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PSALM 41

To him that presides, a Psalm of David.

1. Blessed is he that considers the poor, in the day of evil jehovah will deliver him.
2. jehovah will guard him, and keep him alive, and he shall be blessed upon the earth; and you will not give him up to the lust of his enemies.
3. jehovah will support him on the couch of infirmity; you will make his bed in his sickness.
4. As for me, I said, jehovah be merciful to me, heal my soul for I have sinned against you.
5. Mine enemies speak evil against me, saying, when shall he die, and his name perish?
6. And if he comes to see me, he speaks vanity; his heart gathers iniquity, he goes abroad, and tells it.
7. All that hate me whisper together against me: against me do they devise evil, saying:
8. May a cursed thing cleave fast to him, and now that he lies down, may he no more rise up.
9. Even the man of my peace, in whom I trust, and who did eat of my bread, has lifted up his heel against me.
10. But you, O jehovah, be merciful to me, and raise me up, that I may requite them.
11. By this I know that you delight in me, because mine enemy does not triumph over me.
12. And as for me, you uphold me in mine integrity, and set me before your face for ever.
13. Blessed be jehovah the god of Israel from age to age, Amen and Amen.

Verse 9. He that did eat of my bread has lifted up his heel against me. These words were spoken of the Jews, with whom were Divine Truths, because they had the Word, as may be manifest from John 13:18, where those Words were applied to the Jews, wherefore by eating the lord's bread is signified the appropriation of Divine Truth, in this case its communication, because it could not be appropriated to them; bread signifies the Word, from which comes spiritual nourishment: to lift up the heel against him signifies to pervert the sense of the letter of the Word even to the denial of the lord, and to the falsification of all truth; for Divine Truth is presented in an image as a man, whence heaven in the whole complex is called the grand man, and corresponds to all things of man, for heaven is formed according to the Divine Truth proceeding from the lord, and whereas the Word is Divine Truth, therefore also this before the lord is in an image as a Divine man; therefore its ultimate sense, which is the sense of the letter, corresponds to the heel; the perversion of the Word, or of Divine Truth, by the application of the sense of the letter to falsities, such as were the traditions of the Jews; is signified by lifting up the heel against the lord. AE 617.

Verse 13. From age to age. By ages of ages, when predicated of the lord, is signified eternity; the reason why eternity is not mentioned, but ages of ages, is because the latter is a natural expression, and the former a spiritual, and the literal sense of the Word is natural, and the internal sense spiritual, and the latter is contained in the former. AE 468.

Verse 13. Amen. Amen signifies the truth, and inasmuch as the lord is truth itself therefore he so often says: Amen, (verily) I say to you. The lord is called the Amen in the Apocalypse: these things says the Amen, the faithful and true witness; Rev 3:14. That the lord is Truth itself he himself teaches in John 14:6; 17:19. Amen, therefore, signifies the divine confirmation from the Truth, consequently from the lord himself. AR 23.