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Psalm 7

Plea for Help against Persecutors

A Shiggaion of David, which he sang to the L ord concerning Cush, a Benjaminite.

1

O L ord my God, in you I take refuge;

save me from all my pursuers, and deliver me,

2

or like a lion they will tear me apart;

they will drag me away, with no one to rescue.

 

3

O L ord my God, if I have done this,

if there is wrong in my hands,

4

if I have repaid my ally with harm

or plundered my foe without cause,

5

then let the enemy pursue and overtake me,

trample my life to the ground,

and lay my soul in the dust. Selah

 

6

Rise up, O L ord, in your anger;

lift yourself up against the fury of my enemies;

awake, O my God; you have appointed a judgment.

7

Let the assembly of the peoples be gathered around you,

and over it take your seat on high.

8

The L ord judges the peoples;

judge me, O L ord, according to my righteousness

and according to the integrity that is in me.

 

9

O let the evil of the wicked come to an end,

but establish the righteous,

you who test the minds and hearts,

O righteous God.

10

God is my shield,

who saves the upright in heart.

11

God is a righteous judge,

and a God who has indignation every day.

 

12

If one does not repent, God will whet his sword;

he has bent and strung his bow;

13

he has prepared his deadly weapons,

making his arrows fiery shafts.

14

See how they conceive evil,

and are pregnant with mischief,

and bring forth lies.

15

They make a pit, digging it out,

and fall into the hole that they have made.

16

Their mischief returns upon their own heads,

and on their own heads their violence descends.

 

17

I will give to the L ord the thanks due to his righteousness,

and sing praise to the name of the L ord, the Most High.


10. My shield It is not wonderful that David often mingles meditations with his prayers, thereby to inspire himself with true confidence. We may go to God in prayer with great alacrity; but our fervour, if it does not gather new strength, either immediately fails or begins to languish. David, therefore, in order to continue in prayer with the same ardour of devotion and affection with which he commenced, brings to his recollection some of the most common truths of religion, and by this means fosters and invigorates his faith. He declares, that as God saves the upright in heart, he is perfectly safe under his protection. Whence it follows, that he had the testimony of an approving conscience. And, as he does not simply say the righteous, but the upright in heart, he appears to have an eye to that inward searching of the heart and reins mentioned in the preceding verse.


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