(4) With them . . .--Better, is a supporter of my life. So LXX. and Vulgate.

Verse 4. - Behold, God is mine Helper. There is a pause between vers. 3 and 4, indicated by the pause-mark, "Selah." Then, confident of his prayer having been heard, the psalmist breaks out into a joyous burst of thankfulness and self-gratulation (vers. 4-7). The Lord is with them that uphold my soul; rather, of them (Revised Version); i.e. "one of them." But the intention is not to place God on a par with other helpers. Rather, as Professor Cheyne remarks, it is to make him the representative of" the class of helpers."

54:4-7 Behold, God is mine Helper. If we are for him, he is for us; and if he is for us, we need not fear. Every creature is that to us, and no more, which God makes it to be. The Lord will in due time save his people, and in the mean time he sustains them, and bears them up, so that the spirit he has made shall not fail. There is truth in God's threatenings, as well as in his promises; sinners that repent not, will find it so to their cost. David's present deliverance was an earnest of further deliverance. He speaks of the completion of his deliverance as a thing done, though he had as yet many troubles before him; because, having God's promise for it, he was as sure of it as if it was done already. The Lord would deliver him out of all his troubles. May he help us to bear our cross without repining, and at length bring us to share his victories and glory. Christians never should suffer the voice of praise and thanksgiving to cease in the church of the redeemed.Behold, God is mine helper,.... This being a matter of wonder to be helped in so extraordinary a manner, and a sure and certain case, and what was deserving the attention of others; for the encouragement of their faith and hope in like cases, a "behold" is prefixed unto it: and what is here said is true of David's son, the Messiah, and is expressed by him in much the same language, Isaiah 50:9; and of all the saints whom the Lord helps, as at first conversion, out of the pit wherein is no water, out of the horrible pit, the mire and clay of nature's darkness, ignorance, and unbelief; so out of all their afflictions and temptations, and out of the hands of all their enemies; he helps in the exercise of grace, and in the discharge of duty; and he helps to all mercies, temporal and spiritual, needful for them; which help is quick and present, seasonable and suitable, always sufficient; and is what they have reason to expect both from what he has said to them in promise, and from what he has done for them;

the Lord is with them that uphold my soul; that ministered to his sustenance, as Abigail did, and that gathered to him and joined him, and exposed their lives in the defence of him; these the Lord was with, blessed, protected, and afforded them his gracious presence. Such there were with Christ; who followed him in the regeneration; who ministered to him of their substance, whom God rewarded in a way of grace; and he blesses them that bless his, and do good to them; they being the excellent in the earth, in whom is his delight, the apple of his eye, and his jewels. Or the sense is, that the Lord is he that upheld his soul; not only the chief of his upholders, but the only one: so R. Moses (l) interprets it, that he is the alone upholder, and is instead of all upholders, and answers to them all; who upheld his soul in life, and followed him with his goodness: as when God is said to be the first, and "with the last", the meaning is, that he is the first and the last, Isaiah 41:4; see Psalm 118:7; so he upheld the soul of Christ in the wilderness, and in the garden, and on the cross; see Isaiah 42:1. And he upholds all his people in a providential way in their beings, and supplies them with all the necessaries of life; and, in a spiritual way, maintaining their spiritual life, supplying them with all grace, bearing them up under all trials, holding up their goings in his ways, and preserving them to the end.

(l) Apud Aben Ezram in loc.