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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.

O L ord my God, in you I take refuge;

save me from all my pursuers, and deliver me,

or like a lion they will tear me apart;

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

O L ord my God, if I have done this,

if there is wrong in my hands,

if I have repaid my ally with harm

or plundered my foe without cause,

then let the enemy pursue and overtake me,

trample my life to the ground,

and lay my soul in the dust. Selah

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.

Let the assembly of the peoples be gathered around you,

and over it take your seat on high.

The L ord judges the peoples;

judge me, O L ord, according to my righteousness

and according to the integrity that is in me.

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.

God is my shield,

who saves the upright in heart.

God is a righteous judge,

and a God who has indignation every day.

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

he has bent and strung his bow;

he has prepared his deadly weapons,

making his arrows fiery shafts.

See how they conceive evil,

and are pregnant with mischief,

and bring forth lies.

They make a pit, digging it out,

and fall into the hole that they have made.

Their mischief returns upon their own heads,

and on their own heads their violence descends.

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.

New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

In the second clause of the fourth verse, he proceeds farther, and states, that he had been a friend, not only to the good, but also to the bad, and had not only restrained himself from all revenge, but had even succoured his enemies, by whom he had been deeply and cruelly injured. It would certainly not be very illustrious virtue to love the good and peaceable, unless there were joined to this self-government and gentleness in patiently bearing with the bad. But when a man not only keeps himself from revenging the injuries which he has received, but endeavours to overcome evil by doing good, he manifests one of the graces of a renewed and sanctified nature, and in this way proves himself to be one of the children of God; for such meekness proceeds only from the Spirit of adoption. With respect to the words: as the Hebrew word חלץ chalats, which I have translated to delivers signifies to divide and to separate, some, to prevent the necessity of supplying any word to make out the sense, ¹⁰³¹⁰³ In the clause, “And have NOT delivered him that persecuted me without cause,” the word not is a supplement, there being nothing for it in the Hebrew text. thus explain the passage, If I have withdrawn myself from my persecutors, in order not to succour them. The other interpretation, however, according to which the verb is rendered to deliver or rescue from danger, is more generally received; because the phrase, to separate or set aside, is applied to those things which we wish to place in safety. And thus the negative word not must be supplied, an omission which we will find not unfrequently occurring in The Psalms.

¹⁰³ In the clause, “And have NOT delivered him that persecuted me without cause,” the word not is a supplement, there being nothing for it in the Hebrew text.