Psalms 28:1-9
1 Unto thee will I cry, O LORD my rock; be not silent to me: lest, if thou be silenta to me, I become like them that go down into the pit.
2 Hear the voice of my supplications, when I cry unto thee, when I lift up my hands toward thy holy oracle.
3 Draw me not away with the wicked, and with the workers of iniquity, which speak peace to their neighbours, but mischief is in their hearts.
4 Give them according to their deeds, and according to the wickedness of their endeavours: give them after the work of their hands; render to them their desert.
5 Because they regard not the works of the LORD, nor the operation of his hands, he shall destroy them, and not build them up.
6 Blessed be the LORD, because he hath heard the voice of my supplications.
7 The LORD is my strength and my shield; my heart trusted in him, and I am helped: therefore my heart greatly rejoiceth; and with my song will I praise him.
8 The LORD is their strength, and he is the saving strength of his anointed.
9 Save thy people, and bless thine inheritance: feedb them also, and lift them up for ever.
The affinity between this psalm and the previous one is evident and its placing by the editor here was in all likelihood due to that fact. In Psalms 27:1, in true order, praise prepares for, and issues in, prayer, the whole ending in an appeal to "wait on Jehovah." The next psalm opens-Unto Thee, O Jehovah, will I call.
This is not to suggest that the song was written by the same person or immediately. It rather affords an illustration of a song written by one who acted on the principle enjoined. The cry of need is very urgent. The peril is so great that death threatens. Unless Jehovah help there is no help. That the danger arose from enemies is evident from the psalmist's cry to Jehovah for justice.
Suddenly the prayer becomes a song of praise, an act of adoration. The prayer is heard, help is granted, the song begins. That this psalm, with its inverted order of prayer and praise, follows closely that in which the order is praise and prayer is encouraging. The true order is praise and prayer. If the heart is not strong enough for this, let it learn how to praise by speaking first in prayer of its sorrow. The one thing impossible in worship is to compress it within the narrow limits of stated formulas.