For you have rescued my soul from death, my eye from tears, my foot from stumbling.

9. (a) What did the psalmist mean by saying that every man was a liar? (b) Because of what did he then speak, and was his speech to no avail?

⁹ Having experienced deliverance from the death of his soul and finding himself walking among those living on earth, the psalmist could relax and bid his soul, his own self, to return to its resting-place. There was no more need for him to shed tears of frustration. His feet had not stumbled and precipitated him into death. Once indeed he had been panicky, for he had come to the realization that all human help was of no avail: every man proved to be a liar who said that he could help the apparently doomed psalmist or who did try to rescue him. Mankind seemed a delusion to him. But though he had lost faith in the power of mankind to save him from the menacing death, he still held onto his faith in his God. So he spoke in faith, in expression of his faith. If no one else could help him, his God could. In voicing his faith, he spoke of deliverance by means of God. Such kind of speech did not prove to be false, futile. He was kept from stumbling in a death-dealing fall. So now he determined to “walk before Jehovah in the lands of those living.”