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Once only in this Psalm is the pronoun "I" emphatic. In verses 14-16 "I will" occurs
six times, viz.:--
I will deliver; I will set on high; I will answer; I will deliver; I will satisfy.
In five occurrences (those given above) the pronoun is not emphasized. The Lord has
seen fit to lift one item of blessing out from all the rest; one that we might have been
inclined to pass by as we contemplated the grander issues of deliverance and exaltation.
"I will be with him in TROUBLE" (verse 15).
If we are assured that throughout the days of our pilgrimage trouble will ever keep
step with us, let us remember the blessed fellowship emphasized here:--
"I will be with him in trouble" (Psa. 91: 15).
"When thou passeth through the waters
I will be with thee;
And through the rivers
They shall not overflow thee" (Isa. 43: 2).
Let this be for our consolation, that where trouble meets us, there most emphatically
we may hope to find the personal presence of the Lord.
#14.
"Be not far from me, for trouble is near" (Psa. 22: 11).
"God is our refuge and strength,
a very present help in trouble" (Psa. 46: 1).
pp. 77, 78
There are some portions of the A.V. that are so beautiful, so apt, so endeared by long
association and fierce trial that no amount of scholarship or learning will supplant them.
The verse quoted from Psa. 46: is surely one of them. Rotherham's version reads:--
"God for us is a refuge and strength, a help in distresses soon found."
This supplies us with one or two facts which we may learn for our profit without
suggesting that such a rendering will ever take the place of that of the A.V. The words
"very present" are literally "much found". The Hebrew word occurs in Psa. 37: 36:--
`Yet he passed away, and lo, he was not; yea I sought him, but he could not be found."
In I Chron. 29: 17 we read:--
"Thy people, which are present here, to offer willingly" (margin, `or found').
Among the many suggestive renderings of this word we note two, viz.:--
"The men of Israel . . . . . smote . . . . . all that came to hand" (Judges 20: 48).
"The hill is not enough for us" (Josh. 17: 16).