7“O GOD the Lord, the strength of my salvation,
         You have covered my head in the day of battle.

8“Do not grant, O LORD, the desires of the wicked;
         Do not promote his evil device, that they not be exalted.

9“As for the head of those who surround me,
         May the mischief of their lips cover them.

10“May burning coals fall upon them;
         May they be cast into the fire,
         Into deep pits from which they cannot rise.

11“May a slanderer not be established in the earth;
         May evil hunt the violent man speedily.”

12I know that the LORD will maintain the cause of the afflicted
         And justice for the poor.

13Surely the righteous will give thanks to Your name;
         The upright will dwell in Your presence.

Parallel Verses

New American Standard Bible (©1995)
I said to the LORD, "You are my God; Give ear, O LORD, to the voice of my supplications.

GOD'S WORD® Translation (©1995)
I said to the LORD, "You are my God." O LORD, open your ears to hear my plea for pity.

King James Bible
I said unto the LORD, Thou art my God: hear the voice of my supplications, O LORD.

Douay-Rheims Bible
I said to the Lord: Thou art my God: hear, O Lord, the voice of my supplication.

Darby Bible Translation
I have said unto Jehovah, Thou art my ùGod: give ear, O Jehovah, to the voice of my supplications.

English Revised Version
I said unto the LORD, Thou art my God: give ear unto the voice of my supplications, O LORD.

Webster's Bible Translation
I said to the LORD, Thou art my God: hear the voice of my supplications, O LORD.

World English Bible
I said to Yahweh, "You are my God." Listen to the cry of my petitions, Yahweh.

Young's Literal Translation
I have said to Jehovah, 'My God art Thou, Hear, Jehovah, the voice of my supplications.'

Cross References

Psalm 5:2 Heed the sound of my cry for help, my King and my God, For to You I pray.

Psalm 16:2 I said to the LORD, "You are my Lord; I have no good besides You."

Psalm 28:2 Hear the voice of my supplications when I cry to You for help, When I lift up my hands toward Your holy sanctuary.

Psalm 31:14 But as for me, I trust in You, O LORD, I say, "You are my God."

Psalm 116:1 I love the LORD, because He hears My voice and my supplications.

Psalm 118:28 You are my God, and I give thanks to You; You are my God, I extol You.

Psalm 119:170 Let my supplication come before You; Deliver me according to Your word.

Psalm 130:2 Lord, hear my voice! Let Your ears be attentive To the voice of my supplications.

Psalm 143:1 A Psalm of David. Hear my prayer, O LORD, Give ear to my supplications! Answer me in Your faithfulness, in Your righteousness!

Commentary

Matthew Henry's Whole Bible Commentary

PSALM 140

This and the four following psalms are much of a piece, and the scope of them the same with many that we met with in the beginning and middle of the book of Psalms, though with but few of late. They were penned by David (as it should seem) when he was persecuted by Saul; one of them is said to be his "prayer when he was in the cave," and it is probable that all the rest were penned about the same time. In this psalm, I. David complains of the malice of his enemies, and prays to God to preserve him from them (v. 1-5). II. He encourages himself in God as his God (v. 6, 7). III. He prays for, and prophesies, the destruction of his persecutors (v. 8-11). IV. He assures all God's afflicted people that their troubles would in due time end well (v. 12, 13), with which assurance we must comfort ourselves, and one another, in singing this psalm.

To the chief musician. A psalm of David.

Verses 1-7

In this, as in other things, David was a type of Christ, that he suffered before he reigned, was humbled before he was exalted, and that as there were many who loved and valued him, and sought to do him honour, so there were many who hated and envied him, and sought to do him mischief, as appears by these verses, where,

I. He gives a character of his enemies, and paints them out in their own colours, as dangerous men, whom he had reason to be afraid of, but wicked men, whom he had no reason to think the righteous God would countenance. There was one that seems to have been the ring-leader of them, whom he calls the evil man and the man of violences (v. 1, 4), probably he means Saul. The Chaldee paraphrast (v. 9) names both Doeg and Ahithophel; but between them there was a great distance of time. Violent men are evil men. But there were many besides this one who were confederate against David, who are here represented as the genuine offspring and seed of the serpent. For, 1. They are very subtle, crafty to do mischief; they have imagined it (v. 2), have laid the scheme with all the art and cunning imaginable. They have purposed and plotted to overthrow the goings of a good man (v. 4), to draw him into sin and trouble, to ruin him by blasting his reputation, crushing his interest, and taking away his life. For this purpose they have, like mighty hunters, hidden a snare, and spread a net, and set gins (v. 5), that their designs against him, being kept undiscovered, might be the more likely to take effect, and he might fall into their hands ere he was aware. Great persecutors have often been great politicians, which has indeed made them the more formidable; but the Lord preserves the simple without all those arts. 2. They are very spiteful, as full of malice as Satan himself: They have sharpened their tongues like a serpent, that infuses his venom with his tongue; and there is so much malignity in all they say that one would think there was nothing under their lips but adders' poison, v. 3. With their calumnies, and with their counsels, they aimed to destroy David, but secretly, as a man is stung with a serpent, or a snake in the grass. And they endeavoured likewise to infuse their malice into others, and to make them seven times more the children of hell than themselves. A malignant tongue makes men like the old serpent; and poison in the lips is a certain sign of poison in the heart. 3. They are confederate; they are many of them; but they are all gathered together against me for war, v. 2. Those who can agree in nothing else can agree to persecute a good man. Herod and Pilate will unite in this, and in this they resemble Satan, who is not divided against himself, all the devils agreeing in Beelzebub. 4. They are proud (v. 5), conceited of themselves and confident of their success; and herein also they resemble Satan, whose reigning ruining sin was pride. The pride of persecutors, though at present it be the terror, yet may be the encouragement, of the persecuted, for the more haughty they are the faster are they ripening for ruin. Pride goes before destruction.

II. He prays to God to keep him from them and from being swallowed up by them: "Lord, deliver me, preserve me, keep me (v. 1, 4); let them not prevail to take away my life, my reputation, my interest, my comfort, and to prevent my coming to the throne. Keep me from doing as they do, or as they would have me do, or as they promise themselves I shall do." Note, The more malice appears in our enemies against us the more earnest we should be in prayer to God to take us under his protection. In him believers may count upon a security, and may enjoy it and themselves with a holy serenity. Those are safe whom God preserves. If he be for us, who can be against us?

III. He triumphs in God, and thereby, in effect, he triumphs over his persecutors, v. 6, 7. When his enemies sharpened their tongues against him, did he sharpen his against them? No; adders' poison was under their lips, but grace was poured into his lips, witness what he here said unto the Lord, for to him he looked, to him he directed himself, when he saw himself in so much danger, through the malice of his enemies: and it is well for us that we have a God to go to. He comforted himself, 1. In his interest in God: "I said, Thou art my God; and, if my God, then my shield and mighty protector." In troublous dangerous times it is good to claim relation to God, and by faith to keep hold of him. 2. In his access to God. This comforted him, that he was not only taken into covenant with God, but into communion with him, that he had leave to speak to him, and might expect an answer of peace from him, and could say, with a humble confidence, Hear the voice of my supplications, O Lord! 3. In the assurance he had of help from God and happiness in him: "O God the Lord-Jehovah Adonai! as Jehovah thou art self-existent and self-sufficient, an infinitely perfect being; as Adonai thou art my stay and support, my ruler and governor, and therefore the strength of my salvation, my strong Saviour; nay, not only my Saviour, but my salvation itself, from whom, in whom, my salvation is; not only a strong Saviour, but the very strength of my salvation, on whom the stress of my hope is laid; all in all, to make me happy, and to preserve me to my happiness." 4. In the experience he had had formerly of God's care of him: Thou hast covered my head in the day of battle. As he pleaded with Saul, that, for the service of his country, he many a time jeoparded his life in the high places of the field, so he pleads with God that, in those services, he had wonderfully protected him, and provided him a better helmet for the securing of his head than Goliath's was: "Lord, thou hast kept me in the day of battle with the Philistines, suffer me not to fall by the treacherous intrigues of false-hearted Israelites." God is as able to preserve his people from secret fraud as from open force; and the experience we have had of his power and care, in dangers of one kind, may encourage us to trust in him and depend upon him in dangers of another nature; for nothing can shorten the Lord's right hand.

Calvin's Commentary

6. I said to Jehovah thou art my God; hear the voice of my supplication. 7. O, Jehovah, my Lord! the strength of my salvation, thou hast set a covering upon my head in the day of arms. [226] 8. Grant not, O Jehovah! the desires of the wicked; they have devised, do not though consummate, they shall be exalted. Selah. 9. As for the head of those compassing me about, let the mischief of his lips cover him. 10. Let coals with fire fall upon them; he shall cast them into deeps, [227] they shall not rise again.

6. I said to Jehovah. In these words he shows that his prayers were not merely those of the lips, as hypocrites will make loud appeals to God for mere appearance sake, but that he prayed with earnestness, and from a hidden principle of faith. Till we have a persuasion of being saved through the grace of God there can be no sincere prayer. We have here an excellent illustration of the nature of faith, in the Psalmist's turning himself away from man's view, that he may address God apart, hypocrisy being excluded in this internal exercise of the heart. This is true prayer -- not the mere idle lifting up of the voice, but the presentation of our petitions from an inward principle of faith. To beget in himself a persuasion of his obtaining his present requests from God, he recalls to his mind what deliverance's God had already extended to him. He speaks of his having been to him as a shield in every time of danger. Some read the words in the future tense -- "Thou wilt cover my head in the day of battle." But it is evident David speaks of protection formerly experienced from the hand of God, and from this derives comfort to his faith. He comes forth, not as a raw and undisciplined recruit, but as a soldier well tried in previous engagements. The strength of salvation is equivalent to salvation displayed with no ordinary power.

8. Grant not, O Jehovah! the desires of the wicked [228] We might render the words Establish not, though the meaning would be the same -- that God would restrain the desires of the wicked, and frustrate all their aims and attempts. We see from this that it is in his power, whenever he sees proper, to frustrate the unprincipled designs of men, and their wicked expectations, and to dash their schemes. When, therefore, it is found impracticable to bring our enemies to a right state of mind, we are to pray that the devices which they have imagined may be immediately overthrown and thwarted. In the next clause there is more ambiguity. As the Hebrew verb phvq, puk, means to lead out, as well as to strike or fall, the words might mean, that God would not carry out into effect the counsels of the wicked. But the opinion of those may be correct who read -- their thought is thou wilt not strike, David representing such hopes as the wicked are wont to entertain. We find him elsewhere (Psalm 10:6) describing their pride in a similar way, in entirely overlooking a divine providence, and considering all events as subject to their control, and the world placed under their sole management. The word which follows with thus come in appropriately -- they shall be lifted up, in illusion to the wicked being inflated by pride, through the idea that they can never be overtaken by adversity. If the other reading be preferred, the negative particle must be considered as repeated -- "Suffer not their attempts to be carried into effect; let them not be exalted." At any rate David is to be considered as censuring the security of his enemies, in making no account of God, and in surrendering themselves to unbridled license.

9. As for the head, etc. There may be a doubt whether, under the term head, he refers to the chief of the faction opposed to him; for we call suppose an inversion in the sentence, and a change of the plural to the singular number, bringing out this sense. [229] "Let the mischief of their wicked speeches, which they intended against me, fall upon their own head." [230] As almost all interpreters, however, have taken the other view, I have adopted it, only understanding the reference as being to Saul rather than Doeg. There follows an imprecation upon the whole company of his enemies generally, that coals may fall upon them, alluding to the awful fate of Sodom and Gomorrha. We find this elsewhere (Psalm 11:6) set forth by the Spirit of God as an example of Divine vengeance, to terrify the wicked; and Jude (Jude 1:7) declares that God testified, by this example of everlasting significance, that he would be the Judge of all the ungodly. Some translate what follows -- the wilt cast them into the fire, which might pass. But as: v, beth, in the Hebrew often denotes instrumentality, we may properly render the words -- thou wilt cast them down By fire, or With fire, as God sent it forth against Sodom and Gomorrha. He prays they may be sunk into deep pits, whence they may never rise. God sometimes heals those whom he has smitten with great severity; David cuts off the reprobate from the hope of pardon, as knowing them to be beyond recovery. Had they been disposable to repentance, he would have been inclinable on his part to mercy.

Footnotes:

[226] That is, in the day of battle, in the day of the clashing or noisy collision of arms.

[227] In the French version it is, as in our English Bible -- "Fosses profondes;" "deep pits." The Hebrew word, according to Parkhurst, properly means breaches or disruptions of the earth, such as are made by an earthquake. He conceives that the Psalmist alludes to the punishment of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram, and of the two hundred and fifty men who burnt incense. (Numbers 16:31-35.) See Parkhurst on hmr. Bishop Horsley, who concurs with Parkhurst in the supposed allusion, translates chasms of the yawning earth, observing that he cannot otherwise than by this periphrasis express the idea of the word mhmrvt

[228] "The desires which the wicked have for my destruction." -- Phillips.

[229] "Car il pourreit estre que l'ordre des mots seroit renverse, et que le nombre singulier seroit mis pour le pluriel, en ce sens," etc. -- Fr.

[230] "The meaning of the verse may be, that the mischief designed by the wicked against others shall fall on their own head, as Psalm 7:17, his violence shall descend on his own head;' or it may express the leader of the hostile party, as Saul or Doeg, in the case of David being here the speaker." -- Phillips.

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