Psalm 141:2

David speaks straight to God: “LORD, I cry unto thee.” The name he uses is Yᵉhôvâh, the covenant name of God, which Strong’s explains as the self-existent or eternal one. By using it David calls on the God who has bound himself to his people and is faithful to his promises, and he speaks to him directly, as one who knows him and depends on him.

The verb for cry, qârâʼ, means to call out to someone. Its root sense is to address by name, and it is used in a wide variety of ways. Here the verb is active, and David is the one calling. The English word “cry” comes at the start of the verse and again at its end (“when I cry unto thee”), so the whole verse is framed by his calling, and the repetition shows how earnest and persistent his prayer is.

Between the two comes his first request, “make haste unto me”. The verb chûwsh asks for speed. David is under pressure, and he asks God to come to him quickly. Another psalm of David prays in the same way: “Make haste, O God, to deliver me” (Psalm 70:1), and it ends with the very words “make haste unto me, O God” (Psalm 70:5).

The second request is “give ear unto my voice”. The verb ʼâzan is formed from the Hebrew noun for the ear and means to broaden out the ear, as a person cups a hand behind it, and so to listen. David asks God to turn his attention to him and hear what he says. Scripture speaks of God in this human way so that we can grasp what he does, and what he does is hear. David knew this from experience. Of an earlier danger he wrote, “In my distress I called upon the LORD, and cried unto my God: he heard my voice out of his temple” (Psalm 18:6). Psalm 34 says that the eyes of the LORD are upon the righteous and his ears are open to their cry (Psalm 34:15), and that when the righteous cry, the LORD hears them (Psalm 34:17). In Psalm 55 David says, “As for me, I will call upon God; and the LORD shall save me” (Psalm 55:16–17). Through Isaiah God goes further and promises that before his people call, he will answer (Isaiah 65:24).

The heading names the psalm as David’s, and it is a prayer for help in trouble, one of the laments of the Psalter. It follows Psalm 140, another prayer for deliverance from evil men. These two verses open the psalm, and the requests that come next show what weighs on David. He asks, “Set a watch, O LORD, before my mouth; keep the door of my lips” (Psalm 141:3), and he asks God to keep his heart from turning to “any evil thing” in company with men who work iniquity (Psalm 141:4). His danger comes from two sides: enemies who would harm him, and the pull to speak or act sinfully under their pressure.

The psalm leaves its occasion unnamed. It may come from David’s flight from Saul, from Absalom’s rebellion, or from another time when enemies sought his downfall. Whatever the occasion, he begins by asking God to hear him and to receive his prayer as an offering, and only then says what he needs.

“Let my prayer be set forth before thee as incense.” The word for prayer, tᵉphillâh, is the ordinary Hebrew word for prayer. It comes from pâlal, which means to judge and by extension to intercede or pray, and it covers intercession, supplication and, by implication, a hymn. The verb behind “set forth”, kûwn, carries the sense of being firm and ready, so David asks that his prayer be set in order and established before God’s presence (pânîym), ready to be received.

The word for incense, qᵉṭôreth, means incense or perfume, and the smoke of sacrifice. In Israel’s worship the holy incense was made of sweet spices (Exodus 30:34), and Aaron burned it on the golden altar in the Holy Place every morning (Exodus 30:7). It was part of the daily service of the tabernacle and later the temple, an offering God himself had prescribed.

The second line says again what the first said, in a new picture, as Hebrew poetry often does. Both lines ask that David’s worship be pleasing and acceptable to God, and each draws its image from the worship of Israel.

“The lifting up of my hands” is in Hebrew masʼêth, a lifting up, and kaph, the hand. Lifting the hands was a common posture of prayer in Israel. It expressed supplication, dependence, humility and expectation, and it was also a gesture of blessing. Paul carries it into the church when he wants men to pray everywhere, “lifting up holy hands” (1 Timothy 2:8).

“The evening sacrifice” is the minchâh of the ʻereb, the offering of the evening. The word minchâh means a gift or donation, and so a tribute, and specifically a sacrificial offering, usually bloodless and freely given. The law appointed an offering at evening every day (Exodus 29:39), and it was one of the regular acts of worship for the whole people, performed at dusk. It spoke of their dedication to God and of the covenant that bound them to him. By setting his raised hands beside it, David asks that his own prayer be received as surely as the offering made for the nation at the sanctuary, so that his private devotion carries the same holiness and acceptance as that public worship.

These verses join the worship God appointed in the law with the prayer of one man’s heart. God gave Israel the incense and the sacrifices, and he wants the heart behind them, and David’s request shows that a person’s petition and devotion can be offered to God as truly as the incense on the altar. Jesus said that God must be worshipped “in spirit and in truth” (John 4:24). Paul calls believers to present their bodies “a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service” (Romans 12:1). Hebrews calls us to “offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually” (Hebrews 13:15), and Peter speaks of believers offering up “spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ” (1 Peter 2:5). Prayer, praise and a whole life given to God are all offerings of this kind.

David’s urgent cry in verse 1 is heard again in the life of Jesus. Hebrews says that in the days of his flesh he “offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears unto him that was able to save him from death” (Hebrews 5:7), and that prayer is usually taken to describe his agony in Gethsemane. The Son of God himself prayed as David prays here.

Verse 2 finds its fulfilment in him too. Under the old covenant, access to God came through priests, incense and sacrifices. Jesus is “a great high priest, that is passed into the heavens” (Hebrews 4:14), and he is the sacrifice as well, for we are sanctified “through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all” (Hebrews 10:10). He is “the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world” (John 1:29). The evening sacrifice pointed toward dedication and atonement, and his death on the cross is the perfect atonement that makes us acceptable to God. By his blood we have “boldness to enter into the holiest” (Hebrews 10:19), and so we may “come boldly unto the throne of grace” (Hebrews 4:16).

The incense once rose from the altar as a picture of prayer. Now our prayers rise through Christ, who “ever liveth to make intercession” for those who come to God by him (Hebrews 7:25). And David’s longing to be heard is answered in the Spirit God gives his children, “whereby we cry, Abba, Father” (Romans 8:15).

These two verses show us a God who can be called on by his own name, who listens when his people cry to him, and who receives their prayer as gladly as the incense and the evening offering he appointed. David brought him urgent need and reverent worship together, asking him both to hurry and to accept what he offered. Through Christ, whose sacrifice is finished and who still prays for us, that same freedom belongs to every believer. When we lift our hands and voices to God, at evening or at any hour, our prayer rises before the One who has promised to hear.