Psalms 40:17

Art - "Are"; second person singular.

But I am poor - עני ani, afflicted, greatly depressed.

And needy - אביון ebyon, a beggar. One utterly destitute, and seeking help.

The Lord thinketh upon me - The words are very emphatic; אדני Adonai, my prop, my support, thinketh, יחשב yachshab, meditateth, upon me. On which he concludes: "Thou art my help and deliverer." Seeing that my miserable state occupies thy heart, it will soon employ thy hand. Thou, who meditatest upon me, wilt deliver me.

Make no tarrying - Seeing thou art disposed to help, and I am in such great necessity, delay not, but come speedily to my assistance. The old Psalter speaks to this effect: "Let us not be so long under distress and misery that we lose our patience, or our love to thee."

But I am poor and needy - More literally, "I am afflicted and poor." The language would describe the condition of one who was afflicted and was at the same time poor; of one who had no resource but in God, and who was passing through scenes of poverty and sorrow. There were undoubtedly times in the life of David to which this language would be applicable; but it would be far more applicable to the circumstances in which the Redeemer was placed; and, in accordance with the interpretation which has been given of the other parts of the psalm, I suppose that this is designed to represent his afflicted and humble condition as a man of poverty and sorrow.

Yet the Lord thinketh upon me - The Lord cares for me; he has not forgotten me. Man forsakes me, but he will not. Man leaves me to poverty and sorrow, but, he will not. How true this was of the Redeemer, that the Lord, the Father of mercies; thought on him, it is not needful now to say; nor can it be doubted that in the heavy sorrows of his life this was a source of habitual consolation. To others also - to all his friends - this is a source of unspeakable comfort. To be an object of the thoughts of God; to be had in his mind; to be constantly in his remembrance; to be certain that he will not forsake us in our trouble; to be assured in our own minds that one so great as God is - the infinite and eternal One - will never cease to think on us, may well sustain us in all the trials of life. It matters little who does forsake us, if he does not; it would be of little advantage to us who should think on us, if he did not.

Thou art my help and my deliverer - Implying the highest confidence. See the notes at Psalm 18:2.

Make no tarrying, O my God - Do not linger or delay in coining to my assistance. The psalm closes with this prayer. Applied to the Redeemer, it indicates strong confidence in God in the midst of his afflictions and sorrows, with earnest pleading, coming from the depth of those sorrows, that God would interpose for him. The vision of the psalmist extended here no farther. His eye rested on a suffering Messiah - afflicted, crushed, broken, forsaken - with all the woes connected with the work of human redemption, and all the sorrows expressive of the evil of sin clustering upon him, yet confident in God, and finding his last consolation in the feeling that God "thought" on him, and in the assurance that He would not ultimately forsake him. There is something delightful, though pensive, in the close of the psalm. The last prayer of the sufferer - the confident, earnest pleading - lingers on the ear, and we almost seem to behold the Sufferer in the depth of his sorrows, and in the earnestness of his supplication, calmly looking up to God as One that "thought" on him when all others had forgotten him; as a last, safe refuge when every other refuge had failed. So, in our sorrows, we may lie before the throne, calmly looking up to God with a feeling that we are not forgotten; that there is One who "thinks" on us; and that it is our privilege to pray to him that he would hasten to deliver us. All sorrow can be borne when we feel that God has not forgotten us; we may be calm when all the world forsakes us, if we can feel assured that the great and blessed God thinks on us, and will never cease to remember us.