Charles Ellicott Commentary Psalms 116

I love the Lord. —Besides this rendering, where Jehovah is supplied as an object, this poet tends to use verbs without an object (Psalms 116:10), there are two other possible translations.

1. I have longed that Jehovah should hear, etc.—For this meaning of the verb to love see Jeremiah 5:31, Amos 4:5; and for the construction see Psalms 27:4-6. So the Syriac and Arabic versions.
2. I am well pleased that Jehovah hears (or will hear).—So Septuagint and Vulgate.

If we take translation (1) of Psalms 116:1, this verse will state the ground of the longing to pray: “I have longed for Jehovah to hear me now, for He, as in past times, inclines His ear to me.” The latter clause of the verse offers some difficulty. The literal rendering of the text, given by the Septuagint and Vulgate, is: “and in my days I will call (for help). But there is none.” 2 Kings 20:19 does not, as suggested, confirm the explanation “all the days of my life.” It would seem more natural to take the text as an equivalent of the common phrase “in the day when I call” (Psalms 56:10; Psalms 102:3, and other similar passages), and render the verse:

For He inclines His ear to me,
And that in the day when I call.

The pains of hell. —Or, oppressions of Sheôl, if we retain the text. But a very slight change in a single letter brings the clause into closer correspondence with Psalms 18:5-6, from where it is plainly borrowed, the nets of Sheôl. We may reproduce the original more exactly by using, as it does, the same verb in the last two clauses of the verse:

Nets of Sheôl caught me,
Trouble and sorrow I catch.

The simple. —Inexperienced, in a good sense, as often in Proverbs. Septuagint and Vulgate, “babes.”

Brought low. —See Note, Psalms 30:2.

Return ... —In a very different spirit from the fool’s address to his soul in the parable. The psalmist’s repose is not the worldling’s serenity nor the sensualist’s security, but the repose of the quiet conscience and the trusting heart.