| Barnes' Notes on the Bible I said unto the Lord, Thou art my God ... - In all these dangers from open war, in all these perils from a crafty enemy lying in ambush, my only refuge was God; my hope was in him alone. From all these dangers, seen and unseen, I knew that he could defend me, and I confidently believed that he would.
Gill's Exposition of the Entire BibleI said unto the Lord, thou art my God,.... He said this to the Lord himself; claimed his covenant interest in him, and expressed it in the strength of faith: and this he did when in the midst of trouble and distress; in danger of falling into the hands of evil and violent men; they imagined mischief against him; were bent on his ruin, and laid nets, snares, gins, and traps for him; when he applied to his God, who only could deliver him; and being his covenant God, he had reason to believe he would; see Psalm 31:14; hear the voice of my supplications, O Lord; the requests he put up in an humble manner for deliverance and salvation; and which he expressed vocally, and entreated they might be heard and answered; and nothing could tend more to strengthen his faith in this than that it was his own God and Father he prayed unto; see Psalm 28:2; Thus Christ, in the days of his flesh, offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying; and in the midst of his troubles, and surrounded with enemies, declared his faith in God as his God, Hebrews 5:7.
The Treasury of David6 I said unto the Lord, Thou art my God, hear the voice of my supplications, O Lord. 7 O God the Lord, the strength of my salvation thou hast covered my head in the day of battle. 8 Grant not, O Lord, the desires of the wicked, further not his wicked device; lest they exalt themselves. Selah. Psalm 140:6 "I said unto the Lord, thou art my God." Here was David's stay and hope. He was assured that Jehovah was his God, he expressed that assurance, and he expressed it before Jehovah himself. That had need be a good and full assurance which a man dares to lay before the face of the heart-searching Lord. The Psalmist when hunted by man, addressed himself to God. Often the less we say to our foes, and the more we say to our best Friend the better it will fare with us' if we say anything, let it be said unto the Lord. David rejoiced in the fact that he had already said that Jehovah was his God: he was content to have committed himself, he had no wish to draw back. The Lord was David's own by deliberate choice, to which he again sets his seal with delight. The wicked reject God, but the righteous receive him as their own, their treasure, their pleasure, their light and delight. "Hear the voice of my supplications, O Lord." Since thou art mine, I pray thee hear my cries. We cannot ask this favour of another man's god, but we may seek it from our own God. The prayers of saints have a voice in them; they are expressive pleadings even when they sound like inarticulate moanings. The Lord can discern a voice in our wailings, and he can and will hearken thereto. Because he is God he can hear us; because he is our God he will hear us. So long as the Lord doth but hear us we are content - the answer may be according to his own will, but we do entreat to be heard a soul in distress is grateful to any one who will be kind and patient enough to hearken to its tale, but specially is it thankful for an audience with Jehovah. The more we consider his greatness and our insignificance, his wisdom and our folly, the more shall we be filled with praise when the Lord attends unto our cry. Psalm 140:7 "O God the Lord, the strength of my salvation, thou hast covered my head in the day of battle." When he looked back upon past dangers and deliverances, the good man felt that he should have perished had not the Lord held a shield over his head. In the day of the clash of arms, or of putting on of armour (as some read it), the glorious Lord had been his constant protector. Goliath had his armour-bearer, and so had Saul, and these each one guarded his master; yet the giant and the king both perished, while David, without armour or shield, slew the giant and baffled the tyrant. The shield of the Eternal is better protection than a helmet of brass. When arrows fly thick and the battle-axe crashes right and left, there is no covering for the head like the power of the Almighty. See how the Child of providence glorifies his Preserver! He calls him not only his salvation, but the strength of it, by whose unrivalled force he had been enabled to outlive the cunning and cruelty of his adversaries. He had obtained a deliverance in which the strength of the Omnipotent was clearly to be seen. This is a grand utterance of praise, a gracious ground of comfort, a prevalent argument in prayer. He that has covered our head aforetime will not now desert us. Wherefore let us fight a good fight, and fear no deadly wound: the Lord God is our shield, and our exceeding great reward. Psalm 140:8 "Grant not, O Lord, the desires of the wicked." Even they are dependent upon thee; they can do no more than thou dost permit. Thou dost restrain them; not a dog of them can move his tongue without thy leave and license. Therefore I entreat thee not to let them have their way. Even though they dare to pray to thee, do not hear their prayers against innocent men. Assuredly the Lord Jehovah will be no accomplice with the malevolent; their desires shall never be his desires; if they thirst for blood he will not gratify their cruelty. "Further not his wicked device." They are so united as to be like one man in their wishes; but do not hear their prayers. Though hand join in hand, and they desire and design as one man, yet do not thou lend them the aid of thy providence. Do not permit their malicious schemes to succeed. The Lord may allow success to attend the policy of the wicked for a time for wise reasons unknown to us, but we are permitted to pray that it be not so. The petition "Deliver us from evil" includes and allows such supplication. "Lest they exalt themselves." If successful, the wicked are sure to grow proud, and insult the righteous over whom they have triumphed, and this is so great an evil, and so dishonouring to God, that the Psalmist uses it in his pleading as an argument against their being allowed to prosper. The glory of the wicked is opposed to the glory of God. If God seems to favour them they grow too high for this world, and their heads strike against the heavens. Let us hope that the Lord will not suffer this to be. "Selah." Here let us exalt our thoughts and praises high over the heads of self-exalting sinners. The more they rise in conceit the higher let us rise in confidence.
Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old TestamentSuch is the conduct of his enemies; he, however, prays to his God and gets his weapons from beside Him. The day of equipment is the day of the crisis when the battle is fought in full array. The perfect סכּותה states what will then take place on the part of God: He protects the head of His anointed against the deadly blow. Both Psalm 140:8 and Psalm 140:8 point to the helmet as being מעוז ראשׁ, Psalm 60:9; cf. the expression "the helmet of salvation" in Isaiah 59:17. Beside מאויּי, from the ἅπ. λεγ. מאוה, there is also the reading מאויי, which Abulwald found in his Jerusalem codex (in Saragossa). The regular form would be מאוי, and the boldly irregular ma'awajjê follows the example of מחשׁכּי, מחמדּי, and the like, in a manner that is without example elsewhere. זממז for מזמּתו is also a hapaxlegomenon; according to Gesenius the principal form is זמם, but surely ore correctly זמם (like קרב), which in Aramaic signifies a bridle, and here a plan, device. The Hiph. חפיק (root פק, whence נפק, Arab. nfq) signifies educere in the sense of reportare, Proverbs 3:13; Proverbs 8:35; Proverbs 12:2; Proverbs 18:22, and of porrigere, Psalm 144:13, Isaiah 58:10. A reaching forth of the plan is equivalent to the reaching forth of that which is projected. The choice of the words used in this Psalm coincides here, as already in מעגּל, with Proverbs and Isaiah. The future ירוּמוּ expresses the consequence (cf. Psalm 61:8) against which the poet wishes to guard.
Geneva Study BibleI said unto the LORD, Thou art my God: hear the voice of my supplications, O LORD.
Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary6. (Compare Ps 5:1-12; 16:2).
Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary140:1-7 The more danger appears, the more earnest we should be in prayer to God. All are safe whom the Lord protects. If he be for us, who can be against us? We should especially watch and pray, that the Lord would hold up our goings in his ways, that our footsteps slip not. God is as able to keep his people from secret fraud as from open force; and the experience we have had of his power and care, in dangers of one kind, may encourage us to depend upon him in other dangers.
Matthew Henry's Whole Bible CommentaryPSALM 140 This and the four following psalms are much of a piece, and the scope of them the same with many that we met with in the beginning and middle of the book of Psalms, though with but few of late. They were penned by David (as it should seem) when he was persecuted by Saul; one of them is said to be his "prayer when he was in the cave," and it is probable that all the rest were penned about the same time. In this psalm, I. David complains of the malice of his enemies, and prays to God to preserve him from them (v. 1-5). II. He encourages himself in God as his God (v. 6, 7). III. He prays for, and prophesies, the destruction of his persecutors (v. 8-11). IV. He assures all God's afflicted people that their troubles would in due time end well (v. 12, 13), with which assurance we must comfort ourselves, and one another, in singing this psalm. To the chief musician. A psalm of David. Verses 1-7 In this, as in other things, David was a type of Christ, that he suffered before he reigned, was humbled before he was exalted, and that as there were many who loved and valued him, and sought to do him honour, so there were many who hated and envied him, and sought to do him mischief, as appears by these verses, where, I. He gives a character of his enemies, and paints them out in their own colours, as dangerous men, whom he had reason to be afraid of, but wicked men, whom he had no reason to think the righteous God would countenance. There was one that seems to have been the ring-leader of them, whom he calls the evil man and the man of violences (v. 1, 4), probably he means Saul. The Chaldee paraphrast (v. 9) names both Doeg and Ahithophel; but between them there was a great distance of time. Violent men are evil men. But there were many besides this one who were confederate against David, who are here represented as the genuine offspring and seed of the serpent. For, 1. They are very subtle, crafty to do mischief; they have imagined it (v. 2), have laid the scheme with all the art and cunning imaginable. They have purposed and plotted to overthrow the goings of a good man (v. 4), to draw him into sin and trouble, to ruin him by blasting his reputation, crushing his interest, and taking away his life. For this purpose they have, like mighty hunters, hidden a snare, and spread a net, and set gins (v. 5), that their designs against him, being kept undiscovered, might be the more likely to take effect, and he might fall into their hands ere he was aware. Great persecutors have often been great politicians, which has indeed made them the more formidable; but the Lord preserves the simple without all those arts. 2. They are very spiteful, as full of malice as Satan himself: They have sharpened their tongues like a serpent, that infuses his venom with his tongue; and there is so much malignity in all they say that one would think there was nothing under their lips but adders' poison, v. 3. With their calumnies, and with their counsels, they aimed to destroy David, but secretly, as a man is stung with a serpent, or a snake in the grass. And they endeavoured likewise to infuse their malice into others, and to make them seven times more the children of hell than themselves. A malignant tongue makes men like the old serpent; and poison in the lips is a certain sign of poison in the heart. 3. They are confederate; they are many of them; but they are all gathered together against me for war, v. 2. Those who can agree in nothing else can agree to persecute a good man. Herod and Pilate will unite in this, and in this they resemble Satan, who is not divided against himself, all the devils agreeing in Beelzebub. 4. They are proud (v. 5), conceited of themselves and confident of their success; and herein also they resemble Satan, whose reigning ruining sin was pride. The pride of persecutors, though at present it be the terror, yet may be the encouragement, of the persecuted, for the more haughty they are the faster are they ripening for ruin. Pride goes before destruction. II. He prays to God to keep him from them and from being swallowed up by them: "Lord, deliver me, preserve me, keep me (v. 1, 4); let them not prevail to take away my life, my reputation, my interest, my comfort, and to prevent my coming to the throne. Keep me from doing as they do, or as they would have me do, or as they promise themselves I shall do." Note, The more malice appears in our enemies against us the more earnest we should be in prayer to God to take us under his protection. In him believers may count upon a security, and may enjoy it and themselves with a holy serenity. Those are safe whom God preserves. If he be for us, who can be against us? III. He triumphs in God, and thereby, in effect, he triumphs over his persecutors, v. 6, 7. When his enemies sharpened their tongues against him, did he sharpen his against them? No; adders' poison was under their lips, but grace was poured into his lips, witness what he here said unto the Lord, for to him he looked, to him he directed himself, when he saw himself in so much danger, through the malice of his enemies: and it is well for us that we have a God to go to. He comforted himself, 1. In his interest in God: "I said, Thou art my God; and, if my God, then my shield and mighty protector." In troublous dangerous times it is good to claim relation to God, and by faith to keep hold of him. 2. In his access to God. This comforted him, that he was not only taken into covenant with God, but into communion with him, that he had leave to speak to him, and might expect an answer of peace from him, and could say, with a humble confidence, Hear the voice of my supplications, O Lord! 3. In the assurance he had of help from God and happiness in him: "O God the Lord-Jehovah Adonai! as Jehovah thou art self-existent and self-sufficient, an infinitely perfect being; as Adonai thou art my stay and support, my ruler and governor, and therefore the strength of my salvation, my strong Saviour; nay, not only my Saviour, but my salvation itself, from whom, in whom, my salvation is; not only a strong Saviour, but the very strength of my salvation, on whom the stress of my hope is laid; all in all, to make me happy, and to preserve me to my happiness." 4. In the experience he had had formerly of God's care of him: Thou hast covered my head in the day of battle. As he pleaded with Saul, that, for the service of his country, he many a time jeoparded his life in the high places of the field, so he pleads with God that, in those services, he had wonderfully protected him, and provided him a better helmet for the securing of his head than Goliath's was: "Lord, thou hast kept me in the day of battle with the Philistines, suffer me not to fall by the treacherous intrigues of false-hearted Israelites." God is as able to preserve his people from secret fraud as from open force; and the experience we have had of his power and care, in dangers of one kind, may encourage us to trust in him and depend upon him in dangers of another nature; for nothing can shorten the Lord's right hand. |
