"I find David making a syllogism in mood and figure.... 'If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me: but verily God hath heard me; He hath attended to the voice of my prayer.' Now, I expected that David would have concluded thus: 'Therefore I regard not wickedness in my heart. But far otherwise he concludes: 'Blessed be God, who hath not turned away my prayer, nor His mercy from me.' Thus David hath deceived but not wronged me. I looked that he should have clapped the crown on his own, and he puts it on God's head. I will learn this excellent logic." So says Fuller ("Good Thoughts in Bad Times," p. 34, Pickering's ed., 1841). No doubt, however, the psalmist means to suggest, though he does not state, that his prayer was sincere. There is no self-complacent attribution of merit to his supplication, in the profession that it was untainted by any secret, sidelong looking towards evil; and Fuller is right in emphasising the suppression of the statement. But even the appearance of such is avoided by the jet of praise which closes the psalm. Its condensed brevity has induced some critics to mend it by expansion, as they regard it as incongruous to speak of turning away a man's prayer from himself. Some would therefore insert "from Him" after "my prayer," and others would expand still further by inserting an appropriate negative before "His loving-kindness." But the slight incongruity does not obscure the sense, and brings out strongly the flow of thought. So fully does the psalmist feel the connection between God's loving-kindness and his own prayer, that these are, as it were, smelted into one in his mind, and the latter is so far predominant in his thoughts that he is unconscious of the anomaly of his expression. To expand only weakens the swing of the words and the power of the thought. It is possible to tame lyric outbursts into accuracy at the cost of energy. Psalmists are not bound to be correct in style. Rivers wind; canals are straight. PSALM LXVII. 1 God be gracious to us, and bless us, And cause His face to shine among us; Selah. 2 That Thy way may be known upon earth, Thy salvation among all nations. 3 Let peoples give Thee thanks, O God, Let peoples, all of them, give Thee thanks. 4 Let tribes rejoice and shout aloud, For Thou wilt judge peoples in equity, And tribes on the earth wilt Thou lead. Selah. 5 Let peoples give Thee thanks, O God, Let peoples, all of them, give Thee thanks. 6 The earth has yielded her increase: May God, [even] our God, bless us! 7 May God bless us, And may all the ends of the earth fear Him!