Teach me thy way, O LORD; I will walk in thy truth: unite my heart to fear thy name.
-The Psalmist's prayer and praise because of the mercy of God in having delivered his soul from the lowest hell, which is the special ground for the personal prayer which follows (Psalms 86:14-17).
Verse 11. Teach me thy way, O Lord - quoted from Psalms 27:11. God's "way" is God's safe guidance of His people; the way of salvation, whereby He leads them.
I will walk in thy truth - i:e., in the continual remembrance of thy truth, or thy faithfulness to thy promises. This also is a quotation (Psalms 25:5; Psalms 26:3).
Unite my heart to fear thy name in reverential gratitude for thy special grace to my soul (Psalms 86:12-13) Unite my heart to fear thy name - in reverential gratitude for thy special grace to my soul (Psalms 86:12-13). The fear of God's name is already in his heart: he prays that it may so fill his heart as to unite him wholly to the Lord in reverential love.
Verse 12. I will praise thee, O Lord my God, with all my heart -- as contrasted with "a double heart," Psalms 12:2, and James 4:8, "double-minded.' This is the connection of the prayer (Psalms 86:11) with the praise in Psalms 86:12-13. "Unite my heart to fear thy name" - make my will one with thine, that I may not have a heart divided between the fear and love of thee, and the fear and love of the world, but may be led, by thy special mercy to my soul (Psalms 86:13), to 'praise thee with all my heart.'
Verse 13. For great is thy mercy toward me; and thou hast delivered my soul from the lowest hell - quoted in part from Psalms 56:12-13. "Mercy" - thy goodness or 'grace' to me х checed (H2617)], the same Hebrew of which the adjective, "I am holy," or 'pious,' or 'godly,' occurs in Psalms 86:2. The grace that is in the godly the result of God's grace toward them. As both Psalms 34:1-22; Psalms 56:1-13, in the titles, show that they were composed concerning the narrow escape which God vouchsafed to David out of the imminent danger of death ("the lowest hell") to which he was exposed when he was with Achish the Philistine king at Gath, I prefer considering this to be the special deliverance from death (as "hell," or Sheol, or Hades, often means) intended here, not David's deliverance from Saul (cf. Psalms 34:4; Psalms 34:6; Psalms 34:17; Psalms 34:22); but this reference cannot exhaust the strong language here. The full force of the words applies to the Head of the Church, 'the firstborn from the dead'-Messiah, who praises the Father for having raised His body from the grave and His soul from the unseen abode of disembodied spirits-Hades; as He also said by anticipation (Psalms 16:9). The redeemed shall, at the resurrection of the just, sing the same thanksgiving perfectly. Meanwhile everyone who hath the earnest of the Spirit sings it, though not perfectly, yet at least sincerely, and with the prayerful desire to have his "heart" so 'united' to God in reverential gratitude, as to be able to "praise" the Lord as HIS God 'with ALL his heart' (Psalms 86:11-12).