Thou, O Lord, knowest me. — Like all faithful sufferers from evil-doers before and after him, the prophet appeals to the righteous Judge, who knows how falsely he has been accused. In words in which the natural impatience of suffering shows itself as clearly as in the complaints of Psalms 69, 109, he asks that the judgment may be immediate, open, terrible. As if recalling the very phrase which he had himself but lately used (Jeremiah 11:19), he prays that they too may be as “sheep for the slaughter,” dragged or torn away from their security to the righteous penalty of their wrong.
Prepare. — Better, devote. The Hebrew word, as in Jeremiah 6:4, involves the idea of consecration.