4. Awake to hasten for my help, and behold. In using this language, he glances at the eagerness with which his enemies, as he had already said, were pressing upon him, and states his desire that God would show the same haste in extending help as they did in seeking his destruction.

6. They will return at evening. He compares his enemies to famished and furious dogs which hunger impels to course with endless circuits in every direction, and under this figure accuses their insatiable fierceness, shown in the ceaseless activity to which they were instigated by the desire of…

In the verse which follows, he describes their fierceness. The expression, prating, or belching out with their mouth, denotes that they proclaimed their infamous counsels openly, and without affecting concealment.

8. But thou, O Jehovah! shalt laugh at them. In the face of all this opposition, David only rises to greater confidence. When he says that God would laugh at his enemies, he employs a figure which is well fitted to enhance the power of God, suggesting that, when the wicked have perfected their…

10. The God of my mercy will prevent me In the Hebrew, there is the affix of the third person, but we have the point which denotes the first. The Septuagint has adopted the third person, and Augustine too ingeniously, though with a good design, has repeatedly quoted the passage against the…