Psalm 7 is a prayer, and offers praise to the Lord for deliverance.

Verse 1 opens with an affirmation of trust in the Lord, as well as a prayer to be saved from persecution. This touches on a key point: our relationship with the Lord goes both ways. The Lord can save us when we continually put our trust in Him; however, He cannot save us at a moment’s notice if we only call to Him in desperation (see Swedenborg’s work, True Christian Religion 329[4]).

The first two verses deal with this point well. If we are not living the Lord’s truths through our actions, there is nothing to deliver us when evils tear at our souls.

Verses 3 to 5 address the issue of intentional harm. If we - even as followers of the Lord - repay evil to someone who is at peace with us, this psalm declares that we will be overtaken by our enemies, trampled down, and our honor cast into the dust.

The spiritual meaning here is to acknowledge that we are all capable of evil. We all will stray from the Lord’s commandments from time to time, even if we tell ourselves that we could not, or would not wish to. Far better to admit this than to face the consequences of denial (see Swedenborg’s work, Arcana Caelestia 141).

Verses 6 to 11 pray for the Lord’s righteousness to prevail against evil. This middle section of the psalm presents a somewhat misleading picture of God’s anger; although the text tells us He is “angry with the wicked every day”, it is not individual people, but wickedness itself that He fights. This is supported by the beginning of verse 9: “Let the wickedness of the wicked come to an end.” He opposes wickedness because it prevents people from experiencing the joys of heavenly life.

The last part of the psalm describes the many ways that evil brings about its own downfall. This knowledge can help us understand our personal experiences with wickedness and temptation. If we become ensnared in evils, we will live in fear and suffering of our own making (Arcana Caelestia 3718).

Psalm 7 serves as a reminder that our true enemies are within, and become evident in our unregenerate and unrepentant states (see Swedenborg’s work, Divine Providence 147). We need to battle against these evils, so that they no longer hold power over us.

Taken collectively, the psalms describe the Lord’s inner states during his life in the world, which makes this idea especially relevant. Our work in regeneration mirrors His temptations and the work of glorifying His human.

141. Countless things can be said about the proprium - about what the proprium is like in the case of the bodily-minded and worldly man, what it is like in the case of the spiritual man, and what in the case of the celestial man. With the bodily-minded and worldly man the proprium is his all. He is unaware of anything else but the proprium. And, as has been stated, if he were to lose his proprium he would think that he was dying. With the spiritual man the proprium takes on a similar appearance, for although he knows that the Lord is the life of all, and that He confers wisdom and intelligence, and consequently the ability to think and to act, it is more a matter of something he says and not so much something he believes. The celestial man however acknowledges that the Lord is the life of all, who confers the ability to think and act, because he perceives that this is so. Nor does he ever desire the proprium. Nevertheless even though he does not desire it the Lord grants him a proprium which is joined to him with a complete perception of what is good and true, and with complete happiness. Angels possess a proprium such as this, and at the same time utmost peace and tranquillity, for their proprium has within it things that are the Lord's, who is governing their proprium, that is, governing them by means of their proprium. This proprium is utterly heavenly, whereas the proprium of the bodily-minded man is hellish. But more about the proprium further on.