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If we accept the statement in, the superscription of this psalm, it dates from one of the darkest hours in David's life. His fortunes were never lower than when he fled from Gath, the city of Goliath, to Adullam. He never appears in a less noble light than when he feigned madness to avert the dangers which he might well dread there. How unlike the terror and self-degradation of the man who "scrabbled on the doors," and let "the spittle run down his beard," is the heroic and saintly constancy of this noble psalm! The "Angel of the Lord" here is to be taken collectively, and the meaning is that "the bright harnessed hosts" of these Divine messengers are, as an army of protectors, around them that fear God. But Scripture speaks also of One, who is in an eminent sense "the Angel of the Lord," in whom, as in none other, God sets His "Name." He is the leader of the heavenly hosts. He appeared when Abraham "took the knife to slay his son," and restrained him. He speaks to Jacob at Bethel, and says, "I am the God of Bethel"; and many other instances there are. It is this lofty and mysterious messenger that David sees standing ready to help, as He once stood, sword-bearing by the side of Joshua. To the warrior leader, to the warrior psalmist, He appears, as their needs required, armoured and militant. The vision of the Divine presence ever takes the form which our circumstances most require. David's then need was safety and protection. Therefore he saw the Encamping Angel; even as to Joshua the leader He appeared as the Captain of the Lord's host; and as to Isaiah, in the year that the throne of Judah was emptied by the death of the earthly king, was given the vision of the Lord sitting on a throne, the King Eternal and Immortal. So to us all His grace shapes its expression according to our wants, and the same gift is Protean in its power of transformation; being to one man wisdom, to another strength, to the solitary companionship, to the sorrowful consolation, to the glad sobering, to the thinker truth, to the worker practical force, — to each his heart's desire. Learn, too, from this image, in which the psalmist appropriates to himself the experience of a past generation, how we ought to feed our confidence and enlarge our hopes by all God's past dealings with men. David looks back to Jacob, and believes that the old fact is repeated in his own day. So every old story is true for us; though outward form may alter, inward substance remains the same. Mahanaim is still the name of every place where a man who loves God pitches his tent. Our feeble encampment may lie open to assault, and we be all unfit to guard it, but the other camp is there too, and our enemies must force their way through it before they get at us. "The Lord of Hosts is with us." Only, remember, that the eye of faith alone can see that guard, and that therefore we must labour to keep our consciousness of its reality fresh and vivid. Notice, too, that final word of deliverance. This psalm is continually recurring to that idea. The word occurs four times in it, and the thought still oftener. He is quite sure that such deliverance must follow if the Angel presence be there. But he knows, too, that the encampment of the Angel of the Lord will not keep away sorrows, and trial, and sharp need. So his highest hope is not of immunity from these, but of rescue out of them. And his ground of hope is that his heavenly ally cannot let him be overcome. That He will not let him be troubled and put in peril he has found; that He will not let him be crushed he believes. Shaded and modest hopes are the brightest we can venture to cherish. But it is the least we are entitled to expect. And so the apostle, when within sight of the headsman's axe, broke into the rapture of his last words, "The Lord shall deliver me from every evil work, and will preserve me to His everlasting kingdom."

(A. Maclaren, D. D.)

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KJV: This poor man cried, and the LORD heard him, and saved him out of all his troubles.

WEB: This poor man cried, and Yahweh heard him, and saved him out of all his troubles.