him a manifest indication of rebellion against God. The unhesitating fusion of his own cause with God's could scarcely have been ventured by a psalmist, however vigorous his faith, if all that he had to go on and desired to express was a devout soul's confidence that God would protect him. That may be perfectly and yet it may not follow that opposition to a man is godlessness. We cannot regard ourselves as standing in such a relation; but we may be sure that the name, with all its glories, is mighty to save us too. Prayer is, as so often in the Psalter, followed by immediately deepened assurance of victory. The suppliant rises from his knees, and points the enemies round him to his one Helper. In ver. 4 _b_ a literal rendering would mislead. "The Lord is among the upholders of my soul" seems to bring God down to a level on which others stand. The psalmist does not mean this, but that God gathers up in Himself, and that supremely, the qualities belonging to the conception of an upholder. It is, in form, an inclusion of God in a certain class. It is, in meaning, the assertion that He is the only true representative of the class. Commentators quote Jephthah's plaintive words to his daughter as another instance of the idiom: "Alas, my daughter, ... thou art one of them that trouble me"--_i.e._, my greatest troubler. That one thought, vivified into new power by the act of prayer, is the psalmist's all-sufficient buckler, which he plants between himself and his enemies, bidding them "behold." Strong in the confidence that has sprung in his heart anew, he can look forward in the certainty that his adversaries (lit. _those who lie in wait for me_) will find their evil recoiling on themselves. The reading of the Hebrew text is, _Evil shall return to_; that of the Hebrew margin, adopted by the A.V. and R.V., is, _He shall requite evil to_. The meanings are substantially the same, only that the one makes the automatic action of retribution more prominent, while the other emphasises God's justice in inflicting it. The latter reading gives increased force to the swift transition to prayer in ver. 5 _b_.