God's greatness and renewed life expected

Psalm 71 is a prayer that blends pleading with confidence, often sounding like an older worshiper who has relied on God for a long time (see earlier lines in the psalm). Verses 19–21 sit near the end of the poem, where the speaker pivots from describing danger and opponents to emphasizing God’s character and past deeds. These verses function like a climactic summary: God’s greatness makes hope reasonable, and the speaker’s future expectations (“you will…”) flow directly from the way God has acted before.

The psalm does not name a king, battle, or dated crisis, so its setting is broad enough to fit many moments in Israel’s life. It reflects a world where people experienced social vulnerability, public shame and honor, and frequent hardship, and where prayer addressed both inner distress and outward threats. Images like “depths of the earth” fit ancient poetic ways of speaking about extreme danger, death-nearness, or being brought low. The language also matches a worship setting where rehearsing God’s past actions supports present hope.

Shared ground

These lines tie God’s greatness to the speaker’s hope for a reversed future. God’s “righteousness” is portrayed as reaching “to the heavens,” meaning it is vast and openly evident. The speaker points to God’s “great things” as public proof, then presses the point with a rhetorical question: “Who is like you?”

The speaker also treats suffering as part of a real history with God: God has “showed” (allowed the speaker to experience) “many and bitter troubles.” Yet the expected outcome is renewed life—“you will let me live”—and rescue from the lowest imaginable place, “the depths of the earth.” The closing requests focus on restored standing (“increase my honor”) and renewed comfort, with “again/return” language (Hebrew again/return) highlighting reversal.

Where interpretation differs

What “righteousness” emphasizes. Some read it mainly as God’s moral rightness and just rule. Others hear “righteousness” here as God’s faithfulness shown in saving help—God does what is right by rescuing and keeping promises. Both fit the verse’s flow from “righteousness” to “great things.”

What kind of “revival” is in view. Some understand “let me live” and “bring us up…from the depths of the earth” as poetic language for recovery from extreme danger, shame, or near-death. Others think the wording leans toward death-and-return imagery strongly enough to at least echo hope beyond the grave, even if the poem’s main point is rescue.

How to take the future-tense lines. The statements “you will…” can be heard as confident expectation based on God’s past deeds, or as requests expressed in a certainty-like form. Either way, the logic remains: God’s unmatched greatness makes the hoped-for reversal reasonable.

Why the disagreement exists The key phrases are poetic and image-heavy. “Righteousness” can mean moral rightness, faithfulness, or rescuing action depending on context. “Depths of the earth” can be a figure for extreme collapse, but it can also overlap with burial/death language. And Hebrew prayer often blends asking with confident speech, which makes it hard to separate “promise” from “petition” in a neat way.

What this passage clearly contributes Explicitly, the text claims (1) God’s righteousness is vast, (2) God has done great things, (3) God is incomparable, (4) the speaker has lived through many bitter troubles under God’s watch, and (5) the speaker expects renewed life and being brought up from the deepest depths. Theologically by inference, it presents God’s past acts as the basis for future hope, and it frames restoration as both personal (comfort) and social (honor/status), not merely internal feelings. It also preserves a tension: suffering is acknowledged as real and severe, yet it is not treated as the final word.