Charles H. Spurgeon on Psalms 140:11

Whole Psalm. Another Psalm "of David", to be sung by all saints, even as it was used by their Head, David's Son. In it we have (Ps 140:1-3) the picture of the wicked, with a "Selah", that bids us pause over its dark colours. Then we have (Ps 140:4-5) a view of the snares spread by the wicked, with another "Selah" —pause. Thereafter, we see a soul in the attitude of faith (Ps 140:6-8). They are laying the snares, but calm as Elisha beholding the Syrian host assembling (2Ki 6:15), the stayed soul sings

"I have said to the Lord, My God art thou"; and then he prays, putting a "Selah" at the close, that we may again pause and survey the scene. —Andrew A. Bonar.

Whole Psalm. There is no doubt that this Psalm expresses the feelings of David on the first intelligence of Saul's setting out anew in pursuit of him (comp. Ps 140:2). And then, in Psalm 141, we have his supplication at the time when this danger was ever approaching nearer. Various things are said in this Psalm (according to the Hebrew) primarily of a single person (Saul:) thus e.g. Ps 140:1,4; and the numerous tongues of which David complains (Ps 140:3) are just the tongues of traitors who again informed Saul of this new place of David's residence in the wilderness of Engedi, where he might have imagined himself so secure. The laying of snares (Ps 140:5) agrees perfectly in part with this treachery, and in part with the search after David by Saul and his numerous army, mentioned in 1Sa 24:2. In the same way might the burning coals, spoken of in Ps 140:10, and likewise the deep pits (German, floods) mentioned there, have suggested themselves most naturally to David upon the rocks of Engedi, where he had the Dead Sea just before him. Ps 140:10 seems also to allude to the events which happened on the night before the destruction of Sodom. —T. C. Barth, in "The Bible Manual."

Whole Psalm. As in Psalm 138. David set before his seed God's promise as the anchor of hope (2Sa 7:1-17); and in Psalm 139, God's omniscience as our consolation in danger and motive for shunning evil; so in this Psalm he sets forth the danger from calumnious enemies, and our only safety in Jehovah, our strength. —Andrew Robert Fausset.

Verses  1, 4, 6, 8. Good men live by prayer. He who gets to the throne of grace is covered by the cloud of glory, through which no sun can smite by day, nor moon by night. —William Swan Plumer.

Verses 1, 7-11. On the first reading of this Psalm one is inclined to think that there is somewhat of fierceness and bitterness in it, which is hardly consistent with the character of a child of God, and therefore unbecoming in David...And yet I really think that a little more examination of the language of this Psalm will lead us to believe that we are doing David wrong in affixing anything like a meaning or desire of vindictiveness to his words. Assuredly we can find no fault with one who takes his wrongs in prayer to God; who, like Hezekiah, takes the roll of his cares, and sorrows, and trials, and spreads it before the Lord. And this is what David does in the very first verse: "Deliver me, O Lord, from the evil man; preserve me from the violent man." I do not think a person who does this, who, when smarting under a sense of injury and wrong, goes at once to God and lays open his heart to him, is likely to go very far wrong; for even though he may have begun in somewhat of an unkindly spirit, yet prayer opens before us such a sight and sense of our own guiltiness and wrongs towards God, and thereby exercises such an abasing, as well as healing and soothing, influence over our feelings towards others, that we might almost be assured that he whose prayer might begin even with a vehement enumeration of his own wrongs, would end with something very like a determination to bless them that cursed, and to do good to them that hated him. You will observe, too, how, from first to last, David leaves his cause in God's hands; it is not "my sword and my bow that shall help me"; he counted them vain things to help a man; and therefore, as he had so often said in other Psalms; "The Lord was his shield and his defence", and as God had already shielded his head in the day of battle, so he prays for the same protection against his enemies now. —Barton Bouchier.

Three special forms of Satanic energy are individualized. The evil or wicked man, the violent man, and the man of tongue are severally appealed from by the suppliant speaker of the prayer of faith. —Arthur Pridham.