🎵WEB · Psalms 31:7
What does Psalms 31:7 mean?
"I will be glad and rejoice in your loving kindness, for you have seen my affliction. You have known my soul in adversities."
— Psalms 31:7 (World English Bible)
Surrounding context
Pluck me out of the net that they have laid secretly for me, for you are my stronghold.
Into your hand I commend my spirit. You redeem me, Yahweh, God of truth.
I hate those who regard lying vanities, but I trust in Yahweh.
I will be glad and rejoice in your loving kindness, for you have seen my affliction. You have known my soul in adversities.
You have not shut me up into the hand of the enemy. You have set my feet in a large place.
Have mercy on me, Yahweh, for I am in distress. My eye, my soul, and my body waste away with grief.
For my life is spent with sorrow, my years with sighing. My strength fails because of my iniquity. My bones are wasted away.
Explanation
Psalm 31:7 captures a moment of confident joy in the middle of a psalm that is otherwise filled with distress. David declares that he will be glad and rejoice, not because his circumstances have changed, but because of God's steadfast love (often translated "loving kindness," from the Hebrew word *chesed*, God's covenant faithfulness). He grounds this joy in two specific facts: God has seen his affliction, and God has known his soul in adversities. In other words, his rejoicing rests not on relief from suffering but on the assurance that God is intimately aware of what he is going through.
This verse comes from a psalm traditionally attributed to David, written during a time of personal crisis. Throughout Psalm 31, he describes being surrounded by enemies, feeling like "a broken vessel," experiencing scorn from neighbors, and fearing for his life. The psalm moves back and forth between lament and trust, which is typical of many psalms of this type. Verse 7 sits at a turning point where David pauses in his complaint to affirm his confidence in God's character. He is not writing from a place of comfort looking back on trouble already passed, but from within the trouble itself, choosing to trust even before deliverance comes.
Theologically, this verse highlights a key truth about the nature of God: he is not distant or indifferent to human suffering. The language of God "seeing" affliction and "knowing" the soul in adversity echoes earlier biblical themes, such as God seeing the affliction of the Israelites in Egypt (Exodus 3:7). This is
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