Psalms 115:11

Psa 115:11 Ye that fear the LORD, trust in the LORD: he [is] their help and their shield.

Ver. 11. Ye that fear the Lord] Peregrini ex omni populo, saith Aben Ezra, devout persons out of every nation dwelling among the Jews, though not absolute proselytes, Act 2:5; Act 10:2; Act 13:16. Such also, fearing the Lord, are heirs of the promises; and therefore may boldly say, "The Lord is my helper, and I will not fear what man shall do unto me," Heb 13:6.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

11. (Psa 115:11) Fearers of Jehovah, trust ye in Jehovah; their help and their shield (is) He. He turns again to the people at large, who are here described as fearers of Jehovah, not in reference to the actual character of all the individual members, but to the high vocation of the body. See above, Psa 22:23; Psa 111:5.

Joseph Addison Alexander, The Psalms Translated and Explained (1850) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Verse 11. Ye that fear the Lord] All real penitents, and sincere believers, trust in the Lord, in the almighty, omniscient, and infinitely good Jehovah.

He is their help and shield] He is the succour, support, guardian, and defence of all who put their confidence in him.

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

11. Ye who fear Jehovah! He does not speak of strangers, as some erroneously suppose, as if this were a prediction respecting the calling of the Gentiles. Connecting them with the children of Israel and with the sons of Aaron, they are of opinion that he refers to the heathens and to the uncircumcised who were not yet gathered into the sheepfold. By parity of reason one might infer, that the priests are not of the seed of Abraham, because they are separately mentioned. It is more probable that there is in these words a tacit correction of what he had said before, by which he makes a distinction between the genuine worshippers of God and those hypocrites who were the degenerate sons of Abraham. Not a few of the seed of Abraham according to the flesh having departed from the faith of their father, the prophet here restricts the promise to those who, having received it by faith, were worshipping God in purity. We now perceive the reason for his first addressing the Israelites, next the house of Aaron, and then the fearers of Jehovah It is as if a person in our times were to point his exhortation first to the whole body of the Church, and then come more particularly to the ministers and teachers, who ought to be ensamples to others. And as many falsely pique themselves upon the mere name of being connected with the Church, and hence deserve not to be classed with God’s true followers, he expressly mentions the genuine and not the counterfeit worshippers of God.

John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.

Ye that fear the Lord, trust in the Lord,.... Which is said not to distinguish true saints from hypocrites, in Israel or in Aaron's house; rather to describe such who belonged to neither: but, as Aben Ezra interprets it, who feared the Lord, of every people and nation; or proselytes, as Jarchi explains it: the distinction between the people of the Jews, and the proselytes among them, under the character of those that feared the Lord, may be observed in Act 13:26. It takes in all true worshippers of the Lord; and who are exhorted to trust in him, for faith and fear are consistent; and where there is the one, there is the other; where there is the true fear of God, not a slavish nor an hypocritical fear, but a holy reverence and a godly fear, there will be faith and confidence in him. Job was a man that feared the Lord, and yet trusted in him; these characters meet in the same persons, see Psa 31:19.

He is their help and their shield; the help and shield of all those that fear the Lord, their protector and defender, and therefore should trust in him. The word "ezer", translated help, in this and the two preceding verses, is applied to God, and often in this book of Psalms, as a title and epithet belonging to him; and it may be observed that "Aesar", in the Etruscan language, signifies God (z).

(z) Sueton. in Angust. c. 97.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Ye that fear the Lord ... - All the people that reverence God; all his true worshippers.

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

All and every one of you who worship the true God, not only Aaronites and Israelites, but even Gentile proselytes, who are said to come to trust under the wings of the God of Israel, Rth 2:12. And such there were many at this time in the church of Israel, whom therefore he fitly invites to trust God, because he is no less their than the Israelites’ help and shield, as it follows.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

Ver. 11. The next verse is of the same tenorYe that fear the LORD, trust in the LORD, whether belonging to Israel, or to the house of Aaron, or not, all those who reverence Jehovah are permitted and commanded to confide in him.

He is their help and their shield. He does aid and protect all those who worship him in filial fear, to whatever nation they may belong. No doubt these repeated exhortations were rendered necessary by the trying condition in which the children of Israel were found: the sneers of the adversary would assail all the people, they would most bitterly be felt by the priests and ministers, and those who were secret proselytes would groan in secret under the contempt forced upon their religion and their God. All this would be very staggering to faith, and therefore they were bidden again and again and again to trust in Jehovah.

This must have been a very pleasant song to households in Babylon, or far away in Persia, when they met together in the night to eat the Paschal supper in a land which knew them not, where they wept as they remembered Zion. We seem to hear them repeating the threefold word, "Trust in Jehovah, "men and women and little children singing out their scorn of the dominant idolatry, and declaring their adhesion to the one God of Israel. In the same manner in this day of blasphemy and rebuke it becomes us all to abound in testimonies to the truth of God. The sceptic is loud in his unbelief, let us be equally open in the avowal of our faith.

Ver. 11. Filial fear the foundation of fuller faith.

Psalms 115:12*

Charles H. Spurgeon's The Treasury of David (1869–1885) — public domain. Psalms only. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

11. Ye that fear the Lord—This should not be applied to proselytes, as distinct from “Israel,” for the New Testament usage had not yet obtained. See Act_13:16. Neither can we apply it to spiritual worshippers as distinguished from nominal Israel. Rather, with Hengstenberg, we accept it as a generic term for “the whole people,” for they were fearers of God by profession, and the term supplied a basis for the exhortation to trust God. This view is supported by Psa_115:13, and Psa_22:23; Psa_135:20

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Ye that fear the Lord, trust in the Lord. Professor Cheyne explains this of proselytes, the sebomenoi of the Acts; but surely the order followed is one of climax first, ordinary Israelites; next, those officially holy, the priests; finally, those actually holy, the truly faithful Israelites. He is their Help and their Shield. It would have been better in every case to have kept the Hebrew order of the words Help and their Shield is he."

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Ye that fear - All of you who worship the true God, not only Israelites, but even Gentile proselytes.

John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.

fear

Also Psa 115:13, (See Scofield "Psa 19:9").

The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Those who fear the Lord These are the proselytes.

Rashi on the Tanakh — English translations: “The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg” (CC BY 4.0); “Pentateuch with Rashi's commentary by M. Rosenbaum and A.M. Silbermann, 1929-1934” (public domain); “The Metsudah Tanach series, Lakewood, N.J” (CC BY 4.0); and “The Book of Joshua, Metsudah Publications, 1997” (CC BY 4.0). Text via Sefaria.