Psalms 56:12,13 - Peter Pett's Commentary on the Bible

Bible Comments

An Expression Of His Gratitude To God For His Deliverance (Psalms 56:12-13).

Having prayed through to total confidence in God David now gives thanks for the certainty of his deliverance. God has delivered him in the past and he is confident that God will go on delivering him.

Psalms 56:12-13

Your vows are on me, O God,

I will render thank-offerings to you,

For you have delivered my life from death.

(Have you) not (delivered) my feet from falling?

That I may walk before God in the light of life (or ‘of the living').'

With these words David expresses his gratitude to God. He acknowledges the vows that he has made to God (your vows = vows made to you), and assures Him that he will render the appropriate thank-offerings. And this in the light of the fact that God has delivered him from death, and has prevented his feet from falling, with the consequence that he can still walk before God enjoying the light of life.

The words could have been written while he was still waiting to see whether he was to be called to account before the Philistines, the deliverance he refers to being deliverance from Saul. Or they could have been written after his final deliverance from Achish. Either way he rejoices in his deliverance which means that he can still walk before God ‘in the light of life'. ‘Life' was often seem in terms of a lamp that was still burning, and David was aware that his lamp was still burning brightly.

Psalms 56:12-13

12 Thy vows are upon me, O God: I will render praises unto thee.

13 For thou hast delivered my soul from death: wilt not thou deliver my feet from falling, that I may walk before God in the light of the living?