Psalms 84:9

The Psalmist's prayer for favourable audience in Psalms 84:8 is succeeded, after a musical interlude (selah), by a prayer offered by all the pilgrims together. Contrast - ourshield" with - myprayer" (Psalms 84:8), and the singular which recurs in Psalms 84:10.

The first line admits of two renderings. (1) As in the A.V., -our shield" may be taken as a vocative in apposition to God, Who is styled a shield in Psalms 84:11, and frequently elsewhere, e.g. Psalms 3:3; Psalms 28:7; Psalms 59:11; Genesis 15:1. (2) As in R.V. marg., Behold our shield, O God, -our shield" may be taken as the object of the verb, in parallelism with and referring to -thine anointed" in the next line. This rendering is commended by the parallelism, and not excluded by the order of the words in the original: the king is styled -our shield" in Psalms 89:18 (R.V.), and there is nothing unnatural in the application in the same context of the same epithet to the king and to God, Whose representative the king was acknowledged to be.

look upon the face of thine anointed Graciously accept him. But who is meant by thine anointed?Is it the king, the high-priest, or the people? Those who maintain that the Psalm is post-exilic suppose that the high-priest or the people is thus designated. But though the high-priest is called the anointed priest(Leviticus 4:3; Leviticus 4:5; Leviticus 4:16; Leviticus 6:22), he is never called the anointed of Jehovah: and it is very doubtful whether this title is ever applied to the people. Psalms 89:38 and Habakkuk 3:13 are quoted, but do not establish the usage. The most natural explanation is that the king is meant. Nor is the prayer out of place. The welfare of the nation was bound up with the welfare of the king. And if the king was one who like Hezekiah or Josiah had effected a great reformation, the Psalmist might well feel that the religious privileges which he prized depended upon the continuance of the king's life. It certainly cannot be inferred from the words that the Psalmist was himself a king, but rather the reverse.