Return to your rest, O my soul, for the LORD has been good to you.
Parallel translations
- WEB Return to your rest, my soul, for Yahweh has dealt bountifully with you.
- KJV Return unto thy rest, O my soul; for the LORD hath dealt bountifully with thee.
- NKJV Return to your rest, O my soul, For the Lord has dealt bountifully with you.
- NASB Return to your rest, my soul, For the Lord has dealt generously with you.
- NLT Let my soul be at rest again, for the Lord has been good to me.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
The psalmist tells his soul to return to rest because God has dealt bountifully with him. It matters because remembering God's goodness restores peace to the troubled heart.
Overview
He speaks to his own soul, calling it back to rest in light of God's generous dealings. Self-counsel rooted in God's past faithfulness quiets anxiety. This rest foreshadows the deeper rest Christ offers to all who are weary and burdened, who come to him and find peace (Matt. 11:28).
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 8
- Ps 13:6I will sing to the LORD, for He has been good to me.
- Matt 11:28–29Come to Me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.
- Ps 119:17Deal bountifully with Your servant, that I may live and keep Your word.
- Jer 6:16This is what the LORD says: “Stand at the crossroads and look. Ask for the ancient paths: ‘Where is the good way?’ Then walk in it, and you will find rest for your souls. But they said, ‘We will not walk in it!’
- Jer 30:10As for you, O Jacob My servant, do not be afraid, declares the LORD, and do not be dismayed, O Israel. For I will surely save you out of a distant place, your descendants from the land of their captivity! Jacob will return to quiet and ease, with no one to make him afraid.
- Ps 95:11So I swore on oath in My anger, “They shall never enter My rest.”
- Heb 4:8–10For if Joshua had given them rest, God would not have spoken later about another day.
- Hos 2:7She will pursue her lovers but not catch them; she will seek them but not find them. Then she will say, ‘I will return to my first husband, for then I was better off than now.’
Themes, concepts, people & topics
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Christ at the center
The Psalms are Christ's own prayer book and a gallery of his portraits — the suffering one of Psalm 22, the risen Lord of Psalm 16, the priest-king of Psalm 110, the Son to whom the nations are given.
How Psalms 116:7 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Hebrew word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.