Psalms 141: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

This psalm is a prayer for help. The speaker asks God to listen quickly, to guard his mouth from wrong speech, and to keep his heart from joining people who do evil. He says he would rather be corrected by a good person than share in the pleasures of the wicked, and he ends by asking God to keep him out of the traps set for him.

Claim by Claim

1. 141:1
   • This is a psalm belonging to David.
   • The speaker has called out to the LORD.
   • The speaker asks the LORD to hurry to him.
   • The speaker asks the LORD to listen to his voice when he calls to him.
2. 141:2
   • The speaker asks that his prayer be established before God like burning incense.
   • The speaker asks that the lifting up of his hands be like the evening grain offering.
3. 141:3
   • The speaker asks the LORD to set a guard over his mouth.
   • The speaker asks the LORD to keep watch over the door of his lips.
4. 141:4
   • The speaker asks that his heart not be turned toward any evil thing.
   • The speaker asks not to busy himself with deeds done in wickedness alongside men who do iniquity.
   • The speaker asks not to eat of their delicacies.
5. 141:5
   • Let a righteous man strike the speaker; that striking is an act of covenant kindness.
   • Let a righteous man rebuke the speaker; that rebuke is oil for the head.
   • The speaker's head is not to reject that oil; the Hebrew is ambiguous between the head refusing the oil and the oil not breaking the head.
   • The speaker's prayer continues against the evil deeds of the wicked.
6. 141:6
   • Their judges are thrown down by the sides of a rock.
   • They will hear the speaker's words.
   • The speaker's words are pleasant.
7. 141:7
   • Our bones are scattered at the mouth of Sheol.
   • The scattering is like what happens when someone plows and splits open the ground.
8. 141:8
   • The speaker's eyes are turned toward the LORD God.
   • The speaker has taken refuge in God.
   • The speaker asks God not to leave his soul exposed.
9. 141:9
   • The speaker asks to be kept from the trap that has been laid for him.
   • The speaker asks to be kept from the snares of the workers of iniquity.
10. 141:10
    • Let the wicked fall into their own nets.
    • Let the speaker pass by while that happens.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

141:1

Where the King James prints LORD (and, in verse 8, GOD) in capital letters, it is standing in for the personal name of Israel's God, four Hebrew consonants usually written YHWH. Jewish readers said "Adonai," meaning "my Lord," in its place, and the English translators followed that custom.

141:2

Incense was a mixture of fragrant gums burned on a small altar inside the sanctuary morning and evening; its smoke rose visibly upward. The "evening sacrifice" was the second of the two animal offerings made every day at the temple, at roughly the same hour. Lifting the open hands was the ordinary posture of prayer, as kneeling is for many people today. The speaker is asking that words offered away from the temple be received as those temple rituals were.

141:4

"Dainties" in 1611 English meant rich or choice food, not something delicate or fussy. In the ancient world eating at a man's table was not just a meal but a public sign of siding with him, so refusing the food and refusing the partnership are the same request.

141:5

Pouring olive oil on a guest's head was a standard mark of welcome and honor at a feast. The line turns a hard rebuke into that kind of gift. The Hebrew of the second half of this verse is damaged or obscure, and translators differ sharply: the King James reads it as "which shall not break my head," others as "let my head not refuse it." The closing clause is equally unclear, either the speaker keeps praying while disaster falls on the wicked, or he keeps praying against their evil deeds.

141:6

The Hebrew here is among the most obscure in the Psalms, and no translation is certain. "Overthrown in stony places" most likely refers to being thrown down from a rocky cliff, a known way of executing or disposing of enemies. Who "they" and "their" are is not stated.

141:7

"The grave" translates Sheol, the Hebrew name for the shadowy place below where all the dead were thought to go, not a place of punishment, simply the realm of the dead. The image in the second half is disputed: the Hebrew word can mean splitting wood, as the King James took it, or breaking up soil with a plow, as most modern versions read it. Either way the picture is of debris left scattered where the work was done.

141:8

"Destitute" means left with nothing at all: no help, no shelter, and no one to defend you.

141:9

"Gins" is an old English word, unrelated to the drink, meaning a snare or spring-trap for catching birds and small animals. Both halves of the verse are hunting images applied to human plots.

141:10

"Whilst that I withal escape" is 1611 English for "while I at the same time pass by safely." "Withal" means "along with it" or "at the same time."