1 Hear a righteous cause, Jehovah, attend to my cry;
Give ear to my prayer from no lips of guile.
2 From Thy face let my sentence go forth;
Thine eyes behold rightly.
3 Thou provest my heart, searchest it by night,
Triest me by fire: Thou findest not [anything];
Should I purpose evil, it shall not pass my mouth (?)
4 As for (During) the doings of men, by the word of Thy lips
I have kept [me from] the paths of the violent man.
5 My steps have held fast to Thy ways;
My feet have not slipped.
6 I, I call upon Thee, for Thou wilt answer me, O God;
Incline Thine ear unto me: hear my speech.
7 Magnify (Make wonderful) Thy loving-kindnesses, Thou who savest
those who seek refuge
From those who rise [against them?] by Thy right hand.
8 Keep me as the pupil, the daughter of the eye;
In the shadow of Thy wing hide me
9 From the wicked, who lay me waste,
My enemies at heart, [who] ring me round.
10 Their heart they have shut up;
With their mouth they speak in arrogance.
11 In our steps, they already compass us about;
Their eyes they fix, to lay [us] on the ground.
12 He is like a lion who longs to rend,
And a young lion crouching in coverts.
13 Arise, Jehovah: meet his face: make him crouch;
Deliver my soul from the wicked [with] Thy sword,
14 From men [by] Thy hand, Jehovah, from men of the world,
[Having] their portion in [this] life, and [with] Thy hidden
treasure Thou fillest their belly;
They are full of sons, and leave their overabundance to their
children.
15 I, I shall in righteousness behold Thy face;
I shall be satisfied on awaking [with] Thy likeness.
The investigations as to authorship and date yield the usual
conflicting results. Davidic, say one school; undoubtedly post-exilic,
say another, without venturing on closer definition; late in the
Persian period, says Cheyne. Perhaps we may content ourselves with the
modest judgment of Baethgen in his last book ("Handcommentar," 1892,
p. 45): "The date of composition cannot be decided by internal
indications." The background is the familiar one of causeless foes
round an innocent sufferer, who flings himself into God's arms for
safety, and in prayer enters into peace and hope. He is, no doubt, a
representative of the _Ecclesia pressa_; but he is so just because his
cry is intensely personal. The experience of one is the type for all,
and a poet's prerogative is to cast his most thoroughly individual
emotions into words that fit the universal heart. The psalm is called
a "prayer," a title given to only four other psalms, none of which are
in the First Book. It has three movements, marked by the repetition of
the name of God, which does not appear elsewhere, except in the
doubtful verse 14. These three are vv. 1-5, in which the cry for help
is founded on a strong profession of innocence; vv. 6-12, in which it
is based on a vivid description of the enemies; and vv. 13-15, in
which it soars into the pure air of mystic devotion, and thence looks
down on the transient prosperity of the foe and upwards, in a rapture
of hope, to the face of God.
The petition proper, in vv. 1, 2, and its ground, are both strongly
marked by conscious innocence, and therefore sound strange to our
ears, trained as we have been by the New Testament to deeper insight
into sin. This sufferer asks God to "hear righteousness," _i.e._ his
righteous cause. He pleads the _bona fides_ of his prayer, the fervour
of which is marked by its designation as "my _cry_," the high-pitched
note usually the expression of joy, but here of sore need and strong
desire. Boldly he asks for his "sentence from Thy face," and the
ground of that petition is that "Thine eyes behold rightly." Was
there, then, no inner baseness that should have toned down such
confidence? Was this prayer not much the same as the Pharisee's in
Christ's parable? The answer is partly found in the considerations
that the innocence professed is specially in regard to the occasions
of the psalmist's present distress, and that the acquittal by
deliverance which he asks is God's testimony that as to these he was
slandered and clear. But, further, the strong professions of
heart-cleanness and outward obedience which follow are not so much
denials of any sin as avowals of sincere devotion and honest
submission of life to God's law. They are "the answer of a good
conscience towards God," expressed, indeed, more absolutely than
befits Christian consciousness, but having nothing in common with
Pharisaic self-complacency. The modern type of religion which recoils
from such professions, and contents itself with always confessing sins
which it has given up hope of overcoming, would be all the better for
listening to the psalmist and aiming a little more vigorously and
hopefully at being able to say, "I know nothing against myself." There
is no danger in such a saying, if it be accompanied by "Yet am I not
hereby justified" and by "Who can understand his errors? Cleanse Thou
me from secret faults."
The general drift of vv. 3-5 is clear, but the precise meaning and
connection are extremely obscure. Probably the text is faulty. It has
been twisted in all sorts of ways, the Masoretic accents have been
disregarded, the division of verses set aside, and still no proposed
rendering of parts of vv. 3, 4, is wholly satisfactory. The psalmist
deals with heart, lips, feet--that is, thoughts, words, and deeds--and
declares the innocence of all. But difficulties begin when we look
closer. The first question is as to the meaning and connection of the
word rendered in the A.V. and R.V., "I am purposed." It may be a first
person singular or an infinitive used as a noun or even a noun,
meaning, in both the latter cases, substantially the same, _i.e._ my
thinking or my thoughts. It is connected by the accents with what
follows; but in that case the preceding verb "find" is left without an
object, and hence many renderings attach the word to the preceding
clause, and so get "Thou shalt find no [evil] thoughts in me." This
division of the clauses leaves the words rendered, by A.V. and R.V.,
"My mouth shall not transgress," standing alone. There is no other
instance of the verb standing by itself with that meaning, nor is
"mouth" clearly the subject. It may as well be the object, and the
clause be, "[It] shall not pass my mouth." If that is the meaning, we
have to look to the preceding word as defining what it is that is thus
to be kept unuttered, and so detach it from the verb "find," as the
accents do. The knot has been untied in two ways: "My [evil] purpose
shall not pass," etc., or, taking the word as a verb and regarding the
clause as hypothetical, "Should I think evil, it shall not pass," etc.
Either of these renderings has the advantage of retaining the
recognised meaning of the verb and of avoiding neglect of the accent.
Such a rendering has been objected to as inconsistent with the
previous clause, but the psalmist may be looking back to it, feeling
that his partial self-knowledge makes it a bold statement, and thus
far limiting it, that _if_ any evil thought is found in his heart, it
is sternly repressed in silence.
Obscurity continues in ver. 4. The usual rendering, "As for [or,
During] the works of men, by the word of Thy mouth I have kept me,"
etc., is against the accents, which make the principal division of the
verse fall after "lips"; but no satisfactory sense results if the
accentuation is followed unless we suppose a verb implied, such as,
_e.g._, _stand fast_ or the like, so getting the profession of
steadfastness in the words of God's lips, in face of men's self-willed
doings. But this is precarious, and probably the ordinary way of
cutting the knot by neglecting the accents is best. In any case the
avowal of innocence passes here from thoughts and words to acts. The
contrast of the psalmist's closed mouth and God's lips is significant,
even if unintended. Only he who silences much that rises in his heart
can hear God speaking. "I kept me from," is a very unusual meaning for
the word employed, which generally signifies to _guard_ or _watch_,
but here seems to mean _to take heed so as to avoid_. Possibly the
preposition _from_, denoted by a single letter, has fallen out before
"paths." This negative avoidance precedes positive walking in God's
ways, since the poet's position is amidst evil men. Goodness has to
learn to say No to men, if it is ever to say Yes to God. The foot has
to be forcibly plucked and vigilantly kept from foul ways before it
can be planted firmly in "Thy paths." By holding fast to courses
appointed by God stability is ensured. Thus the closing clause of this
first part is rather an acknowledgment of the happy result of devoted
cleaving to God than an assertion of self-secured steadfastness. "My
feet do not slip," not so much because they are strong as because the
road is good, and the Guide's word and hand ready.
The second part repeats the prayer for help, but bases it on the
double ground of God's character and acts and of the suppliant's
desperate straits; and of these two the former comes first in the
prayer, though the latter has impelled to the prayer. Faith may be
helped to self-consciousness by the sense of danger, but when awakened
it grasps God's hand first and then faces its foes. In this part of
the psalm the petitions, the aspects of the Divine character and
working, and the grim picture of dangers are all noteworthy. The
petitions by their number and variety reveal the pressure of trouble,
each new prick of fear or pain forcing a new cry and each cry
recording a fresh act of faith tightening its grasp. The "I" in ver. 6
is emphatic, and may be taken as gathering up the psalmist's preceding
declarations and humbly laying them before God as a plea: "_I, who
thus cleave to Thy ways_, call upon Thee, and my prayer is that of
faith, which is sure of answer." But that confidence does not make
petition superfluous, but rather encourages it. The assurance that
"Thou wilt answer" is the reason for the prayer, "Incline Thine ear."
Naturally at such a moment the name of God springs to the psalmist's
lips, but significantly it is not the name found in the other two
parts of the psalm. There He is invoked as "Jehovah," here as "God."
The variation is not merely rhetorical, but the name which connotes
power is appropriate in a prayer for deliverance from peril so
extreme. "Magnify [or make wonderful] Thy loving-kindnesses" is a
petition containing at once a glimpse of the psalmist's danger, for
escape from which nothing short of a wonder of power will avail, and
an appeal to God's delight in magnifying His name by the display of
His mercy. The prayer sounds arrogant, as if the petitioner thought
himself important enough to have miracles wrought for him; but it is
really most humble, for the very wonder of the loving-kindness
besought is that it should be exercised for such a one. God wins
honour by saving a poor man who cries to Him; and it is with deep
insight into the heart of God that this man presents himself as
offering an occasion, in which God must delight, to flash the glory of
His loving power before dull eyes. The petitions grow in boldness as
they go on, and culminate in two which occur in similar contiguity in
the great Song of Moses in Deut. xxxii.: "Keep me as the pupil of Thy
eye." What closeness of union with God that lovely figure implies, and
what sedulous guardianship it implores! "In the shadow of Thy wings
hide me." What tenderness of fostering protection that ascribes to
God, and what warmth and security it asks for man! The combination and
order of these two petitions may teach us that, if we are to be
"kept," we must be hidden; that if these frail lives of ours are to be
dear to God as the apple of His eye, they must be passed nestling
close by His side. Deep, secret communion with Him is the condition of
His protection of us, as another psalm, using the same image, has it:
"He that dwelleth in the secret place of the Most High shall abide
under the shadow of the Almighty."
The aspects of the Divine character, which the psalmist employs to move
God's heart and to encourage his own, are contained first in the name
"God," and next in the reference to His habitual dealings with trusting
souls, in ver 7. From of old it has been His way to be the Saviour of
such as take refuge in Him from their enemies, and His right hand has
shielded them. That past is a prophecy which the psalmist grasps in
faith. He has in view instances enough to warrant an induction
absolutely certain. He knows the law of the Divine dealings, and is sure
that anything may happen rather than that it shall fail. Was he wrong in
thus characterising God? Much in his experience and in ours looks as if
he were; but they who most truly understand what help or salvation truly
is will most joyously dwell in the sunny clearness of this confidence,
which will not be clouded for them, though their own and others' trust
is not answered by what sense calls deliverance.
The eye which steadily looks on God can look calmly at dangers. It is
with no failure of faith that the poet's thoughts turn to his enemies.
Fears that have become prayers are already more than half conquered.
The psalmist would move God to help, not himself to despair, by
recounting his perils. The enemy "spoil" him or lay him waste, the
word used for the ravages of invaders. They are "enemies in
soul"--_i.e._, deadly--or perhaps "against [my] soul" or life. They
are pitiless and proud, closing their hearts, which prosperity has
made "fat" or arrogant, against the entrance of compassion, and
indulging in gasconading boasts of their own power and contemptuous
scoffs at his weakness. They ring him round, watching his steps. The
text has a sudden change here from singular to plural, and back again
to singular, reading "_our_ steps," and "They have compassed _me_,"
which the Hebrew margin alters to "us." The wavering between the
singular and plural is accounted for by the upholders of the Davidic
authorship by a reference to him and his followers, and by the
advocates of the theory that the speaker is the personified Israel by
supposing that the mask falls for a moment, and the "me," which always
means "us," gives place to the collective. Ver. 11 _b_ is ambiguous in
consequence of the absence of an object to the second verb. To "set
the eyes" is to watch fixedly and eagerly; and the purpose of the gaze
is in the next clause stated by an infinitive with a preposition, not
by a participle, as in the A.V. The verb is sometimes transitive and
sometimes intransitive, but the former is the better meaning here, and
the omitted object is most naturally "us" or "me." The sense, then,
will be that the enemies eagerly watch for an opportunity to cast down
the psalmist, so as to lay him low on the earth. The intransitive
meaning "to bow down" is taken by some commentators. If that is
adopted (as it is by Hupfeld and others), the reference is to "our
steps" in the previous clause, and the sense of the whole is that
eager eyes watch for these "bowing to the ground," that is stumbling.
But such a rendering is harsh, since steps are always on the ground.
Baethgen ("Handcommentar"), on the strength of Num. xxi. 22, the only
place where the verb occurs with the same preposition as here, and
which he takes as meaning "to turn aside to field or vineyard--_i.e._,
to plunder them"--would translate, "They direct their eyes to burst
into the land," and supposes the reference to be to some impending
invasion. A similar variation in number to that in ver. 11 occurs in
ver. 12, where the enemies are concentrated into one. The allusion is
supposed to be to some one conspicuous leader--_e.g._, Saul--but
probably the change is merely an illustration of the carelessness as
to such grammatical accuracy characteristic of emotional Hebrew
poetry. The familiar metaphor of the lurking lion may have been led up
to in the poet's imagination by the preceding picture of the steadfast
gaze of the enemy, like the glare of the green eyeballs flashing from
the covert of a jungle.
The third part (vv. 13-15) renews the cry for deliverance, and unites
the points of view of the preceding parts in inverted order,
describing first the enemies and then the psalmist, but with these
significant differences, the fruits of his communion with God, that
now the former are painted, not in their fierceness, but in their
transitory attachments and low delights, and that the latter does not
bemoan his own helplessness nor build on his own integrity, but feeds
his soul on his confidence of the vision of God and the satisfaction
which it will bring. The smoke clouds that rolled in the former parts
have caught fire, and one clear shoot of flame aspires heavenward. He
who makes his needs known to God gains for immediate answer "the peace
of God, which passeth understanding," and can wait God's time for the
rest. The crouching lion is still ready to spring; but the psalmist
hides himself behind God, whom he asks to face the brute and make him
grovel at his feet ("Make him bow down," the same word used for a lion
couchant in Gen. xlix. 9 and Num. xxiv. 9). The rendering of ver. 13
_b_, "the wicked, who is Thy sword," introduces an irrelevant thought;
and it is better to regard the sword as God's weapon that slays the
crouching wild beast. The excessive length of ver. 14 and the entirely
pleonastic "from men (by) Thy hand, O Lord," suggest textual
corruption. The thought runs more smoothly, though not altogether
clearly, if these words are omitted. There remains a penetrating
characterisation of the enemy in the sensuous limitations and mistaken
aims of his godless being, which may be satiated with low delights,
but never satisfied, and has to leave them all at last. He is no
longer dreaded, but pitied. His prayer has cleared the psalmist's eyes
and lifted him high enough to see his foes as they are. They are "men
of the world," belonging, by the set of their lives, to a transitory
order of things--an anticipation of New Testament language about "the
children of this world." "Their portion is in [this] life," while the
psalmist's is God (xvi. 5). They have chosen to have their good things
in their lifetime. Hopes, desires, aims, tastes, are all confined
within the narrow bounds of time and sense, than which there can be no
greater folly. Such limitation will often seem to succeed, for low
aims are easily reached; and God sometimes lets men have their fill of
the goods at which their perverted choice clutches. But even so the
choice is madness and misery, for the man, gorged with worldly good,
has yet to leave it, however unwilling to loosen his hold. He cannot
use his goods; and it is no comfort to him, sent away naked into
darkness of death, that his descendants revel in what was his.
How different the contrasted conditions of the hunted psalmist and his
enemies look when the light of such thoughts streams on them! The
helpless victim towers above his persecutors, for his desires go up to
Him who abides and saturates with His blessed fulness the heart that
aspires to Him. Terrors vanish; foes are forgotten; every other wish
is swallowed up in one, which is a confidence as well as a desire. The
psalmist neither grudges, nor is perplexed by, the prosperity of the
wicked. The mysteries of men's earthly lot puzzle those who stand at a
lower elevation; but they do not disturb the soul on these supreme
heights of mystic devotion, where God is seen to be the only good, and
the hungry heart is filled with Him. Assuredly the psalmist's closing
expectation embodies the one contrast worth notice: that between the
present gross and partial satisfactions of sense-bound lives and the
calm, permanent, full delights of communion with God. But does he
limit his hopes to such "hours of high communion with the living God"
as may be ours, even while the foe rings us round and earth holds us
down? Possibly so, but it is difficult to find a worthy meaning for
"when I awake" unless it be from the sleep of death. Possibly, too,
the allusion to the men of the world as "leaving their substance"
makes the reference to a future beatific vision more likely. Death is
to them the stripping off of their chosen portion; it is to him whose
portion is God the fuller possession of all that he loves and desires.
Cheyne ("Orig. of Psalt.," p. 407) regards the "awaking" as that from
the "sleep" of the intermediate state by "the passing of the soul into
a resurrection body." He is led to the recognition of the doctrine of
the resurrection here by his theory of the late date of the psalm and
the influence of Zoroastrianism on it. But it is not necessary to
suppose an allusion to the resurrection. Rather the psalmist's
confidence is the offspring of his profound consciousness of present
communion, and we see here the very process by which a devout man, in
the absence of a clear revelation of the future, reached up to a
conclusion to which he was led by his experience of the inmost reality
of friendship with God. The impotence of death on the relation of the
devout soul to God is a postulate of faith, whether formulated as an
article of faith or not. Probably the psalmist had no clear conception
of a future life; but certainly he had a distinct assurance of it,
because he felt that the very "sweetness" of present fellowship with
God "yielded proof that it was born for immortality."