strength · noun, common masculine singular absolute
hear
יִשְׁמַ֤עyish.Ma'
H8085
to hear intelligently (often with implication of attent… · verb, qal imperfect, 3rd person masculine singular
afflict
עָנָהʻânâh
H6030
properly
abideth
וְיֹ֤שֵׁ֥בve.Yo.Shev
H3427
properly · conjunction + verb, qal active participle, masculine singular absolute
old
קֶ֗דֶםKe.dem
H6924
the front · noun, common masculine singular absolute
Selah
סֶ֥לָהSe.lah
H5542
suspension (of music) · interjection
changes
חֲלִיפ֣וֹתcha.li.Fot
H2487
alternation · noun, common feminine plural absolute
fear
יָרְא֣וּya.re.'U
H3372
to fear · verb, qal perfect, 3rd person common plural
God
אֱלֹהִֽים'E.lo.Him
H430
gods in the ordinary sense · noun, common masculine plural 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
Deuteronomy 33:27 The eternal God is thy refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms: and he shall thrust out the enemy from before thee; and shall say, D…
Zephaniah 1:12 And it shall come to pass at that time, that I will search Jerusalem with candles, and punish the men that are settled on their lees: that s…
Ecclesiastes 8:11 Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil.
Jeremiah 48:11 Moab hath been at ease from his youth, and he hath settled on his lees, and hath not been emptied from vessel to vessel, neither hath he gon…
Micah 5:2 But thou, Beth-lehem Ephratah, though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of thee shall he come forth unto me that is to be…
Colossians 1:17 And he is before all things, and by him all things consist.
Revelation 6:10-11 And they cried with a loud voice, saying, How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on th…
Psalms 65:5 By terrible things in righteousness wilt thou answer us, O God of our salvation; who art the confidence of all the ends of the earth, and of…
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Psalms 55:16–end
In these verses,
I. David perseveres in his resolution to call upon God, being well assured that he should not seek him in vain (Psa 55:16): "As for me, let them take what course they please to secure themselves, let violence and strife be their guards, prayer shall be mind; this I have found comfort in, and therefore this will I abide by: I will call upon God, and commit myself to him, and the Lord shall save me;" for whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord, in a right manner, shall be saved, Rom 10:13. He resolves to be both fervent and frequent in this duty. 1. He will pray fervently: "I will pray and cry aloud. I will meditate" (so the former word signifies); "I will speak with my o…
God hears the wicked in wrath.
abideth--or, "sitteth."
of old--enthroned as a sovereign.
Because . . . no changes--Prosperity hardens them (Psa 73:5).
John Gill on Psalms 55:19
God shall hear and afflict them,.... That is, either he shall hear the prayers of his servant, imprecating evils upon his enemies, Psalm 55:9; and shall bring them down upon them, in answer to his requests; or it may be, rendered, "God shall hear and answer them" (c); he shall hear their blasphemies, and take notice of their wickedness, and answer them by terrible things in righteousness;
even he that abideth of old; or "is the inhabitant of eternity" (d) Isaiah 57:15; the eternal God, from everlasting to everlasting, who was before all creatures and before all time, and will ever remain the same, out of whose hands there is no escaping. The Targum is,
"and he inhabiteth the heavens from o…
Psalm 55:16-19
16. I will call upon God, and Jehovah shall save me. 17. Evening, and morning, and at noon, will I pray, and cry aloud; and he shall hear my voice. 18. He hath redeemed my soul into peace from the battle which was against me: for they were in great numbers with me. 19. God shall hear, and afflict them, [311] even He who sitteth from ancient time. [312] Selah. Because they have no changes, and fear not God.
16 I will call upon God. In translating this verse I have retained the future tense of the verb, as the Psalmist does not refer to something already done, but rather excites himself to the duty of prayer, and to the exercise of hope and confidence. Though there was no appa…
The Church Fathers
Just as the most holy David blames the stubbornness of miserable and unhappy people who decline to be changed from evil to good during the course of this life, so he announces the coming punishment of divine retribution, saying, "For them there is no change, and they have not feared God." And lest they who were not willing to be changed vainly promise themselves that they will receive the forgiveness of sins at the end of their earthly life, he then added, "He extended his hand in retribution." The beginning of this retribution starts when the wicked person, receiving the reward that his error demanded, by a just judgment is allowed to remain in his wickedness. The completion comes when, for these same iniquities, he will be tortured by eternal fire. Nor should this retribution be considered small by which the wicked person, deprived of the light of justice, is permitted to wander in his darkness, prejudged not by blindness of the flesh but of the heart. This also is relevant to the accumulation of retribution, if the blind person not only is unable to perceive the light but also with pleasure seeks to increase the darkness of his blindness.
"God will hear me, and He shall humble them That is before ages" [Psalm 55:19]. For they rely on some leader or other of theirs that hath begun but yesterday. "He shall humble them That is before ages." For even if with reference to time Christ is of Mary the Virgin, nevertheless before ages: "In the beginning He is the Word and the Word with God, and the Word God." "He shall humble them That is before ages. For to them is no changing:" of them I "speak to whom is no changing." He knew of some to persevere, and in the perseverance of their own wickedness to die. For we see them, and to them is no changing: they that die in that same perverseness, in that same schism, to them is no changing. God shall humble them, shall humble them in damnation, because they are exalted in dissension. To them is no changing, because they are not changed for the better, but for the worse: neither while they are here, nor in the resurrection. For all we shall rise again, but not all shall be changed. Wherefore? Because "'To them is no changing: and they have not feared God."...
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
Lees — (Heb. shemarim), from a word meaning to keep or preserve. It was applied to “lees” from the custom of allowing wine to stand on the lees that it might thereby be better preserved (Isa. 25:6). “Men…
Neginoth — I.e., songs with instrumental accompaniment, found in the titles of Ps. 4; 6; 54; 55; 67; 76; rendered “stringed instruments,” Hab. 3:19, A.V. It denotes all kinds of stringed instruments, as the…
Afflictions Of The Wicked, The · Their persecution of saints, a cause of — Their persecution of saints, a cause of
Godlessness · General scriptures concerning — General scriptures concerning
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).
In the third group confidence prevails, the tone that is struck up in Psa 55:17 being carried forward. Evening morning, and noon, as the beginning, middle, and close of the day, denote the day in its whole compass or extent: David thus gives expression to the incessancy with which he is determined to lay before God, both in the quiet of his spirit and in louder utterances, whatsoever moves him. The fut. consec. ויּשׁמע connects the hearing (answer) with the prayer as its inevitable result. Also in the praet. פּדה expression is given to the certainty of faith; and בּשׁלום side by side with it denotes, with the same pregnancy of meaning as in Psa 118:5, the state of undisturbed outward and inw…
God is good and faithful, but the psalmist’s enemies and so-called friend are deceitful and wicked.
Spurgeon's Treasury of David on Psalms 55:19
God shall hear, and afflict them, even he that abideth of old. Selah. Because they have no changes, therefore they fear not God.
God shall hear, and afflict them. They make a noise as well as I, and God will hear them. The voice of slander, malice, and pride, is not alone heard by those whom it grieves, it reaches to heaven, it penetrates the divine ear, it demands vengeance, and shall have it. God hears and delivers his people, he hears and destroys the wicked. Their cruel jests, their base falsehoods, their cowardly insults, their daring blasphemies are heard, and shall be repaid to them by the eternal judge. Even he that abideth of old. He sits in eternity, enthroned judge for evermore;…
