Psalms 141:5 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Let the righteous smite me Namely, by reproofs. If at any time, through the frailty of nature, I should be inclined to yield to temptation, let me find, among my attendants or friends, some righteous and faithful person, who, with kind severity, will check and reprove me. It shall be a kindness I shall be so far from being offended with it, as an act of enmity or ill will, that I shall esteem it an act and mark of true friendship. It shall be an excellent oil Hebrews שׁמן ראשׁ, the oil of the head, that is, as the oil which is poured upon the head as the manner was in great feasts and solemnities, which shall not break my head Nor hurt, but heal, and greatly refresh me. For yet my prayer shall be in their calamities Either, 1st, In the calamities of those persons who reproved and censured him. When they came into such calamities as those wherein he had been involved, he would pity them, and pray for them. Or, he may mean the calamities of his enemies, of which he speaks in the next words. He foresaw that his enemies would be in calamities, and that they would need, and desire his prayers; and he here declares he would willingly grant them: but the Hebrew of this clause may be properly rendered, My prayer shall be against their wickedness.