Bible Study - Psalm 141

Psalms 140-144 have a number of similarities. All are written by David, and all talk about dangers he is facing and the need for the Lord’s help. David sees his enemies as setting “traps” and “snares” and “nets” by which to capture him. (See, for example, Psalm 140:4-5.)

Today we will focus on Psalm 141, though. Many think that David wrote this psalm when his son Absalom had overthrown him and seized the kingdom in his place and now wanted to capture and do away with him. David had escaped from Jerusalem, but was in great danger. In Psalm 141:1, David calls upon the Lord to “hasten,” to hurry to help him.

He has a problem, though. Normally, he would go to the tabernacle, to the tent of meeting in Jerusalem where animal sacrifices would be offered every morning and evening, and he would pray and offer his own sacrifice to God, as well. (See Exodus 29:38-42.) Incense was also burned as part of this, representing the prayers rising to the Lord in heaven. (See Exodus 30:7-8. Look also to the vision that John saw in Revelation 8:1-4 of heaven and smoke of the incense being combined with “the prayers of the saints,” so that the prayers would come before God.)

David’s problem was that he could not go to Jerusalem to make the proper sacrifices and have the incense burned as needed. Would his prayers reach God? He asks, in Psalm 141:2, “Let my prayer be counted as incense before You, and the lifting up of my hands as the evening sacrifice.” Standing and lifting up one’s hands toward the Lord in heaven was a common way of praying in the Old Testament and sometimes also in the New Testament. See 1 Timothy 2:8, where Paul says, “I desire that in every place the men should pray, lifting holy hands without anger or quarreling.” Certainly David’s prayers were answered, though he could not do his praying in the prescribed Old Testament way.

The exact posture for prayer does not matter, though, either. In other places in Scripture, people kneel or bow their heads or fall down with their faces to the ground or just stand and pray, etc. In another vision that John sees in Revelation 5:8, “the prayers of the saints” are the incense that rises to God. Literal incense is no longer needed, or any of the Old Testament ritual, now that Jesus has come to be the Savior of the world and made the “once for all” sacrifice on the cross as the Lamb of God, to take away the sin of the world.

In fact, all such sacrificial rituals can no longer properly be done, in Old Testament terms, because the temple in Jerusalem was destroyed in 70 AD and has never been rebuilt. Even Jews can now only pray in the way David does in Psalm 141:2. Tragically, they are missing what is needed most, because most all do not believe in Jesus as the Messiah and the Savior and the Son of God, in and through whom alone they can reach the Father in heaven. They are rejecting the Promised Messiah they have been waiting for all these years. (See John 14:6 and Romans 5:1-2 and Hebrews 8:8-13, quoting the Old Testament Book of Jeremiah, which tells us that now that Jesus the promised Messiah has come, there are no longer two covenants, but only the New Covenant, centered in Jesus. Also, see passages like John 4:25-26 and John 9:35-38 and John 10:24-30, where Jesus clearly identifies Himself as the Promised Savior.)

Go back now to Psalm 141:3-4. We sometimes say that people can sin against God in their thoughts, words, and deeds. David prays that the Lord would help him resist temptation to evil in all those ways. Today we often speak of what our minds are thinking. The Scriptures more often speak of what comes out of our hearts, as well as minds, meaning much the same thing. (See how Jesus says, in Mark 7:18-23, “…From within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery”… (and on and on)… All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.”) So, David prays, in Psalm 141:4, “Do not let my heart incline to any evil,” to be thinking about and dwelling on such evil, for that, he knows, can lead him to act and “busy himself with wicked deeds.” David also knows that his words can be evil, and so he also prays, in v.3, “Set a guard, O Lord, over my mouth; keep watch over the door of my lips.” (How often don’t our own words get us into even more trouble and conflict, too?)

David also knows that the people he associates with can be a negative influence on him, especially if he is “keeping company” with “men who work iniquity” (sins) and “wicked deeds.” He might also be tempted to participate in their sumptuous living and “delicacies” they might enjoy, because of their evil gains that came at the expense of others (Psalm 141:4).

Many proverbs and other Scriptures warn all of us of these dangers. Proverbs 1:4 says, “If sinners entice you, do not consent” and Proverbs 4:14-15 warns, “Do not enter the path of the wicked, and do not walk in the way of the evil. Avoid it; do not go on it; turn away from it and pass on.” Paul warns, in 1 Corinthians 15:33, “Do not be deceived: ‘Bad company ruins good morals.’” We also know the ultimate fate of the rich man “who was clothed in purple and fine linen and who feasted sumptuously every day” and would not honor God or help others (Luke 16:19-31). In short, David’s prayer in Psalm 141:3-4 is a good one for all of us to pray, as the temptation to “be conformed to the ways of this evil world” are great (Romans 12:1-2).

David knows, as well, that he needs faithful people of God to discipline and correct him when he is drifting from the Lord’s path. He says in a dramatic way, “Let a righteous man strike me… let him rebuke me.” Such correction would “a kindness” to him and like an “anointing with oil” that would restore and strengthen him. (David may have been thinking of his own earlier sin with Bathsheba, and how good it ultimately was that God sent the prophet Nathan to him to confront him with his wrong and bring him to repentance and renewal with His Lord (2 Samuel 11 and 12 and Psalm 51).

David prays, “Let my head not refuse such discipline” (Psalm 141:5). We all need such correction at times, by which others show that they care about us. Proverbs 27:5-6 says, “Better is open rebuke than hidden love. Faithful are the wounds of a friend,” and Proverbs 15:5 says, “A fool despises his father’s instruction, but whoever heeds reproof is prudent.”

David has now dealt with his own need for the Lord’s help and correction and direction for his life. Now he returns in his prayer to his concern about his enemies and the continual need for help “against their evil deeds” (end of Psalm 141:5). If David wrote this psalm after his own son overthrew him, he was in very real danger. The next two verses of Psalm 141 are difficult to understand, and scholars don’t always agree about what it all means. Here is what seems to make the best sense, from what I can read.

David knew what God had promised him (even with promises of the coming Savior through his family line in the future) and he trusted that God would help him through this very difficult time, as He had helped him when King Saul had been out after him in earlier times. That meant, in v.6, that the “judges” and others who had wrongly supported Absalom (or whoever David’s current enemies were) would be defeated, would be “thrown over the cliff.” (This was a way that enemies were sometimes gotten rid of. See 2 Chronicles 25:12 or see how people from his own hometown became so angry with Jesus that they took him to a hill on which their town was built so that they could thrown him down the cliff” (Luke 4:28-30).) Jesus was spared, and David eventually would be rescued and restored as King, and people would be able to hear his “pleasant words” again (Psalm 141:6).

David also knew that he would eventually die and his bones and the bones of others would be scattered around and above Sheol (which here seems simply to mean the place of the dead) (Psalm 141:7). However, this burial would be like it is when one is “plowing and breaking up the soil” with the intention of there being new crops (Psalm 141:7). Eventually, there would be new life coming, even though one’s body dies. Remember the vision of the dry bones that Ezekiel saw in Ezekiel 37 and all those bones coming back to life; or the words of Paul in the great resurrection chapter of 1 Corinthians 15. Read v.42-44: “So it is with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable; what is raised is imperishable… It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power. It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body.”

David closes Psalm 141 by thinking again of his enemies and praying that he would be protected  and that the evildoers would be caught in their own nets and traps (Psalm 141:9-10). In a sense, that is what happened with David’s son, Absalom. He was a very handsome man with long, flowing hair. His hair was caught in an oak tree, and he was snared there and was killed (2 Samuel 18:9-15) - to the great sorrow of David, because he still loved his rebellious son.

I have one more comment on the mention of traps and snares and nets, in these closing verses and in other places in Psalms 140-144, etc. Here they mainly refer to the enemies of God’s people and their attacks upon David and others of God’s people. Sometimes, though, there are warnings that God’s own people would be caught in such traps and snares, if they rebelled against God themselves and refused to trust in and follow Him.

God had a plan for His people, beginning with Abraham - a plan to bring the Savior from the Jewish nation. They needed to survive and be God’s people, so that eventually from them the Savior, Jesus, would come and be a blessing available to them and all nations and peoples. To protect and preserve His people, God asked them to remove others peoples and stay separate from them. He knew they could be corrupted by wicked, unbelieving people and lose their identity as God’s own chosen people if they kept company with them in their wicked deeds and iniquities, as David described and warned about in Psalm 141:4.

Unfortunately, many of God’s people did not listen to and follow the Lord. Listen to the warning from God in Exodus 23:31-33, for example: “I will give the inhabitants of the land into your hand, and you shall drive them out before you. You shall make no covenant with them and their gods. They shall not dwell in your land, lest they make you sin against me; for if you serve their gods, it will surely be a snare for you.” See similar things said in Deuteronomy 7:16, Joshua 23:13, Judges 2:3, and many other places.

Fortunately, some of God’s people, like David, did remain faithful to the Lord. David says, in Psalm 141:8, “But my eyes are toward You, O God, my Lord; in You I seek refuge; leave me not defenseless.” God did care for David and the remnant of God’s people who believed in the Lord; and from the family line of David, Jesus, their Savior and our Savior did finally come. There are plenty of enemies against Christ and the Christian faith today, setting snares and traps and nets, in order to harm us. May we too keep saying, with David, “My eyes are toward You, O God, my Lord; in You I seek refuge; (in You I trust); leave me not defenseless.” And may we keep seeking to serve our Lord in thought, word, and deed.