Charles Ellicott Commentary Psalms 116:10-11

"I believe, for I will speak: I was greatly afflicted: I said in my haste, All men are liars." — Psalms 116:10-11 (ASV)

I believed, therefore have I spoken. —This is the rendering of the Septuagint and Vulgate, and it has become almost proverbial from St. Paul's adaptation of it (2 Corinthians 4:13; see New Testament Commentary). And no doubt this is the sense of the words, though the particle khî has been wrongly connected. Mr. Burgess has certainly given the true explanation of the use of this particle. It sometimes follows instead of preceding the verb affected by it. We must render, It is because I believed that I spoke (of God’s graciousness, etc.).

What follows then comes in as an antithesis. I was in great trouble; I said in my pain, “All men are untrustworthy or deceitful.” Or (Septuagint), In an ecstasy of despair I said, “ The whole race of mankind is a delusion.”

The meaning of the whole passage may be expressed as follows: It is through trust in God that I speak in this way (as above—namely, of God being glorious and righteous, and of His preserving the souls of the simple). It was not always so. Once, in distrust, I thought that God did not care for humanity, and that all of humanity was a failure.

The word châphez, rendered in the Authorized Version as haste, but more properly alarm, is in Job 40:23 contrasted with trust, as it is here with faith. Regarding the sense of failure or vanity for the word rendered in the Authorized Version as liars, see Isaiah 58:11 (“fail; ” margin, “lie or deceive”).