Psalms 141King James Version

An evening prayer for guarded speech. LORD, I cry; make haste; give ear when I cry. Let my prayer be set before you as incense; the lifting of my hands as the evening sacrifice. Set a watch over my mouth; keep the door of my lips. Do not incline my heart to evil or let me eat of the dainties of the wicked. Let the righteous smite me; it shall be a kindness. Our bones are scattered at the grave's mouth. My eyes are toward you; leave not my soul destitute.

The prayer for guarded speech is more urgent than the prayer for protection from enemies because the tongue's failure is closer than any external threat and the dainties of the wicked are more tempting than their swords.

verse: "Set a watch, O LORD, before my mouth; keep the door of my lips." The specific anatomical request: not wisdom in general but guard over the specific organ most likely to fail.

Superscription: 'A Psalm of David.' The evening setting is explicit (v2: evening sacrifice). The incense imagery recalls the tabernacle/temple ritual where incense was offered morning and evening (Exod 30:7-8). Part of the personal protection cluster (140-143) in the final Davidic collection.

David as the evening petitioner; God as the watchman requested for the mouth; the wicked whose dainties must be refused; the righteous who are asked to strike him as a kindness; enemies whose judges fall.

Psalm 141 was used as an evening prayer in Jewish liturgy and became the standard biblical text for Vespers in Christian monastic tradition, based on the incense and lifted hands imagery (v2). The request to be corrected by the righteous rather than complimented by the wicked (v5) is one of the most practically honest requests in the Psalter.

For the evening when you know your mouth has been the danger today, not the circumstances. The psalm's first request is for the thing most likely to betray you.