But I will hope continually and will praise you yet more and more.
Psalm 71 is the prayer of a man at the end of his strength, hunted by enemies. Verse 14 is the hinge, where the cry for rescue turns into a settled resolve.
The turn from pleading to music
Everything before this verse is pressure. Then the tone changes at "But I". One writer explains what makes the change.
Numerical Bible NotesBut where faith has begun, the pull on the heart-strings tunes them to music. That quick reassurance is not at all hard to understand: "But I will hope continually and will praise You yet more and more."
Praise rising as strength falls
Earlier in the psalm his strength is failing and old age is closing in. The praise that increases here is not the praise of a man doing well.
Hamilton SmithThis time of testing will draw out the faith of the godly. They will look to God to hurry to their help by putting their enemies to shame. The result is praise to God increasing yet "more and more", and His righteousness declared all the day, as something beyond reckoning. So when his strength fails (v. 9), the godly man falls back on the strength of the Lord God.
The hope is not a leap in the dark either. It leans on a record.
VariousThere are two main divisions in the psalm (vv. 1-16 and 17-24). In both of them, faith rests on what God had been in the past as its confidence for the future.
What the hope stands on
Hope "continually" needs something that does not shift. In this psalm that something is God's own righteousness.
J. N. DarbyPsalm 71 rests on two points. God's righteousness — the psalmist claims nothing on the ground of his own; but God will be consistent with Himself, and will not desert or abandon him. So he counts on His faithfulness.
That righteousness is also why the praise can keep growing: the subject never runs out. The writer below quotes the following verse from an older translation.
L M GrantThey may tell, not about their righteousness or even their faith, but of God's righteousness and His faithfulness. On these they may fully depend for salvation. The next expression, "For I do not know their limits", is better translated, "for I do not know how to reckon it". That is, human intellect is not able to reckon the value of God's righteousness. It is beyond human understanding, and yet to be understood in a very real measure.
Whose voice speaks here
David's own trouble runs through the psalm. One writer hears a second voice in it as well.
J. G. BellettDavid is heard clearly in this psalm. So is the Spirit of Christ, in company with the remnant, of whom David in his sorrows and repentance is such a striking picture. David's affliction at the hand of Absalom was the affliction of his "old age", or when he was "grey-headed". So the affliction of the remnant will be in Israel's old age, spiritually speaking.
Where the growing praise arrives
The growing praise has a future. One writer points to a deliverance still to come.
A. PridhamA mightier deliverance is still to come for the children of the covenant. God's choosing love rests on them, unshaken, for the fathers' sakes. It will be celebrated in another song, a new one — the song of Moses indeed, but also of the Lamb (Rev. 15:3-4). That nation's end will be far more wonderful than its beginning.
Summary
- Turn. This is where faith breaks into the distress. Faith pulls the heart-strings and "tunes them to music".
- Ground. Hope can be continual because it claims nothing of its own. God "will be consistent with Himself". His faithfulness holds the weight, not our merit.
- Fuel. Praise grows "more and more" because no one can measure its subject. The psalmist does not know how to reckon God's righteousness.
- Timing. Praise grows as strength fails. When his own strength gives out, he falls back on the strength of the Lord God.
- Destination. The vow is not private sentiment. It runs on to a deliverance still ahead and a new song, where the end is more wonderful than the beginning.