properly · verb, qal imperative, 2nd person masculine singular + pronominal suffix
snares
מִ֣ידֵיMi.dei
H3027
a hand (the open one (indicating power · preposition + noun, common both genders dual construct
laid
יָ֣קְשׁוּYa.ke.shu
H3369
to ensnare (literally or figuratively) · verb, qal perfect, 3rd person common plural
gins
וּ֝מֹקְשׁ֗וֹתu.mo.ke.Shot
H4170
a noose (for catching animals) (literally or figurative… · conjunction + noun, common feminine plural construct
workers
פֹּ֣עֲלֵיPo.'a.lei
H6466
to do or make (systematically and habitually) · verb, qal active participle, masculine plural construct
iniquity
אָֽוֶן'A.ven
H205
strictly nothingness · noun, common masculine singular absolute
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
Psalms 119:110 The wicked have laid a snare for me: yet I erred not from thy precepts.
Psalms 140:5 The proud have hid a snare for me, and cords; they have spread a net by the wayside; they have set gins for me. Selah.
Luke 20:20 And they watched him, and sent forth spies, which should feign themselves just men, that they might take hold of his words, that so they mig…
Proverbs 13:14 The law of the wise is a fountain of life, to depart from the snares of death.
Psalms 38:12 They also that seek after my life lay snares for me: and they that seek my hurt speak mischievous things, and imagine deceits all the day lo…
Psalms 142:3 When my spirit was overwhelmed within me, then thou knewest my path. In the way wherein I walked have they privily laid a snare for me.
Jeremiah 18:22 Let a cry be heard from their houses, when thou shalt bring a troop suddenly upon them: for they have digged a pit to take me, and hid snare…
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Psalms 141:5–end
Here, I. David desires to be told of his faults. His enemies reproached him with that which was false, which he could not but complain of; yet, at the same time, he desired his friends would reprove him for that which was really amiss in him, particularly if there was any thing that gave the least colour to those reproaches (Psa 141:5): let the righteous smite me; it shall be a kindness. The righteous God (so some); "I will welcome the rebukes of his providence, and be so far from quarrelling with them that I will receive them as tokens of love and improve them as means of grace, and will pray for those that are the instruments of my trouble." But it is commonly taken for the reproofs given…
Keep me from the snare which they have laid for me,.... Either Saul, who gave him a wife to be a snare to him, and set men to watch his house and take him; or the Ziphites, who proposed to Saul to deliver him into his hands; see 1 Samuel 18:21.
and the gins of the workers of iniquity; the transgressions of wicked men are snares to others, by way of example; and so are the doctrines of false teachers, and the temptations of Satan, from all which good men desire to be kept, Proverbs 29:6; and it is the Lord alone that keeps and preserves from them, or breaks the snare and delivers them, Psalm 124:7.
John Calvin on Psalms 141:8–end
Psalm 141:8-10
8. Because to thee, O Jehovah! My Lord, are my eyes; in thee have I:hoped: leave mot my soul destitute. 9. Keep we from the hands of the snare which they have spread for me, from the nets of the workers of iniquity. 10. Let the wicked fall together into his nets; I always shall pass by. [242]
8. Because to thee, O Jehovah! etc. If we reflect upon what was comprehended under the previous figure of their bones being broken, his praying in such circumstances is just as if the torn fragments of a mangled corpse should cry unto God. This may give us some idea of the heroical courage of David, who could continue to direct his eyes to God even under such overwhelming difficulties;…
"Keep me from the trap which they have laid for me" [Psalm 141:9]. What was the trap? "If you consent, I spare you." In the trap was set the bait of the present life; if the bird love this bait, it falls into the trap: but if the bird be able to say, "The day of man have I not desired: You know:" [Jeremiah 17:16] "He shall pluck his feet out of the net," etc. Two things he has mentioned to be distinguished the one from the other: the trap he said was set by persecutors; the stumbling-blocks came from those who have consented and apostatised: and from both he desires to be guarded. On the one side they threaten and rage, on the other consent and fall: I fear lest the one be such, that I fear him; the other such, that I imitate him. "This I do to you, if you consent not." "Keep me from the trap," etc. "Behold, your brother has already consented." "And from the stumbling-blocks," etc.
Keep me from the snare which they have set for me. Always either heretics or demons stretch snares for us. For faults are near to virtues. They have set a snare for me in almsgiving, if I stretch out my hand so that men may see, and, as though doing a good deed, I come into a fault and into sin. But if I give a tunic to a brother so that another may see, they have set a snare for me. Always nets are stretched for stags and snares are set, where the hunter has caught their tracks. Now the stag is taken for the saints: because it is lofty, and has great horns, and kills serpents. Therefore it is said elsewhere: 'Who made my feet like those of stags.' For it is said to be of such power that with the breath of its nostrils it draws serpents out of their caverns and thus devours them. Those very serpents, therefore, that is, the demons, set stumbling-blocks for us in our very tracks where we walk: in the virtues, in almsgiving, that we may do it before men for the sake of vainglory: in fasting, in prayer, in wearing sackcloth, and showing it to men. For he who wears sackcloth ought to mourn his sins, not to boast and show it to men. And from the stumbling-blocks of them that work iniquity. That is, that I may not stumble.
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
Dictionary and topics
Hunting · Fowling — Fowling
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
Keil & Delitzsch on Psalms 141:8–end
The prayer now begins to be particularized, and that in the first instance as a petition fore the grace of silence, calling to mind old Davidic passages like Psa 39:2; Psa 34:14. The situation of David, the betrayed one, requires caution in speaking; and the consciousness of having sinned, not indeed against the rebels, but against God, who would not visit him thus without his deserving it, stood in the way of any outspoken self-vindication. In pone custodiam ori meo שׁמרה is ἅπ. λεγ., after the infinitive form דּבקה, עזבה, עצמה. In Psa 141:3 דּל is ἅπ. λεγ. for דּלת; cf. "doors of the mouth" in Mic 7:5, and πύλαι στόματος in Euripides. נצּרה might be imper. Kal: keep I pray, with Dag.…
Wisdom sometimes requires protection from oneself. One could say or think things that lead to the evil path (Prov 13:3; 21:23). • Wisdom opens itself to correction from godly people (see Prov 3:11; 9:8; 15:31; 19:25).
Spurgeon's Treasury of David on Psalms 141:9
Keep me from the snares which they have laid for me, and the gins of the workers of iniquity.
Keep me from, the snares which they have laid for me. He had before asked, in Ps 141:3, that the door of his mouth might be kept; but his prayer now grows into "Keep me." He seems more in trouble about covert temptation than concerning open attacks. Brave men do not dread battle, but they hate secret plots. We cannot endure to be entrapped like unsuspecting animals; therefore we cry to the God of wisdom for protection. And the gins of the workers of iniquity. These evil workers sought to catch David in his speech or acts. This was in itself a piece of in equity, and so of a piece with the rest of t…
