Save me, O God. Thou art my Saviour; all around me are my foes and their eager helpers. No shelter is permitted me. Every land rejects me and denies me rest. But thou, O God, wilt give me refuge, and deliver me from all my enemies. By thy name, by thy great and glorious nature.

Hear my prayer, O God. This has ever been the defence of saints. As long as God hath an open ear we cannot be shut up in trouble. All other weapons may be useless, but all prayer is evermore available. No enemy can spike this gun. Give ear to the words of my mouth.

For strangers are risen up against me. Those who had no cause for ill will had gone against him; persons to whom he could have given no offence, for they were strangers to him. They were aliens to his God also, and should these be allowed to worry and destroy him.

Behold, God is mine helper. He saw enemies everywhere, and now to his joy as he looks upon the band of his defenders he sees one whose aid is better than all the help of men; he is overwhelmed with joy at recognizing his divine champion, and cries, Behold.

He shall reward evil unto mine enemies. They worked for evil, and they shall have their wages. It cannot be that malice should go unavenged. It were cruelty to the good to be lenient to their persecutors.

I will freely sacrifice unto thee. Spontaneously will I bring my freewill offerings. So certain is he of deliverance that he offers a vow by anticipation. His overflowing gratitude would load the altars of God with victims cheerfully presented. The more we receive, the more we ought to render.

For he hath delivered me out of all trouble. Up to that time deliverance had come, and for that danger also he felt that rescue was near. David lived a life of dangers and hair breadth escapes, yet he was always safe.

Save me, O God. As David was at this time placed beyond the reach of human assistance, he must be understood as praying to be saved by the name and the power of God, in an emphatic sense, or by these in contradistinction to the usual means of deliverance.

(second clause). Let the words of my mouth with which I have defended my cause, be pleasing and acceptable to thee. For in this way can prayers and words of the mouth be correctly distinguished, unless any one should wish simply to understand by them prayers uttered by the mouth; but, as I have…

Strangers: aliens to his truth, men who from unbelief have estranged themselves from all lot and portion in his covenants—oppress and persecute. William Hill Tucker. (first clause).

Behold, says he, I produce a certain fact, well known, demonstrated by a new proof, and worthy of all attention; for the particle behold, contains this breadth of meaning. Hermann Venema.

Cut them off. He desires that God would destroy them with a death dealing blow, which is the force the word tmu contains; its primitive sense is to be silent, to keep silence, whence it is transferred to a stroke penetrating deeply and striking fatally, such as is called a silent blow, opposed to a…

I will freely sacrifice unto thee. He would sacrifice freely: by which he does not allude to the circumstance, that sacrifices of thanksgiving were at the option of worshippers, but to the alacrity and cheerfulness with which he would pay his vow when he had escaped his present dangers. John Calvin.

Mine eye hath seen his desire upon mine enemies. Or, mine eye hath looked upon mine enemies; that is, he was able to meet them without terror. Samuel Davidson, D.D., 1852. The reader will note that the words his desire are supplied by our translators, and are not in the original text. C. H. S.