They are bowed down and fallen, but we rise up, and stand upright.
Parallel Translations
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They are bowed down and fallen, but we rise up, and stand upright.
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They are brought down and fallen: but we are risen, and stand upright.
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(20-9) They are bowed down and fallen; but we are risen, and stand upright.
Cross-references (6)
Passages linked to Psalms 20:8 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, ordered by reader-vote popularity; verse text shown in World English Bible.
- Psalms 125:1 Those who trust in Yahweh are as Mount Zion, which can’t be moved, but remains forever.
- Micah 7:8 Don’t rejoice against me, my enemy. When I fall, I will arise. When I sit in darkness, Yahweh will be a light to me.
- Psalms 34:21-22 Evil shall kill the wicked. Those who hate the righteous shall be condemned. Yahweh redeems the soul of his servants. None of those who take refuge in him shall be condemned.
- Jeremiah 17:7-8 “Blessed is the man who trusts in Yahweh, and whose confidence is in Yahweh. For he will be as a tree planted by the waters, who spreads out its roots by the river, and will not fear when heat comes, but its leaf will be green, and will not be concerned in the year of drought. It won’t cease from yielding fruit.
- Judges 5:31 “So let all your enemies perish, Yahweh, but let those who love him be as the sun when it rises in its strength.” Then the land had rest forty years.
- Psalms 146:5-9 Happy is he who has the God of Jacob for his help, whose hope is in Yahweh, his God: who made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them; who keeps truth forever; who executes justice for the oppressed; who gives food to the hungry. Yahweh frees the prisoners. Yahweh opens the eyes of the blind. Yahweh raises up those who are bowed down. Yahweh loves the righteous. Yahweh preserves the foreigners. He upholds the fatherless and widow, but he turns the way of the wicked upside down.
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
Explain this verse (13 sources)
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John Calvin 1540 · Public Domain 8. They are bowed down. It is probable that…
8. They are bowed down. It is probable that there is here pointed out, as it were with the finger, the enemies of Israel, whom God had overthrown, when they regarded no event as less likely to happen. There is contained in the words a tacit contrast between the cruel pride with which they had been lifted up for a time when they audaciously rushed forward to make havoc of all things on the one hand, and the oppression of the people of God on the other. The expression, to rise, is applied only to those who were before sunk or fallen; and, on the other hand, the expression, bowed down and fallen, is with propriety applied to those who were lifted up with pride and presumption. The prophet therefore teaches by the event, how much more advantageous it is for us to place all our confidence in God than to depend upon our own strength.
John Calvin's Commentaries (1540-1563) — public domain. Text from the Calvin Translation Society English edition (1840s-50s) via the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (ccel.org). Calvin's coverage is partial (roughly two-thirds of the Bible); uncommented books and verses are honest gaps, never fabricated. The 19th-century editor's footnotes and remarks are omitted so the notes are faithfully Calvin's own voice.
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain The worldlings that put not their only trust in…
The worldlings that put not their only trust in God.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain Psa 20:8 They are brought down and fallen: but…
Psa 20:8 They are brought down and fallen: but we are risen, and stand upright.
Ver. 8. They are brought down, &c.] They lie flat by the fall they have taken, being confuted in their confidences, as Benhadad was of old; as of late, the French at the battle of Agincourt, Sigismund the young king of Hungary, and many others.
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But we are risen] Who before seemed to lay along, Et tanquam sideratos humi serpere. God helpeth his when forsaken of their hopes almost.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain They are brought down from their horses and chariots,…
They are brought down from their horses and chariots, to which they trusted. Heb. They bowed down, as being unable to stand longer, because of their mortal wounds. Compare Jdg 5:27.
But we stand firmly upon our legs, and keep the field, as conquerors use to do.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain They are brought down and fallen,.... These are they…
They are brought down and fallen,.... These are they that rode in chariots and on horses, and trusted in them; who are brought down from their places of honour and safety; and fall, not into the hands of their enemies, and into a low and mean estate, but to the ground by death; as also such who, being like Capernaum, lifted up to heaven with their own outward attainments, and think to get thither by them, are brought down to hell, and fall into the pit of corruption;
but we are risen, and stand upright; who remember the name of the Lord, and trust in him; the church is sometimes in a very low and depressed condition; it consists of a poor and an afflicted people, and who are persecuted by men; so the church has been under the Heathen Roman emperors, and under the Papacy, and will be as long as she is in the wilderness, and the witnesses prophesy in sackcloth; and especially when they will be slain, and their bodies lie on the earth unburied; but these shall rise and stand upright, and ascend to heaven; there will be a glorious state of the church; there will be a reviving of the interest of Christ, through the bringing in the fulness and forces of the Gentiles, and the conversion of the Jews; the dry bones will live again, and stand upon their feet, an exceeding great army; in those days the righteous will flourish and have abundance of peace and prosperity. This may also include the first resurrection, which the saints will have a part in; the dead in Christ will rise first, and will stand before the Lord with confidence, and not be ashamed; when the ungodly shall not stand in judgment, nor sinners in, the congregation of the righteous; for though these words are expressed in the present tense, because of the certainty of them, they belong to future times; hence the following petitions.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain Brought down - From their horses and chariots, to…
Brought down - From their horses and chariots, to which they trusted. Stand - Stand firmly, and keep the field.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain Verse 8. They are brought down and fallen] They…
Verse 8. They are brought down and fallen] They were so confident of victory that they looked upon it as already gained. They who trusted in their horses and chariots are bowed down, and prostrated on the earth: they are all overthrown.
But we are risen] We who have trusted in the name of Jehovah are raised up from all despondency; and we stand upright - we shall conquer, and go on to conquer.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain They are brought down and fallen - That is,…
They are brought down and fallen - That is, those who trust in chariots and horses. The reference here is undoubtedly to the enemies against whom the king was about to wage war, and the language here is indicative of his certain conviction that they would be vanquished. So certain was he now of this that he could speak of it as if it were already done. “They “are” brought down.” He sees them in anticipation prostrate and subdued; he goes forth to war with the certainty on his mind that this would occur. The word rendered “brought down” - כרע kâra‛ - means “to bend,” “to bow” (as the knees); and then it refers to one who bows down before an enemy, that is, one who is subdued, Isa 10:4; Isa 65:12; Psa 72:9; Psa 78:31.
But we are risen, and stand upright - That is, he sees this in anticipation. He is certain of success and triumph. Depressed though we may now be, yet we are certain of victory.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain They--that is, who trust in horses, &c.
They--that is, who trust in horses, &c.
stand upright--literally, "we have straightened ourselves up from our distress and fears."
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain 8. They are brought down] R.V., They are bowed…
8. They are brought down] R.V., They are bowed down; the same word as in Psa_18:39. It is still the language of faith, anticipating the entire subjugation of the enemy, and the triumph of Israel.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain (8) Stand upright.—We seem to see a whole battle…
(8) Stand upright.—We seem to see a whole battle fought before our eyes, in which those formerly struck down rise, and returning to the fight, beat off their foes, and in their turn lay them low. “We were fallen, but have risen, and stand upright.”
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain They are brought down and fallen; but we are…
They are brought down and fallen; but we are risen, and stand upright. Confident of the result, the speaker represents it as already achieved. He sees the enemy bowed down to the earth, and fallen; he sees the host of Israel erect and triumphant. All stands out clearly before his vision, as though he were an actual spectator of the fight.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Charles H. Spurgeon 1885 · Public Domain Ver. 8. How different the end of those whose…
Ver. 8. How different the end of those whose trusts are different! The enemies of God are uppermost at first, but they ere long are brought down by force, or else fall of their own accord. Their foundation is rotten, and therefore when the time comes it gives way under them; their chariots are burned in the fire, and their horses die of pestilence, and where is their boasted strength? As for those who rest on Jehovah, they are often cast down at the first onset, but an Almighty arm uplifts them, and they joyfully stand upright. The victory of Jesus is the inheritance of his people. The world, death, Satan, and sin, shall all be trampled beneath the feet of the champions of faith; while those who rely upon an arm of flesh shall be ashamed and confounded for ever.
Ver. 8. They are brought down, from their horses and chariots in which they trusted. Hebrew: they bowed down, as being unable to stand longer because of their mortal wounds. Compare Jud 5:27. "Stand upright." Standing firmly upon our legs, and keeping the field, as conquerors use to do. Matthew Poole.
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Ver. 8. Tables turned.
Psalms 20:9*
Charles H. Spurgeon's The Treasury of David (1869–1885) — public domain. Psalms only. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.