Charles Ellicott Commentary Psalms 141

Set forth ... —See margin; but more literally, be erected, suggesting the pillar of smoke (compare Tennyson’s “Azure pillars of the hearth”) continually rising to heaven. Some think the incense refers to the morning sacrifice, so that the verse will mean, “let my prayer rise regularly as morning and evening sacrifice.” But this is hardly necessary.

Sacrifice — i.e., the offering of flour and oil, which followed the burnt offering both at morning and evening (Leviticus 2:1–11; in Authorized Version, “meat offering”), and here probably associated specially with evening, because the prayer was uttered at the close of the day. (See Note, Psalms 141:3.)

For the “lifted hands,” here, from the parallelism, evidently only a symbol of prayer, and not a term for oblation, see Psalms 28:2, Note.

“For what are men better than sheep or goats,
That nourish a blind life within the brain,
If, knowing God, they lift not hands of prayer,
Both for themselves, and those that call them friend.”

TENNYSON: Morte d’Arthur,

Watch. —The image drawn from the guard set at city gates at night seems to indicate the evening as the time of composition of the psalm.

Door of my lips. —Compare doors of thy mouth (Micah 7:5), and so in Euripides, πύλαι στόματος. For the probable motive of the prayer, see Introduction. The poet’s feeling is that of Xenocrates: “I have often repented of having spoken, but never of having been silent.”

To practise wicked works ...—The Vulgate, ad excusandas excusationes, following the Septuagint, not only preserves the expressive assonance of the original, but probably conveys its meaning better than the somewhat tame English version. Evidently the danger to be guarded against was not so much a sinful act as a sinful utterance, and the expression “to make pretexts or excuses” may possibly refer to the casuistries by which some of the laxer Jews excused their participation in heathen rites or licentious banquets. Symmachus has, “to devise wicked devices.”

Dainties.— The word is peculiar to this passage, but derived from a root meaning “pleasant.” The Septuagint and Vulgate refer it to persons instead of things. But the use of the same root in Psalms 141:6, for they are sweet, where the reference is to “words,” suggests a meaning here different both from the English and the ancient versions. “I will not taste of their sweets” may mean “I will not listen to their allurements: what finds favour with them shall not tempt me.”

On the other hand, if we retain the English allusion to the dainties of a feast (so Symmachus), the word in Psalms 141:6 will be used metaphorically in contrast. The words of condemnation he utters, though bitter to these feasters, are in reality sweet with the sweetness of truth.

The difficulties of the psalm increase here. Render it as: Let a righteous man smite me, it is a kindness; and let him reprove me, it is oil for the head: my head shall not refuse it, even if it continues; yet my prayer is against their wickedness.

The word rendered “smite” is that used of Jael’s “hammer strokes” (Judges 5:26). (Compare Isaiah 41:7.) The Hebrew for “reprove” is probably used in a judicial sense, as in Genesis 31:37; Isaiah 2:4; Proverbs 24:25; and others.

The greatest obscurity surrounds the word rendered above as “refuse”—but in the Authorized Version as “break”—probably because in Psalms 33:10 (bring to none effect) it is in parallelism with “break.” The Septuagint and Vulgate understand it as meaning “anoint,” rendering (from a different text than ours) let not oil of a wicked man anoint my head. If we could adopt this reading, it would remove the difficulty of this part of the verse and provide an excellent parallelism: “A righteous man may smite me in mercy and reprove me, but let not a wicked man’s oil anoint my head;” that is, I would welcome reproof from the righteous but reject even the festive oil offered by the wicked.

For the rendering “wickednesses” instead of “calamities,” compare Job 20:12 and Psalms 94:23. For the sense of “although” given to the conjunction, see Exodus 13:17. The suffix “their” refers back, of course, to the ungodly in Psalms 141:4.

The “oil for the head” is a natural emblem of festivity, and the whole sentiment of the passage is fairly clear. Rather than join in the wicked mirth of a profane banquet, the poet would be the object of continued rebuke and chastisement from one of the godly—his prayer meanwhile still rising for protection against the allurements held out to tempt him. We probably have sketched here the actual condition of many a Levite between the apostate and the loyal part of the nation.

This verse is again full of difficulties. The first clause should probably be translated, Let their judges be broken to pieces by the force (literally, hands) of the rock; or, let their judges be cast down by the sides of the cliff—that is, hurled down the precipitous face of the ravine (see 2 Chronicles 25:12, and notice that the word here is “Sela‘,” the name of the capital of Edom; compare Hosea 10:14 and Psalms 137:9, where, however, the expression is “against the cliff.”).

They shall ...—Better, then they will hear my words; how dainty they are, etc. The expression is ironical. The ungodly party, when their power is broken, instead of being entertained by the poet at a licentious banquet, will indeed listen to his words—they will hear a “dainty song” from him, namely, “a song of triumph.”