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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comTreasury of David - Psalms 141:1 - 141:1
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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
1 Lord, I cry unto thee, make haste unto me; give ear unto my voice, when I cry unto thee.
2 Let my prayer be set forth before thee as incense; and the lifting up of my hands as the evening sacrifice.
Psa 141:1
“Lord, I cry unto thee.” This is my last resort: prayer never fails me. My prayer is painful and feeble, and worthy only to be called a cry; but it is a cry unto Jehovah, and this ennobles it. I have cried unto thee, I still cry to thee, and I always mean to cry to thee. To whom else could I go? What else can I do? Others trust to themselves, but I cry unto thee. The weapon of all prayer is one which the believer may always carry with him, and use in every time of need. “Make haste unto me.” His case was urgent, and he pleaded that urgency. God's time is the best time, but when we are sorely pressed we may with holy importunity quicken the movements of mercy. In many cases, if help should come late, it would come too late; and we are permitted to pray against such a calamity. “Give ear unto my voice, when I cry unto thee.” See how a second time he talks of crying: prayer had become his frequent, yea, his constant exercise: twice in a few words he says, “I cry; I cry.” How he longs to be heard, and to be heard at once! There is a voice to the great Father in every cry, and groan, and tear of his children: he can understand what they mean when they are quite unable to express it. It troubles the spirit of the saints when they fear that no favourable ear is turned to their doleful cries' they cannot rest unless their “unto thee” is answered by an “unto me.” When prayer is a man's only refuge, he is deeply distressed at the bare idea of his failing therein.
“That were a grief I could not bear,
Didst thou not hear and answer prayer;
But a prayer-hearing, answering God
Supports me under every load.”
Psa 141:2
“Let my prayer be set forth before thee as incense.” As Incense is carefully prepared, kindled with holy fire, and devoutly presented unto God, so let my prayer be. We are not to look upon prayer as easy work requiring no thought, it needs to be “set forth”; what is more, it must be set forth “before the Lord,” by a sense of his presence and a holy reverence for his name: neither may we regard all supplication as certain of divine acceptance, it needs to be set forth before the Lord “as incense,” concerning the offering of which there were rules to be observed, otherwise it would be rejected of God. “And the lifting up of my hands as the evening sacrifice.” Whatever form his prayer might take his one desire was that it might be accepted of God. Prayer is sometimes presented without words by the very motions of our bodies' bended knees and lifted hands are the tokens of earnest, expectant prayer. Certainly work, or the lifting up of the hands in labour, is prayer if it be done in dependence upon God and for his glory: there is a hand-prayer as well as a heart-prayer, and our desire is that this may be sweet unto the Lord as the sacrifice of eventide. Holy hope, the lifting up of hands that hang down, is also a kind of worship: may it ever be acceptable with God. The Psalmist makes a bold request: he would have his humble cries and prayers to be as much regarded of the Lord as the appointed morning and evening sacrifices of the holy place. Yet the prayer is by no means too bold, for, after all, the spiritual is in the Lord's esteem higher than the ceremonial, and the calves of the lips are a truer sacrifice than the calves of the stall.
So far we have a prayer about prayer; we have a distinct supplication in Psa 141:3-4.