Psalm 141
141:1. LORD, I cry unto thee. My prayer is painful and feeble, and worthy only to be called a cry; but it is a cry unto Jehovah, and this ennobles it. Others trust to themselves, but I cry unto thee. The weapon of all-prayer is one which the believer may always carry with him, and use in every time of need.
Make haste unto me. When we are sorely pressed we may with holy importunity quicken the movements of mercy. In many cases, if help should come late, it would come too late, and we are permitted to pray against such a calamity.
Give ear unto my voice, when I cry unto thee. There is a voice to the great Father in every cry, and groan, and tear of his children; he can understand what they mean when they are quite unable to express it. It troubles the spirit of the saints when they fear that no favorable ear is turned to their cries. When prayer is our only refuge, we are deeply distressed at the bare idea of failing therein.
141:2. Let my prayer be set forth before thee as incense. As incense is carefully prepared, kindled with holy fire, and devoutly presented unto God, so let my prayer be. We are not to look upon prayer as easy work requiring no thought; it needs to be set forth; what is more, it must be set forth before the Lord, by a sense of his presence and a holy reverence for his name: neither may we regard all supplication as certain of divine acceptance; it needs to be set forth before the Lord as incense, concerning the offering of which there were rules to be observed, otherwise it would be rejected of God.
And the lifting up of my hands as the evening sacrifice. Prayer is sometimes presented without words by the very motions of our bodies: bended knees and lifted hands are the tokens of earnest, expectant prayer. Certainly work, or the lifting up of the hands in labor, is prayer if it be done in dependence upon God and for his glory; there may be a hand-prayer as well as a heart-prayer. Holy hope, the lifting up of hands that hang down, is also a kind of worship. The psalmist would have his humble cries and prayers to be as much regarded of the Lord as the appointed morning and evening sacrifices of the holy places. After all, the spiritual is in the Lord’s esteem higher than the ceremonial.
So far we have a prayer about prayer; we have a distinct supplication in the two following verses.
141:3. set a watch, O LORD, before my mouth. That mouth had been used in prayer; it would be a pity it should ever be defiled with untruth, or pride, or wrath; yet so it will become unless carefully watched, for these intruders are ever lurking about the door. When the Lord becomes the guard of our mouth the whole person is well garrisoned.
Keep the door of my lips. In times of persecution we are especially liable to speak hastily, or evasively, and therefore we should be specially anxious to be preserved in that direction from every form of sin. We are ennobled by being door-keepers for the Lord, and yet he deigns to be a door-keeper for us.
141:4. Incline not my heart to any evil thing. This is equivalent to the petition, “Lead us not into temptation.” Oh that nothing may arise in providence which would excite our desires in a wrong direction.
To practise wicked works with men that work iniquity. The way the heart inclines, the life soon tends. Alas, there is great power in company; hence the fear that we may practice wicked works when we are with wicked workers. We must endeavor not to be with them lest we sin with them. It is apt to increase unto a high degree of ungodliness when the backslider runs the downward path with a whole horde of sinners around him. It is an aggravation of sin rather than an excuse for it to say that it is our custom and our habit. It is God’s practice to punish all who make a practise of iniquity. Good men are horrified at the thought of sinning as others do; the fear of it drives them to their knees.
And let me not eat of their dainties. If we work with them we shall soon eat with them. The trap is baited that we may be captured and become meat for their malice. If we would not sin with people we had better not sit with them.
141:5. Let the righteous smite me; it shall be a kindness. He would rather be smitten by the righteous than feasted by the wicked. When the ungodly smile upon us their flattery is cruel; when the righteous smite us their faithfulness is kind. Fools resent reproof; the wise endeavor to profit by it.
And let him reprove me; it shall be an excellent oil, which shall not break my head. Oil breaks no heads, and rebuke does no one any harm. My friend must love me well if he will tell me of my faults.
For yet my prayer also shall be in their calamities. Gracious people never grow wrathful with candid friends so as to harbor an ill-feeling against them. Wisely grateful souls are greatly concerned to see their instructors in trouble. They do not merely pray for them, but they so closely and heartily sympathize that their prayers are in their calamities, down in the dungeon with them.
141:6. This is a verse of which the meaning seems far to seek. Does it refer to the righteous among the Israelites? We think so. David surely means that when their leaders fell never to rise again, they would then turn to him and take delight in listening to his voice. And so they did: the death of Saul made all the best of the nation look to the son of Jesse as the Lord’s anointed; his words became sweet to them. They smote him when he erred, but they recognized his excellencies. He, on his part, bore no resentment, but loved them for their honesty. He would come to their rescue when their former leaders were slain; and his words of courageous hopefulness would be sweet in their ears.
141:7. David’s case seemed hopeless: the cause of God in Israel was as a dead thing.
Our bones are scattered at the grave’s mouth. David himself was like one of these dried bones, and the rest of the godly were in much the same condition.
As when one cutteth and cleaveth wood upon the earth. They were like wood divided and thrown apart. Leaving out the word wood, which is supplied by the translators, the figure relates to cleaving upon the earth, which probably means plowing, but may signify any other form of chopping and splitting, such as felling a forest, tearing up bushes, or otherwise causing confusion and division. How often have good people thought thus of the cause of God! Wherever they have looked, death, division, and destruction have stared them in the face. Scattered at the grave’s mouth! We have seen churches in such a state, and have been heart-broken. What a mercy that there is always a place above the earth to which we can look! There lives One who will give a resurrection to his cause, and a reunion to his divided people.
141:8. But mine eyes are unto thee, O GOD the Lord. He looked upward and considered the promise rather than the external providence; and he expected from God rather than from men. He did not shut his eyes in indifference or despair, neither did he turn them to the creature in vain confidence, but he gave his eyes to his God, and saw nothing to fear.
In thee is my trust. Not alone in thine attributes or in thy promises, but in thyself.
Leave not my soul destitute, as it would be if the Lord did not remember and fulfill his promise. To be destitute in circumstances is bad, but to be destitute in soul is far worse; to be left of God would be destruction.
141:9. Keep me from the snares which they have laid for me. He asked in verse 3 that the door of his mouth might be kept; but his prayer now grows into Keep me. He seems more troubled about covert temptation than open attacks. Brave men do not dread battle, but they hate secret plots. We cannot endure to be entrapped like unsuspecting animals; therefore we cry to God for protection.
And the gins of the workers of iniquity. These evil workers sought to catch David in his speech or acts. Nobody could preserve David but the Omniscient and Omnicompetent One: he also will preserve us.
141:10. It may not be a Christian prayer, but it is a very just one. Do we not all wish the innocent to be delivered, and the guilty to reap the result of their own malice? Of course we do, if we are just. There can be no wrong in desiring that to happen in our own case which we wish for all good people. Yet there is a more excellent way.
The Treasury of David by Charles Haddon Spurgeon (1834-1892)
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