Psalm 27:12
Deliver me not over unto the will of mine enemies: for false witnesses are risen up against me, and such as breathe out cruelty.
Deliver me not over unto the will of mine enemies,.... It is a dreadful thing for a man to be given up to his own heart's lusts, and to be delivered up into the hands of Satan; who would fain have even the people of God themselves in his hands, that he might distress them at pleasure, if not destroy them; and also to be suffered to fall into the hands of wicked men, whose tender mercies are cruel;
for false witnesses are risen up against me; laying to his charge, that he sought to take away from Saul his crown and kingdom, and even his life, 1 Samuel 24:9;
and such as breathe out cruelty; as Doeg the Edomite, whose tongue was as a sharp razor, and by whose hands four score and five priests were slain, on account of David's being supplied with bread by Ahimelech; the word is in the singular number; see Psalms 52:1; compare with this clause Acts 9:1; and Horace's phrase, "Spirabat amores" {l}.
{l} Carmin. l. 4. Ode. 13. v. 19.