God Is Merciful and Gracious (vv. 5-11). God’s name represents God’s character, and He is gracious, righteous, compassionate, and powerful. The Lord loved the psalmist and saved him, and the psalmist then loved Him even more (vv. 1, 5; see 1 John 4:19). Note the phrase “our God” in verse 5, which indicates that the writer was giving his testimony to a group of people, probably at the sanctuary (vv. 14, 18-19). “Simplehearted” does not refer to ignorant or superstitious people but to childlike believers with sincerity and integrity, people who dare to believe that God means what He says.

But the Lord did even more than deliver him from death. He also “dealt bountifully” with him (v. 7), and some of this “bounty” is described in verses 8-9. God wiped away his tears, He held him up and prevented him from stumbling (Jude 24), and He walked with him to protect him from his enemies. And He did all of this in spite of the ambivalence of the psalmist’s faith, one minute dismayed at the lies of so-called friends, the next minute affirming his faith in the Lord (vv. 10-11). In the pressure of danger and pain, we often say things we really do not mean, but the Lord sees our hearts and knows what we really believe. The psalmist held to his faith even though he said what he did, and the Lord ignored what he said with his lips and responded to what he was saying in his heart. Paul quoted verse 10 in 2 Corinthians 4:13.