Commentary on Psalms Volume 3 John Calvin
JOHN CALVIN
1. I cried 487 to Jehovah in my distress, and he answered me. 2. O Jehovah! deliver my soul from the lips 488 of falsehood, and from the tongue of deceit. 489 3. What shall the tongue of deceit 490 give thee, and what shall avail thee? 4. The arrows of a strong man sharpened, with coals of junipers.
1. I cried to Jehovah in my distress. The name of the author of the Psalm is not expressed, but the style of it throughout presents David to our view. Although, therefore, I cannot positively affirm, yet I am rather inclined to think that it was composed by him. Nor will it be improper, in my judgment, to explain it as if his name had been mentioned in the inscription. This, then, being granted, I would observe that although David, when in this verse he affirms that the Lord had heard him, gives thanks to
While Calvin leans to this as the most probable explanation, he has before admitted that it is only a conjecture; and after all that has been said since his time on the subject, it is still involved in obscurity, and perhaps it is now impossible to arrive at a satisfactory conclusion. The Psalms, however, which bear this title, have a striking resemblance to each other, and are different in style from the other divine Poems in this book. They are all very short, and in several of them there is a gradation of meaning, and a degree of point towards the dose, which may be called epigrammatic. Hence Gesenius suggests that the title may mark a peculiar species of Hebrew composition. "The construction of the songs" [of degrees,] says Jebb, "is such as to reduce the evidently to a class. They are all short compositions, sententious, eminently fitted for lyrical use, in the highest degree poetical, and, as Calmet justly remarks, epigramrustic; using this term in its highest sense as concinnate, terse, and abounding in turns expressed with the most exquisite brevity. Two remarkable characteristics they possess, which, though found occasionally in other Psalms, seem to enter into the very texture of these — I mean the frequent recurrence of a characteristic word, and that figure which the rhetoricians call Epanaphora, or the repetition of the same idea or expression. As to the characteristic words: In Psalm 121 this is the word keep (;)שמרin Psalm 122 the word Salem, and others of a like sound; in Psalm 123 the word eyes,,עיניin Psalm 126 the words turn and captivity, which in Hebrew are almost the same,םרבandשיבהin Psalm 127 vain,;שראin Psalm 133 the word descend,;יררand bless,ברךin Psalm 134 " — Jebb's Literal Translation of the Psalms, with Dissertations, volume 2.
",קראתיI have called constantly, attentively, and anxiously, not with violent external gesture, or elevation of voice, but with strong inward emotion " — Phillips.
"Des leures." — Fr. "From the lips." But in the Hebrew text it is in the singular," from a lip of falsehood," that is, "from a false lip."
",רמיה לשוןthe deceitful tongue. We have here two norms, both of which are in the absolute state, so that we must suppose the latter to be put emphatically for an abjective, the force of the expression being the same as that of,רמיה לשוןtongue of deceit, i.e., deceitful tongue, a more frequent construction. So also we have,שקר שפתlip of falsehood, for false lip, in the first member of this verse. The literal rendering of the wordsלשון ,רמיהis tongue, (which is) deceit itself." — Phillips.
"La langue pleine de fraude." — Fr. "The tongue full of deceit."