A Servant Appeals to His Lord for Protection

This prayer of the individual consists of three sections of petition and hymnic praise. In each section the hymnic praise grants assurance to the worshiper and motivation to Yahweh to make good on his praise. An odd feature that strikes readers familiar with psalms is that, after verses 12–13 have nicely rounded off the preceding prayer with a vow of praise, verse 14 resumes the lament and introduces for the first time the issue of personal enemies. If Psalm 86 had closed at verse 13, no one would have suspected any verses were missing. But closer examination reveals several linguistic links that tie the psalm together, as noted in the discussion below. Furthermore, the problems of making sense of the psalm’s development and discerning a train of…