This is the Psalm of a man who has suffered deeply for his faith, is facing persecution, and is yet quietly confident in God. He opens the Psalm by committing himself to God for deliverance (Psalms 31:1-2 a), and then calls on Him to be his refuge and stronghold, and to deliver him from his adversaries (Psalms 31:2-4). Handing himself firmly over to God, he confirms that he has no God but YHWH (Psalms 31:5-6), and affirms his confidence in His covenant love, and in the fact that God knows his ways and will lead him in a large place (Psalms 31:7-8).
But that this attitude is one of triumphing over difficult circumstances comes out in that he then goes on to bewail the sad state in which he has found himself over the years, including the fact of his own iniquity (Psalms 31:9-10), and to bemoan the fact that because of the calumnies of his enemies no one wants anything to do with him, and some even want to take his life (Psalms 31:11-14). He has been treading a hard path.
Some have seen in this a picture of David in the wildernesses of Maon and Engedi as he hid from Saul, comparing ‘in my haste' (Psalms 31:22) with ‘David made haste to flee' (1 Samuel 23:26). Certainly David must have experienced some of what is written here. But we obtain the impression here of a period of some years of trial and hardship, which may put that interpretation in doubt. Others have therefore connected it with Jeremiah. Certainly he too had to constantly endure. We can, for example, compare Psalms 31:10 (‘my life is spent with grief and my years with sighing') with Jeremiah 20:18, (‘why did I come forth from the womb to see labour and sorrow, that my days should be consumed with shame?'); Psalms 31:12 (‘I am like a broken vessel') with Jeremiah 19:11; Jeremiah 22:28; Jeremiah 48:38 where the similar idea of a broken vessel is used; Psalms 31:13 (‘I have heard the slander of many, fear on every side etc') with Jeremiah 20:10, (‘I have heard the defaming of many, terror on every side etc'); Psalms 31:17 with Jeremiah 18:18; Psalms 31:22 with Lamentations 3:54. These possible similarities may, however, simply indicate Jeremiah's familiarity with the Psalm, even if that.
But whoever he was, the Psalmist is a man who has a firm trust in God, and he now assures God that he is totally relying on Him and knows that his times are in His hands, and on this basis he pleads for deliverance from the persecution that he is facing (Psalms 31:15-16).
He then calls on God to look on him and vindicate him so that he might not be ashamed, seeking rather that that shame will come on those who deserve it because of the way in which they behave (Psalms 31:17-18), and he follows this up with a firm expression of his confidence in the goodness of God towards those who fear Him, a goodness which results in His protecting them in His own pavilion, and this in spite of the Psalmist's own momentary lack of faith when he had thought himself as cut off from God's eyes (Psalms 31:19-22).
The Psalm then ends with him giving encouragement to all God's people on the basis of what he himself has experienced of God's goodness and saving mercy (Psalms 31:23-24).
Heading.
‘For the Chief Musician. A Psalm of David'
This psalm is one of a number dedicated to the Choirmaster, or ‘chief musician'. What this actually signified we do not know. Possibly the choirmaster originally had his own collection of psalms and hymns. Compare the Davidic Psalms 4-6, 8-9, 11-14, 18-22, 36, 39-41, etc. A good number of non-Davidic Psalms are also dedicated to him. Again we are faced with the question as to whether ‘for David' is a reference to David himself, or whether it refers to the wider Davidic house.