Psalms 54:3

For strangers are risen up against me,.... Meaning such as Doeg the Edomite, or Heathen soldiers, that Saul had hired and took into his army, who were aliens from the commonwealth of Israel; and such

For strangers are risen up against me, and oppressors seek after my soul: they have not set God before them. Selah. For strangers are risen up against me.

Strangers; the Ziphites, whom, though Israelites, he calls strangers, in regard of their barbarous and perfidious disposition and carriage towards him, by which they showed themselves to be estranged from God, as the wicked are said to be, , and from the commonwealth of Israel, and from all the laws of piety and humanity; for which causes he calls such persons heathens, , and elsewhere. They have not set God before them; they cast off all regard to thy presence and authority, and all fear of thy judgments.

Psalms 54:3 For strangers are risen up against me, and oppressors seek after my soul: they have not set God before them. Selah.Ver. 3. For strangers are risen up against me] He meaneth not foreigners, but home dwellers; Saul, Doeg, Ziphims, Nothi et spurii, strangers to religion, reason, common humanity; Jews outwardly, but not inwardly; heathens upon the matter, Psalms 59:5 Amos 9:7 Revelation 11:2. The pope showed himself no better in delivering up for money Zemes the Great Turk’ s brother, who fled to him for safeguard of his life, wrongfully sought after. Oppressors seek after my soul] i.e. My life at least; my soul also they would destroy, if it lay in their power, as the Papists delivered up John Huss to the devil when they burnt him; and would not allow Jerome of Prague a confessor, though he requested it. So the monster of Milan, that made his enemy first curse Christ in hope of life, and then stabbed him to death, saying, Now go soul and body to the devil (Bodin. de Rep.). So he that, for spite, procuring a man to be hanged, and seeing him penitent, said, I am afraid the rogue will go to heaven. They have not set God before them] This was the root of all their outrages, they made no reckoning of God, prout est iudexet vindex mali, as he is a severe judge, and a sharp revenger of sin and wickedness.

(3) For strangers.—This verse, with some variations, occurs again (Psalms 86:14); some MSS. even reading here “proud,” instead of “strangers.” With the received reading we must understand by the word “foreign oppressors”—though, doubtless, the inscription of the Psalm may be defended by taking the word in a derived sense of those Israelites who have degenerated, and so deserve the name “aliens.”

Verse 3. Strangers are risen up against me] The Ziphites. And oppressors] Saul, his courtiers, and his army. They have not set God before them.] It is on no religious account, nor is it to accomplish any end, on which they can ask the blessing of God. Selah.] This is true.

3. This verse is repeated almost verbatim in Psalms 86:14 (a mosaic constructed of fragments of other Psalms), with the change, accidental or intentional, of strangers into proud. The consonants of the Heb. words zβrξm, strangers, and zηdξm, proud, are almost identical, and some Heb. MSS. and the Targ. read zηdξm here; but the rest of the versions support the Massoretic Text. and oppressors &c.] Render, and violent men have sought my life, as in 1 Samuel 23:15, “David saw that Saul was come out to seek his life.” It has been argued that the terms ‘strangers’ and ‘violent men’ are inapplicable to Israelites, and prove that the title is erroneous. No doubt they are often used of foreign invaders or oppressors (Isaiah 25:2 ff; Isaiah 29:5; Ezekiel 31:12; cp. Isaiah 1:7; Ezekiel 7:21); but ‘violent men’ or ‘terrible ones’ is not exclusively so used (Job 6:23; Jeremiah 15:21), and might well be applied to Saul and his followers; while the Ziphites might be designated ‘strangers,’ in view of their unneighbourly behaviour. It is however possible that ‘strangers’ refers to the men of Keilah, whom there is some ground for regarding as Canaanites. The peculiar term ‘lords’ or ‘owners’ applied to the men of Keilah (1 Samuel 23:11-12) seems to have been specially (though not exclusively) used of Canaanites. See Joshua 24:11; Judges 9:2 ff; and J. S. Black’s note on the latter passage in the Smaller Cambridge Bible for Schools. they have not set God before them] They have no regard for God’s will, and no fear of His judgements. Cp. Psalms 10:4-5; Psalms 36:1; and contrast Psalms 16:8; Psalms 18:22. Under other circumstances loyalty to Saul might have required the Ziphites to surrender David: as it was, they were simply fighting against God in making themselves the tools of Saul’s blind rage, for it must have been well known that God intended David to be Saul’s successor.

For strangers are risen up against me - That is, foreigners; those of another nation or land. Saul and his friends who sought the life of David were his own countrymen; these persons who sought go betray him were another people.

3. Strangers—The word denotes foreigners, heathen, those who are not of the seed of Israel. If the reference is to the Ziphites, such they were to David in spirit, and in this moral sense the word often occurs.