Unto thee, O LORD, do I lift up my soul.
Psalms 25:1-22.-Prayer for deliverance from enemies, grounded on God's faithfulness to His trusting people (Psalms 25:1-5); appeal to God to remember not sins, but His own mercies (Psalms 25:6-7); the spirit required in those to whom God grants guidance and mercy-namely, meekness and observance of His covenant (Psalms 25:8-10); as David has not kept it, he cries to Yahweh for His own name's sake to forgive his great iniquity (Psalms 25:11); Yahweh blesses those who fear Him, and reveals to them His covenant (Psalms 25:12-14) again David urges the greatness of his troubles, requiring (as in Psalms 25:1-5), that God should not confound His trusting people (Psalms 25:15-21); concluding identification of his Israel's (Psalms 25:22). The alphabetical acrostic arrangement gives symmetrical form to psalms loosely connected in structure.
['aleph (')]
I lift up my soul. The perfection of prayer is its being a lifting up of the soul to God. We are for the time raised above self and the world, and "sit together (with Christ) in heavenly places" (Ephesians 2:6). The idea is included of setting the whole heart on God as the chief good, and the source of every good. Compare margin, Deuteronomy 24:15.
[beth (b)]