Psalms 141:1 - Meaning and Application

Mercy to accept what we do well, and grace to keep us from doing wrong, are the two things David’s example teaches us to ask from God here.

David loved prayer, and he asks God to hear and answer it (Psalm 141:1-2). His crying to God shows how earnest he was in prayer. It also shows faith and steady trust. He wanted God to give attention to his voice, to hear him graciously. Those who cry out in prayer may expect to be heard, not because they are loud, but because they are sincere.

He also asks God to come quickly to him. People who value God’s kind presence will be eager for it and may feel holy impatience when answers seem slow. The believer does not rush ahead in unbelief, but the one who prays may still ask God to hurry. David also wants God to be pleased with him in prayer, and with the lifting up of his hands, which shows both the raising of his desires and the reaching out of his hope. Lifting the hands points to lifting the heart, and it stands in place of lifting sacrifices before the Lord. Prayer is a spiritual sacrifice, the offering up of the soul and its best desires to God.

David asks that his prayer be set before God like incense, and like the evening sacrifice. He mentions the evening sacrifice rather than the morning one, perhaps because this was an evening prayer. It may also point ahead to Christ, who, in the evening of the world and the evening of the day, was to offer himself as the sacrifice for our sins and establish the spiritual sacrifices of praise and thanksgiving, after putting away the outward laws of the old covenant. Those who pray in faith may expect that their prayers will please God more than an ox or a bull. David had been kept away from God’s court, so he could not join in the sacrifice and incense there. Because of that, he asks that his prayer would count in their place. Prayer rises to God as a sweet-smelling offering, like incense, though incense has no fragrance without fire. In the same way, prayer has no true warmth without the fire of holy love and zeal.

David was also afraid of sin, and he asks God to keep him from it, knowing that his prayers would not be accepted unless he watched against sin. We must be as eager for God’s grace within us as we are for his favor toward us. He prays that he may not be trapped into sinful speech (Psalm 141:3). “Set a watch, O Lord, before my mouth,” means, “Since my lips are like a door for my words, let your grace guard that door, so that no word comes out that would dishonor you or harm others.” Good people know how evil sins of the tongue can be, and they know how easily they fall into them. When enemies provoke us, we are in danger of speaking too harshly, and even Moses, the meekest of men, spoke unwisely at times. So they ask God to keep them from speaking wrongly, because they know their own watchfulness and strength are not enough to govern either their tongues or their hearts without special grace from God. We must guard our mouths, but that is not enough. We must pray to God to guard them. Nehemiah prayed to the Lord while he set a watch, and we must do the same, because without God the watchman keeps watch in vain.

He also asks that he may not be drawn toward any sinful action (Psalm 141:4). “Incline not my heart to any evil thing” means, “Whatever leanings toward sin are in me, do not just restrain them, but put them to death by your grace.” The example of people around us, and the insults of those who hurt us, can stir up our sinful desires. We are quick to copy what others do, and quick to think that injury gives us permission to strike back. So we need to pray that we may never be left to ourselves, either to join with the workers of evil or to oppose them in a sinful way. While we live in a sinful world and carry sinful hearts within us, we need to ask that we may not be drawn in by temptation or pushed along by provocation into any wrong.

He also asks that he may not be trapped by sinful pleasures: “Let me not eat of their dainties.” He means, “Do not let me join them in their feasts and amusements, so that I am pulled into their sins.” Better is a simple meal of herbs away from temptation than a rich meal in the middle of it. Sinners pretend that sin is a delight. Stolen water seems sweet, and forbidden fruit looks pleasing. But anyone who thinks about how quickly the pleasures of sin turn bitter, and how surely sin will at last sting like a serpent, will fear those pleasures and ask God, by his providence, to keep them out of view and, by his grace, to turn his heart against them. Good people will even pray against the sweetness of sin.