1_Deliver me from mine enemies, O my God! _He insists upon the strength and violence of his enemies, with the view of exciting his mind to greater fervor in the duty of prayer. These he describes as _rising up _against him, in which expression he alludes not simply to the audacity or fierceness of t... [ Continue Reading ]
4._Awake to hasten for my help, and behold. _In using this language, he glances at the eagerness with which his enemies, as he had already said, were pressing upon him, and states his desire that God would show the same haste in extending help as they did in seeking his destruction. With the view of... [ Continue Reading ]
6._They will return at evening. _He compares his enemies to famished and furious dogs which hunger impels to course with endless circuits in every direction, and under this figure accuses their insatiable fierceness, shown in the ceaseless activity to which they were instigated by the desire of misc... [ Continue Reading ]
In the verse which follows, he describes their fierceness. The expression, _prating, _or belching out with their mouth, denotes that they proclaimed their infamous counsels openly, and without affecting concealment. The Hebrew word נבע, _nabang, _means, metaphorically, _to speak, _but properly, it s... [ Continue Reading ]
8._But thou, O Jehovah! shalt laugh at them. _In the face of all this opposition, David only rises to greater confidence. When he says that God would _laugh _at his enemies, he employs a figure which is well fitted to enhance the power of God, suggesting that, when the wicked have perfected their sc... [ Continue Reading ]
9_I will intrust his strength to thee _The obscurity of this passage has led to a variety of opinions amongst commentators. The most forced interpretation which has been proposed is that which supposes a change of person in the relative _his, _as if David, in speaking of himself, employed the third... [ Continue Reading ]
10._The God of my mercy will prevent me _In the Hebrew, there is the affix of the third person, but we have the point which denotes the first. (367) The Septuagint has adopted the third person, and Augustine too ingeniously, though with a good design, has repeatedly quoted the passage against the Pe... [ Continue Reading ]
11_Slay them not, lest my people forget _David very properly suggests this to his own mind, as a consideration which should produce patience. We are apt to think, when God has not annihilated our enemies at once, that they have escaped out of his hands altogether; and we look upon it as properly no... [ Continue Reading ]
12_The sin of their mouth, the words of their lips _Some interpreters read, _for, _or, _on account of the sin of their mouth, _(369) supplying the causal particle, that the words may be the better connected with the preceding verse. And there can be no doubt that the reason is stated here why they d... [ Continue Reading ]
13_Consume, consume them in wrath, that they may not be _David may seem to contradict himself in praying for the utter destruction of his enemies, when immediately before he had expressed his desire that they might not be exterminated at once. (374) What else could he mean when he asks that God woul... [ Continue Reading ]
14_And at evening they shall return _It is of no consequence whether we read the words in the future tense or in the subjunctive, understanding it to be a continuance of the preceding prayer. But it seems more probable that David, after having brought his requests to a close, anticipates the happy i... [ Continue Reading ]
16_But I will sing of thy power _By this he does not mean merely that he would have occasion to sing at some future period, but prepares himself presently for the exercise of thanksgiving; and he proceeds to acknowledge that his deliverance would be at once an illustrious effect of Divine power, and... [ Continue Reading ]
17_My strength is with thee, I will sing psalms _He expresses still more explicitly the truth, that he owed his safety entirely to God. Formerly he had said that the strength of his enemy was with God, and now he asserts the same thing of his own. The expression, however, which admits of two meaning... [ Continue Reading ]