EXPOSITION
This psalm, which, like the six preceding it, is declared by the title to be "a Psalm of David," is a song of thanksgiving for the defeat of some foreign enemy. It is the first of what are called "the alphabetic psalms;" but the law of alphabetic order is applied in it somewhat loosely and irregularly. All the four lines of the first stanza commence with aleph; but after this it is only the first line of each stanza that observes the law. And even this amount of observance is neglected in the last stanza. The poem is one of the most regular in its structure of all the psalms, consisting as it does of ten equal strophes of four lines each. The words in the title, "upon Muth-labben," have been variously explained; but no explanation hitherto given is satisfactory.