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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.


9 Let the malice of the wicked come to an endow I beseech thee. David, in the first place, prays that God would restrain the malice of his enemies, and bring it to an end; from which it follows, that his affliction had been of long duration. Others suppose that this is rather a dreadful imprecation, and they explain the Hebrew word גמר, gamar, somewhat differently. Instead of rendering it to cease, and to come to an end, as I have done, they understand it to make to cease, which is equivalent to destroy or to consume. 109109     “Les autres estiment plustost que ce soit une vehemente imprecation, et exposent ce mot Hebrieu un peu autrement. Car en lieu que nous le traduisons Cesser et Prendre fin, ils le prenent pour Faire cesser, qui est Destruire et Consumer.”—Fr. Thus, according to them, David wishes that God would cause the mischief which the wicked devise to fall upon their own heads: Let the wickedness of the wicked consume them But, in my opinion, the former interpretation is the more simple, namely, that David beseeches God to bring his troubles to a termination. Accordingly there follows immediately after the corresponding prayer Direct thou the righteous, or establish him; for it is of little importance which of these two readings we adopt. The meaning is, that God would re-establish and uphold the righteous, who are wrongfully oppressed, and thus make it evident that they are continued in their estate by the power of God, notwithstanding the persecution to which they are subjected.—For God searcheth the hearts The Hebrew copulative is here very properly translated by the causal particle for, since David, without doubt, adds this clause as an argument to enforce his prayer. He now declares, for the third time, that, trusting to the testimony of a good conscience, he comes before God with confidence; but here he expresses something more than he had done before, namely, that he not only showed his innocence, by his external conduct, but had also cultivated purity in the secret affection of his heart. He seems to set this confidence in opposition to the insolence and boasting of his enemies, by whom, it is probable, such calumnies had been circulated among the people concerning him, as constrained him in his deep affliction to present his heart and reins to be tried by God. Perhaps, also, he speaks in this manner, in order to divest them of all those plausible but false and deceitful pretenses, which they made use of for the purpose of deceiving men, and if they succeeded in doing this they were satisfied. 110110     “Il se peut faire aussi qu’il parle ainsi pour oster toutes ces belles apparances bien fardees dont ils se servoyent pour abuser les hommes et ce leur estoit assez.”—Fr. He shows that, although they might triumph before the world, and receive the applause of the multitude, they, nevertheless, gained nothing, inasmuch as they would, by and by, have to make their appearance before the judgment-seat of God, where the question would not be, What were their titles? or, What was the splendour of their actions? but how it stood as to the purity of their hearts.


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