Psalms 28:1

Unto thee will I cry, O LORD my rock; be not silent to me: lest, if thou be silent to me, I become like them that go down into the pit.

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Word by word — the Hebrew

Word	Hebrew	Strong’s	Meaning
cry	אֶקְרָ֗א 'ek.Ra'	H7121	to call out to (i.e. properly · verb, qal imperfect, 1st person common singular
LORD	יְהוָ֨ה Yah.weh	H3068	Jehovah · proper noun, a title
rock	צוּרִי֮ tzu.Ri	H6697	properly · noun, common masculine singular construct + pronominal suffix
silent	תֶּֽחֱשֶׁ֥ה te.che.Sheh	H2814	to hush or keep quiet · verb, qal imperfect, 2nd person masculine singular
silent	תֶּחֱרַ֪שׁ te.che.Rash	H2790	to scratch · verb, qal jussive, 2nd person masculine singular
become	וְ֝נִמְשַׁ֗לְתִּי ve.nim.Shal.ti	H4911	to liken · conjunction + verb, niphal sequential perfect, 1st person common singular
down	י֥וֹרְדֵי Yor.dei	H3381	to descend (literally · verb, qal active participle, masculine plural construct
pit	בֽוֹר Vor	H953	a pit hole (especially one used as a cistern or a priso… · noun, common masculine singular absolute

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 143:7 Hear me speedily, O LORD: my spirit faileth: hide not thy face from me, lest I be like unto them that go down into the pit.
Psalms 18:2 The LORD is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer; my God, my strength, in whom I will trust; my buckler, and the horn of my salvation,…
Psalms 88:4-6 I am counted with them that go down into the pit: I am as a man that hath no strength:
Psalms 83:1 Keep not thou silence, O God: hold not thy peace, and be not still, O God.
Proverbs 1:12 Let us swallow them up alive as the grave; and whole, as those that go down into the pit:
Isaiah 26:4 Trust ye in the LORD for ever: for in the LORD JEHOVAH is everlasting strength:
Job 33:28 He will deliver his soul from going into the pit, and his life shall see the light.
Revelation 20:3 And cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal upon him, that he should deceive the nations no more, till the thousan…

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

Commentary

Matthew Henry on Psalms 28:1-5

In these verses David is very earnest in prayer. I. He prays that God would graciously hear and answer him, now that, in his distress, he called upon him, Psa 28:1, Psa 28:2. Observe his faith in prayer: O Lord, my rock, denoting his belief of God's power (he is a rock) and his dependence upon that power - "He is my rock, on whom I build my hope." Observe his fervency in prayer: "To thee will I cry, as one in earnest, being ready to sink, unless thou come in with seasonable succour." And observe how solicitous he is to obtain an answer: "Be not silent to me, as one angry at my prayers, Psa 80:4. Lord, speak to me, answer me with good words and comfortable words (Zac 1:13); though the thing I…

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John Gill on Psalms 28:1

Unto thee will I cry,.... This denotes the distress the psalmist was in, fervency and ardour in prayer, resolution to continue in it, and singularity with respect to the object of it; determining to cry to the Lord only; to which he was encouraged by what follows; O Lord my rock; he being a strong tower and place of defence to him, in whom were all his safety, and his trust and confidence, and in whom he had an interest; be not silent to me; or "deaf" (q); persons that do not hear are silent, and make no answer; as the Lord seems to be, when he returns no answer to the cries of his people; when he does not arise and help them; when he seems not to take any notice of his and their enemies,…

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John Calvin on Psalms 28:1-2

Psalm 28:1-2 1. Unto thee, O Jehovah! will I cry; O my strength! hold not thy peace from me; lest, shouldst thou be silent to me, I become like them that go down to the grave. 2. Hear the voice of my prayers when I cry to thee, when I lift up my hands to the sanctuary of thy holiness. 1. Unto thee, O Jehovah! will I cry. The Psalmist begins by declaring that he would betake himself to the help of God alone, which shows both his faith and his sincerity. Although men labor every where under a multitude of troubles, yet scarcely one in a hundred ever has recourse to God. Almost all having their consciences burdened with guilt, and having never experienced the power of divine grace which might…

The Church Fathers

I shall attribute the fact of the victory not to my virtue but to you, the God who proved its source for me.
— Diodorus of Tarsus, COMMENTARY ON PSALM 28

If you keep silence with me and deprive me of your help, I shall immediately be consigned to death, which he called "pit," since the grave is dug like a pit.
— Theodoret of Cyrus, COMMENTARY ON THE PSALMS 28:1

"Unto You, O Lord, have I cried; My God, be not silent from me" [Psalm 28:1]. Unto You, O Lord, have I cried; My God, separate not the unity of Your Word from that which as Man I am. "Lest at any time Thou be silent from me: and I shall be like them that go down into the pit." For from this, that the Eternity of Your Word ceases not to unite Itself to Me, it comes that I am not such a man as the rest of men, who are born into the deep misery of this world: where, as if You are silent, Your Word is not recognised.
— Augustine of Hippo, Exposition on Psalm 28

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

Rock — (Heb. tsur), employed as a symbol of God in the Old Testament (1 Sam. 2:2; 2 Sam. 22:3; Isa. 17:10; Ps. 28:1; 31:2, 3; 89:26; 95:1); also in the New Testament (Matt. 16:18; Rom. 9:33; 1 Cor. 10:4).…

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 28:1

Word by word — the Hebrew

Cross-references

Commentary

Matthew Henry on Psalms 28:1-5

John Gill on Psalms 28:1

John Calvin on Psalms 28:1-2

The Church Fathers

Dictionary and topics

Psalms 28:1

Word by word — the Hebrew

Cross-references

Commentary

Matthew Henry on Psalms 28:1-5

John Gill on Psalms 28:1

John Calvin on Psalms 28:1-2

The Church Fathers

Dictionary and topics

Keil & Delitzsch on Psalms 28:1-5

Tyndale Open Study Notes on Psalms 28:1

Spurgeon's Treasury of David on Psalms 28:1