This Psalm very suitably follows the preceding. For it is the prayer of the Remnant to be kept from all fellowship in word or deed with those apostates, for whose wickedness, in word and deed, judgment (as they had there desired and anticipated) was to come upon them. And they desired to be kept from all such wickedness, even though at the cost of being smitten by the rebukes and admonitions of the godly. Then, as to the enemy, they refuse to take vengeance themselves, (as David, 1 Sam. 24:6, and as Jesus, Matt. 26:51-52), but leave their wrongs in the hand, and to the vindication, of God the Lord.
Psalm 141:6 may remind us of 1 Samuel 24 and 1 Samuel 26; for there the judges or heads of the people were as in stony places, and might have been broken and overthrown; but, instead of that, they heard David’s words of peace.
And rather remarkable, as in connection with Psalm 141:5, David, in the intervening chapter (1 Sam. 25) had been reproved by the words of the righteous Abigail, which had proved an excellent oil for his head, anointing him as with a spirit of wisdom and of the fear of the Lord, to turn him away from the counsel of his heart (1 Sam. 25:30-34).
But all this time David was the martyr; he and his company had the sentence of death in them, that they should not trust in themselves, but in Him who raiseth the dead. But the Spirit of Christ looks beyond the sorrows of David here; for David’s people were not then slaughtered, as some of the Israel in the latter day will be. (See Psa. 79.) So that this Psalm is still the breathing of the Spirit of Christ in sympathy with them. Though it may (like all others, in a large sense, we may say) be used by any saint, when his circumstances and state of soul suggest it; as words given to Moses (Deut. 31:6,8) and to Joshua (Josh. 1:5) may “boldly,” in the holy boldness of faith, be received and adopted by any of us (Heb. 13:5-6).
And how does Psalm 141:4 warn our souls that the evil ones against whom the Spirit of the Lord here cries in the righteous, have their “dainties,” their beguiling subtle temptations, to ensnare, if it were possible, even the elect.