But do thou for me, O GOD the Lord, for thy name’s sake: because thy mercy _is_ good, deliver thou me. For I _am_ poor and needy, and my heart is wounded within me. I am gone like the shadow when it declineth: I am tossed up and down as the locust. My knees are weak through fasting; and my flesh faileth of fatness. I became also a reproach unto them: _when_ they looked upon me they shaked their heads. Help me, O LORD my God: O save me according to thy mercy: That they may know that this _is_ thy hand; _that_ thou, LORD, hast done it. Let them curse, but bless thou: when they arise, let them be ashamed; but let thy servant rejoice. Let mine adversaries be clothed with shame, and let them cover themselves with their own confusion, as with a mantle. I will greatly praise the LORD with my mouth; yea, I will praise him among the multitude. For he shall stand at the right hand of the poor, to save _him_ from those that condemn his soul. Certain hypocrites of monks are accustomed to use this Psalm, (generally known by the name of ‘The God of praise,’) as a sort of incantation: and they say that, to a certainty, against what person soever they babble and sing out the terrible words of this Psalm; that man is at once death-struck, and never lives a year afterwards. This Psalm, however, is most certainly full of the complaints, tears, and groans of the godly against these very hypocrites themselves. It may be very properly considered as used in the person of Christ, deeply complaining against his betrayers the Jews, and against the cruelty of the Jews, which was not satisfied, even after the shedding of his innocent blood. Like unto Judas Iscariot, and unto all the Jews, are pharisaical saints and hypocrites, of all nations and ages; of whom Christ doth not say in vain, that they are guilty of all the blood that has been shed from Abel downwards. For so great and bitter is the terribleness and fury of their virulent and Satanic hatred, that they cannot rest satisfied with the shedding of the blood of Abel and all the saints from the beginning of the world, but must hang Christ himself on the cross; and that is not all, they must (as the Psalmist saith, ver. 22.) wag their heads at him, and insult and mock his sufferings; “If he be the King of Israel, let him now come down from the cross.” Concerning these wretches, David says, (ver. 2.) “They have opened their blaspheming mouth against me:” for the raving fury of such hypocrites is incredible. And again he says, “For my love they are my adversaries, but I give myself unto prayer. And they have rewarded me evil for good, and hatred for my love.” And again, “They fight against me without a cause.”