Psalm 12

Psalms 12:1-2

Help, Lord opens the psalm as a single word of alarm, for the godly man ceaseth, for the faithful fail from among the children of men, a complaint about the scarcity of the honest rather than any single enemy. Verse 2 names the corruption precisely, they speak vanity every one with his neighbour, flattering lips and a double heart, speech that says one thing while the heart holds another. Matthew Henry reads the double heart as the psalm's real target throughout, deceit dressed as friendliness.

Psalms 12:3-4

The Lord shall cut off all flattering lips answers verse 2 in kind, judgment aimed exactly at the sin just named, and the tongue that speaketh proud things extends it to open boasting. Verse 4 quotes the boast directly, with our tongue will we prevail, our lips are our own, who is lord over us, speech treated as a possession answerable to no one. Spurgeon calls the claim one of the oldest blasphemies in the book, the tongue set up as its own sovereign.

Psalms 12:5

The Lord himself answers in the first person, for the oppression of the poor, for the sighing of the needy, now will I arise, the two griefs of the whole psalter, active oppression and quiet sighing, both named as sufficient cause. I will set him in safety from him that puffeth at him closes the verse with the exact deliverance the poor man needed, safety set directly against the proud tongue of verse 4. Barnes notes the verse as the psalm's center, the only place the Lord speaks rather than being spoken to or about.

Psalms 12:6-8

The words of the Lord are pure words answers the flattering lips and boasting tongues of the opening directly, one kind of speech held up against another, refined as silver tried in a furnace of earth, purified seven times, the number of completeness applied to the purity itself. Thou shalt keep them, O Lord, thou shalt preserve them from this generation for ever promises that this purity will outlast the corrupt generation just described. The closing verse returns to plain complaint without resolution, the wicked walk on every side, when the vilest men are exalted, Gill reading the return to lament as the psalm's honesty, the promise of verse 7 not yet erasing what verse 8 still sees.