Arise, O Lord - See the note at Psalms 3:7. This commences the second part of the psalm, in which the author calls on God to remember those who were oppressed and wronged by the wicked. By suffering the wicked thus to carry on their plans, God seemed to be indifferent to human affairs, and the psalmist, therefore, invokes him to interpose, and to rescue the afflicted from their grasp.
O God, lift up thine hand - As one does when he is about to strike, or to exert his power. The prayer is, that God would interfere to put down the wicked.
Forget not the humble - Margin, “afflicted.” The margin expresses the true sense. The idea is not that God would remember “humble” persons in the sense in which that word is now commonly used, but that he would remember those who were down-trodden, crushed, and afflicted. This is in accordance with the marginal reading in the Hebrew Bibles, which is now usually regarded as the more correct reading.