Commentaries:
Barnes' Notes
The Lord also will be a refuge - Margin, an high place. The margin expresses the more exact sense of the, Hebrew word - ׂ miśgâb . It means properly height, altitude; then a height, rock, crag; and then, as such localities, being inaccessible to an enemy, were sought in times of danger as places of secure retreat, it comes to denote a place of security and refuge, Psalms 18:2; Psalms 46:7, Psalms 46:11; Psalms 48:3; Psalms 59:9, Psalms 59:17; Psalms 94:22. The declaration here is equivalent to what is so often said, that God is a refuge, a rock, a high tower, a defense; meaning, that those referred to might find safety in him. See the notes at Psalms 18:2.
For the oppressed - literally, for those who are crushed, broken; hence, the dejected, afflicted, unhappy - dak - from mor dākak - to beat small; to break in pieces; to crush. The allusion here is to those who are wronged or down-trodden; to the victims of tyranny and injustice. Such may look to God to vindicate them and their cause, and they will not look in vain. Sooner or later he will manifest himself as their protector and their helper. See Psalms 9:12.
A refuge in times of trouble - Not only for the oppressed, but for all those who are in trouble. Compare Psalms 46:1. That is, all such may come to him with the assurance that he will be ready to pity them in their sorrows, and to deliver them. The psalmist had found it so in his own case; and he infers that it would be so in all cases, and that this might be regarded as the general character of God.
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