“Have mercy upon me, O Lord; consider my trouble which I suffer of them that hate me, thou that liftest me up from the gates of death:”
The petition to be gracious and see the affliction the speaker has suffered from those who hate him and lift the gate of death suggests that the psalmist faces persecution and possibly capital punishment. The reference to gates of death suggests that the speaker stands at threshold of execution, making the petition an urgent plea for rescue from imminent death. The appeal to God's grace establishes that the speaker's deliverance depends on divine mercy rather than human justice. This verse shifts from affirmation of God's general judgment to the speaker's particular petition for rescue from specific persecution.
Church Fathers on Psalms 9:13
1. The inscription of this Psalm is, “To the end for the hidden things of the Son, a Psalm of David himself.” As to the hidden things of the Son there may be a question: but since he has not added whose, the very only-begotten Son of God should be understood. For where a Psalm has been inscribed of the son of David, “When,” he says, “he fled from the face of Absalom his son;” although his name even was mentioned, and therefore there could be no obscurity as to whom it was…
Nicene & Post-Nicene / Ante-Nicene Fathers translations · public domain
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