1 Hear a just cause, O Lord; attend to my cry;
give ear to my prayer from lips free of deceit.
His is a just cause, if as stated, it comes from lips free of deceit.
2 From you let my vindication come.
Let your eyes see the right.
If the cause is just, the Just Judge will serve vindication, nothing else. Acquittal of the just is deliverance from the unjust.
Ever so confident, the psalmist invites the Just Judge to check him out in the darkness of night., which is just like day to that One anyway, and he asks Goodness to test and prove: “you will find no wickedness in me; my mouth does not transgress”.
Oh God, I’ve such a long way to go.
I have tried to avoid the ways pf the violent.
I have tried to hold fast to those guile-free steps, but alas, my feet seem to like slipping.
Nonetheless, like him, I still dare to call on the One who hears with ears of love, who is a Refuge from adversaries of many sorts.
I don’t deserve it but still ask to be guarded like “the apple of your eye” and kept “in the shadow of your wings” as you deliver me from wicked mortals and make me into a not-so-wicked one after all.
This is about mercy, mercy so powerful that I dare to claim this psalm and affirm
15 As for me, I shall behold your face in righteousness.
when I awake, I shall be satisfied, beholding your likeness.
Yes. In times of persecution, run to the Rock for protection that you may need, even if you don’t deserve it. But don’t force another to run there, because if she is being protected from you, then there’s no safe place for you where she hides. Understood?