Psalms 115:9

O Israel, trust thou in the LORD: he is their help and their shield.

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Word by word — the Hebrew

Word	Hebrew	Strong’s	Meaning
Israel	יִ֭שְׂרָאֵל Yis.ra.'el	H3478	Jisrael · proper noun, a place name
trust	בְּטַ֣ח be.Tach	H982	figuratively · verb, qal imperative, 2nd person masculine singular
LORD	בַּיהוָ֑ה ba.Yah.weh	H3068	Jehovah · preposition + proper noun, a title
help	עֶזְרָ֖ם 'ez.Ram	H5828	aid · noun, common masculine singular construct + pronominal suffix, 3rd person masculine plural
shield	וּמָגִנָּ֣ם u.ma.gi.Nam	H4043	a shield (i.e. the small one or buckler) · conjunction + noun, common masculine singular construct + pronominal suffix, 3rd person masculine plural

Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).

Cross-references

Psalms 62:8 Trust in him at all times; ye people, pour out your heart before him: God is a refuge for us. Selah.
Psalms 37:3 Trust in the LORD, and do good; so shalt thou dwell in the land, and verily thou shalt be fed.
Proverbs 30:5 Every word of God is pure: he is a shield unto them that put their trust in him.
Psalms 118:2-4 Let Israel now say, that his mercy endureth for ever.
Psalms 135:19-20 Bless the LORD, O house of Israel: bless the LORD, O house of Aaron:
Deuteronomy 33:29 Happy art thou, O Israel: who is like unto thee, O people saved by the LORD, the shield of thy help, and who is the sword of thy excellency!…
Psalms 33:20-21 Our soul waiteth for the LORD: he is our help and our shield.
Psalms 146:5-6 Happy is he that hath the God of Jacob for his help, whose hope is in the LORD his God:

Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).

Commentary

Matthew Henry on Psalms 115:9–end

In these verses, I. We are earnestly exhorted, all of us, to repose our confidence in God, and not suffer our confidence in him to be shaken by the heathens' insulting over us upon the account of our present distresses. It is folly to trust in dead images, but it is wisdom to trust in the living God, for he is a help and a shield to those that do trust in them, a help to furnish them with and forward them in that which is good, and a shield to fortify them against and protect them from every thing that is evil. Therefore, 1. Let Israel trust in the Lord; the body of the people, as to their public interests, and every particular Israelite, as to his own private concerns, let them leave it to…

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John Gill on Psalms 115:9

O Israel, trust thou in the Lord,.... Or, "the house of Israel hath trusted in the Lord": so the Septuagint, Vulgate Latin, Syriac, Arabic, and Ethiopic versions: the Targum is, "Israel trusteth in the Word of the Lord;'' in distinction from the Heathens, that trust in their idols. But it is better rendered as an imperative, trust thou; it being an exhortation to Israel to trust in the Lord, in opposition to idols; and may be understood of Israel, literally taken, who were God's chosen covenant people, to whom he had made a revelation of himself, and of his will; and therefore should trust in him, and in no other; and of spiritual Israel, or all the elect of God, and redeemed of the Lamb;…

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John Calvin on Psalms 115:9-15

Psalm 115:9-15 9. O Israel! Trust [371] thou in Jehovah: he is their help and their shield. 10. O house of Aaron! trust ye in Jehovah: he is their help and their shield. 11. Ye that fear Jehovah! trust in Jehovah: he is their help and their shield. 12. Jehovah has been mindful of us; he will bless us; he will bless the house of Israel; he will bless the house of Aaron. 13. He will bless them that fear Jehovah, both the small with the great. 14. Jehovah will add unto you, unto you and unto your children. 15. Blessed are ye of Jehovah, who made heaven and earth. 9 O Israel! trust thou in Jehovah The prophet again resumes the doctrinal point, that the genuine worshippers of God have no cause…

The Church Fathers

"But the house of Israel has hoped in the Lord" [Psalm 115:9]. "For hope that is seen is not hope; for what a man sees, why does he yet hope for? But if we hope for that we see not, then do we with patience wait for it." [Romans 8:24-25] But that this patience may endure to the end, "He is their helper and defender." Do perhaps spiritual persons (by whom carnal minds are built up in "the spirit of meekness," [Galatians 6:1] because they pray as higher for lower minds) already see, and is that already to them reality which to the lower is hope? It is not so. For even "the house of Aaron has hope in the Lord" [Psalm 115:10]. Therefore, that they also may stretch forward perseveringly towards those things which are before them, and may run perseveringly, until they may apprehend that for which they are apprehended, [Philippians 3:12-14] and may know even as they are known, [1 Corinthians 13:12] "He is their helper and defender." For both "fear the Lord, and have hoped in the Lord: He is their helper and defender" [Psalm 115:11].
— Augustine of Hippo, Exposition on Psalm 115

The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).

Dictionary and topics

Passover — The name given to the chief of the three great historical annual festivals of the Jews. It was kept in remembrance of the Lord’s passing over the houses of the Israelites (Ex. 12:13) when the first…
Faith · ENJOINE — ENJOINE
Shields · A part of defensive armour — A part of defensive armour

Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).

Psalms 115:9

Word by word — the Hebrew

Cross-references

Commentary

Matthew Henry on Psalms 115:9–end

John Gill on Psalms 115:9

John Calvin on Psalms 115:9-15

The Church Fathers

Dictionary and topics

Psalms 115:9

Word by word — the Hebrew

Cross-references

Commentary

Matthew Henry on Psalms 115:9–end

John Gill on Psalms 115:9

John Calvin on Psalms 115:9-15

The Church Fathers

Dictionary and topics

Keil & Delitzsch on Psalms 115:9-14

Tyndale Open Study Notes on Psalms 115:9-11

Spurgeon's Treasury of David on Psalms 115:9