David’s prayer for vengeance against his enemies is contrary to the New Testament, which teaches us to love our enemies and to bless those who persecute us and pray for them (Matt. 5:44; Luke 6:27, 35; Rom. 12:14, 20). In the Psalms the words concerning the psalmists’ hating their enemies, their asking God to avenge them, and their cursing others are not the words of God but are words that issued from the psalmists’ natural sentiment while they were praising God. They are recorded by the Spirit of God in the Holy Scripture to serve God’s purpose of exposing the psalmists’ spiritual condition, i.e., that although the psalmists loved God and sought Him, they were natural, not spiritual, in their sentiment.

Meaning lift up! and probably denoting a pause in the recitation to allow the accompanying music to swell.

Psalms 3—7 show David’s concept concerning a godly life. Psalms 3 and 7, and probably 4—6, were written by David in his flight from his son Absalom’s rebellion (2 Samuel 15:1—19:8a), which was the outcome, under God’s chastisement, of David’s sin of murdering Uriah and robbing him of his wife (2 Sam. 11). David’s prayers in these psalms, concerning his sufferings, his desire to be avenged of his adversaries, his condemning of others, and his self-righteousness and integrity, are according to his human concept and for his personal interest. They cannot compare with the spiritual prayers of the apostle Paul in Eph. 1:15-23 and Eph. 3:14-21, which are for the fulfillment of God’s economy.