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141. Psalm 141

¹ I call to you, LORD, come quickly to me;
hear me when I call to you.
² May my prayer be set before you like incense;
may the lifting up of my hands be like the evening sacrifice.

    ³ Set a guard over my mouth, LORD;
   keep watch over the door of my lips.
⁴ Do not let my heart be drawn to what is evil
   so that I take part in wicked deeds
along with those who are evildoers;
   do not let me eat their delicacies.

    ⁵ Let a righteous man strike me—that is a kindness;
   let him rebuke me—that is oil on my head.
My head will not refuse it,
   for my prayer will still be against the deeds of evildoers.

    ⁶ Their rulers will be thrown down from the cliffs,
   and the wicked will learn that my words were well spoken.
⁷ They will say, “As one plows and breaks up the earth,
   so our bones have been scattered at the mouth of the grave.”

    ⁸ But my eyes are fixed on you, Sovereign LORD;
   in you I take refuge—do not give me over to death.
⁹ Keep me safe from the traps set by evildoers,
   from the snares they have laid for me.
¹⁰ Let the wicked fall into their own nets,
   while I pass by in safety.

8. Because to thee, O Jehovah! etc. If we reflect upon what was comprehended under the previous figure of their bones being broken, his praying in such circumstances is just as if the torn fragments of a mangled corpse should cry unto God. This may give us some idea of the heroical courage of David, who could continue to direct his eyes to God even under such overwhelming difficulties; this being the very part faith ought to discharge, in making us collected and composed when our senses would otherwise be confounded. ²⁴³²⁴³ “C’est le propre de la foy de rassembler lessens de la personne dispersez, lequels autrement s’esvanouiroyent a chacun coup.” —Fr. Great a miracle as it would have been for God to have preserved them in life, when their bones were scattered abroad, it was a double miracle to support their minds in the firm persuasion of their not perishing.

9. Keep me, etc. He owns himself to be shut up in the snares of his enemies, unless set free by a higher hand. In praying to God under the straits to which he was reduced, he proves what a high estimate he formed of what his mercy could effect, as elsewhere he says, that the issues from death belong to him. (Psalm 68:20.) God often delays interposing, that the deliverance may be the more signal; and afterwards he makes the devices of the wicked to recoil upon their own heads. It seems absurd to refer the pronoun his to Saul, as if the sense were that Doeg and others of that character would fall into the snares of Saul. It would seem to be God who is intended. First, he had spoken of being preserved by God from the toils of the wicked, and now to these snares which the wicked spread for the upright he opposes the snares with which God catches the crafty in their own devices. And as the number of his enemies was great, he uses the expression, let them fall together, for escape would have been impossible, had he not been persuaded that it was easy for God to overthrow any combined force and array of men. What follows admits of two meanings. Many read, I shall always pass. But we may suppose order of the words changed and read, until I pass. It prays that his enemies should be held in the snare till he got off safe,