Psalm 141: Evening Incense

Psalm 141 opens with a striking liturgical claim. "Let my prayer be counted as incense before you, the lifting up of my hands as the evening sacrifice." The evening sacrifice in the second temple was offered around three in the afternoon according to Josephus and the Mishnah, though the term covers the late afternoon to dusk window. Incense was offered with it. The smoke was understood as the prayers of Israel rising. David, writing earlier and likely without access to the central sanctuary at the moment of composition, is saying that his words and his raised hands are themselves the offering. This is one of the clearest Old Testament statements that prayer can substitute for sacrifice when sacrifice is unavailable.

The unusual move comes in verse 3. Before asking for deliverance from enemies, David asks God to guard his own mouth. "Set a guard, O LORD, over my mouth, keep watch over the door of my lips." The verb is military. He wants a sentry posted at his teeth. He continues by asking that his heart not incline to any evil thing, that he not eat the dainties of evildoers. The psalm understands that the most dangerous threat to a man under pressure is not what his enemies will do to him but what he will do to himself in response. He may speak rashly. He may take the wrong meal at the wrong table. He may be flattered into compromise.

The closing section returns to the threat from outside. The wicked are still there, the snares are still set, the traps are still laid. But the psalm has already done its primary work. By asking first for the guarded mouth, David has put his own integrity ahead of his own safety. The final verse asks that the wicked fall into their own nets while "I escape." The Hebrew is short and clipped, almost a whispered hope. The whole psalm has the shape of a lamp lit at evening. It does not pretend the night is not coming. It asks only that the speaker be kept honest until the morning.