Psalm 86 - David's Prayer for Mercy and an Undivided Heart

David's plea as one both poor and needy, and confident he will be heard.

Psalms 86: A Prayer of David, Poor and Needy

Unlike the surrounding psalms of Korah, Psalm 86 is labeled simply 'A Prayer of David,' opening with the honest admission 'I am poor and needy.' It follows Psalms 85 with a more personal, first-person voice asking to be taught God's way.


For the sons of Core, a psalm of a canticle. The foundations thereof are the holy mountains:

The Lord loveth the gates of Sion above all the tabernacles of Jacob.

Glorious things are said of thee, O city of God.

I will be mindful of Rahab and of Babylon knowing me. Behold the foreigners, and Tyre, and the people of the Ethiopians, these were there.

Shall not Sion say: This man and that man is born in her? and the Highest himself hath founded her.

The Lord shall tell in his writings of peoples and of princes, of them that have been in her.

The dwelling in thee is as it were of all rejoicing.

David's confidence rests on the character described in <a href="/bible/drc/psalms/chapter-86/5">Psalms 86:5</a>, that the Lord is 'ready to forgive, and plenteous in mercy,' a promise later echoed in <a href="/bible/drc/jeremiah/chapter-32/38">Jeremiah 32:38-39</a>. The prayer ends asking for a visible token of God's help against his accusers.