Keep back your servant also from presumptuous sins; let them not have dominion over me: then shall I be upright, and I shall be innocent of great transgression.
Read Chapter 19
Augustine of Hippo
AD 430
14. "Cleanse me, O Lord, from my secret faults." From the lusts which lie hid in me, cleanse me, O Lord. "And from the" faults "of others preserve Thy servant" (ver. 13). Let me not be led astray by others. For he is not a prey to the faults of others, who is cleansed from his own. Preserve therefore from the lusts of others, not the proud man, and him who would be his own master, but, Thy servant. "If they get not the dominion over me, then shall I be undefiled." If neither my own secret sins, nor those of others, get the dominion over me, then shall I be undefiled. For there is no third source of sin, but one's own secret sin, by which the devil fell, and another's sin, by which man is seduced, so as by consenting to make it his own. "And I shall be cleansed from the great offence." What but pride? for there is none greater than apostasy from God, which is "the beginning of the pride of man." And he shall indeed be undefiled, who is free from this offence also; for this is the last t...
Those Or "from strangers "alienis, whose company we cannot avoid with too much caution. (Haydock)
Hebrew, "the proud. "It is conjectured (Berthier) that the Septuagint read r for d, in mizzedim. (Haydock) (Amama)
But this is not necessary, as they might include the proud, and all the wicked, under the name of "strangers "which term is particularly applicable to idolaters, (Isaias xiii. 11.) and all scandalous sinners, who are strangers to the law; and from whose society and dominion we may all beg to be delivered. (Berthier)
Spare. Hebrew, "free "(St. Jerome) or "withhold. "Nature is so prone to evil, that the prophet prays earnestly for grace to resist, or to be kept out of danger. (Haydock)
All sins cannot be avoided, but preserve me from wilfully committing any enormous crime. (Rivet)
Deliver me from the devil's power. (Theodoret)
Those who are in authority have much to dread, lest they be answerable for the sins of others, which they ought to have prevented; as all must fear ...
