Psalm 144:7

Verse 7. Rid me, and deliver me. Away, you who theorize about suffering, and can do no more than descant upon it, away! for in the time of weeping we cannot endure your reasonings. If you have no means of delivering us, if you have nothing but sententious phrases to offer, put your hands on your mouths; enwrap yourselves in silence! It is enough to suffer; but to suffer and listen to you is more than we can bear. If Job's mouth was nigh unto blasphemy, the blame is yours, ye miserable comforters, who talked instead of weeping. If I must suffer, then I pray for suffering without fine talk! --E. De Pressense.

Verse 7. Rid me, and deliver me ... from the hand of strange children. We must remember that as the Grecians (conceiting themselves the best bred people in the world) called all other nations "barbarians"; so the people of Israel, the stock of Abraham (being God's peculiar covenant people), called all other nations "aliens" or "strangers"; and because they were hated and maligned by all other nations, therefore they called all professed strangers enemies; so the word is used ( Isaiah 1:7 ), "Your land strangers shall devour"; that is, enemies shall invade and prevail over you. "Deliver me out of the hand of strange children", or out of the hand of strangers; that is, out of the hand of mine enemies. The Latin word alienus is often put for hostis, and the Roman orator (Cicero) telleth us that "he who is now called a stranger was called an enemy by our ancestors." The reason was because strangers proved unkind to, yea, turned enemies against those that entertained them. -- Joseph Caryl.

Verse 7. Strange children. He calls them strangers, not in respect of generic origin, but character and disposition. --John Calvin.

Verse 7. The strange children, now the enemies of David, shall be either won to willing subjection, or else shall be crushed under the triumphant Messiah ( Psalms 2:1-12 ). The Spirit by David spake things the deep significance of which reached further than even he understood ( 1 Peter 1:11-12 ). --Andrew Robert Fausset.

HINTS FOR PASTORS AND LAYPERSONS

Verse 7-8,. 11. Repetitions, not vain. Repetitions in prayer are vain when they result from form, thoughtlessness, or superstition; but not, e.g.,