1._I cried to Jehovah in my distress. _The name of the author of the Psalm is not expressed, but the style of it throughout presents David to our view. Although, therefore, I cannot positively affirm, yet I am rather inclined to think that it was composed by him. Nor will it be improper, in my judgm... [ Continue Reading ]
2._O Jehovah! deliver my soul from the lip of falsehood. _David now points out the kind of his affliction, declaring that he was loaded with false accusations. In charging his enemies with lying and falsehood, he asserts his own innocence of the crimes which they slanderously imputed to him. His com... [ Continue Reading ]
3._What shall the tongue of deceit give thee? _(50) The Prophet aggravates the malice of his enemies by asserting that they were so wickedly inclined as to be driven to evil speaking when they saw no prospect of deriving any advantage from such a course of conduct. He however seems to express more t... [ Continue Reading ]
4._The arrows of a strong man sharpened, with coals of juniper. _Here the Psalmist amplifies in another way the malice of such as distress the simple and innocent by their calumnies, affirming that they throw out their injurious reports just like a man who should draw an arrow, and with it pierce th... [ Continue Reading ]
5._Alas for me! that I have been a sojourner in Mesech. _David complains that he was doomed to linger for a long time among a perverse people; his condition resembling that of some wretched individual who is compelled to live till he grows old in sorrowful exile. The Mesechites and Kedarenes, as is... [ Continue Reading ]
6._My soul _(58) _hath long dwelt with him who hateth peace. _The Psalmist now shows, without figure, and, so to speak, points with the finger to those (59) whom he had before indirectly marked out by the terms _Mesech _and _kedar, _namely, the perfidious Israelites, who had degenerated from the hol... [ Continue Reading ]