Contemplative Bible Reading

Psalm 141:3-4 (New International Version 2011)

³ Set a guard over my mouth, LORD;
keep watch over the door of my lips.
⁴ Do not let my heart be drawn to what is evil
so that I take part in wicked deeds

This Psalm was written by King David. In verse 3, David asks the Lord to “watch over the door of my lips.” This request made sense. Poisoning via food or drink was a common method of killing a king at that time and for centuries to come. Kings actually had food tasters and such to detect poison.

Verse 4, however, tells me that David was not asking the Lord to protect him from poison that might enter his body from the outside. Instead, David was asking the Lord to protect his lips from evil that might come out from the inside.

This Psalm of David precedes the words of Jesus in Matthew 15:

¹⁰ Jesus called the crowd to him and said, “Listen and understand. ¹¹ What goes into someone’s mouth does not defile them, but what comes out of their mouth, that is what defiles them.”

In health-conscious America, at least we claim to be conscious of health, we wish someone would keep the food that adds pounds to already overweight bodies out of our mouths. We, however, don’t seem to spend much time, effort, or money on keeping hateful words from swelling inside us and spewing out of our mouths.

Lord, guard my lips and stop evil from exiting them.