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The force of this passage is somewhat lost by the rendering of it. here. What David says literally is this, Jehovah is holding his hand. "His hand" is the man's hand — not God's hand. Read it thus, "Though he fall, he shall not be utterly cast down: for Jehovah is holding his hand" — that is what David means. The mental image in this text is just this. A child has to tread a certain path. That child is weak and timid — he may be reduced by sickness — yet he has to tread a certain path. His father knows that he is weak and timid — he goes with him, and takes his hand. That is the image. The reality is this. Life is that path — the distance between our cradle and our tomb — between the hour of our birth and the hour of our death. The man of God is that child. How real God was to David. One looks sometimes for the reason of this — and I think while it is impossible entirely to account for it, that we must attach some importance to such circumstances as these. Mark David's early piety. He began to trust that God while he was yet in his teens. The advantage of beginning early no words can express. Hence David had acquired the habit of trust in God. I think, also, we must attach some importance to David's early sorrows. There is one lesson which can be only learnt by affliction — and that is, to use the things of earth without abusing them. Sorrow throws the man upon God, and obliges him, if he have but a germ of religious life in his nature, to get his rest, and his peace, and his blessedness from God. Then his great sensitiveness was, moreover, brought completely under the power of his religious ideas and his religious principles. That comes out marvellously in the 22nd Psalm: "My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me? why art Thou so far from helping me?" Now, the man who could write that must have lived very near to God. But who is he that lives in such a habit of fellowship with God, that if that fellowship be interrupted — if God in the course of a day say less to the man than He has been accustomed to say, would feel such anguish and grief about it as this cry — "My God, my God, why," etc., indicate? And who would do it on a throne? God was a reality to David's soul: hence he could write such things as these. He could say with reference to every man trusting in God, and delighting in God, "Jehovah is holding his hand." David saw it: it was a matter of constant observation to him. Many others did not see it. But he did. Yes, the great Jehovah condescends thus towards us. Thus it is with God. There is real contact. "Jehovah is holding his hand." And there is real help — not merely contact. Not the displacement of our effort, or substitution for it, but help. The child walks, is not carried, but its hand is held. So is it with God. He will not do for us what we can do for ourselves. And yet we have deep sense all the while of our own personal weakness. We know that our strength is from God. Now, Jesus Christ has come to us fallen creatures, whose hands have parted from God's hand, to put our hand again into the grasp of the Almighty Father.

(S. Martin.)

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KJV: Though he fall, he shall not be utterly cast down: for the LORD upholdeth him with his hand.

WEB: Though he stumble, he shall not fall, for Yahweh holds him up with his hand.