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3He shall send from heaven, and save me. David, as I have repeatedly had occasion to observe, interlaces his prayers with holy meditations for the comfort of his own soul, in which he contemplates his hopes as already realised in the event. In the words before us, he glories in the divine help with as much assurance as if he had already seen the hand of God interposed in his behalf. When it is said, he shall send from heaven, some consider the expression as elliptical, meaning that he would send his angels; but it seems rather to be an indefinite form of speech, signifying that the deliverance which David expected was one not of a common, but a signal and miraculous description. The expression denotes the greatness of the interposition which he looked for, and heaven is opposed to earthly or natural means of deliverance. What follows admits of being rendered in two different ways. We may supply the Hebrew preposition מ, mem, and read, He shall save me from the reproach; or it might be better to understand the words appositively, He shall save me, to the reproach of him who swallows me up. (340) The latter expression might be rendered, from him who waits for me. His enemies gaped upon him in their eagerness to accomplish his destruction, and insidiously watched their opportunity; but God would deliver him, to their disgrace. He is said to strike his enemies with shame and reproach, when he disappoints their expectations. The deliverance which David anticipated was signal and miraculous; and he adds, that he looked for it entirely from the mercy and truth of God, which he represents here as the hands, so to speak, by which his assistance is extended to his people.
(340) In this all the ancient versions agree: They make חרף, chereph, a verb, and not a noun, regarding it as applicable to God, and conveying the idea that He would deliver David, having put to shame, or to reproach, his enemies. Thus, in the Septuagint, it is “ ἔδωκεν εἰς ὄνειδος ” and in the Vulgate, “dedit in opprobrium,” “ gave to reproach;” and in like manner in the Chaldee, Syriac, Arabic, and Ethiopic versions.