Psalms 64
Butler1. HEAR my voice, O God, in my complaint: Preserve my life from fear of the enemy. 2 Hide me from the secret counsel of evildoers; From the tumult of the workers of iniquity: 3 Who have whet their tongue like a sword, And have aimed their arrows, even bitter words: 4 That they may shoot in secret places at the perfect: Suddenly do they shoot at him, and fear not. 5 They encourage themselves in an evil purpose; They commune of laying snares privily; They say, Who shall see them?
6. They search out iniquities; We have perfected say they, a well-devised scheme, And the inward thought of every one, and the heart, is deep. 7 But God shall shoot at them; With an arrow suddenly shall they be wounded. 8 So they shall be made to stumble, their own tongue being against them: All that see them shall shake the head. 9 And all men shall fear; And they shall declare the work of God, And shall wisely consider of his doing. 10 The righteous shall be glad in the LORD, and shall trust in him; And all the upright in heart shall glory.
THIS Psalm contains a stirring and vigorous picture of the plotting by which evil men were aiming at the Psalmist’s life. It opens, as is usual in such Psalms, with a cry to God against their machinations; it describes at length the methods they take to accomplish their purposes; and it concludes with a confident prediction of their sudden and utter overthrow. We have already observed a similar strain of feeling in other Psalms, such as the fifty-second, fifty-seventh, fifty-eighth, and fifty-ninth. In all these we find allusions to the mischief done by the tongue of the wicked; in the last three the same figures are employed, the tongue and its words being compared to arrows and swords. P.
In this Psalm the central theme is the counsellings of his enemies against him; the secrecy and malignity of their plots; their exultation in the assurance of success, coupled with God’s swift and terrible retribution under which their schemes recoiled fatally upon themselves—from which result the nation learned something more of God, and the righteous rejoiced with great joy. C.—It is a cry of God’s elect, when persecuted for righteousness’ sake, to their Deliverer and sure Avenger. The general principle stated is very clear. The Psalm will adjust itself, as an experimental utterance, to the lips of Christian faith whenever brought into contact with the evil forces of the prince of this world, so as to suffer affliction for the Gospel’s sake; for it expresses the condition and the hope of one actually imperilled for the truth. Arthur Pridham.
3. Their arrows, even bitter words. They dart their calumnies as archers shoot their poisoned arrows. To sting, to inflict anguish, to destroy, is their one design. Insult, sarcasm, taunting defiance, all these were practised among Orientals as a kind of art; and if in these western regions, with more refined manners, we are less addicted to the use of rough abuse, it is yet to be feared that the less apparent venom of the tongue inflicts none the less poignant pain. David had but the one resource of prayer against the twofold weapons of the wicked; for defence against sword or arrow he used the one defence of faith in God. S.
5,6. These verses carry on the picture of the plots of these evil men, and especially describe their resolute persistence in their schemes, their confidence of success, and the depth and subtlety of their designs. P. 6. They search out iniquities; (they say) We are ready—a consummate plan! and the inward thought and heart of (every) man (is) deep. They rack their invention and ransack their memory for modes of doing mischief. We are ready, literally, finished, just as we might say in English, we are done. The last clause is added to
enhance the danger, by representing the device as springing not from shallow, superficial, but profound contrivance. Inward thought, literally, inside, an equivalent to heart often used by David. A.