Set thou a wicked man over him: and let Satan stand at his right hand.
Ver. 6. Set thou a wicked man over him] Whose tender mercies may be cruelties; let the devil be his taskmaster. Thus he prayed against Doeg, or Ahithophel, but certainly Judas, Acts 1:20. And so the primitive Christians prayed against Julian the apostate, and afterwards against Arius the heretic, whose death was precationis opus non morbi, the effect of prayer, rather than of his disease, saith Socrates, lib. i. cap. 15. We are bound to pray daily, "Thy kingdom come," but must be advised how we pray, as David here doth, against particular persons; his curses here and elsewhere are indefinite, or conditional; either he nameth not the man, or intendeth it if God intend it so; or they are non tam vota quam vaticinia, not so much prayers as prophecies.
And let Satan (or an adversary) stand at his right hand] To withstand him and get the better of him, as Zechariah 3:1. Or, to aggravate his fault before an unjust judge.