Charles Ellicott Commentary Psalms 4:8

"In peace will I both lay me down and sleep; For thou, Jehovah, alone makest me dwell in safety." — Psalms 4:8 (ASV)

Both. —Better, and at once. So the Septuagint and Vulgate: “At the very moment.” (Isaiah 42:14.) This, too, is the meaning of “withal,” used to render the same Hebrew word in Psalms 141:10.

You, Lord, only. —The authority of all the ancient Versions, including the Septuagint and Vulgate, is for taking the adverb with the predicate, not with the subject as in the Authorized Version: Thou, Jehovah, makest me to dwell alone in safety. We see from Jeremiah 49:31, Micah 7:14, that isolation from other nations was, in the Hebrew view, a guarantee against danger. This certainly favors the view that the poem is national rather than individual.

For the concluding verses of the psalm Luther had a great affection, and desired Ludvig Teuffel to set them as the words of a requiem for him.