Arise, O LORD, disappoint him, cast him down: deliver my soul from the wicked, which is thy sword:
Arise, O Lord, disappoint him - literally, 'anticipate his presence,' for it threatens me with destruction: be thou beforehand with him, so as to thwart his designs which he comes in person to execute.
Deliver my soul from the wicked, (which is) thy sword. Compare Isaiah 10:5; Habakkuk 1:12. This idea of the wicked being the sword of God for chastising His people, hardly suits the context, as the ground of the Psalmist's prayer throughout is not that he had been suffering chastisement through the instrumentality of the wicked, but that his cause is altogether a righteous one, and the enemy's a bad one. Translate, 'deliver my soul from the wicked through (or by) thy sword.'