Psalm 140

Psalms 140:1-3

The Hebrew title reads To the chief Musician, A Psalm of David, without an occasion attached, and the prayer opens against a specific danger, deliver me, O Lord, from the evil man, preserve me from the violent man. Such men are described by what they plan and repeat, they imagine mischiefs in their heart, continually are they gathered together for war, scheming named as their steady occupation rather than a single act. Verse 3 gives the weapon, they have sharpened their tongues like a serpent, adders’ poison is under their lips, language Paul later folds into the catena of Romans 3:13, the poison of asps is under their lips, on the tongue's capacity for harm. The verse closes with Selah, one of seventy-one such markers in the Psalter whose exact meaning no one now knows with certainty, read variously as a musical pause, a lift of voice, or an invitation to weigh what was just said.

Psalms 140:4-5

Keep me, O Lord, from the hands of the wicked, preserve me from the violent man repeats the opening plea nearly word for word, David's own refrain rather than a scribal repetition, who have purposed to overthrow my goings naming intent to make him fall rather than only to harm him. The proud have hid a snare for me, and cords, they have spread a net by the wayside, they have set gins for me piles up three images of trapping in one verse, cord, net and gin, a spring trap, each naming a different mechanism for the same end. The stanza closes again with Selah, the pause left where the danger has just been laid out in full.

Psalms 140:6-8

I said unto the Lord, Thou art my God, hear the voice of my supplications, O Lord answers the previous stanza's danger with a settled confession rather than a fresh argument, the relationship stated before the request is made. O God the Lord, the strength of my salvation, thou hast covered my head in the day of battle recalls a soldier's helmet, protection already proven rather than only hoped for. The stanza's request is careful rather than sweeping, grant not, O Lord, the desires of the wicked, further not his wicked device, lest they exalt themselves, asking God to withhold the enemy's plan rather than name a punishment, closed again with Selah.

Psalms 140:9-11

As for the head of those that compass me about, let the mischief of their own lips cover them asks that the very speech aimed at David return on the speaker, the same principle Israel's law states for a false witness. Let burning coals fall upon them, let them be cast into the fire, into deep pits, that they rise not up again is read by most of the bench as the language of final judgment left to God's own hand rather than a plan the psalmist carries out himself. Let not an evil speaker be established in the earth, evil shall hunt the violent man to overthrow him closes the stanza with a principle rather than a person, that violence circles back on those who deal in it. As with the imprecatory psalms generally, the prayer hands the outcome to God and names no one living now.

Psalms 140:12-13

I know that the Lord will maintain the cause of the afflicted, and the right of the poor turns the prayer's confidence from the enemy's fate to the psalmist's own certainty about who God defends. Surely the righteous shall give thanks unto thy name closes the psalm the way many of David's prayers close, thanksgiving assumed before the deliverance has fully arrived. The upright shall dwell in thy presence is the last word, the same presence sought throughout the surrounding prayers of this stretch of the Psalter, promised here as the righteous man's home rather than a place merely visited.