John Calvin Commentary Psalms 60:11

"Give us help against the adversary; For vain is the help of man." — Psalms 60:11 (ASV)

Give us help from trouble: for vain is the help of man. Again he returns to the practice of prayer, or rather is led to it naturally by the very confidence of hope, which, as we have seen, he possessed. He expresses his conviction that if God extends His help, it would be sufficient in itself, even if no assistance were received from any other source.

Literally it reads, Give us help from trouble, and vain is the help of man. It is as if he had said, “O God, when You are pleased to exert Your might, You need no one to help You; and when, therefore, we are once assured of an interest in Your favor, there is no reason why we should desire the aid of man.

All other worldly resources vanish before the brightness of Your power.” The connecting word in the verse, however, has generally been interpreted as a causal particle, and I have not hesitated to follow the common practice. It would be well if the sentiment expressed were effectively engraved upon our hearts.

Why is it almost universally true for people that they either waver in their resolve or buoy themselves up with confidences—vain because not derived from God—simply because they have no real grasp of that salvation which He can extend, which is sufficient in itself, and without which any earthly help is entirely ineffective?

In contrasting the help of God with that of man, he uses language that is not strictly accurate, for, in reality, man has no power to deliver at all. But, in our ignorance, we imagine as if there were various kinds of help in the world, and he uses the word to accommodate our false ideas.

God, in bringing about our preservation, may use human agency, but He reserves to Himself, as His unique prerogative, the act of delivering, and will not allow humans to rob Him of His glory. The deliverance that comes to us in this way through human agency must rightly be ascribed to God.

All that David meant to state is that confidences not derived from God are worthless and vain. And to confirm this position, he declares in the last verse of the psalm that, on the one hand, we can do nothing without Him, while on the other, we can do all things by His help.

Two things are implied in the expression, through God we shall do valiantly: first, that if God withdraws His favor, any supposed strength in man will soon fail; and, on the other hand, that those whose sufficiency is derived from God alone are armed with courage to overcome every difficulty.

To show that he gives God no mere partial credit, he adds, in words that ascribe the whole work to Him, that it is he who shall tread down our enemies. Thus, even in our conflict with creatures like ourselves, we are not at liberty to share the honor of success with God.

And must it not be considered even greater sacrilege when people set free will in opposition to divine grace, and speak of their cooperating equally with God in the matter of obtaining eternal salvation? Those who claim for themselves even the smallest fraction of strength apart from God only ruin themselves through their own pride.