Psalm 141

A Psalm of David.

1 Lord, I cry out to You;
Make haste to me!
Give ear to my voice when I cry out to You.

2 Let my prayer be set before You as incense,
The lifting up of my hands as the evening sacrifice.

Set a guard, O Lord, over my mouth;
Keep watch over the door of my lips.

4 Do not incline my heart to any evil thing,
To practice wicked works
With men who work iniquity;
And do not let me eat of their delicacies.

Let the righteous strike me;
It shall be a kindness.
And let him rebuke me;
It shall be as excellent oil;
Let my head not refuse it.
For still my prayer is against the deeds of the wicked.

6 Their judges are overthrown by the sides of the cliff,
And they hear my words, for they are sweet.

7 Our bones are scattered at the mouth of the grave,
As when one plows and breaks up the earth.

But my eyes are upon You, O God the Lord;
In You I take refuge;
Do not leave my soul destitute.

9 Keep me from the snares they have laid for me,
And from the traps of the workers of iniquity.

10 Let the wicked fall into their own nets,
While I escape safely.

David begins (vs.1-4) by appealing to God on the basis of their relationship—i.e., that though he is a sinner, he is nonetheless God’s child, and can therefore call upon God with the expectation that He will indeed give ear to his voice (i.e., meet his need in the best way possible [per God’s knowledge of what is best]). — Wechsler, page 338.

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The relationship nuance of God’s guidance is here extended by David to include the chastising activity of his fellow children of God—i.e., the righteous—who smite (the verb indicates and ongoing action) him in love and so reprove him (v.5), the phraseology of which hearkens to the same action on the part of God towards those “whom He loves (Proverbs 3:11-12)—which action is in turn emulated by God’s children towards each other (cf. Matthew 5:48; 1 John 3:16; 4:7-21). — Wechsler, page 338.

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David’s absolute and unqualified submission to God—and in particular to God’s chastisement is here emphasized by his declaring not only that his eyes are toward God (parallel in sense to the “lifting up of [his] hands” toward God in v.2), but also by his specific reference to God as “Yahweh, my Lord,” paralleling his affirmation in Psalm 16:1-2. — Wechsler, page 339.

Williams’ take:

The hatred of man’s heart to Messiah and His followers (vs. 7 and 9); the just judgment of these haters (v.10); and the faith and dependence of Messiah Himself in and upon God, and His preciousness to God (vs.1, 3-4, 6 and 8), form the the teaching of the song. …

His subjection and dependence as a man, and His shrinking from evil, are foretold in the petitions of verses 3-4. …

The doom of the wicked is predicted in verse 10. The future tense should be here used, as in the Hebrew text; and the sens of the second member of the verse is that the Pharisees, the Sadducees and the Herodians were caught in their own snares, but that Messiah passed safely through and over them. — Williams, page 410.

I don’t find Wechsler’s interpretation particularly meaty, and Williams’ interpretation is a little hard to find in the passage. I think Morgan may have caught the meaning best:

In this song the influence of the external troubles upon the inner life of the singer is revealed. Throughout it breathes the spirit of fear lest the soul should be seduced from the attitude of whole-hearted loyalty to God. The peril most evidently threatening arises from the enticements of the ungodly; and the psalmist earnestly prays that he may be protected by Jehovah in speech and thought and action.

Without in so many words declaring so, the song clearly reveals the fact that the singer has been sorely tempted to turn aside to ways of ungodly men, to share their hospitality, and so escape their hostility. This peril is more subtle than that of the active opposition of these men, and in this distress he turns to God. … If the former psalm reveals the perils of foes without, this no less clearly deals with the danger of fears within.

I would probably replace the word “fear” in that last sentence with “temptations” — temptations that come from the wicked in the world around the believer. — Morgan, page 275.

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