hating · verb, qal active participle, masculine plural construct + pronominal suffix
speak
אָמְר֣וּ'a.me.Ru
H559
to say (used with great latitude) · verb, qal perfect, 3rd person common plural
wait
וְשֹׁמְרֵ֥יve.sho.me.Rei
H8104
properly · conjunction + verb, qal active participle, masculine plural construct
soul
נַ֝פְשִׁ֗יnaf.Shi
H5315
properly · noun, common feminine singular construct + pronominal suffix
counsel
נוֹעֲצ֥וּno.'a.Tzu
H3289
to advise · verb, niphal perfect, 3rd person common plural
together
יַחְדָּֽוyach.Dav
H3162
properly · adverb
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 31:13 For I have heard the slander of many: fear was on every side: while they took counsel together against me, they devised to take away my life…
Psalms 56:6 They gather themselves together, they hide themselves, they mark my steps, when they wait for my soul.
Psalms 83:3 They have taken crafty counsel against thy people, and consulted against thy hidden ones.
Psalms 37:32-33 The wicked watcheth the righteous, and seeketh to slay him.
Jeremiah 20:10 For I heard the defaming of many, fear on every side. Report, say they, and we will report it. All my familiars watched for my halting, sayi…
Matthew 26:3-4 Then assembled together the chief priests, and the scribes, and the elders of the people, unto the palace of the high priest, who was called…
1 Samuel 19:11 Saul also sent messengers unto David’s house, to watch him, and to slay him in the morning: and Michal David’s wife told him, saying, If tho…
2 Samuel 17:1-14 Moreover Ahithophel said unto Absalom, Let me now choose out twelve thousand men, and I will arise and pursue after David this night:
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Psalms 71:1-13
Two things in general David here prays for - that he might not be confounded and that his enemies and persecutors might be confounded.
I. He prays that he might never be made ashamed of his dependence upon God nor disappointed in his believing expectations from him. With this petition every true believer may come boldly to the throne of grace; for God will never disappoint the hope that is of his own raising. Now observe here,
1. How David professes his confidence in God, and with what pleasure and grateful variety of expression he repeats his profession of that confidence, still presenting the profession of it to God and pleading it with him. We praise God, and so please him, by telling him…
For mine enemies speak against, me,.... Or "say unto me" (y) what is expressed in the following verse, "God hath forsaken him"; and so these words are a reason of the above petitions: or "mine enemies speak to me"; or "of me" (z); not good, but evil, and so the Targum paraphrases it,
"for mine enemies speak evil against me;''
or concerning me. David had his enemies, and many, as Ahithophel, and others, who spake against him to the people, and thereby drew many with them into rebellion against him; and particularly Shimei spoke against him, and cursed him, calling him a bloody man, a man of Belial, 2 Samuel 16:7;
and they that lay wait for my soul; or "life"; that laid snares for him; or l…
Psalm 71:9-13
9. Cast me not off in the time of my old age: forsake me not in the declining of my strength. 10. For my enemies have said of me, and those who watch for my life have taken counsel together, 11. Saying, God hath forsaken him; follow after him, and ye shall take him: for there is none to deliver him. 12. O God! be not far from me: my God: hasten to my aid. 13. Let those who are enemies to my life be confounded [108] and fail: let those who seek my hurt be covered with reproach and shame.
9. Cast me not off in the time of my old age. David having just now declared that God had been the protector of his life at his birth, and afterwards his foster-father in his childhood, and th…
The Church Fathers
Why do I say this? "For mine enemies have spoken against me, and they that were keeping watch for My soul, have taken counsel together [Psalm 71:10]: saying, God has forsaken Him, persecute Him, and seize Him, for there is no one to deliver Him" [Psalm 71:11]. This has been said concerning Christ. For He that with the great power of Divinity, wherein He is equal to the Father, had raised to life dead persons, on a sudden in the hands of enemies became weak, and as if having no power, was seized. When would He have been seized, except they had first said in their heart, "God has forsaken Him?" Whence there was that voice on the Cross, "My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?" So then did God forsake Christ, though "God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself," [2 Corinthians 5:19] though Christ was also God, out of the Jews indeed according to the flesh, "Who is over all things, God blessed for ever," [Romans 9:5] — did God forsake Him? Far be it. But in our old man our voice it was, because our old man was crucified together with Him: [Romans 6:6] and of that same our old man He had taken a Body, because Mary was of Adam. Therefore the very thing which they thought, from the Cross He said, "Why have You forsaken Me?" [Matthew 27:46] Why do these men think Me left alone to their evil? What is, think Me forsaken in their evil? "For if they had known, the Lord of glory they had never crucified. [1 Corinthians 2:8] Persecute and seize Him." More familiarly however, brethren, let us take this of the members of Christ, and acknowledge our own voice in these words: because even He used such words in our person, not in His own power and majesty; but in that which He became for our sakes, not according to that which He was, who has made us.
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
Psalms, Book Of — The present Hebrew name of the book is Tehill’im, “Praises;” but in the actual superscriptions of the psalms the word Tehillah is applied only to one, (Psalms 145:1) ... which is indeed emphatically…
Enemy · The wickedness of David’s — The wickedness of David’s
Malice · General scriptures concerning — General scriptures concerning
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).
Brought safely through dangers of every kind, he is become כּמופת, as a wonder, a miracle (Arabic aft from afata, cognate afaka, הפך, to bend, distort: a turning round, that which is turned round or wrenched, i.e., that which is contrary to what is usual and looked for) to many, who gaze upon him as such with astonishment (Psa 40:4). It is his God, however, to whom, as hitherto so also in time to come, he will look to be thus wonderfully preserved: מחסי־עז, as in Sa2 22:33. עז is a genitive, and the suffix is thrown back (vid., supra, p 171) in order that what God is to, and does for, the poet may be brought forward more clearly and independently [lit. unalloyed]. Psa 71:8 tells us what it i…
In their plotting, the psalmist’s enemies take counsel and scheme together (2:2; 21:11; 31:13; 35:4; 63:9-10).
Spurgeon's Treasury of David on Psalms 71:10
For mine enemies speak against me; and they that lay wait for my soul take counsel together,
For mine enemies speak against me. Dogs howl over a dying lion. When David's arm was able to chastise his foes, they were yet impudent enough to slander him, and he fears that now they will take fresh license in the hour of his weakness. The text most properly means that his enemies had said that God would forsake him; and, therefore, he is the more earnest that the Lord's faithful dealings may give them the lie. And they that lay wait for my soul take counsel together. The psalmist had enemies, and these were most malicious; seeking his utter destruction, they were very persevering, and staid long…
