Psalm 59:4

They run and prepare themselves without my fault: awake to help me, and behold.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(4) They run and prepare.—These words might both be taken in a military sense. For “run,” see Psalm 18:29; Job 15:26; Job 16:14.

Help me.—Literally, as in margin, meet. It is found in a hostile sense, and never in the sense of helping. A suggested emendation, “Awake to my calling, and behold,” removes the difficulty.

Benson Commentary

Psalm 59:4. They run — To and fro, first to receive Saul’s commands, and then to execute them with all diligence; and prepare themselves — With the utmost speed and fury, to do me a mischief; or, they dispose themselves, as יכוננו, jeconanu, may be properly rendered. They place themselves here and there about my house, that they may catch me when I go out of it. Awake to my help — Hebrew, לקראתי, likraati, to meet me, as I come abroad, and to conduct me away with safety. And behold — With an eye of pity; take cognizance of my case, and exert thy power for my relief.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

59:1-7 In these words we hear the voice of David when a prisoner in his own house; the voice of Christ when surrounded by his merciless enemies; the voice of the church when under bondage in the world; and the voice of the Christian when under temptation, affliction, and persecution. And thus earnestly should we pray daily, to be defended and delivered from our spiritual enemies, the temptations of Satan, and the corruptions of our own hearts. We should fear suffering as evil-doers, but not be ashamed of the hatred of workers of iniquity. It is not strange, if those regard not what they themselves say, who have made themselves believe that God regards not what they say. And where there is no fear of God, there is nothing to secure proper regard to man.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

They run and prepare themselves - That is, they "hasten" to accomplish this; they are quick to obey the command of Saul requiring them to slay me. The word "prepare" refers to whatever was deemed necessary to enable them to accomplish what they had been commanded to do - arming themselves, making provision for their journey, etc.

Without my fault - That is, without anything on my part to deserve this, or to justify Saul and those employed by him in what they attempt to do. David, in all this, was conscious of innocence. In his own feelings toward Saul, and in all his public acts, he knew that he had sought only the king's welfare, and that he had been obedient to the laws.

Awake to help me - That is, "arouse," as one does from sleep. See the notes at Psalm 7:6. Compare Psalm 35:23. The word rendered "to help me," is rendered in the margin, "to meet me." This is the meaning of the Hebrew. It is a prayer that God would meet him, or come to him, and aid him.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

4, 5. prepare, &c.—literally, "set themselves as in array."

awake—(Compare Ps 3:7; 7:6), appeals to God in His covenant relation to His people (Ps 9:18).

Matthew Poole's Commentary

They run to and fro, first to receive Saul’s commands and then to execute them with all speed and diligence.

Prepare themselves; or, dispose themselves, here and there round about my house, that they may catch me when I go out of it.

To help me, Heb. to meet me, as I come abroad and to conduct me away with safety.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

They run and prepare themselves without my fault,.... Or, "without sin in me"; or "without punishment in them"; so the same word is rendered, 1 Samuel 28:10. "They run", in an hostile manner, "against me", as the Syriac version adds; or like dogs up and down, about the city, to find him and kill him; see Psalm 59:7. Or this may denote their readiness and swiftness to shed blood, Proverbs 1:16; "and prepare themselves" with weapon, with instruments of death, as the men did that were sent to kill him; and as the band of men that came with Judas to take Christ prepared themselves with swords and staves. The Targum is,

"they order or ordain war;''

which they prosecuted without any occasion of it from him, and wilt, impunity in them. Wherefore it follows,

awake to help me; or "to meet me" (n); see Genesis 46:29; with succour and supplies, and to deliver out of the hands of enemies. The Lord, though he neither slumbers nor sleeps, yet seems to be asleep when he does not arise to help his people, but suffers the enemy to prevail; and when he seems to take no notice of their case, but hides his eyes, and shuts them as a man asleep. Hence the following petition,

and behold; the distress the psalmist was in, and the wickedness and malice of his enemies against him.

(n) "in occursum meum", V. L. Pagninus, Montanus, Gejerus, Michaelis.

Geneva Study Bible

They run and prepare themselves without my fault: awake to help me, and behold.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 4. - They run and prepare themselves without my fault; or, "establish themselves" - "take up their position" (so Hengstenberg, Kay, and Professor Cheyne). Awake to help me (see the comment on Psalm 44:23). And behold; i.e. "see how things are - how innocent I am; how unjust and cruel are my enemies!" Psalm 59:4

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

First part. As far as Psalm 59:4 we recognise strains familiar in the Psalms. The enemies are called מתקוממי as in Job 27:7, cf. Psalm 17:7; עזּים as shameless, עזּי פנים or עזּי נפשׁ; as in Isaiah 56:11, on account of their bold shameless greediness, dogs. On לא in a subordinate clause, vid., Ewald, ֗286, g: without there being transgression or sin on my side, which might have caused it. The suffix (transgression on my part) is similar to Psalm 18:24. בּליּ־עון (cf. Job 34:6) is a similar adverbial collateral definition: without there existing any sin, which ought to be punished. The energetic future jeruzûn depicts those who servilely give effect to the king's evil caprice; they run hither and thither as if attacking and put themselves in position. הכונן equals התכונן, like the Hithpa. הכּסּה, Proverbs 26:26, the Hothpa. הכּבּס, Leviticus 13:55., and the Hithpa. נכּפּר, Deuteronomy 21:8. Surrounded by such a band of assassins, David is like one besieged, who sighs for succour; and he calls upon Jahve, who seems to be sleeping and inclined to abandon him, with that bold עוּרה לקראתי וּראה, to awake to meet him, i.e., to join him with His help like a relieving army, and to convince Himself from personal observation of the extreme danger in which His charge finds himself. The continuation was obliged to be expressed by ואתּה, because a special appeal to God interposes between עוּרה and הקיצה. In the emphatic "Thou," however, after it has been once expressed, is implied the conditional character of the deliverance by the absolute One. And each of the divine names made use of in this lengthy invocation, which corresponds to the deep anxiety of the poet, is a challenge, so to speak, to the ability and willingness, the power and promise of God. The juxtaposition Jahve Elohim Tsebaoth (occurring, besides this instance, in Psalm 80:5, 20; Psalm 84:9), which is peculiar to the Elohimic Psalms, is to be explained by the consideration that Elohim had become a proper name like Jahve, and that the designation Jahve Tsebaoth, by the insertion of Elohim in accordance with the style of the Elohimic Psalms, is made still more imposing and solemn; and now צבאות is a genitive dependent not merely upon יהוה but upon יהוה אלהים (similar to Psalm 56:1, Isaiah 28:1; Symbolae, p. 15). אלהי ישׂראל is in apposition to this threefold name of God. The poet evidently reckons himself as belonging to an Israel from which he excludes his enemies, viz., the true Israel which is in reality the people of God. Among the heathen, against whom the poet invokes God's interposition, are included the heathen-minded in Israel; this at least is the view which brings about this extension of the prayer. Also in connection with the words און כּל־בּגדי the poet, in fact, has chiefly before his mind those who are immediately round about him and thus disposed. It is those who act treacherously from extreme moral nothingness and worthlessness (און genit. epexeg.). The music, as Sela directs, here becomes more boisterous; it gives intensity to the strong cry for the judgment of God; and the first unfolding of thought of this Michtam is here brought to a close.

The second begins by again taking up the description of the movements of the enemy which was begun in Psalm 59:4, Psalm 59:5. We see at a glance how here Psalm 59:7 coincides with Psalm 59:5, and Psalm 59:8 with Psalm 59:4, and Psalm 59:9 with Psalm 59:6. Hence the imprecatory rendering of the futures of Psalm 59:7 is not for a moment to be entertained. By day the emissaries of Saul do not venture to carry out their plot, and David naturally does not run into their hands. They therefore come back in the evening, and that evening after evening (cf. Job 24:14); they snarl or howl like dogs (המה, used elsewhere of the growling of the bear and the cooing of the dove; it is distinct from נבח, Arab. nbb, nbḥ, to bark, and כלב, to yelp), because they do not want to betray themselves by loud barking, and still cannot altogether conceal their vexation and rage; and they go their rounds in the city (like סובב בּעיר, Sol 3:2, cf. supra Psalm 55:11), in order to cut off their victim from flight, and perhaps, what would be very welcome to them, to run against him in the darkness. The further description in Psalm 59:8 follows them on this patrol. What they belch out or foam out is to be inferred from the fact that swords are in their lips, which they, as it were, draw so soon as they merely move their lips. Their mouth overflows with murderous thoughts and with slanders concerning David, by which they justify their murderous greed to themselves as if there were no one, viz., no God, who heard it. But Jahve, from whom nothing, as with men, can be kept secret, laughs at them, just as He makes a mockery of all heathen, to whom this murderous band, which fears the light and in unworthy of the Israelitish name, is compared. This is the primary passage to Psalm 37:13; Psalm 2:4; for Psalm 59 is perhaps the oldest of the Davidic Psalms that have come down to us, and therefore also the earliest monument of Israelitish poetry in which the divine name Jahve Tsebaoth occurs; and the chronicler, knowing that it was the time of Samuel and David that brought it into use, uses this name only in the life of David. Just as this strophe opened in Psalm 59:7 with a distich that recurs in Psalm 59:15, so it also closes now in Psalm 59:10 with a distich that recurs below in v. 18, and that is to be amended according to the text of that passage. For all attempts to understand עזּי as being genuine prove its inaccuracy. With the old versions it has to be read עזּי; but as for the rest, אשׁמרה must be retained in accordance with the usual variation found in such refrains: my strength, Thee will I regard (1 Samuel 26:15; observe, 2 Samuel 11:16), or upon Thee will I wait (cf. ל, Psalm 130:6); i.e., in the consciousness of my own feebleness, tranquil and resigned, I will look for Thine interposition on my behalf.