath.

Psalm 30:13. I am forgotten as though I were dead; I am like a broken vessel. “I am forgotten as though I were dead”—no one remembers me, as they do not remember a dead man, with heartfelt and active sympathy.

Psalm 30:14. For I hear the slandering of many; fear is on every side, when they conspire against me, they plot to take my life. “To take my life”—to deprive me of life.

Psalm 30:18. O Lord! let me not be ashamed, for I call upon You; let the wicked be shamed; let them be silent in Hades. “Let me not be ashamed, for I call upon You”—synonymous with v. 4.

Psalm 30:23. In my alarm I said: “I am cut off from Your sight”; yet You heard my voice, the voice of my prayer, when I cried to You. “In my alarm”—in a severe, disturbed state, when David found and saw protection nowhere from people.

Psalm 30:24. Love the Lord, all you His faithful; the Lord preserves the faithful and abundantly repays the proud. The help received by David from the Lord fills him with gratitude to Him. In this fact he sees a comforting indication for all the righteous, that the Lord will keep them, and those acting with pride, guided in their actions not by God’s will but by their own considerations, He repays “abundantly,” heavily, that is, severely, as severe is the very transgression of disobedience and rejection of God’s guidance.