Psalms 140

1 God, get me out of here, away from this evil; protect me from these vicious people.

2 All they do is think up new ways to be bad; they spend their days plotting war games.

3 They practice the sharp rhetoric of hate and hurt, speak venomous words that maim and kill.

4 God, keep me out of the clutch of these wicked ones, protect me from these vicious people;

5 Stuffed with self-importance, they plot ways to trip me up, determined to bring me down. These crooks invent traps to catch me and do their best to incriminate me.

6 I prayed, "God, you're my God! Listen, God! Mercy!

7 God, my Lord, Strong Savior, protect me when the fighting breaks out!

8 Don't let the wicked have their way, God, don't give them an inch!"

9 These troublemakers all around me - let them drown in their own verbal poison.

10 Let God pile hellfire on them, let him bury them alive in crevasses!

11 These loudmouths - don't let them be taken seriously; These savages - let the Devil hunt them down!

12 I know that you, God, are on the side of victims, that you care for the rights of the poor.

13 And I know that the righteous personally thank you, that good people are secure in your presence.

Psalms 140 Commentary

Chapter 140

David encourages himself in God. (1-7) He prays for, and prophesies the destruction of, his persecutors. (8-13)

Verses 1-7 The more danger appears, the more earnest we should be in prayer to God. All are safe whom the Lord protects. If he be for us, who can be against us? We should especially watch and pray, that the Lord would hold up our goings in his ways, that our footsteps slip not. God is as able to keep his people from secret fraud as from open force; and the experience we have had of his power and care, in dangers of one kind, may encourage us to depend upon him in other dangers.

Verses 8-13 Believers may pray that God would not grant the desires of the wicked, nor further their evil devices. False accusers will bring mischief upon themselves, even the burning coals of Divine vengeance. And surely the righteous shall dwell in God's presence, and give him thanks for evermore. This is true thanksgiving, even thanks-living: this use we should make of all our deliverances, we should serve God the more closely and cheerfully. Those who, though evil spoken of and ill-used by men, are righteous in the sight of God, being justified by the righteousness of Christ, which is imputed to them, and received by faith, as the effect of which, they live soberly and righteously; these give thanks to the Lord, for the righteousness whereby they are made righteous, and for every blessing of grace, and mercy of life.

Chapter Summary

To the chief Musician, A Psalm of David. This psalm, A ben Ezra says, was composed by David before he was king; and Kimchi says, it is concerning Doeg and the Ziphites, who calumniated him to Saul; and, according to our English contents, it is a prayer of David to be delivered from Saul and Doeg. The Syriac inscription is, "said by David, when Saul threw a javelin at him to kill him, but it struck the wall; but, spiritually, the words of him that cleaves to God, and contends with his enemies." R. Obadiah says, it was made at the persecution of David by Saul, which was before the kingdom of David; as the persecution (of Gog) is before the coming of the Messiah. It is indeed before his spiritual coming, but not before his coming in the flesh; and David may be very well considered in the psalm as a type of Christ, for he was particularly so in his sufferings, as well as in other things.