1 Hear a righteous cause, Jehovah, attend to my cry; Give ear to my prayer from no lips of guile. 2 From Thy face let my sentence go forth; Thine eyes behold rightly. 3 Thou provest my heart, searchest it by night, Triest me by fire: Thou findest not [anything]; Should I purpose evil, it shall not pass my mouth (?) 4 As for (During) the doings of men, by the word of Thy lips I have kept [me from] the paths of the violent man. 5 My steps have held fast to Thy ways; My feet have not slipped.
6 I, I call upon Thee, for Thou wilt answer me, O God; Incline Thine ear unto me: hear my speech. 7 Magnify (Make wonderful) Thy loving-kindnesses, Thou who savest those who seek refuge From those who rise [against them?] by Thy right hand. 8 Keep me as the pupil, the daughter of the eye; In the shadow of Thy wing hide me 9 From the wicked, who lay me waste, My enemies at heart, [who] ring me round. 10 Their heart they have shut up; With their mouth they speak in arrogance. 11 In our steps, they already compass us about; Their eyes they fix, to lay [us] on the ground. 12 He is like a lion who longs to rend, And a young lion crouching in coverts.
13 Arise, Jehovah: meet his face: make him crouch; Deliver my soul from the wicked [with] Thy sword, 14 From men [by] Thy hand, Jehovah, from men of the world, [Having] their portion in [this] life, and [with] Thy hidden treasure Thou fillest their belly; They are full of sons, and leave their overabundance to their children. 15 I, I shall in righteousness behold Thy face; I shall be satisfied on awaking [with] Thy likeness.
The investigations as to authorship and date yield the usual conflicting results. Davidic, say one school; undoubtedly post-exilic, say another, without venturing on closer definition; late in the Persian period, says Cheyne. Perhaps we may content ourselves with the modest judgment of Baethgen in his last book ("Handcommentar," 1892, p. 45): "The date of composition cannot be decided by internal indications." The background is the familiar one of causeless foes round an innocent sufferer, who flings himself into God's arms for safety, and in prayer enters into peace and hope. He is, no doubt, a representative of the _Ecclesia pressa_; but he is so just because his cry is intensely personal. The experience of one is the type for all, and a poet's prerogative is to cast his most thoroughly individual emotions into words that fit the universal heart. The psalm is called a "prayer," a title given to only four other psalms, none of which are in the First Book. It has three movements, marked by the repetition of the name of God, which does not appear elsewhere, except in the doubtful verse 14. These three are vv. 1-5, in which the cry for help is founded on a strong profession of innocence; vv. 6-12, in which it is based on a vivid description of the enemies; and vv. 13-15, in which it soars into the pure air of mystic devotion, and thence looks down on the transient prosperity of the foe and upwards, in a rapture of hope, to the face of God.
The petition proper, in vv. 1, 2, and its ground, are both strongly marked by conscious innocence, and therefore sound strange to our ears, trained as we have been by the New Testament to deeper insight into sin. This sufferer asks God to "hear righteousness," _i.e._ his righteous cause. He pleads the _bona fides_ of his prayer, the fervour of which is marked by its designation as "my _cry_," the high-pitched note usually the expression of joy, but here of sore need and strong desire. Boldly he asks for his "sentence from Thy face," and the ground of that petition is that "Thine eyes behold rightly." Was there, then, no inner baseness that should have toned down such confidence? Was this prayer not much the same as the Pharisee's in Christ's parable? The answer is partly found in the considerations that the innocence professed is specially in regard to the occasions of the psalmist's present distress, and that the acquittal by deliverance which he asks is God's testimony that as to these he was slandered and clear. But, further, the strong professions of heart-cleanness and outward obedience which follow are not so much denials of any sin as avowals of sincere devotion and honest submission of life to God's law. They are "the answer of a good conscience towards God," expressed, indeed, more absolutely than befits Christian consciousness, but having nothing in common with Pharisaic self-complacency. The modern type of religion which recoils from such professions, and contents itself with always confessing sins which it has given up hope of overcoming, would be all the better for listening to the psalmist and aiming a little more vigorously and hopefully at being able to say, "I know nothing against myself." There is no danger in such a saying, if it be accompanied by "Yet am I not hereby justified" and by "Who can understand his errors? Cleanse Thou me from secret faults."