For strangers are risen up against me, and oppressors seek after my soul: they have not set God before them. Selah.
For strangers are risen up against me. The Ziphites, who ought, by the ties of country, to have been David's friends, acted as hostile strangers (Isaiah 25:5), and tried to betray him. So in Psalms 120:5 the Psalmist says. "Woe is me ... that I dwell in the tents of Kedar;" not that he was dwelling among those pagan people, but, figuratively, his countrymen, among whom he dwelt, behaved as unkindly to him as if they were hostile pagan. Stumbling at the difficulty that the Ziphites-countrymen of David's (Joshua 15:24; 1 Chronicles 4:16) - are called "strangers," some reject the title; others, as the Chaldaic, change the Hebrew for "strangers" х zaariym (H2114) into zeediym (H2086).] into 'the proud,' copying the parallel (Psalms 86:14), which is designedly varied.
Oppressors. The Hebrew ( `aariytsiym (H6184)) implies the strong and violent.
They have not set God before them (Psalms 55:19) - they act as if God did not see or hear.