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PSALM 64

To him that presides: a Psalm of David.

1. Hear my voice, O god, when I complain; preserve my life from fear of the enemy.
2. Hide me from the secret counsel of the wicked; from the insurrection of the workers of iniquity.
3. Who wet their tongue like a sword; who make ready their bow; their arrows are bitter words.
4. That they may shoot in secret at the perfect man; suddenly do they shoot at him and fear not.
5. They confirm themselves in an evil purpose; they commune of laying snares privily; they say, who shall see them?
6. They devise wicked deeds, saying, we have accomplished the devised project; for the inmost of man and the heart is deep.
7. But god shall shoot at them an arrow; suddenly shall they be wounded.
8. He shall cast them down; their own tongue shall be against them; all that see them shall flee away.
9. For every man shall fear, and shall declare the work of God, and shall understand his doing.
10. The just shall be glad in jehovah, and shall trust in him; and all the upright in heart shall glory.

Verse 1. Preserve my life from the fear of the enemy. Good has life in itself because it is from the lord, who ia life itself; in the life which is from the lord there is wisdom and intelligence, for to receive good from the lord, and thence to will good, is wisdom; and to receive truth from the lord, and thence to believe truth, is intelligence: and they who have this wisdom and intelligence have life, and whereas happiness is adjoined to such life, eternal happiness is what is also signified by life; since there is life in good and in the truth thence derived, there cannot be life in evil and in the false derived from evil, for these latter are contrary principles and extinguish life. AC 5070.

Enemy denotes evils and falses, for nothing else is meant in the Word in the spiritual sense by enemies, foes, and haters. AC 8282.

Verse 3. Who wet their tongue like a sword. That a sword signifies the false principle destroying truth, is evident from these words in David, "The workers of iniquity sharpen their tongue like a sword, they bend their arrows with a bitter word." AE 131.

Inasmuch as a sword signifies the false principle fighting against truth, therefore it is said, they sharpen their tongue like a sword, and since an arrow signifies the false principle of doctrine, therefore it is said, their arrows are bitter words. AE 359.

Verse 6. The inmost of man and the heart is deep. The midst of the man [viri] denotes the intellectual [principle] where the truth should be, and the heart the will [ principle] where the good should be, but in the present case, both perverted, the latter into evil, the former into the false. AE 313.

Verse 9. For every man shall fear, and shall declare the work of god. Fear, when predicated concerning the lord, signifies worship and to revere, because in worship and in all things belonging thereto, there is a holy and reverential fear, which is grounded in the consideration, that the object of worship is to be honoured, and not by any means to be injured; the case herein is as with infants towards their parents, with parents towards their children, with wives towards their husbands, and husbands towards their wives, likewise as with friends towards friends, with whom there is a fear lest they should be hurt, and at the same time a respect: this fear, attended with respect, is in all love and in all friendship, since love and friendship, without such fear and respect, is as food not salted, which is unsavoury: hence then it is, that to fear the lord denotes to worship him from such love. AE 696.

Verse 10. The just shall be glad in jehovah. All who are in the good of charity, are called the just, not that they are just from themselves, but from the lord, whose justice is appropriated to them; they who believe themselves just from themselves, or so justified that they have no longer any thing of evil, are not amongst the just, but amongst the unjust, for they attribute to themselves what is good, and also place merit in good, and such cannot in any way adore the lord from true humiliation; wherefore they who in the Word are called just and holy, are they who know and acknowledge that all good is from the lord, and all evil from themselves, that is, in the power of themselves from hell. AC 5070