7 Lo, they belch out with their mouths, Swords `are' in their lips, for `Who heareth?'
My soul `is' in the midst of lions, I lie down `among' flames -- sons of men, Their teeth `are' a spear and arrows, And their tongue a sharp sword.
He said in his heart, `God hath forgotten, He hath hid His face, He hath never seen.'
And they have said, `How hath God known? And is there knowledge in the Most High?'
A rash speaker is like piercings of a sword, And the tongue of the wise is healing.
Wherefore hath the wicked despised God? He hath said in his heart, `It is not required.'
Sweeter than honey hath been his mouth, And his heart `is' war! Softer have been his words than oil, And they `are' drawn `swords'.
Who sharpened as a sword their tongue, They directed their arrow -- a bitter word. To shoot in secret places the perfect, Suddenly they shoot him, and fear not. They strengthen for themselves an evil thing, They recount of the hiding of snares, They have said, `Who doth look at it?'
They utter -- they speak an old saw, All working iniquity do boast themselves.
And they say, `Jehovah doth not see, And the God of Jacob doth not consider.' Consider, ye brutish among the people, And ye foolish, when do ye act wisely? He who planteth the ear doth He not hear? He who formeth the eye doth He not see?
The heart of the righteous meditateth to answer, And the mouth of the wicked uttereth evil things.
`Hast thou not considered what this people have spoken, saying: The two families on which Jehovah fixed, He doth reject them, And my people they despise -- So that they are no more a people before them!
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Matthew Henry Commentary » Commentary on Psalms 59
Commentary on Psalms 59 Matthew Henry Commentary
Psalm 59
This psalm is of the same nature and scope with six or seven foregoing psalms; they are all filled with David's complaints of the malice of his enemies and of their cursed and cruel designs against him, his prayers and prophecies against them, and his comfort and confidence in God as his God. The first is the language of nature, and may be allowed; the second of a prophetical spirit, looking forward to Christ and the enemies of his kingdom, and therefore not to be drawn into a precedent; the third of grace and a most holy faith, which ought to be imitated by every one of us. In this psalm,
As far as it appears that any of the particular enemies of God's people fall under these characters, we may, in singing this psalm, read their doom and foresee their ruin.
To the chief musician, Al-taschith, Michtam of David, when Saul sent and they watched the house to kill him.
Psa 59:1-7
The title of this psalm acquaints us particularly with the occasion on which it was penned; it was when Saul sent a party of his guards to beset David's house in the night, that they might seize him and kill him; we have the story 1 Sa. 19:11. It was when his hostilities against David were newly begun, and he had but just before narrowly escaped Saul's javelin. These first eruptions of Saul's malice could not but put David into disorder and be both grievous and terrifying, and yet he kept up his communion with God, and such a composure of mind as that he was never out of frame for prayer and praises; happy are those whose intercourse with heaven is not intercepted nor broken in upon by their cares, or griefs, or fears, or any of the hurries (whether outward or inward) of an afflicted state. In these verses,
Psa 59:8-17
David here encourages himself, in reference to the threatening power of his enemies, with a pious resolution to wait upon God and a believing expectation that he should yet praise him.