Psalm 71:1 In You, O Lord, I put my trust; let me never be put to shame. 2 Deliver me in Your righteousness, and cause me to escape; incline Your ear to me, and save me. 3 Be my strong refuge, to which I may resort continually; You have given the commandment to save me, for You are my rock and my fortress. 4 Deliver me, O my God, out of the hand of the wicked, out of the hand of the unrighteous and cruel man. 5 For You are my hope, O Lord GOD; You are my trust from my youth. “There is no title to this Psalm either in the Hebrew or Chaldee; and the reason is, it was written as a part of the preceding Psalm.” (Clarke) ”Francke would apply the present Psalm to the state of the Christian church after the resurrection and exaltation of Christ, and would put the words in the mouths of the faithful of that time.” (W. Wilson on Ps. 70)
Here is a the faith as found in the godly of Israel, when salvation is come out of Zion. (Arno Gaebelein) “‘In You, O Lord, I put my trust; let me never be put to shame. Deliver me in Your righteousness, and cause me to escape; incline Your ear to me, and save me.’ from the power of sin and death. —You will give the command to save me “out of the hand of the… cruel man,’ that is Antichrist. ‘The cruel man’ is literally the leavened man, leavened with hatred of truth and enmity to God; and, therefore, a violent opposer of His people. So, in 1 Co 5:8 we are cautioned against the ‘leaven of malice and wickedness,’ which, in accordance with the figure, may pervade the whole natural character of an ungodly man, his faculties and affections.” (W. Wilson)— “‘For You are my hope, O Lord GOD;’ ‘God our Saviour and Lord, Jesus Christ,’ [is] saith St. Paul, ‘our hope.’ 1 Tim 1:1... Christ Himself is our hope, as the only Author of it; Christ is our hope, as the End of it; and Christ, who is the Beginning and the End, is our hope also by the way.” (E. B. Pusey)
“‘You are my trust from my youth.’ The secret of God has been upon me since a young shepherd in the fields of Judah— since we each were born again of the word of God Which lives in abides forever. “His candle did shine upon my head, and by His light I walked through darkness; and, though now ‘the sun, and the light, and moon and stars be darkened,’ in this my natural horizon, yet ‘the Lord is my light and my salvation, whom shall I fear?’ ‘Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me, thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.’ I have abundant experience of His grace and presence.’" (Oliver Heywood) 6 By You I have been upheld from birth; You are He who took me out of my mother’s womb. My praise shall be continually of You. 7 I have become as a wonder to many, but You are my strong refuge. 8 Let my mouth be filled with Your praise and with Your glory all the day. 9 Do not cast me off in the time of old age; do not forsake me when my strength fails. 10 For my enemies speak against me; and those who lie in wait for my life take counsel together, 11 Saying, “God has forsaken him; pursue and take him, for there is none to deliver him.” 12 O God, do not be far from me; O my God, make haste to help me! “By You I have been upheld from birth; You are He who took me out of my mother’s womb…. If we are astonished at that part of the history of the flood, in which Moses declares (Ge 8:13), that Noah and his household lived ten months amidst the offensive nuisance produced by so many living creatures, when he could not draw the breath of life, have we not equal reason to marvel that the infant, shut up within its mother's womb, can live in such a condition as would suffocate the strongest man in half an hour?“ (Calvin) You kept me by your prevenient grace before saving grace shined upon me. “‘I am as a wonder unto many— the whole tenor of the Psalm is... expressed by Green: ‘I am become a gazing stock to the multitude.’” (Geddes)— perhaps pointing to the general resurrection. “He is a prodigy, unaccountable to the judgments of ungodly men; a wonder gazed at, feared, and, by-and-by, contemptuously derided.” (C. H. Spurgeon) As in Saul’s day: “Is Saul also among the prophets?” Is David— the adulterer and murder— among the redeemed? “‘But You are my strong refuge.’ All the world wonders at me because of my miseries: both those in authority and the common people, yet being assured of your favour, I remain steadfast.“ (Geneva Study Bible) I had a private conversion, but a public confession of faith in life.
“‘Let my mouth be filled with Your praise’ etc. So shall I not be found like that people, of whom thou dost say: ‘This people honour me with their lips, but their heart is far from me.’ Isa 29:13.” (Gerhohus) “We should accustom ourselves to talk of God’s righteousness and goodness; be often speaking one to another on topics so important and delightful; talk of the righteousness of His nature, the equity of His providence, the holiness of His laws, and especially of that everlasting righteousness [which is by faith in Jesus] by which we hope to be justified and saved. These should be the frequent subject of our discourses, and they will be useful to ourselves and others. Let aged christians in particular abound in such discourses; they can do little else for God, and should therefore talk of His righteousness all the day long; tell the rising generation their own experience, and leave a solemn testimony to the reasonableness, the importance, the pleasure and advantages of religion, for the admonition and encouragement of those who shall come after them…” (Joseph Sutcliffe) “‘Cast me not off in the time of old age,’ etc.; for now I have most need of You.—Thus will my hoary head be crowned with glory, Jospeh Sutcliffe. “The white rose is soonest cankered; so is the white head soonest corrupted.“ (John Trapp) In eschatology: “The church findeth but too much occasion to make the same [case], now that she is sunk in years; when faith languisheth, charity waxeth cold, and the infirmities of a spiritual old age are coming fast upon her.” (George Horne) “Neither will Christ forsake His church in the latter days of its age, when the weakness of faith becomes more prevalent.” (William Wilson) “‘Let me never be put to shame, etc. (1b). ‘Let them be confounded and consumed,’ by fire, “that are adversaries to my soul; let them be covered,’completely enveloped with hell-fire and annihilated therein.. “These verses throughout are in the futuretense; the language of prediction, or confident expectation... And there is no reason to think, that David had recorded one prayer in the Psalm , which St. Paul would in similar circumstances have scrupled. When he spoke as the type of Christ, or by the Spirit of prophecy, he might very properly either predict or denounce destruction on those, who persisted in opposing him; as the apostle says, ‘If any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be Anathema Maranatha.’ (1 Corinthians 16:21-24.) And when he was engaged in devotion or meditation, he might, in assured faith, foresee the ruin of his own wicked persecutors, such as Saul and Ahithophel, and even pray for their confusion, as the apostle said of Alexander the coppersmith, ‘The Lord reward him according to his works;’ being fully persuaded that he was given over to a reprobate mind, and if not restrained would do a great deal of mischief to the church of God.(Psalm 5:10-11. Psalm 35:4-9. Psalm 40:13-15; Psalm 69:22-28. Psalm 109:6-20. 2 Timothy 4:14-15.) Because thy benefits toward me are innumerable. I cannot but continually meditate on them, and rehearse them.” (Thomas Scott) 14 ‘But’ I have been delivered from death. Therefore— ‘I will hope continually, and will praise You yet more and more. 15 My mouth shall tell of Your righteousness and Your salvation all the day, for I do not know their limits. 16 I will go in the strength of the Lord God; I will make mention of Your righteousness, of Yours only. 17 O God, You have taught me from my youth; and to this day I declare Your wondrous works. 18 Now also when I am old and grayheaded, O God, do not forsake me, until I declare Your strength to this generation, Your power to everyone who is to come. 19 Also Your righteousness, O God, is very high, You who have done great things; O God, who is like You? 20 You, who have shown me great and severe troubles, shall revive me again, and bring me up again from the depths of the earth. 21 You shall increase my greatness, and comfort me on every side. 22 Also with the lute I will praise You— And Your faithfulness, O my God!To You I will sing with the harp, O Holy One of Israel. 23 My lips shall greatly rejoice when I sing to You, and my soul, which You have redeemed. 24 My tongue also shall talk of Your righteousness all the day long; for they are confounded, for they are brought to shame who seek my hurt.
The Psalmist, in the sharp and perilous contest in which he was engaged, determined to trust in the power of God for deliverance, and to mention ‘His righteousness alone.’ He had not deserved, from his son and subjects, the ill usage which he received from them : he would not, however, attempt to justify himself before God; but would submit, with adoring reverence, to his righteousness under this heavy trial; committing his cause to him as a righteous Judges , without the least reserve. The Christian also goes forth to conflict with his enemies, in the strength of the Lord; and mentions the righteousness of Christ, the righteousness of God by faith, as the only meritorious cause of his acceptance : and many think David here spoke of that righteousness, as the ground of his confidence. Others interpret it of the Lord"s faithfulness to his promises : but the foregoing sense seems most to agree with the context.” (Thomas Scott)