Set a watch, O LORD, before my mouth; keep the door of my lips.
Ver. 3. Set a watch, O Lord, before my mouth] Orat pro patientia, saith one, here he prayeth for patience; lest by giving himself leave to overlash, he make the matter much worse. The best patience, long tried and hard put to it, may miscarry, to its cost.
Keep the door of my lips] That it move not creaking, and complaining, as on rusty hinges, for want of the oil of joy and gladness, Dal pro Deleth per Apocopen poetieam. David had somewhat to do with his tongue, as we see, Psalms 39:1; Psalms 39:3, and when he had carted the ark, how untowardly spake he, as if the fault were more in God than himself, that there was such a breach made in Uzzah, 1 Chronicles 15:2. It was but need, therefore, thus to pray,