Psalms 41:6

And if he come. — Some one particular individual is here singled out from the body of enemies.

To see. — The usual word for visiting a sick person. (Comp. 2 Samuel 13:5; 2 Kings 8:29.)

Vanity. — Better, lies. No more vivid picture of an insincere friend could be given. Pretended sympathy lies at the very bedside, while eye and ear are open to catch up anything that can be retailed abroad or turned into mischief, when the necessity of concealment is over.

The scene of the visit of the king to the death-bed of Gaunt in Shakespeare’s King Richard II. illustrates the psalmist’s position, and the poet may even have had this verse in his mind when he wrote.

“Should dying men flatter with those that live
No, no; men living flatter those that die.