(4) Overthrow my goings.--Literally, thrust aside my steps. The verse is a repetition, with variation, of Psalm 140:1.

Verse 4. - Keep me, O Lord, from the hands of the wicked; preserve me from the violent man. A repetition of ver. 1 in a modified form. The fact of iteration indicates the extremity of the psalmist's need. Who have purposed to overthrow my goings; i.e. to bring me to destruction (comp. Psalm 17:5).

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.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.