Project Psalms
Voice: Neil Mason
Tune: Lancaster
Psalm 18:20-29 Lyrics:
20 According to my righteousness
he did me recompense,
He me repaid according to
my hands' pure innocence.
21 For I God's ways kept, from my God
did not turn wickedly.
22 His judgments were before me, I
his laws put not from me.

23 Sincere before him was my heart;
with him upright was I;
And watchfully I kept myself
from mine iniquity.
24 After my righteousness the Lord
hath recompensed me,
After the cleanness of my hands
appearing in his eye.

25 Thou gracious to the gracious art,
to upright men upright:
26 Pure to the pure, froward thou kyth'st
unto the froward wight.
27 For thou wilt the afflicted save
in grief that low do lie:
But wilt bring down the countenance
of them whose looks are high.

28 The Lord will light my candle so,
that it shall shine full bright:
The Lord my God will also make
my darkness to be light.
29 By thee through troops of men I break,
and them discomfit all;
And, by my God assisting me,
I overleap a wall.

To the chief Musician, A Psalm of David, the servant of the Lord, who spake unto the Lord the words of this song in the day that the Lord delivered him from the hand of all his enemies, and from the hand of Saul: And he said,

John Brown of Haddington's Notes:

In this psalm of thanksgiving for manifold deliverances, observe, (1.) David's ardent love to God in Christ, whom he believed to be his own, in every gracious and saving relation; and whom he had experienced his merciful, almighty, and seasonable deliverer, from depths of trouble, verses 1-19. (2.) His comfortable reflections, on the integrity which the Lord had enabled him to maintain, and on the gracious kindness of God, consequential thereupon, verses 20-28. (3.) His thankful ascription of all the glory of his noted exploits to God, as his director and strengthener, verses 29-42. (4.) His triumphant faith and hope, of further assistance and favour from God, to himself and to his seed for evermore, verses 43-50.

But let me not forget Jesus, to whom Jehovah is so closely, so marvellously, so sweetly related: Jesus, who so ardently loveth his eternal Father, and for ever returns the grateful remembrance of his kindness to him, and to his chosen seed, in delivering him from distress; in raising him from the dead; in rewarding his obedience unto death, in giving him glory at his own right hand, and in rendering all nations his obedient subjects. Let me sing this new song, in the full assurance of faith, that God in Christ is my all and in all; and with a heart ravished with the consolations of Christ, and in the sweet reviews of what he hath done, what he doth, and what he will for ever do, for my soul.