Ver. 1. To the chief Musician] [See Trapp on title for “Ps 4:1”] Upon Nehiloth] Upon wind instruments. Pneumatica, tribulata. The Rabbis say that this psalm was made and appointed to be sung concerning Doeg and Ahithophel. Give ear to my words, O Lord] David knew him to be a prayer hearing God, Psalms 65:2, and that his ears were always open (as the doors of the Roman Aediles were) to hear complaints and requests: hence this prayer. Consider my meditation] i.e. The conceptions of my soul uttered with a low voice (Murmur meum, Jerome), but with most vehement affection. Mussitationem meam. All this the Hebrew word importeth.
Ver. 2. Hearken unto the voice of my cry] He thrice repeats the same request, to show the greatness of his grief and the necessity of help from heaven. Let mind and mouth, spirit and speech, go together in prayer, and then it is right, the voice of the heart is simply necessary. Moses cried to God at the Red Sea, though he said nothing. The voice of the lips is of great use also; 1. For preventing of distraction; 2. For exciting devotion. My king] And therefore help, O king, as she said, 2 Kings 5:24. And my God] Who art in covenant with me, both offensive and defensive. For unto thee will I cry] Thou art the proper object of prayer, as being omnipresent, omniscient, omnipotent; and a God in covenant with thy people.
Ver. 3. My voice shalt thou hear in the morning] That fittest season, usually, for prayer, or any other serious business, παν εργον. The very heathens chose the morning chiefly for sacrifice, as Nestor in Homer, the Argonauts in Apollonius. The Persian magi sang hymns to their gods at break of day, and worshipped the rising sun. The Pinarii and Potitii (certain idolatrous priests) sacrificed every morning and evening to Hercules upon the great altar at Rome. The Jews counted and called it an abomination of desolation if at any time the morning and evening sacrifice to the Lord were intermitted; so should Christians if they offer not unto him twice a day at least, viz. morning and evening, prayers and praises. Mass and meat hinder no man’s thrift, say the very Papists. A whet is no let, a bait by the way hindereth not the journey; so neither doth prayer in a morning hinder a man’s business, be it never so hasty or weighty, but furthereth it rather. Cardinal Wolsey, though he were Lord Chancellor, when he came in a morning out of his privy chamber, would not go abroad till he had heard two masses, nor go to bed at night with any part of his service unsaid, no, not so much as one collect (His Life and Death, by his gentleman usher, p. 18.) Mahometans, whatever occasion they have by profit or pleasure, pray constantly five times a day. Christians have a charge to continue instant in prayer, προσκαρτερειν, and to let all business wait upon it, Romans 12:12, with Acts 6:4. David knew that if prayer stand still the trade of godliness standeth still. He, therefore, will be up and at it betimes, and rather break his sleep than leave such a duty undone. In the morning will I direct my prayer unto thee, and will look up] Or, look out, spy like a watchman. Two military words the prophet here maketh use of; he would not only pray, but marshal up his prayers, put them in array. And when he had done, he would be as a spy upon a tower, to see whether he prevailed, whether he got the day. Gnarach. Ordinavit, aciem disposuit. Tsaphah. Speculando expectavit. Some men pray of course, or as a task, but never look after their prayers, or mark what answer: this is very great folly and oscitancy. Who sends forth a ship, and waits not for the return thereof? Who shoots an arrow, or casts a bowl, and looks not where it lands? Prayer is the soul’s arrow, angel, seed, dove, messenger, &c. And they that take not notice how they speed deal as scoffing Pilate did, who scornfully asked Christ, What is truth? but stayed not for the answer. If God shall hearken what David speaketh, David must likewise hearken what God would speak. He must look up to God, if God shall look out of himself to David; since he humbleth himself to behold things done in heaven, Psalms 113:6, by a wonderful condescension: how much more, then, to look upon man, that is a worm, and the son of man, that is a worm? Job 25:6. Tantus, tantillum?
Ver. 4. For thou art not a God that hath pleasure in wickedness] As the kings of the earth have, saith R. Solomon. Alexander the Great, promising a crown of one hundred and eighty pounds to those of his guests that drank most, caused forty one to kill themselves with drinking for that crown. King Charles IX of France gave one Albertus Tudius, a huckster’s son, six hundred thousand crowns to teach him to swear with a grace (Camera. Med. Histor.). But God perfectly hateth wickedness and wicked persons. There were more remarkable expressions of God’s anger upon man’s sin, in the dead body of a man, than of a beast, Numbers 11:31-34. The one made unclean but till the evening, the other seven days. God hateth sin worse than he doth the devil, for he hateth the devil for sin’s sake, and not sin for the devil’s sake. He hateth sin naturally in whomsoever, like as we hate poison, whether it be in a toad or in a prince’s cabinet. We read of antipathies in nature between the elephant and the boar, the lion and the cock, the horse and the stone taraxippe, &c., but nothing so great as between God, the chiefest good, and sin, the utmost evil. Let us be like affected to our heavenly Father, as dear children, abhorring that which is evil, Romans 12:9, hating it as we do hell itself, so the Greek word there signifieth, abandoning it, and abstaining from all appearance of it, as it is offensivum Dei, et aversivum a Deo, an offence against God, and a breach of his law. Neither shall evil dwell with thee] Heb. sojourn with thee, or be harboured as a guest, much less as a home dweller. Peter Martyr, out of Nathan’s parable, observeth, that lust was but a stranger to David, that lodged with him for a night only, 2 Samuel 12:4. Though corruption may intrude upon us, and enter, yet it may not be harboured, and dwell with us; lest the traveller become the man of the house.