Psalm 28:8

The LORD is their strength, and he is the saving strength of his anointed.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(8) Their strength—i.e., the strength of His people, who are throughout in the poet’s thought, even if it is the individual and not the community that speaks. The LXX. and Vulg. read (comp. Psalm 29:11) “to his people.”

Saving strength.—Better, stronghold of salvation. (See margin.)

Benson Commentary

Psalm 28:8. The Lord is their strength — That is, the strength of his people, mentioned in the next verse. He is the saving strength — Hebrews ישׁועות מעון, the strength of the preservations, deliverances, or salvations; of his anointed — Of me, whom he hath anointed to be king, and whom therefore he will defend. He signifies that it was by God’s strength alone that his victories, deliverances, and preservations were wrought.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

28:6-9 Has God heard our supplications? Let us then bless his name. The Lord is my strength, to support me, and carry me on through all my services and sufferings. The heart that truly believes, shall in due time greatly rejoice: we are to expect joy and peace in believing. God shall have the praise of it: thus must we express our gratitude. The saints rejoice in others' comfort as well as their own: we have the less benefit from the light of the sun, nor from the light of God's countenance, for others' sharing therein. The psalmist concludes with a short, but comprehensive prayer. God's people are his inheritance, and precious in his eyes. He prays that God would save them; that he would bless them with all good, especially the plenty of his ordinances, which are food to the soul. And direct their actions and overrule their affairs for good. Also, lift them up for ever; not only those of that age, but his people in every age to come; lift them up as high as heaven. There, and there only, will saints be lifted up for ever, never more to sink, or be depressed. Save us, Lord Jesus, from our sins; bless us, thou Son of Abraham, with the blessing of righteousness; feed us, thou good Shepherd of the sheep, and lift us up for ever from the dust, O thou, who art the Resurrection and the Life.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

The Lord is their strength - Margin, "his strength." The Hebrew is, "their strength," or "strength to them." The allusion is to the people of God. The course of thought seems to be, that the psalmist, having derived in his own case assistance from God, or having found God a strength to him, his mind turns from this fact to the general idea that God was the strength of "all" who were in similar circumstancaes; or that all His people might confide in Him as he had done.

And he is the saving strength - Margin, as in Hebrew, "strength of salvations." That is, In Him is found the strength which produces salvation. See the notes at Psalm 27:1.

Of his anointed - See Psalm 2:2, note; Psalm 20:6, note. The primary reference here is doubtless to the psalmist himself, as one who had been annointed or set apaart to the kingly office; but the connection shows that he intended to include all the people of God, as those whom He had consecrated or set apart to His service. See 1 Peter 2:5, 1 Peter 2:9.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

8. The distinction made between the people.

their strength—and the anointed—may indicate Absalom's rebellion as the occasion.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

Their strength, i.e. the strength of his people, mentioned in the next verse; the relative being put before the antecedent, which is left to be gathered out of the following matter, as it is Numbers 24:17 Psalm 87:1. Or, his strength; for the Hebrew affix mo, which commonly is plural, is sometimes taken singularly; of which see my Latin Synopsis here, and on Isaiah 53:8. And his, i.e. of his anointed, as the next clause explains it. Or the words may be thus rendered, Strength is or belongs to thee Lord. Heb. The Lord, strength is his, or to him. It is a Hebrew pleonasm.

The saving strength, Heb. the strength of the preservations, or deliverances, or victories, or salvations, i.e. he by whose strength alone he hath got these victories, &c.

Of his anointed, i.e. of me, whom he hath anointed to be king, whom therefore he will defend; he speaks of himself in the third person, which is usual in the Hebrew tongue.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

The Lord is their strength,.... The strength of his people, mentioned in Psalm 28:9; not only the strength of David in particular, but of all his people in general; see Psalm 37:39;

and he is the saving strength of his anointed; meaning either himself, as before, who was anointed by Samuel king of Israel, and therefore had not invaded and thrust himself into an office he had no call and right unto; or the Messiah, the Lord's Anointed, whom he heard, helped, and strengthened in the day of salvation, and delivered him from the power of death and the grave, and raised him from thence, and gave him glory; see Psalm 20:6.

Geneva Study Bible

The LORD is {g} their strength, and he is the saving strength of his anointed.

(g) Meaning his soldiers who were means by which God declared his power.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

8. their strength] Their must refer to the people. But there is no antecedent for the pronoun, and it is best to follow a few Heb. MSS., the LXX, Vulg., and Syr., in reading, a strength unto his people. Cp. Psalm 29:11.

and he is &c.] R.V., and he is a strong hold of salvation to his anointed. Cp. Psalm 27:1. Salvation is lit. salvations, great and manifold deliverance. Cp. Psalm 18:50; Psalm 20:6.

8, 9. Concluding intercession for the people. Cf. Psalm 3:8.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 8. - The Lord is their Strength; i.e. the Strength, not of himself alone, but of the whole people. The deliverance will be as much for their sake as for his. And he is the saving strength of his anointed - literally, and a Stronghold of salvation to his anointed is HE. The welfare of David and that of the people are bound up together. God strengthens him for their sakes, that he may guide them aright and fight their battles, and give them dominion over their enemies. It was with this object that he chose him out of all Israel, and took him from the sheepfolds, and had him anointed king - that he might "feed Jacob his people, and Israel his inheritance" (Psalm 78:71). Psalm 28:8

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

The first half of the Psalm prayed for deliverance and for judgment; this second half gives thanks for both. If the poet wrote the Psalm at one sitting then at this point the certainty of being answered dawns upon him. But it is even possible that he added this second part later on, as a memorial of the answer he experienced to his prayer (Hitzig, Ewald). It sounds, at all events, like the record of something that has actually taken place. Jahve is his defence and shield. The conjoined perfects in Psalm 28:7 denote that which is closely united in actual realisation; and in the fut. consec., as is frequently the case, e.g., in Job 14:2, the historical signification retreats into the background before the more essential idea of that which has been produced. In משּׁירי, the song is conceived as the spring whence the הודות bubble forth; and instead of אודנּוּ we have the more impressive form אהודנּוּ, as in Psalm 45:18; Psalm 116:6; 1 Samuel 17:47, the syncope being omitted. From suffering (Leid) springs song (Lied), and from song springs the praise (Lob) of Him, who has "turned" the suffering, just as it is attuned in Psalm 28:6 and Psalm 28:8.

(Note: There is a play of words and an alliteration in this sentence which we cannot fully reproduce in the English. - Tr.)

The αὐτοί, who are intended by למו in Psalm 28:8, are those of Israel, as in Psalm 12:8; Isaiah 33:2 (Hitzig). The lxx (κραταίωμα τοῦ λαοῦ αὐτοῦ) reads לעמּו, as in Psalm 29:11, which is approved by Bצttcher, Olshausen and Hupfeld; but למו yields a similar sense. First of all David thinks of the people, then of himself; for his private character retreats behind his official, by virtue of which he is the head of Israel. For this very reason his deliverance is the deliverance of Israel, to whom, so far as they have become unfaithful to His anointed, Jahve has not requited this faithlessness, and to whom, so far as they have remained true to him, He has rewarded this fidelity. Jahve is a עז a si evhaJ to them, inasmuch as He preserves them by His might from the destruction into which they would have precipitated themselves, or into which others would have precipitated them; and He is the מעוז ישׁוּעות of His anointed inasmuch as He surrounds him as an inaccessible place of refuge which secures to him salvation in all its fulness instead of the destruction anticipated. Israel's salvation and blessing were at stake; but Israel is in fact God's people and God's inheritance - may He, then, work salvation for them in every future need and bless them. Apostatised from David, it was a flock in the hands of the hireling - may He ever take the place of shepherd to them and carry them in His arms through the destruction. The נשּׂאם coupled with וּרעם (thus it is to be pointed according to Ben-Asher) calls to mind Deuteronomy 1:31, "Jahve carried Israel as a man doth carry his son," and Exodus 19:4; Deuteronomy 32:11, "as on eagles' wings." The Piel, as in Isaiah 63:9, is used of carrying the weak, whom one lifts up and thus removes out of its helplessness and danger. Psalm 3:1-8 closes just in the same way with an intercession; and the close of Psalm 29:1-11 is similar, but promissory, and consequently it is placed next to Psalm 28:1-9.