“Incline mine heart unto Thy testimonies, and not unto covetousness.
“Oh turn away mine eyes, lest they behold vanity, and quicken Thou me in Thy way.
“Thy word is my comfort in my trouble; for Thy word hath quickened me.
“The proud have had me exceedingly in derision, yet have I not shrunk from Thy law.
“For I remembered Thine everlasting judgments, O God, and received comfort.
“Thy statutes have been my songs, in the house of my pilgrimage.
“I have thought upon Thy name, O Lord, in the night-season, and have kept Thy law.”
This was the Psalmist’s plan for delivering himself out of trouble. A very singular plan, which very few persons try, either now, or in any age. And therefore it is, that so many persons are not delivered out of their troubles, but sink deeper and deeper into them, heaping
new troubles on old ones, till they are crushed beneath the weight of their own sins.
What the special trouble was, in which the Psalmist found himself, we are not told. But it is plain from his words, that it was just that very sort of trouble, in which the world is most ready to excuse a man for lying, cringing, plotting, and acting on the old devil’s maxim that “Cunning is the natural weapon of the weak.” For the Psalmist was weak, oppressed and persecuted by the great and powerful. But his method of defending himself against them was certainly not the way of the world.