Find strength in humility and divine protection through trust in God. Explore Psalm 116:6

The Lord preserves the simple;
I was brought low, and He saved me.

My Thoughts

As I read this today it occurred to me that even in the scriptures it’s sometimes the simple things that are the most profound. Psalm 116:6 emphasizes that the Lord protects those who are simple and humble. Commentaries from various theologians highlight that this simplicity is characterized by trust in God without guile or cunning. Despite being brought low through trials and afflictions, the psalmist experiences divine help and salvation, illustrating God’s mercy and support during hard times. The text reflects on personal testimony, affirming that those who depend on God’s grace will find refuge and rescue. The psalmist’s experience serves as a reminder of God’s faithfulness to those who approach Him with sincerity and openness, reinforcing the theme of divine assistance to the vulnerable. Bill

_____________________

Commentaries:

Charles Spurgeon

“The LORD preserveth the simple.” Those who have a great deal of wit may take care of themselves. Those who have no worldly craft and subtlety and guile, but simply trust in God, and do the right, may depend upon it that God’s care shall be over them. The worldly-wise with all their prudence shall be taken in their own craftiness, but those who walk in their integrity with single-minded truthfulness before God shall be protected against the wiles of their enemies, and enabled to outlive their foes. Though the saints are like sheep in the midst of wolves, and comparatively defenseless, yet there are more sheep in the world than wolves, and it is highly probable that the sheep will feed in safety when not a single wolf is left upon the face of the earth: even so the meek shall inherit the earth when the wicked shall be no more.

“I was brought low, and he helped me,”—simple though I was, the Lord did not pass me by. Though reduced in circumstances, slandered in character, depressed in spirit, and sick in body, the Lord helped me. There are many ways in which the child of God may be brought low, but the help of God is as various as the need of his people: he supplies our necessities when impoverished, restores our character when maligned, raises up friends for us when deserted, comforts us when desponding, and heals our diseases when we are sick. There are thousands in the church of God at this time who can each one of them say for himself, “I was brought low, and he helped me.” Whenever this can be said it should be said to the praise of the glory of his grace, and for the comforting of others who may pass through the like ordeal. Note how David after stating the general doctrine that the Lord preserveth the simple, proves and illustrates it from his own personal experience. The habit of taking home a general truth and testing the power of it in our own case is an exceedingly blessed one; it is the way in which the testimony of Christ is confirmed in us, and so we become witnesses unto the Lord our God.

_____________________

Enduring Word

The LORD preserves the simple: In humility, the psalmist counted himself as one who did not exalt himself above others and who might be considered simple. He didn’t have to exalt himself, because when he was brought low, God brought His salvation. (Guzik)

i. “The simple; sincere and plain-hearted persons, who dare not use those frauds and crafty and wicked artifices in saving themselves or destroying their enemies, but wait upon God with honest hearts in his way and for his time of deliverance. Such persons he calls simple or foolish, as this word is commonly rendered, not because they are really so, but because the world esteems them so.” (Poole)

ii. The simple: “It is humble of the psalmist to identify with them; it is humble of God to have time for them.” (Kidner)

iii. In its messianic aspect, we consider these words sung and spoken by Jesus among His disciples. He was far from a simple man but was considered so by the proud and arrogant religious hierarchy, who despised His lack of formal credentials and training. (Guzik)

iv. “Not only is God gracious, he is also gracious to the little people, to the plain, to commoners, to the everyday person on the bus or in the shop – to people like the psalmist. That is one of the great glories of our God. When Jesus called his disciples, he called fishermen and tax collectors. When the angels announced the birth of Jesus, they appeared to shepherds.” (Boice)

He saved me: “The knowledge that David had of God’s goodness was experiential…. A carnal man knoweth God’s excellencies and will revealed in his word only, as we know far countries by maps; but an experienced Christian, as one that hath himself been long there.” (Trapp)

vi. “Happy the man who, like the psalmist, can give confirmation from his own experience to the broad truths of God’s protection to ingenuous and guileless souls!” (Maclaren)

_____________________

Albert Barnes

The Lord preserveth the simple – The Septuagint renders this “babes” – νήπια nēpia. The Hebrew word has reference to simplicity or folly, as in Proverbs 1:22. It then refers to those who are the opposite of cautious or cunning; to those who are open to persuasion; to those who are easily enticed or seduced. The verb from which the word is derived – פתה pâthâh – means to open, to expand; then, to be open, frank, ingenuous, easily persuaded or enticed. Thus it may express either the idea of being simple in the sense of being foolish, easily seduced, and led astray; or, simple in the sense of being open, frank, ingenuous, trustful, sincere. The latter is evidently its meaning here. It refers to one of the characteristics of true piety – that of unsuspecting trust in God. It would describe one who yields readily to truth and duty; one who has singleness of aim in the desire to honor God; one who is without guile, trick, or cunning. Such a man was Nathanael John 1:47: “Behold an Israelite indeed, in whom is no guile.” The Hebrew word used here is rendered simple, Psalms 19:7; Psalms 119:130; Proverbs 1:4, Proverbs 1:22, Proverbs 1:32; Proverbs 7:7; Proverbs 8:5; Proverbs 9:4; Proverbs 14:15, Proverbs 14:18; Proverbs 19:25; Proverbs 21:11; Proverbs 22:3; Proverbs 27:12; Ezekiel 45:20; and foolish, Proverbs 9:6. It does not elsewhere occur. The meaning here is, that the Lord preserves or keeps those who have simple and unwavering trust in him; those who are sincere in their professions; those who rely on his word.

I was brought low – By affliction and trial. The Hebrew literally means to hang down, to be pendulous, to swing, to wave – as a bucket in a well, or as the slender branches of the palm, the willow, etc. Then it means to be slack, feeble, weak, as in sickness, etc. See the notes at Psalms 79:8. Here it probably refers to the prostration of strength by disease.

And he helped me – He gave me strength; he restored me.

_____________________

John Gill

The Lord preserveth the simple,…. Such as have but a small degree of understanding, either in things natural or spiritual, in comparison of others; babes, as the Septuagint, Vulgate Latin, Syriac, Arabic, and Ethiopic versions render it, so in the Talmud {i}; see Matthew 11:25. Such who are sensible of their lack of wisdom, and what they have they do not lean unto or trust in, but being sensible of their weakness commit themselves to the Lord; they are sincere and upright, harmless and inoffensive, artless and incautious, and so easily imposed upon by designing men; but the Lord preserves them, as from sin, from a total and final falling away by it, so from gross errors and heresies; he preserves them from the snares and pollutions of the world, and from the temptations of Satan, so as not to be overcome with them; he preserves them by his Spirit, power, and grace, safe to his kingdom and glory.

I was brought low and he helped me; the psalmist returns to his own case, and gives an instance of the divine goodness in himself; he had been brought low by affliction of body, by distress of enemies, through want of the necessaries and conveniences of life; he had been brought low as to spiritual things, through the weakness of grace, the prevalence of corruption, the temptations of Satan, and the hidings of God’s face; but the Lord helped him to bear up under all this; he put underneath his everlasting arms, and upheld him with the right hand of his righteousness; he helped him out of his low estate, and delivered him out of all his troubles when none else could; when things were at the greatest extremity, and he in the utmost distress, just ready to go down into silence and dwell there, Psalm 94:17. The Targum is, “he looked upon me to redeem me.”

_____________________

Matthew Henry

God, in answer to his prayer, came in with seasonable and effectual relief. He found by experience that God is gracious and merciful, and in his compassion preserves the simple, v. 6. Because they are simple (that is, sincere, and upright, and without guile) therefore God preserves them, as he preserved Paul, who had his conversation in the world not with fleshly wisdom, but in simplicity and godly sincerity. Though they are simple (that is, weak, and helpless, and unable to shift for themselves, men of no depth, no design) yet God preserves them, because they commit themselves to him and have no confidence in their own sufficiency. Those who by faith put themselves under God’s protection shall be safe.

God supported him under his troubles: “I was brought low, was plunged into the depth of misery, and then he helped me, helped me both to bear the worst and to hope the best, helped me to pray, else desire had failed, helped me to wait, else faith had failed. I was one of the simple ones whom God preserved, the poor man who cried and the Lord heard him,” Ps. 34:6. Note, God’s people are never brought so low but that everlasting arms are under them, and those cannot sink who are thus sustained. Nay, it is in the time of need, at the dead lift, that God chooses to help, Deu. 32:36.

_____________________

The Pulpit Commentaries

Simple as opposed to guileful.

“The Lord preserveth the simple.” This is not the “simple” of the Book of Proverbs—the young, inexperienced, susceptible souls, who are only too easily led astray. “Simple” hero rather means gentle, sincere, genuine, inoffensive, guileless, not ordering conduct by the subtlety of this world’s wisdom; this very simplicity, which lays them most readily open to attack, is in itself an appeal for God’s protection. Compare our Lord’s commendation of the passive graces in his Beatitudes, especially this, “Blessed are the poor in spirit.”

I. THE SIMPLE MAN LETS GOD WORK. “The Lord preserveth the simple.” He has no confidence to make his own plans; he waits to know and fit in with God’s plans for him. This may seem weakness, and it sometimes is weakness. But it need not be. It should only be the simplicity of the child spirit, which depends on the Father and has the fullest confidence in the Fatherly wisdom and ways. He has no confidence in his own working out of the plan. So he leans on Divine help continually, ever saying, “What I know not, that teach thou me;” “Hold thou me up, and I shall be safe,” This, too, may seem to be weakness, but it is not; it is only man meeting fully the conditions of his being, for man is as a climbing plant, only strong and able to attain his best when he leans upon the strong. It is the problem of life, and the simple man most easily solves it—How can humanity reach its best? The simple man says, “By being always open to God’s working in us.”

II. THE GUILEFUL MAN DOES HIS OWN WORK. He is quite satisfied with his own plans. They are such as will bring the best possible to himself. He has an eye to the “main chance” always, and means to secure it straightforwardly if he can, otherwise if he cannot. And he is quite satisfied with his resources. There is nothing that he cannot do or thinks he cannot do. Life is to him the sphere in which things have to yield to his wishes. The guileful man has no particular need of God, and, indeed, he sometimes finds him in his way, and so is aroused to an active antagonism. “God is not in all his thoughts.” There is no place in him for humility—self-confidence fills all the space. There is no call to prayer, for he wants no help. He is sufficient unto himself or thinks he is. The guileful man will not have it that he is a dependent creature.

III. THE GUILEFUL MAN REACHES PRESENT RESULTS; THE SIMPLE MAN REACHES ABIDING RESULTS. This is precisely the difference that having God makes. Without Him, there is nothing that abideth. With Him everything worth having abideth forever.—R.T.

_____________________

Cross References

Psalm 19:7 (KJV)

⁷ The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul:

The testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple.

Exodus 34:6 (KJV)

⁶And the Lord passed by before him, and proclaimed, The Lord, The Lord God, merciful and gracious, longsuffering, and abundant in goodness and truth,

Proverbs 1:4 (KJV)

⁴ To give subtilty to the simple,

To the young man knowledge and discretion.

Psalm 142:6 (KJV)

⁶ Attend unto my cry;

For I am brought very low:

Deliver me from my persecutors;

For they are stronger than I.

Matthew 11:25 (KJV)

²⁵At that time Jesus answered and said, I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes.

_____________________

KJV W/Strongs Bible

116:6 The LORD 3068 preserveth 8104 8802 the simple 6612: I was brought low 1809 8804, and he helped 3467 8686 me.

_____________________

Geneva Bible 1560

Psalm 116:6

6 The Lord preserveth the simple: I was in misery and he saved me.

_____________________

Closing Thoughts

For I will surely deliver you, and you shall not fall by the sword; but your life shall be as a prize to you, because you have put your trust in Me,” says the Lord.’ ” Jeremiah 39:18 NKJV

“Because he has set his love upon Me, therefore I will deliver him; I will set him on high, because he has known My name. He shall call upon Me, and I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble; I will deliver him and honor him. With long life I will satisfy him, And show him My salvation.” Psalm 91:14-16 NKJV