Hear Please, O 'Lord (Wed Night 1.16.19)
Introduction
5. RSV and other modern versions have reasonably followed the Septuagint in the second line, bringing clarity to the verse in harmony with the proverb ‘Faithful are the wounds of a friend’ (Prov. 27:6) and in line with the prayer of verse 4, which it carries a stage further.
6. RSV, surprisingly, has rewritten 6a, parting company with the text and with other versions. To a lesser extent it has also emended 6b and 7.
Literally, the Hebrew runs as in RV: ‘Their judges are thrown down by the sides of the rock; and they shall hear my words; for they are sweet.’ Hebrew idiom would allow this to be a temporal construction; and in the last clause the word ‘for’ could equally mean ‘that’; so the sentence could be rendered, ‘When their judges are thrown down … they will hear my words, that they are sweet.’ In short, David affirms that judgment will overtake the leaders (‘judges’) of his opponents, and then at last their followers will listen to him gladly.
Obscure as the language of this verse is, it carries the previous thought forward to its climax, reinforcing the resolve to strike no bargains with evil, by looking ahead to the time when such a stand will prove its point and win its following.
141:7–10. Sheer faith
To include verse 7 in this section one must take it unaltered, when it is found to describe ‘our’ plight, not that of the enemy. With NEB’s free translation accordingly adapted, it can be rendered: ‘Our bones are scattered at the mouth of Sheol, like splinters of wood or stone on the ground.’ Psalm 79 was to describe such a scene in actuality (79:1–3); and Ezekiel would see both the parable it offered and a vision of what God could make of it (Ezek. 37:1–14). Here there is no vision, but there is the prayer of faith, beginning with the emphatic phrases of verse 8, whose order gives due precedence to God: ‘But toward thee … are my eyes; in thee I seek refuge.’
So the psalm ends on the urgent, personal note on which it had started. The enemies’ blandishments have failed; there remains their malice, and David knows its subtlety. But the last line (‘while, as for me—I pass right on!’) has a buoyancy worthy of the man who has slipped through many a net with the help of God, and is sure that his journey is by no means over.
Psalm 141. My prayer like incense
Context
The Comment section will point out many connections between this psalm and the wisdom tradition (particularly the book of Proverbs). This psalm is an individual lament, in which the psalmist calls for the destruction of the wicked who press him, and also asks God to regulate his speech. He affirms his devotion to God.
For the title, see the Introduction.
Comment
141:1–2. Like incense
The psalm begins on an urgent note. The psalmist prays, pleading with God to answer quickly by drawing close to him (come quickly to me), and asks that his prayer receive a favourable reception from God. He desires that his prayer be like incense before God (v. 2a) and like the evening sacrifice (v. 2b). He reveals that his prayer posture is to lift his hands heavenwards as he appeals to God, thus expressing his openness to him. Incense and evening sacrifice come from the realm of formal worship (Exod. 29:38–42; 30:34–38), which would also be the primary setting of the psalm. Perhaps evening (as opposed to morning) sacrifice is mentioned here because his prayer is being offered in the evening. In any case, the incense is intended to present a sweet fragrance before the Lord, and so the psalmist wants his prayer similarly to please God.
141:3–4. Guard my mouth and heart
Rather than asking God to take action against his enemies, the psalmist first calls on God to keep him from sinning with his speech. He wants a guard who will keep inappropriate words from passing through his lips. Like the author of Proverbs, he realizes that speech is dangerous and can do much harm (Prov. 10:6; 12:6; 22:10, etc.). He goes on to ask God to protect not only his words, but also his heart. The wise person knows that words reveal what is in the heart (Prov. 12:23; 16:23; 18:4), so if his heart is not evil, then neither will his words be. Evil words and an evil heart will lead to wicked deeds (v. 4cd), and the psalmist does not want that for himself. Indeed, he does not want to associate himself in any way with these evildoers (taking the advice from the father to the son in Prov. 1:8–19). He recognizes that the way of the wicked has its attractions, so he beseeches God to help him resist the delicacies that wickedness offers.
141:5. The discipline of the righteous
Another important teaching from the book of Proverbs is to accept criticism and correction (Prov. 10:17; 12:1; 29:1; Heb. 12:1–13), even if it involves physical discipline. A wise person grows in wisdom by accepting the rebuke of another (‘rebuke the wise and they will love you’, Prov. 9:8).
141:6–7. The punishment of the wicked
Rather than calling on God to destroy the wicked rulers, the psalmist confidently states that they will meet a violent end. The wicked rulers will not succeed, but will be thrown down from the cliffs. They will acknowledge the words of the psalmist (the wicked will learn that my words were well spoken) and will see their demise (As one ploughs and breaks up the earth, so our bones have been scattered at the mouth of the grave).
141:8–10. Keep me safe
The psalmist appeals to God to keep him safe from the evildoers, based on his steadfast relationship with him. After all, he turns to God for protection (in you I take refuge). As in the previous psalm, the psalmist utilizes hunting imagery, asking to be saved from the traps and snares of the wicked. He also wants the wicked to be caught up in their own schemes (see 140:5 and passages cited there).
Meaning
The psalmist prays that God will keep his speech pure and also that he will destroy the wicked who are trying to harm him. This lament begins with a wish that God would receive his prayer immediately and favourably. The latter is communicated by a powerful image that likens his prayer to incense and the evening sacrifice. He wants his prayer to be acceptable. Christians know that their prayers are often inadequate. Paul encourages his readers in this regard, when he writes, ‘… the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God’s people in accordance with the will of God’ (Rom. 8:26–27). In other words, the Spirit assures us that God will receive our prayers favourably.
The imagery also reminds us of the opening of the seventh seal in the book of Revelation:
Another angel, who had a golden censer, came and stood at the altar. He was given much incense to offer, with the prayers of all God’s people, on the golden altar in front of the throne. The smoke of the incense, together with the prayers of God’s people, went up before God from the angel’s hand. Then the angel took the censer, filled it with fire from the altar, and hurled it on the earth; and there came peals of thunder, rumblings, flashes of lightning and an earthquake.
(Rev. 8:3–5)
The picture is of judgment against the wicked of the world. God receives the prayers of his suffering people favourably as they call for help against the wicked and then hurls judgment from heaven to earth. The saints ‘have been crying out for vindication (6:10), and though the final judgment is not yet (6:11), some of their vindication occurs within history’ (Keener 2002: 255).