2 They speak falsehood every one with his neighbor: With flattering lip, and with a double heart, do they speak.
3 Jehovah will cut off all flattering lips, The tongue that speaketh great things;
4 Who have said, With our tongue will we prevail; Our lips are our own: who is lord over us?
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Commentary on Psalms 12 Matthew Henry Commentary
Psalm 12
It is supposed that David penned this psalm in Saul's reign, when there was a general decay of honesty and piety both in court and country, which he here complains of to God, and very feelingly, for he himself suffered by the treachery of his false friends and the insolence of his sworn enemies.
Whether this psalm was penned in Saul's reign or no, it is certainly calculated for a bad reign; and perhaps David, in spirit foresaw that some of his successors would bring things to as bad a pass as is here described, and treasured up this psalm for the use of the church then. "O tempora, O mores!-Oh the times! Oh the manners!'
To the chief musician upon Sheminith. A psalm of David.
Psa 12:1-8
This psalm furnishes us with good thoughts for bad times, in which, though the prudent will keep silent (Amos 5:13) because a man may then be made an offender for a word, yet we may comfort ourselves with such suitable meditations and prayers as are here got ready to our hand.
In singing this psalm, and praying it over, we must bewail the general corruption of manners, thank God that things are not worse than they are, but pray and hope that they will be better in God's due time.