The second part of this division (ver. 14) begins with the same words as the corresponding part of the first division (ver. 6), so that there is a kind of refrain here. The futures in vv. 14, 15, may be either simple futures or optatives. In the latter case the petitions of the preceding verses would be continued here, and the pregnant truth would result that continuance in sin is the punishment of sin. But probably the imprecations are better confined to the former part, as the Selah draws a broad line of demarcation, and there would be an incongruity in following the petition "End them" with others which contemplated the continuance of the enemies. If the verses are taken as simply predictive, the point of the reintroduction of the figure of the pack of dogs hunting for their prey lies in ver. 15. There they are described as balked in their attempts, and having to pass the night unsatisfied. Their prey has escaped. Their eager chase, their nocturnal quest, their growling and prowling, have been vain. They lie down empty and in the dark--a vivid picture, which has wider meanings than its immediate occasion. "Ye lust and desire to have, and cannot obtain." An eternal nemesis hangs over godless lives, condemning them to hunger, after all efforts, and wrapping their pangs of unsatisfied desire in tragic darkness.
A clear strain of trust springs up, like a lark's morning song. The singer contrasts himself with his baffled foes. The "they" at the beginning of ver. 15 is emphatic in the Hebrew, and is matched with the emphatic "And I" which begins ver. 16. His "morning" is similarly set over against their "night." So petition, complaint, imprecation, all merge into a song of joy and trust, and the whole ends with the refrain significantly varied and enlarged. In its first form the psalmist said, "For Thee will I watch"; in its second he rises to "To Thee will I harp." Glad praise is ever the close of the vigils of a faithful, patient heart. The deliverance won by waiting and trust should be celebrated by praise. In the first form the refrain ran "God is my high tower," and the second part of the psalm began with "My God shall meet me with His loving-kindness." In its second form the refrain draws into itself these words which had followed it, and so modifies them that the loving-kindness which in them was contemplated as belonging to and brought by God is now joyfully clasped by the singer as his very own, by Divine gift and through his own acceptance. Blessed they who are led by occasion of foes and fears to take God's rich gifts, and can thankfully and humbly feel that His loving-kindness and all its results are theirs, because He Himself is theirs and they are His!