John Calvin Commentary Psalms 71:7

"I am as a wonder unto many; But thou art my strong refuge." — Psalms 71:7 (ASV)

I have been as a prodigy to the great ones. He now makes a transition to the language of complaint, declaring that he was held in almost universal abhorrence because of the great calamities with which he was afflicted. There is an apparent, although only an apparent, discrepancy between these two statements: first, that he had always been crowned with the benefits of God; and, secondly, that he was regarded as a prodigy on account of his great afflictions. But we may draw from this the very profitable doctrine that he was not so overwhelmed by his calamities, heavy though they were, as to be insensible to the goodness of God which he had experienced.

Although, therefore, he saw that he was an object of detestation, yet the remembrance of the blessings which God had conferred upon him could not be extinguished by the deepest shades of darkness that surrounded him, but served as a lamp in his heart to direct his faith. The term prodigy expresses no ordinary calamity.

If he had not been afflicted in a strange and unusual manner, those who were familiar with the miserable condition of mankind would not have shrunk from him with such horror and regarded him as so repulsive a spectacle. It was, therefore, a higher and more commendable proof of his constancy that his spirit was neither broken nor enfeebled with shame, but reposed in God with the stronger confidence, the more he was cast off by the world.

The sentence is to be understood adversatively, implying that, although men abhorred him as a monster, yet, by leaning upon God, he continued despite all this unmoved. If it is thought preferable to translate the word רבים, rabbim, which I have rendered great ones, with the word many, the sense will be that David’s afflictions were generally known and had acquired great notoriety, as if he had been brought out onto a stage and exposed to the view of the whole people.

But in my opinion, it will be more suitable to understand the word as great men or the nobles. There is no heart so strong and impervious to outward influences that it is not deeply pierced when those who are considered to excel in wisdom and judgment, and who are invested with authority, treat a suffering and afflicted man with such indignity that they shrink with horror from him, as if he were a monster.

In the next verse, as if he had obtained the desire of his heart, he expresses his resolution to offer grateful acknowledgment to God. To encourage himself to hope with greater confidence for a happy outcome to his present troubles, he promises loudly to celebrate the praises of God, and to do this not only on one occasion, but to persevere in this practice continuously.