Psalms 17:1 « A Prayer of David. » Hear the right, O LORD, attend unto my cry, give ear unto my prayer, [that goeth] not out of feigned lips.
A Prayer of David] He was a man of prayer; but this was his appeal to God, the supreme Judge, as the word importeth.
Ver. 1. Hear the right, O Lord] Heb. Righteousness, which crieth unto God no less than blood doth, Gen 4:10 Or, hear the right, that is, my prayer, saith R. David, rightly made with heart and voice. Or, Hear, O righteous Lord, as Christ also saith, O righteous Father, John 17:25
Attend unto my cry] Some profane persons bear well their crosses, because their cause is good; but they cry not when God bindeth them, Job 36:13. Or, if they cry, they cry out of hard fortune, as the Athenians did when their good General Nicias was slain, and their army routed in Sicily (Thucyd.); or against dame Virtue, as if it were no more than a mere name, as Brutus did, when beaten out of the field (Dio). Or, against providence, as if there were a mist over the eye of it, as Pompey did, when discomfited by Caesar; so blaming the sun, because of the soreness of his own blear eyes. But David (greatly wronged by Saul and his courtiers) by humble and hearty prayer maketh his request known to God with thanksgiving, Philippians 4:6. And this, like his harp, drove away the evil spirit of grief and discontent.
That goeth not out of feigned lips] His devotion was not sorrowful, as is that of hypocrites; it was not an empty ring, a mere outside, the labour of the lips, but the travail of the heart; it was sincere and thoroughly wrought, as St James hath it, ενεργουμενη, James 5:16. Wicked men speak God fair, but it is as the devil did our Saviour, to be rid of him, or as those, Psalms 78:36, who flattered him with their mouths, and lied unto him with their tongues.