For strangers are risen up against me, and oppressors seek after my soul: they have not set God before them. Selah.
This verse stands in the company of Psalms 37 through 56 as encouragement given to God's faithful children. Its place there is not accidental, for together those psalms sustain believers under trial with assurance of divine care. The words carry the experience of Christ Himself, because the Spirit of Christ inspired the psalmist who uttered them. What David felt from strangers risen against him and oppressors seeking his soul is therefore also what Christ entered into and bore. The verse yields a blessed lesson fitted to a circumstance of life, meeting the believer exactly where opposition and godless disregard are encountered. No experience and no circumstance in life goes beyond what it teaches, so that every such trial finds its answer already provided in it.
This verse stands in the company of Psalms 37 through 56 as encouragement given to God's faithful children. Its place there is not accidental, for together those psalms sustain believers under trial with assurance of divine care. The words carry the experience of Christ Himself, because the Spirit of Christ inspired the psalmist who uttered them. What David felt from strangers risen against him and oppressors seeking his soul is therefore also what Christ entered into and bore. The verse yields a blessed lesson fitted to a circumstance of life, meeting the believer exactly where opposition and godless disregard are encountered. No experience and no circumstance in life goes beyond what it teaches, so that every such trial finds its answer already provided in it.