[1] Italics show variations from text of Psalm xiv.
1 O God, by Thy name save me, And by Thy might right me. 2 O God, hear my prayer; Give ear to the words of my mouth. 3 For strangers are risen up against me, And violent men seek my soul: They set not God before them. Selah.
4 Behold, God is a helper for me: The Lord is He that sustains my soul. 5 He will requite evil to the liers in wait for me: In Thy troth destroy them. 6 Of [my own] free impulse will I sacrifice to Thee: I will thank Thy name, for it is good. 7 For from all distress it has delivered me; And my eye has seen [its desire] on my enemies.
The tone and language of this psalm have nothing special. The situation of the psalmist is the familiar one of being encompassed by enemies. His mood is the familiar one of discouragement at the sight of surrounding perils, which passes through petition into confidence and triumph. There is nothing in the psalm inconsistent with the accuracy of the superscription, which ascribes it to David, when the men of Ziph would have betrayed him to Saul. Internal evidence does not suffice to fix its date, if the traditional one is discarded. But there seems no necessity for regarding the singer as the personified nation, though there is less objection to that theory in this instance than in some psalms with a more marked individuality and more fervent expression of personal emotion, to which it is proposed to apply it.
The structure is simple, like the thought and expression. The psalm falls into two parts, divided by Selah,--of which the former is prayer, spreading before God the suppliant's straits; and the latter is confident assurance, blended with petition and vows of thanksgiving.
The order in which the psalmist's thoughts run in the first part (vv. 1-3) is noteworthy. He begins with appeal to God, and summons before his vision the characteristics in the Divine nature on which he builds his hope. Then he pleads for the acceptance of his prayer, and only when thus heartened does he recount his perils. That is a deeper faith which begins with what God is, and thence proceeds to look calmly at foes, than that which is driven to God in the second place, as a consequence of an alarmed gaze on dangers. In the latter case fear strikes out a spark of faith in the darkness; in the former, faith controls fear.
The name of God is His manifested nature or character, the sum of all of Him which has been made known by His word or work. In that rich manifoldness of living powers and splendours this man finds reserves of force, which will avail to save him from any peril. That name is much more than a collection of syllables. The expression is beginning to assume the meaning which it has in post-Biblical Hebrew, where it is used as a reverential euphemism for the ineffable Jehovah. Especially to God's power does the singer look with hopeful petitions, as in ver. 1 _b_. But the whole name is the agent of his salvation. Nothing less than the whole fulness of the manifested God is enough for the necessities of one poor man; and that prayer is not too bold, nor that estimate of need presumptuous, which asks for nothing less. Since it is God's "might" which is appealed to, to judge the psalmist's cause, the judgment contemplated is clearly not the Divine estimate of the moral desert of his doings, or retribution to him for these, but the vindication of his threatened innocence and deliverance of him from enemies. The reason for the prayer is likewise alleged as a plea with God to hear. The psalmist prays because he is ringed about by foes. God will hear because He is so surrounded. It is blessed to know that the same circumstances in our lot which drive us to God incline God to us.