Psalms 28:2
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Hear my cry for mercy when I call to You for help, when I lift up my hands toward Your holy sanctuary.
Commentaries
Excerpts gathered from published commentaries to ground the reading.
The former part of this psalm is the prayer of a saint militan and now in distress (Psa 28:1-3), to which is added the doom of God's implacable enemies (Psa 28:4, Psa 28:5). The latter part of the psalm is the thanksgiving of a saint triumphant, and delivered out of his distresses (Psa 28:6-8), to which is added a prophetical prayer for all God's faithful loyal subjects (Psa 28:9). So that it is hard to say which of these two conditions David was in when he penned it. Some think he was now in trouble seeking God, but at the same time preparing to praise him for his deliverance, and by faith giving him thanks for it, before it was wrought. Others think he was now in triumph, but remembered, and recorded for his own and others' benefit, the prayers he made when he was in affliction, that the mercy might relish the better, when it appeared to be an answer to them. A psalm of David.
Open source ↗28:2 It was common to lift up one’s hands in a gesture of devoted prayer (63:4; 134:2).
Open source ↗Original language
The Hebrew and Greek words behind this passage, with Strong's numbers — from openscriptures (CC BY-SA).
Cross-references
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May my prayer be set before You like incense, my uplifted hands like the evening offering.
I bow down toward Your holy temple and give thanks to Your name for Your loving devotion and Your faithfulness; You have exalted Your name and Your word above all else.
I say to the LORD, “You are my God.” Hear, O LORD, my cry for help.
Therefore I want the men everywhere to pray, lifting up holy hands, without anger or dissension.
But I will enter Your house by the abundance of Your loving devotion; in reverence I will bow down toward Your holy temple.
Lift up your hands to the sanctuary and bless the LORD!
Now when Daniel learned that the document had been signed, he went into his house, where the windows of his upper room opened toward Jerusalem, and three times a day he got down on his knees, prayed, and gave thanks to his God, just as he had done before.
Solomon also prepared the inner sanctuary within the temple to set the ark of the covenant of the LORD there.
So I will bless You as long as I live; in Your name I will lift my hands.
then may whatever prayer or petition Your people Israel make—each knowing his own afflictions and spreading out his hands toward this temple—