The Psalmist gives hope to the one trusting Yahwah’s Word in the face of the lies, half-truths, and the resulting hypocritical behavior of the wicked. Yet, at the same time, however, he paints a two-fold bleak picture of 1) the disappearance of men of steadfastness and loyalty and 2) the oppression and violence suffered by the poor who are afflicted at the hands of the wicked.

For the director of music [to be played] on the shamanah (probably an instrument with eight strings). A hymn of David.למנצח על-השמינית מזמור לדוד

Save/Deliver, Yahwah, for the man who practices steadfast, loyal love has come to an end. For the faithful have disappeared from among the sons of man. הושיעה יהוה כי גמר חסיד  כי פסו אמונים מבני אדם. ‘Hesed’ (חסד) is the characteristic of Yahwah’s love extolled by David. David considers this same type of love to be a person’s most important quality as they emulate before others Yahwah’s ‘hesed’ for them. The fact that such men are no longer present can only bode ill for Yahwah’s people and despair for those who lack the means to fend for themselves in the face of undeterred wickedness.

They speak unrestrained evil, destruction, and vanity with one another [with] smooth lips (or ‘lips of hypocrisies’). שוא | ידברו איש את-רעהו: שפת חלקות The Hebrew word shahwuh (שוא) contains explicit negative connotations, all three broad meanings of which are depictions of the speech of the wicked. David elaborates by caricaturing the wicked, because they speak in this manner, as ‘smooth lips.’ Picture a pair of giant lips smacking incessantly as they spew emoticons representing words that are evil and meant to destroy either the co-locator or a third party, but that puff themselves up. The phrase translated as ‘with one another’ is composed of the noun ‘איש’ (‘man,’ but in this case, ‘each’) + the preposition ‘את’ (‘with’) + the noun ‘רעה‘ (‘acquaintance,’ ‘companion,’ ‘friend’; ‘beloved,’ ‘lover’; ‘neighbor’+ the pronominal suffix ו (his). Literally, the phrase can be translated as ‘each with his friend/lover/neighbor.’ Although the lexicon gloss for the phrase is as I have translated it, to translate the phrase literally has merit. I do not believe it is to force an unintended meaning onto the verse to suggest that the picture David has created for us is of the ultimate relationship between the unredeemed. As the saying goes, ‘Birds of a feather flock together.’ The unredeemed (i.e., the wicked) have only their self-interest in mind. Toward the one they call ‘friend,’ their intentions are only evil and destruction, which, in point of fact, is reciprocal. The redeemed acquaintance and neighbor, on the other hand, are to be ‘as wise as serpents,’ to discern the true intents of the wicked toward them. As regards ‘lover[s],’ the reason so many marriages between an unredeemed man and an unredeemed woman or between one who is redeemed and one who is not is that unredeemed love is directed toward self; the marriage relationship can only last as long as the unredeemed partner is experiencing self-fulfillment at the expense of the other. In all these cases, hypocrisy is always the vehicle.

They speak with a double heart. May Yahwah cut [off] all lips of hypocrisies בלב ולב ידברו       יכרת יהוה כל שפתי חלקות David now elaborates concerning the lips of the wicked, that in addition to the above, they intend to deceive, which is the meaning of the Hebrew phrase ‘to speak with a double heart.’ David appeals to Yahwah in an imprecatory prayer that He silence the wicked by cutting off their lips, thus making it impossible for them to form evil, destructive, vain, and deceitful words.

and the tongue of the boastful (lit.: tongue that speaks great things) ולשון מדברת גדולות While the lips form the words, the tongue produces the sounds that create the words that are propelled out of the mouth. Although speech is a cognitive process, it is the heart, which, we are told “is desperately wicked,” as the repository of the desires and intents of human will, is the origin of those words. To stem this relentless tide of profane verbiage being generated from the unredeemed heart, David imprecatorily calls for Yahwah to cut [out] the tongue of the wicked.

Who say, “We have made our tongue powerful; our lips are with us who is lord to us?” אשר אמרו ללשוננו נגביר שפתינו אתנו מי אדון לנו David is aware that the wicked consider their tongue to be a weapon, which they have sharpened and with which they have become skilled, in order to wage psychological and even spiritual warfare against all others, for all others are their enemy. [I have drawn the analogy ‘to wage warfare’ based on the noun form of the verb gaahbair > gehbear, one meaning of which is a ‘war-like man,’ ‘warrior.’] They credit their lips with coming alongside them as co-belligerents that serve as enablers in the skilled use of their sharpened weapon, the tongue. No one, they proudly declare, is their equal to dare contend with them.

Because of the oppression of the poor, because of the violent treatment of the miserable/wretched משוד עניים,מאנקת אביונים David is keenly aware that the wicked take unscrupulous advantage of the poor, who are unable to provide for themselves; and take strongarm tactics against the miserable/wretched, who are unable to defend themselves, for their own selfish profiteering.

Shortly I will arise, says Yahwah. עתה אקום יאמר יהוה But David hears Yahwah’s declaration to act soon, it being understood, in opposition to the wicked, who have essentially issued a foolish challenge to none other than the Lord of the universe.

I will place in security/safety/freedom/deliverance/salvation the one who pants for it. אשית בישע יפיח לו David trusts Yahwah to come to his aid and set him free of, and deliver him from, the torrid stream of bilious accusations and recriminations gushing on him from the wicked. David anticipates above all Yahwah’s salvation from evil. [I have highlighted ‘salvation‘ specifically because the highlighted Hebrew word is the basis for the name of haMoshiah, Yeshua (ישוע).] Delitzsch is in keeping with the poetic style of the Psalms when he draws the analogy that David pants for Yahwah’s deliverance just as “the deer pants for streams of water” in Psalm 42:1. Although the Hebrew verbs used are different (yahfiak (יפיח) here; ta’arog (תערג) in Ps. 42), they are synonymous to the extent that they both intimate ‘longing’ and ‘desire.’

The words of Yahwah are pure words אמרות יהוה אמרות טהורות David switches his focus from the profane, injurious, flaunting words of the wicked to the pure words of Yahwah, words that are true and faithful, demonstrating His loyal love, His hesed, to David. This is the same loyal love that David, at the beginning of his poem, had bemoaned was no longer to be found among men. The point that David is making is that whereas faithful men who had experienced Yahwah’s loyal love and were thus able to display the same loyal love in service and devotion to him had abandoned him, Yahwah had not abandoned him to the wicked. David could rely on Yahwah‘s beautiful words of His salvation. 

Silver purified in the crucible כסף צרוף בעליל It is my unscientific opinion that David compares Yahwah’s words to silver because while silver is a precious metal, just as Yahwah’s words are precious, it is more abundant than gold, just as Yahwah makes His words readily available to the one whose heart is attuned to Him. But, unlike the earthly element of silver, they neither tarnish nor corrode so that the one who relies on the pure silver of Yahwah’s words will have neither his name tarnished nor reputation corrupted by the evil, destructive, and vain words of the wicked.

To the ground refined seven-fold לארץ מזוקק שבעתים I quote Delitzsch’s commentary here: “‘…Silver, which, when purified in the furnace, flows down to the ground, one may see in every foundry; the pure smelted silver flows down out of the smelting furnace, in which the ore is heaped up.’ … God’s word is pure silver that has flown off and left all dross behind it, silver that has as it were passed seven times through the furnace and is therefore altogether free of alloy and very precious. Silver is an emblem of everything that is precious and pure, and seven is the number of the completed process.”

You Yahwah will guard them אתה-יהוה תשמרם Grammatically, the objective masculine plural pronoun ‘eem‘ (ם) indicates that David is referring to the poor and miserable/wretched, against whom the wicked are acting with impunity, it would seem. But David expresses his confidence that Yahwah has His eyes on both the evil doers and those suffering the consequences and will protect the latter from the rapacious appetites of the wicked. 

You will watch over him | from this generation to eternity תצרנו | מן הדור זו לעולם It is fairly straightforward about whom David is writing when he refers to ‘them,’ but who is the object of Yahwah’s watchful eye? Because of the disappearance of the man whose heart has been changed by Yahwah’s hesed to become a bearer of that quality himself, it is my reading of the text that David, in the first instance, is referring to himself in the third person, for he is such a man whose love for Yahwah consumes him. More importantly, the Holy Spirit has given David spiritual eyes to envision the future coming of Yeshua, the promised Redeemer Son, Who, although passing through the fiery crucible of the crucifixion, death, and burial, God would raise Him to be “seated at the right hand of the Majesty on High.”

The wicked walk about on every side סביב רשעים יתהלכון David resigns himself to the wicked’s presence everywhere. There is no reprieve from the onslaught of heinous treatment that the wicked inflict on each other, on the righteous, and on the poor and needy.

When/As vileness is exalted among the sons/children of men.  ב/כרום זולות לבני אדם Not only are wicked omnipresent in the execution of their villainous deeds but the world has been deluded into admiring both the deeds and those who perpetrate them.