11 Wickedness is in the midst thereof: Oppression and guile depart not from its streets.
His mouth is full of cursing and deceit and oppression: Under his tongue is mischief and iniquity.
For among my people are found wicked men: they watch, as fowlers lie in wait; they set a trap, they catch men. As a cage is full of birds, so are their houses full of deceit: therefore they are become great, and waxed rich.
For the mouth of the wicked and the mouth of deceit have they opened against me: They have spoken unto me with a lying tongue. They have compassed me about also with words of hatred, And fought against me without a cause.
Their feet run to evil, and they make haste to shed innocent blood: their thoughts are thoughts of iniquity; desolation and destruction are in their paths.
And they bend their tongue, `as it were' their bow, for falsehood; and they are grown strong in the land, but not for truth: for they proceed from evil to evil, and they know not me, saith Jehovah. Take ye heed every one of his neighbor, and trust ye not in any brother; for every brother will utterly supplant, and every neighbor will go about with slanders. And they will deceive every one his neighbor, and will not speak the truth: they have taught their tongue to speak lies; they weary themselves to commit iniquity.
Moreover the word of Jehovah came unto me, saying, And thou, son of man, wilt thou judge, wilt thou judge the bloody city? then cause her to know all her abominations. And thou shalt say, Thus saith the Lord Jehovah: A city that sheddeth blood in the midst of her, that her time may come, and that maketh idols against herself to defile her! Thou art become guilty in thy blood that thou hast shed, and art defiled in thine idols which thou hast made; and thou hast caused thy days to draw near, and art come even unto thy years: therefore have I made thee a reproach unto the nations, and a mocking to all the countries. Those that are near, and those that are far from thee, shall mock thee, thou infamous one `and' full of tumult. Behold, the princes of Israel, every one according to his power, have been in thee to shed blood. In thee have they set light by father and mother; in the midst of thee have they dealt by oppression with the sojourner; in thee have they wronged the fatherless and the widow. Thou hast despised my holy things, and hast profaned my sabbaths. Slanderous men have been in thee to shed blood; and in thee they have eaten upon the mountains: in the midst of thee they have committed lewdness. In thee have they uncovered their fathers' nakedness; in thee have they humbled her that was unclean in her impurity. And one hath committed abomination with his neighbor's wife; and another hath lewdly defiled his daughter-in-law; and another in thee hath humbled his sister, his father's daughter. In thee have they taken bribes to shed blood; thou hast taken interest and increase, and thou hast greedily gained of thy neighbors by oppression, and hast forgotten me, saith the Lord Jehovah.
and they took counsel together that they might take Jesus by subtlety, and kill him.
Ye stiffnecked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, ye do always resist the Holy Spirit: as your fathers did, so do ye. Which of the prophets did not your fathers persecute? and they killed them that showed before of the coming of the Righteous One; of whom ye have now become betrayers and murderers;
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Commentary on Psalms 55 Keil & Delitzsch Commentary
Prayer of One Who Is Maliciously Beset and Betrayed by His Friend
Psalms 54:1-7 is followed by another Davidic Psalm bearing the same inscription: To the Precentor, with accompaniment of stringed instruments, a meditation, by David . It also accords with the former in the form of the prayer with which it opens (cf. Psalms 55:2 with Psalms 54:3.); and it is the Elohimic counterpart of the Jahve- Psalms 41:1-13. If the Psalm is by David, we require (in opposition to Hengstenberg) an assignable occasion for it in the history of his life. For how could the faithless bosom friend, over whom the complaint concerning malicious foes here, as in Psalms 41:1-13, lingers with special sadness, be a mere abstract personage; since it has in the person of Judas Iscariot its historical living antitype in the life and passion of the second David? This Old Testament Judas is none other than Ahithפphel, the right hand of Absalom. Ps 55 belongs, like Psalms 41:1-13, to the four years during which the rebellion of Absalom was forming; only to a somewhat later period, when Absalom's party were so sure of their cause that they had no need to make any secret of it. How it came to pass that David left the beginnings and progressive steps of the rebellion of Absalom to take their course without bringing any other weapon to bear against it than the weapon of prayer, is discussed on Psalms 41:1-13.
Hitzig also holds this Psalm to be Jeremianic. But it contains no coincidences with the language and thoughts of Jeremiah worth speaking of, excepting that this prophet, in Psalms 9:1, gives utterance to a similar wish to that of the psalmist in Psalms 55:7, and springing from the same motive. The argument in favour of Jeremiah in opposition to David is consequently referred to the picture of life and suffering which is presented in the Psalm; and it becomes a question whether this harmonizes better with the persecuted life of Jeremiah or of David. The exposition which follows here places itself - and it is at least worthy of being attempted - on the standpoint of the writer of the inscription.
In this first group sorrow prevails. David spreads forth his deep grief before God, and desires for himself some lonely spot in the wilderness far away from the home or lurking-place of the confederate band of those who are compassing his overthrow. “Veil not Thyself” here, where what is spoken of is something audible, not visible, is equivalent to “veil not Thine ear,” Lamentations 3:56, which He designedly does, when the right state of heart leaves the praying one, and consequently that which makes it acceptable and capable of being answered is wanting to the prayer (cf. Isaiah 1:15). שׂיח signifies a shrub (Syriac shucho , Arabic šı̂ḥ ), and also reflection and care (Arabic, carefulness, attention; Aramaic, סח , to babble, talk, discourse). The Hiph . חריד , which in Genesis 27:40 signifies to lead a roving life, has in this instance the signification to move one's self backwards and forwards, to be inwardly uneasy; root רד , Arab. rd , to totter, whence râda , jarûda , to run up and down (IV to desire, will); raida , to shake (said of a soft bloated body); radda , to turn (whence taraddud , a moving to and fro, doubting); therefore: I wander hither and thither in my reflecting or meditating, turning restlessly from one thought to another. It is not necessary to read ואחמיה after Psalms 77:4 instead of ועהימה , since the verb הוּם = המה , Psalms 42:6, 12, is secured by the derivatives. Since these only exhibit הוּם , and not הים (in Arabic used more particularly of the raving of love), ואהימה , as also אריד , is Hiph ., and in fact like this latter used with an inward object: I am obliged to raise a tumult or groan, break out into the dull murmuring sounds of pain. The cohortative not unfrequently signifies “I have to” or “I must” of incitements within one's self which are under the control of outward circumstances. In this restless state of mind he finds himself, and he is obliged to break forth into this cry of pain on account of the voice of the foe which he cannot but hear; by reason of the pressure or constraint ( עקת ) of the evil-doer which he is compelled to feel. The conjecture צעקת (Olshausen and Hupfeld) is superfluous. עקה is a more elegant Aramaizing word instead of צרה .
The second strophe begins with a more precise statement of that which justifies his pain. The Hiph . חמיט signifies here, as in Psalms 140:11 ( Chethîb ), declinare : they cast or roll down evil (calamity) upon him and maliciously lay snares for him בּאף , breathing anger against him who is conscious of having manifested only love towards them. His heart turns about in his body, it writhes ( יהיל ); cf. on this, Psalms 38:11. Fear and trembling take possession of his inward parts; יבא in the expression יבא בי , as is always the case when followed by a tone syllable, is a so-called נסוג אחור , i.e., it has the tone that has retreated to the penult . (Deuteronomy 1:38; Isaiah 7:24; Isaiah 60:20), although this is only with difficulty discernible in our printed copies, and is therefore (vid., Accentsystem , vi. §2) noted with Mercha . The fut. consec . which follows introduces the heightened state of terror which proceeds from this crowding on of fear and trembling. Moreover, the wish that is thereby urged from him, which David uttered to himself, is introduced in the third strophe by a fut. consec.
(Note: That beautiful old song of the church concerning Jesus has grown out of this strophe: -
Ecquis binas columbinas
Alas dabit animae?
Et in almam crucis palmam
Evolat citissime