Psalms 141

1 O LORD, I am calling to you. Please hurry! Listen when I cry to you for help!

2 Accept my prayer as incense offered to you, and my upraised hands as an evening offering.

3 Take control of what I say, O LORD, and guard my lips.

4 Don’t let me drift toward evil or take part in acts of wickedness. Don’t let me share in the delicacies of those who do wrong.

5 Let the godly strike me! It will be a kindness! If they correct me, it is soothing medicine. Don’t let me refuse it. But I pray constantly against the wicked and their deeds.

6 When their leaders are thrown down from a cliff, the wicked will listen to my words and find them true.

7 Like rocks brought up by a plow, the bones of the wicked will lie scattered without burial.

8 I look to you for help, O Sovereign LORD . You are my refuge; don’t let them kill me.

9 Keep me from the traps they have set for me, from the snares of those who do wrong.

10 Let the wicked fall into their own nets, but let me escape.

Psalms 141 Commentary

Chapter 141

David prays for God's acceptance and assistance. (1-4) That God would appear for his rescue. (5-10)

Verses 1-4 Make haste unto me. Those that know how to value God's gracious presence, will be the more fervent in their prayers. When presented through the sacrifice and intercession of the Saviour, they will be as acceptable to God as the daily sacrifices and burnings of incense were of old. Prayer is a spiritual sacrifice, it is the offering up the soul and its best affections. Good men know the evil of tongue sins. When enemies are provoking, we are in danger of speaking unadvisedly. While we live in an evil world, and have such evil hearts, we have need to pray that we may neither be drawn nor driven to do any thing sinful. Sinners pretend to find dainties in sin; but those that consider how soon sin will turn into bitterness, will dread such dainties, and pray to God to take them out of their sight, and by his grace to turn their hearts against them. Good men pray against the sweets of sin.

Verses 5-10 We should be ready to welcome the rebuke of our heavenly Father, and also the reproof of our brethren. It shall not break my head, if it may but help to break my heart: we must show that we take it kindly. Those who slighted the word of God before, will be glad of it when in affliction, for that opens the ear to instruction. When the world is bitter, the word is sweet. Let us lift our prayer unto God. Let us entreat him to rescue us from the snares of Satan, and of all the workers of iniquity. In language like this psalm, O Lord, would we entreat that our poor prayers should set forth our only hope, our only dependence on thee. Grant us thy grace, that we may be prepared for this employment, being clothed with thy righteousness, and having all the gifts of thy Spirit planted in our hearts.

Footnotes

• [a]. Hebrew our bones will be scattered at the mouth of Sheol.

Chapter Summary

INTRODUCTION TO PSALM 141

\\<>\\. This psalm was written about the same time, and upon the same occasion, as that going before and what follows after; even when David was persecuted by Saul, and when he was in great danger of his enemies, and snares were laid for his life.