Psalms 40:12

The Holy Bible, Berean Study Bible

Contextual Overview

¹¹O LORD, do not withhold Your mercy from me; Your loving devotion and faithfulness will always guard me. ¹²For evils without number surround me; my sins have overtaken me, so that I cannot see. They are more than the hairs of my head, and my heart has failed within me.¹³Be pleased, O LORD, to deliver me; hurry, O LORD, to help me. ¹⁴May those who seek my life be ashamed and confounded; may those who wish me harm be repelled and humiliated. ¹⁵May those who say to me, "Aha, aha!" be appalled at their own shame. ¹⁶May all who seek You rejoice and be glad in You; may those who love Your salvation always say, "The LORD be magnified!" ¹⁷But I am poor and needy; may the Lord think of me. You are my helper and deliverer; O my God, do not delay.

Bible Verse Review
  from Treasury of Scripure Knowledge

innumerable: Psalms 22:11-19, Hebrews 4:15

mine: Psalms 38:4, Isaiah 53:6, Luke 18:13, Luke 18:14, 1 Peter 3:18

they are: Psalms 19:12, Psalms 69:4

heart: Psalms 73:26, Genesis 42:28, Luke 21:26

faileth: Heb. forsaketh

Reciprocal: Job 9:3 - he cannot Job 22:5 - thine Job 30:16 - have taken hold Psalms 51:3 - my sin Psalms 65:3 - prevail Psalms 71:15 - I know Psalms 109:26 - Help Psalms 116:4 - O Lord Psalms 139:18 - they are more Psalms 143:7 - my spirit Matthew 18:24 - ten thousand Romans 7:9 - but Romans 7:21 - evil

Cross-References

Genesis 40:18
Joseph replied, "This is the interpretation: The three baskets are three days.

Genesis 40:19
Within three days Pharaoh will lift your head off of you and hang you on a tree. Then the birds will eat the flesh of your body."

Genesis 41:12
Now a young Hebrew was there with us, a servant of the captain of the guard. We told him our dreams and he interpreted them for us individually.

Judges 7:14
His friend replied: "This is nothing less than the sword of Gideon son of Joash, the Israelite. God has delivered Midian and the whole camp into his hands."

Matthew 26:26
While they were eating, Jesus took bread, spoke a blessing and broke it, and gave it to the disciples, saying, "Take and eat; this is My body."

1 Corinthians 10:4
and drank the same spiritual drink; for they drank from the spiritual rock that accompanied them, and that rock was Christ.

Galatians 4:25
Now Hagar stands for Mount Sinai in Arabia and corresponds to the present-day Jerusalem, because she is in slavery with her children.

Gill's Notes on the Bible

For innumerable evils have compassed me about,.... Like floods of water all around him; see Psalms 18:4; these are the evils of punishment inflicted on him, as the surety and Saviour of his people; such as the sorrows and griefs he bore all his days; the cruel mockings and scourges he endured; his being buffeted and spit upon; his head crowned with thorns, and his hands and feet pierced with nails; insulted by men and devils; crucified between two thieves, and so died the shameful and painful death of the cross;

mine iniquities have taken hold upon me; not any committed by him; he was conceived, born, and lived without sin, knew none, nor did he any; but the sins of his people, which were imputed to him, laid upon him, and which he voluntarily took and bore; and which he reckoned as his own and was responsible for them; these, when he hung upon the cross, came upon him from all quarters, and he bore them in his own body upon the tree;

so that I am not able to look up; or "cannot see" p; either the end of these iniquities, they being so numerous, as is after related; or he could not bear to look upon them, they were so filthy and nauseous, and he so pure and holy; or he could not behold his Father's countenance, which these sins that were upon him separated him from, and caused to be hid from him; or, like one pressed down with the guilt of sin, as the poor publican was, could not so much as lift up his eyes to heaven,

Luke 18:13;

they are more than the hairs of mine head; as they must needs be, since they were the iniquities of all the elect of God, of the whole general assembly ad church of the firstborn, written in heaven, Isaiah 53:6;

therefore my heart faileth me; as man; see Psalms 22:14; though being supported by his divine nature, and by his divine Father and eternal Spirit, he failed not, nor was he discouraged, Isaiah 42:4; this is said to show the truth of the human nature, the greatness of men's sins, the strictness of divine justice, and what strength was necessary to accomplish man's salvation.

p לראות לא יכלתי "non potai videre", Pagninus, Montanus, Musculus; "cernere", Cocceius; "intueri", Gejerus.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

For innumerable evils have compassed me about - Have surrounded me, or have beset me on every side. The evils here referred to, understood as being those which came upon the Messiah, were sorrows that came upon him in consequence of his undertaking to do what could not be done by sacrifices and offerings Psalms 40:6; that is, his undertaking to save men by his own “obedience unto death.” The time referred to here, I apprehend, is that when the full effects of his having assumed the sins of the world to make expiation for them came upon him; when he was about to endure the agonies of Gethsemane and Calvary.

Mine iniquities have taken hold upon me - On this passage, as constituting one of the main objections, and the strongest objection, to the application of the psalm to the Messiah, and on the way in which such objection may be met, see introduction to this psalm (3b).

So that I am not able to look up - This is not the exact idea of the Hebrew word. That is simply, I am not able to see; and it refers to the dimness or failure of sight caused by distress, weakness, or old age. 1 Samuel 3:2; 1 Samuel 4:15; 1 Kings 14:4; compare Psalms 6:7. The idea here is, not that he was unable to look up, but that the calamities which came upon him were so heavy and severe as to make his sight dim, or to deprive him of vision. Either by weeping, or by the mere pressure of suffering, he was so affected as almost to be deprived of the power of seeing.

They are more than the hairs of mine head - That is, the sorrows that come upon me in connection with sin. The idea is that they were innumerable - the hairs of the head, or the sands on the seashore; being employed in the Scriptures to denote what cannot be numbered. See Psalms 69:4. Compare Genesis 22:17; Genesis 32:12; Joshua 11:4; 2 Samuel 17:11.

Therefore my heart faileth me - Margin, as in Hebrew: “forsaketh.” The idea is that he sank under these sufferings; he could not sustain them.

Clarke's Notes on the Bible

Verse Psalms 40:12. Innumerable evils have compassed me about — This part does not comport with the preceding; and either argues a former experience, or must be considered a part of another Psalm, written at a different time, and on another occasion, and, were we to prefix the two first verses of the seventieth Psalm to it we should find it to be a Psalm as complete in itself as that is.

They are more than the hairs of mine head — This could not be said by any person who was exulting in the pardoning mercy of God, as David was at the time he penned the commencement of this Psalm.