PSALM V. 1 Give ear to my words, Jehovah; Consider my meditation. 2 Listen to the voice of my crying, my King and my God, For to Thee do I make supplication. 3 Jehovah, in the morning Thou shalt hear my voice; In the morning will I order my [prayer] to Thee and keep watch. 4 For not a God delighting in wickedness art Thou; Evil cannot sojourn with Thee. 5 Fools cannot stand before Thine eyes; Thou hatest all workers of iniquity. 6 Thou destroyest the speakers of falsehood; The man of blood and deceit Jehovah loathes. 7 But I, in the multitude of Thy loving-kindness I dare come into Thy house; I dare fall prostrate before Thy holy temple in Thy fear. 8 Jehovah, lead me in Thy righteousness, because of them that are spies on me; Make Thy way level before me. 9 For in his mouth is nothing trustworthy; Their inward part is destruction; An open grave is their throat; Their tongue they smooth. 10 Hold them guilty, Jehovah: let them fall by their own schemes; In the multitude of their transgressions strike them down, for they have rebelled against Thee. 11 Then shall all those who take refuge in Thee be glad; For ever shall they shout for joy, since Thou dost shelter them; And they that love Thy name shall exult in Thee. 12 For Thou dost bless the righteous; Jehovah, as with a shield, with favour dost Thou compass him about. The reference to the temple in ver. 7 is not conclusive against the Davidic authorship of this psalm, since the same word is applied in 1 Sam. i. 9 and iii. 3 to the house of God in Shiloh. It means a palace, and may well be used for any structure, even if a hair tent, in which God dwelt. No doubt it is oftenest used for the Solomonic temple, but it does not necessarily refer to it. Its use here, then, cannot be urged as fatal to the correctness of the superscription. At the same time, it does create a certain presumption against it. But there is nothing in the psalm to determine its date, and its worth is quite independent of its authorship. The psalmist is surrounded by foes, and seeks access to God. These are constant features of the religious life, and their expression here fits as closely to the present time as to any past.