Psalms 12:5 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

For the oppression of the poor Because the poor that put their trust in me, and send up their prayers to me for help, are thus oppressed; now will I arise, saith the Lord Speedily, sooner than they imagine or expect. I will set him in safety from him that puffeth at him That despises him, and hopes to destroy him with a puff of breath. “The beauty and energy of this fine prosopopœia,” says Dr. Dodd, “must be felt by every reader.” When oppressors are in the height of their pride and insolence; when they say, Who is lord over us? then is God's time to let them know, to their cost, that he is above them. And when the oppressed are in the depth of their distress and despondency; when they are sighing like Israel in Egypt, by reason of the cruel bondage, then is God's time to appear for them, as he did for Israel when they were dejected, and Pharaoh was most elevated and determined to carry things with a high hand.