Psalms 31:20

(20) The secret of thy presence.—Better, in the hiding-place of thy countenance, a beautiful thought and common in the Psalms, although expressed by different images. In Psalms 27:5, “the hiding-place of his tabernacle;” 61:4, “of his wings;” 91:1, “of his shadow.”

The form the same image takes in the Christian’s hope is beautifully expressed by Tennyson:“To lie within the light of God as I lie upon your breast,And the wicked cease from troubling and the weary are at rest.”

Pride.—Better, rough or wrangling talk, as the parallelism shows and the LXX. confirm; and, referring back to Psalms 31:18, Gesenius renders the word “conspiracies.”