Psalms 116:6: “The Lord preserves the simple, I was brought low and He helped me.”
Psalm 116 was written after God delivered David from those who were seeking his life while he was on the run from King Saul. He is saying that God preserved him. The word preserve in Hebrew is shamar which is to watch over, take heed or to put a hedge or a wall of protection.
God will do this protecting for the simple. Who are the simple? It is the word pathi which has a wide range of meanings as demonstrated by the different renderings in our modern English Translations. The NIV calls them the “unwary” (whatever that is), the NLB says those of “childlike faith.” The Berean Study Bible says the “simplehearted,” and the CSB says the “inexperienced.” The ISV uses the word , “innocent.”
The word pathi comes from the root word patah which means a fool or one who is easily seduced. Someone who is vulnerably minded, that is someone who is easily conned as we say today…a mark. It is that trusting person who is easily deceived. It is that parent of the drug addict who continually believes the child when he says he will never do it again. A patah is that person that just breaks your heart because they are so vulnerable to the wicked in the world. These are the ones that David says God is protecting because he believes that he himself is a patah. He has trusted people who stabbed him in the back. He believed King Saul when King Saul supposedly repented. He had such simple childlike naivete that as a youth he went up against a giant with no more than a sling and a stone believing that God would watch over him – which God did by the way.
Because of his childlike trust in the world and others, David says he was brought low. Practically all modern translations use that expression “brought low,” but that is an English idiom. What does it mean to be brought low?
When we say we are left hanging, it means we are abandoned. People make promises to us and then when we act based upon those promises but the promises get broken and we are “left hanging.” I believe that is the best definition of daloti.