THE first deliverance recorded in this Psalm is from all fears. The second is out of all troubles. And the third is out of all afflictions.
“He delivered me from all my fears.” “I also will choose their delusions, and will bring their fears upon them” is the only other occasion where this Hebrew word “fears” occurs again in the Old Testament. The Variorum Version and Spurrell render this passage as “I also will choose freaks of fortune for them, and what they dread will I bring upon them”: thus specially connecting fear with dread of financial misfortune. But David declares that the Lord delivers not only from that, but from all fears, from all anxiety, from all painful feelings caused by expectation of evil or the apprehension of impending danger.
“The righteous cry, and the Lord heareth, and delivereth them out of all their troubles.” This Hebrew word for trouble signifies straitness; that is a position of hardship, distress, or difficulty; or a distressing necessity. The Lord delivereth out of all straitness, out of all distressing necessity. Out of all straitness, whether it be of requisite money, or of strength, or of time to do the needed work, or of spiritual food required to pass on to others; the Lord delivereth out of all distressing necessity.
“Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivereth him out of them all.” Here the word employed for afflictions signifies evil, bad; and is elsewhere translated hurt, hurtful, grievous, harm. Many are the devices of Satan to injure us, but out of them all the Lord delivers.
Two conditions are given in this Psalm for this wonderful threefold deliverance, from all fears, from all straitness, and from all evil. The one is fearing God; and the other is crying to God. “The angel of the Lord encampeth round about them that fear Him, and delivereth them.”
To cry to God for deliverance is essential; but the cry, in order to be availing, must be from one who fears God. “Now I know that thou fearest God, seeing thou hast not withheld.” Obedience to God’s Voice, whatever may be the cost to ourselves, that is fearing God.
These are days when men’s hearts are failing them for fear, and for looking alter those things which are coming to pass on the earth. But for those who cry to God, and whose inner life behind that cry is one that bears the scrutiny of Him Whose eyes are as a flame of fire, God is unto them a God Who unfailingly delivers magnificently, not only from all evil, but from every haunting fear of it.
Aphra White.