Psalms 140

Section 2. (Psalms 140:1-13; Psalms 141:1-10; Psalms 142:1-7.)The setting aside of human help. The second section shows us therefore all other props for the soul displaced, that God may be its one resource. As we have seen in the “songs of ascents,” and may see probably in every ternary series, the last psalm shows us (and indeed according to the symbolism of the number) the purport of the section. Here, in the 142nd psalm, all refuge fails but God alone. Turning back from this to the first psalm then (the 140th) we can realize that the point of it is the sufficiency of such a refuge. In the connecting psalm between these, the psalmist proclaims that his refuge is in God, and separates himself from the wicked, who will receive God’s judgment. Thus the general purport seems clear enough.

Psalms 140:1-13

Jehovah the sole sufficiency. To the chief musician, a psalm of David. The 140th psalm is evidently in another line of thought altogether from that which precedes it. We are again in the midst of men -of the strife going on in the world; and indeed in the trial of the latter days. Compassed with evil, the righteous are driven the more to God as their resource, and encourage themselves in that holiness of His, which must of necessity display itself against the wickedness of their adversaries. It is a very simple psalm in its character, with very little to distinguish it from many others in the book; yet it is needed in its place here, -place having so much to do with the significance of the individual psalms, as we see all through: a principle which applies all through the Word, to every portion of it, and every truth in it. If we would but study the Word with this in view, how God’s jewels would shine out in the settings which He has given them; and in how much less danger we should be of getting truth misplaced. The thirteen verses of the psalm are arranged, as seems usual with this number, in the 4x3 manner of the number 12; but with the additional verse producing an irregularity which here increases the second section to four. This fourth verse is the only one which speaks of positive present experience in the psalm.

1. We have first the plea of righteousness urged by the psalmist in his own behalf, as shown by the insistence all through upon the evil character of the men he fears. He appeals to God to preserve him from the evil and violent man; the men of strife and plotters of mischief; the poison of their tongues manifesting them as the brood of the serpent, the instruments of the malignant power of Satan upon the earth. This evil of the tongue comes up again more than once in the psalm; as well as prominently in many others, and is specially characteristic of the last days, with their development of Antichrist and his “strong delusion.” The attack upon the people of God goes naturally along with this.
2. Again the psalmist prays, in almost the same words, for God’s deliverance; specifying, however, more particularly now, the devices for his overthrow, the snares hidden in his path. And from this he turns to affirm more emphatically the Mighty One to be his refuge, comforted by the actual experience of how “Jehovah, the Lord, the strength of his salvation,” had covered his head in the day of his equipment: that is, with what a helmet God provided him.
3. He brings in now the holiness of God as against the evil. He prays that God will not grant the desire of the wicked, lest it stimulate their pride; but may He give them rather the work of their own lips, the mischief they had been laboriously working at. Let the divine anger manifest itself against them, more and more; which is necessarily the case with those that turn not from the ways that bring it down: burning coals falling are not yet the being cast into the fire; and the deep places from which they rise no more add to it the element of complete hopelessness.
4. The last section appeals to experience, although, I suppose, the experience of the future, to confirm confidence as to Jehovah’s ways with saint and sinner. The day of open manifestation is at hand, and the place of the wicked upon the earth shall not be found. The rod of iron will repress at last all open wickedness; and the evil tongue -“the man given to tongue” -along with the evil deed. Words are in fact often deeds, if sometimes we have to put them in opposition to one another. On the other hand, care for the poor and needy will emphatically characterize the day of the Lord’s rule, as we have fully seen (compare especially Psalms 72:1-20.) There will be also the manifest glory, as of old, but with transcendent lustre, bathing the restored city in its radiance. That “the upright shall dwell in Thy Presence,” the whole earth shall witness.