Keep me, O Lord, from the hands of the wicked ... - See the notes at Psalm 71:4. This is a repetition of the prayer in Psalm 140:1.

Who have purposed to overthrow my goings - To thrust me down as I go; to defeat my plans; to destroy me. They endeavor to prevent my accomplishing what I had designed to do.

Preserve me from the violent man - Saul again; who was as headstrong and violent in all his measures, as he was cruel, and inflexibly bent on the destruction of David.

Keep me, O Lord, from the hands of the wicked,.... From falling into their hands, and the weight of them); and from their laying hands on him, being men of power and authority;

preserve me from the violent man: or men, everyone of them; See Gill on Psalm 140:1;

who have purposed to overthrow my goings: to supplant him; to cause him to stumble and fall, to his disgrace and reproach; and that they might take an advantage of him, and an occasion against him. Arama interprets it, to drive me out of the land of Israel; see 1 Samuel 26:1. So Christ's enemies thought to have supplanted him, and have found something against him, to accuse him of to Caesar, Matthew 22:15.

The course of this second strophe is exactly parallel with the first. The perfects describe their conduct hitherto, as a comparison of Psalm 140:3 with Psalm 140:3 shows. פּעמים is poetically equivalent to רגלים, and signifies both the foot that steps (Psalm 57:5; Psalm 58:11) and the step that is made by the foot (Psalm 85:14; Psalm 119:133), and here the two senses are undistinguishable. They are called גּאים on account of the inordinate ambition that infatuates them. The metaphors taken from the life of the hunter (Psalm 141:9; Psalm 142:4) are here brought together as it were into a body of synonyms. The meaning of ליד־מעגּל becomes explicable from Psalm 142:4; ליד, at hand, is equivalent to "immediately beside" (1 Chronicles 18:17; Nehemiah 11:24). Close by the path along which he has to pass, lie gins ready to spring together and ensnare him when he appears.

Keep {d} me, O LORD, from the hands of the wicked; preserve me from the violent man; who have purposed to overthrow my goings.

(d) He declares the remedy of the godly, when they are oppressed by the worldlings.

140:1-7 The more danger appears, the more earnest we should be in prayer to God. All are safe whom the Lord protects. If he be for us, who can be against us? We should especially watch and pray, that the Lord would hold up our goings in his ways, that our footsteps slip not. God is as able to keep his people from secret fraud as from open force; and the experience we have had of his power and care, in dangers of one kind, may encourage us to depend upon him in other dangers.