In return for my love, they are my adversaries; but I am in prayer.
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In return for my love, they are my adversaries; but I am in prayer.
In return for my love they accuse me, but I am a man of prayer.
For my love they are my adversaries: but I give myself unto prayer.
For my love they are my adversaries: But I [give myself unto] prayer.
For my love they give me back hate; but I have given myself to prayer.
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He addeth, "Thus have they rewarded me evil for good" (ver. 4). And as if we asked, what evil? for what good? "And hatred," he saith, "for my good will." This is the sum total of their great guilt. For how could the persecutors injure Him who died of His own free-will, and not by compulsion? But this very hatred is the greatest crime of the persecutor, although it be the willing atonement of the sufferer. And he hath sufficiently explained the sense of the above words, "In place of loving me," since they owed love not as a general duty only, but in return for His love: in that he hath here added, "for my good will." This love He mentioneth in the Gospel, when He saith, "How often would I have gathered thy children together, and thou wouldest not!"
Matthew Henry · Verses 1–5
It is the unspeakable comfort of all believers, that whoever is against them, God is for them; and to him they may apply as to one pleased to concern himself for them. David's enemies laughed at him for his devotion, but they could not laugh him out of it.
Spurgeon · Verse 4
For my love they are my adversaries. They hate me because I love them. One of our poets says of the Lord Jesus —"Found guilty of excess of love." Surely it was his only fault. Our Lord might have used all the language of this complaint most emphatically —they hated him without a cause and returned him hatred for love. What a smart this is to the soul, to be hated in proportion to the gratitude which it deserved, hated by those it loved, and hated because of its love. This was a cruel case, and the sensitive mind of the psalmist writhed under it. But give myself unto prayer. He did nothing else but pray. He became prayer as they became malice. This was his answer to his enemies, he appealed from men and their injustice to the Judge of all the earth, who must do right. True bravery alone can teach a man to leave his traducers unanswered, and carry the case unto the Lord.
"Men cannot help but reverence the courage that walketh amid calumnies unanswering."
"He standeth as a gallant chief unheeding shot or shell."
Cross-references: Treasury of Scripture Knowledge. Hebrew and Greek data from STEPBible.org (Tyndale House, Cambridge), CC BY 4.0. Library: sources.
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