לַמְנַצֵּחַ אֶל־הַנְּחִילוֹת מִזְמוֹר לְדָוִד׃ - For the conductor, on the nechilot, a psalm of David.
Rashi, as is his way, first addresses the question of what "nechilot" means. He cites the words of Menachem, who explained them all: "nechilot", "alamot", "gitit", "yedutun" - all are names of musical instruments, and the tune of the psalm corresponded to the music suited for that instrument. That is, these are either names of musical instruments or names of melodies, with each song arranged according to a specific instrument and a specific melody.
Rashi also cites a Midrash Aggadah, as found in Midrash Tehillim Shocher Tov: It is not written "For the conductor, al hanachalah (on the inheritance)," but rather "el hanechilot" - concerning the inheritance with which you inherited Him and concerning the inheritance with which He inherited you. That is, we took Hashem as an inheritance for ourselves, and Hashem took us as an inheritance for Himself, as it says, "Yaakov is the lot of His inheritance." However, Rashi rejects this on two counts: first, "nechilot" is not "nachalot" - that is not the meaning of the word. And second, the entire psalm does not deal with matters of inheritance at all.
Therefore, Rashi explains that "nechilot" is related to a swarm (nechil) of bees, referring to military troops - many soldiers arriving in swarms, as in "the floods (nachalei) of Belial terrified me," which the Targum renders as "a band of the wicked." According to this, the entire prayer here is that David prays concerning the swarming troops of enemies advancing against Israel, turning to Hashem to rescue him from them, or thanking Him for delivering him from them.
The Radak explains that nechilot is a type of melody, but he also cites the commentary of Rav Hai Gaon, who likewise interprets "nechilot" as related to a swarm of bees - but in a completely different direction. According to Rashi, the swarm refers to the enemy against whom one prays, whereas according to Rav Hai Gaon, it describes the character of the music: the melody resembled the buzzing of bees. According to this, "el hanechilot" is not part of the body of the psalm, but part of its heading, as we have seen in previous psalms, where the superscription indicates which instrument is played and to which tune the psalm is to be sung.
Chazal say that the psalm was spoken concerning Doeg and Achitophel, David's enemies, and it was said against them. The Malbim divides the psalm into two parts: the first part up to verse 9, and the second part from verse 9 onward. The first part is a kind of introduction regarding prayer - in what manner a person should pray to Hashem, and how moved he must be when standing before Him, Blessed be He. The second part is a request in which David asks Hashem to guide him in paths of righteousness and to keep his enemies far from him.
אֲמָרַי הַאֲזִינָה יְהֹוָה בִּינָה הֲגִיגִי׃ - Give ear to my words, Hashem; perceive my meditation.
Rashi explains: When I have the strength to ask for my needs before You - "give ear to my words," I say what I have to say, ask for my needs, and You, Hashem, give ear to my words. But at times I do not even have the strength to pray, and then I ask "perceive my meditation" - understand the meditation of my heart, that which lies within my inner heart.
And this aligns very well with what we have already seen in the Malbim, that there are three levels: thought, meditation (hegyon), and speech. Thought is entirely in the heart, speech is entirely in the mouth, and hagiya is a slight utterance in the mouth. According to this: if I express my words with my mouth - "give ear, Hashem"; and if not, at least "perceive my meditation," that little bit which I manage to express with my mouth - listen to that as well and answer me.
The Malbim explains these verses based on the author of Sefer HaIkkarim, who writes that for prayer to be accepted, it must be complete in four respects. The first is elegance of expression and brevity of words - not to drag on excessively, but rather to pray a concise prayer without unnecessary elaboration. And we have no one more concise than Moshe Rabbeinu, who prayed: "Please, G-d, please heal her!"
The second requirement is that the inner thought and contemplation align with the spoken words. Unfortunately, this is one of the hardest challenges in prayer - the spoken words wander in one direction while the mind is somewhere entirely different. Concerning this it says, "understand my meditation": it is not enough for me to utter words with my mouth; there must also be contemplation, so that what I utter is accompanied by inner focus.
הַקְשִׁיבָה לְקוֹל שַׁוְעִי מַלְכִּי וֵאלֹהָי כִּי־אֵלֶיךָ אֶתְפַּלָּל׃ - Hearken to the voice of my cry, my King and my G-d, for to You I pray.
The third point cited by the Malbim is that one should not pray for things that are unnecessary. Therefore David says, "Hearken to the voice of my cry" - shav'i denotes a cry for salvation, someone praying over a genuine distress that has befallen him. Such a prayer is undoubtedly necessary. It is not like those frivolous, foolish requests, where someone prays for a certain soccer team to win a match and even holds a prayer service for it. That is an unnecessary prayer. But "hearken to the voice of my cry" - this is an authentic cry born of distress.
The fourth requirement is to trust in Hashem alone. When a person also places his trust in someone else, saying, as it were: "Master of the Universe, help me, because if so-and-so does not help me, I will need Your help" - the Holy One, blessed be He, says to him: "You have so-and-so; turn to him to help you." When a person does not view the Holy One, blessed be He, as the sole address, it is like serving Hashem through an intermediary, and the Holy One, blessed be He, says to him: "Go to whomever you want; let him help you." One must trust in Hashem alone and not in flesh and blood. Concerning this, the verse says, "for to You I pray" - to You alone. I place no hope in anyone else to bring salvation, and I pray to no one other than You.
There is a true story that was once related at length, which is worth mentioning here in brief. A man who built pergolas was audited by the tax authorities, and they told him he was in serious trouble - there was a major job for which he had no receipt. Everyone offered different advice: one said he knew someone who could forge retroactive receipts, another claimed he had relatives in the tax authority, and a third said there was a fixer who could solve the problem for a fee. At a certain point, the man said: "Master of the Universe, only You can help me." He abandoned everything, dropped all the efforts he had begun, and said: "I am doing nothing; only You will help me." And he strengthened himself greatly in trust in Hashem.
On the day he was summoned to the tax office for a hearing on his case, his wife came with him to keep him calm, fearing he might suffer a heart attack. The clerk flipped through the file and said to him, "You are in over your head." The man's heart sank even further. Then the clerk looked at him and said, "I don't know how to explain it to you, but it is as if 'Do not touch me' is written across your forehead." He said to him, "I am taking this file and putting it away in the archive. If someone opens it tomorrow and decides to reopen the audit, you're in trouble; if not, you have escaped on the doubt." And he told him, "From now on, be careful - record every single expense so you don't run into problems down the road." That man later said: The odds of that happening were one in a hundred - what one in a hundred, one in a million! But when the Holy One, blessed be He, is with me, and when it is "for to You I pray" - to You alone - then one truly merits salvation. But when you look to someone else to save you, the Holy One, blessed be He, says: "Rely on them; go to them; let them help you."
The Malbim raises an additional question: David already said "Give ear" (ha'azinah), so what does "Hearken" (hakshivah) add? As the Malbim explains in numerous places, ha'azanah refers to listening from close up, whereas hakshavah is listening from afar. Therefore, David asks: "Give ear to my words" - if I am close; and if I have distanced myself and am unworthy, then at the very least "hearken to the voice of my cry," for when one cries out for help, it is a shout, and the sound of a shout is heard even from afar.
The Malbim adds: When someone comes to cry out to a king, the king directs him to the judge - go to the judge, let him examine your case and issue a ruling. The judge, in turn, sends him back to the king, since only the king has the royal power to alter the sentence and decide. Therefore, David says, "my King and my G-d": You are my King - acting with the authority of the judge; and You are also my G-d - the One with the absolute power to change the verdict even when merit is lacking. Therefore, Master of the Universe, I turn only to You, for salvation comes from You alone.
יְהֹוָה בֹּקֶר תִּשְׁמַע קוֹלִי בֹּקֶר אֶעֱרׇךְ־לְךָ וַאֲצַפֶּה׃ - Hashem, in the morning You hear my voice; in the morning I direct [my prayer] to You and wait expectantly.
The Malbim explains: "In the morning You hear my voice" - early in the morning You hear my voice, meaning as soon as I pray, and I pray immediately in the morning. In explaining "in the morning I prepare for You," the Malbim offers a somewhat novel interpretation. Simply understood, it means: I arrange my prayer in the morning. But the Malbim explains: I compare You to the morning; You are appraised in my eyes like the morning, in the sense of the verse, "Who in the skies can be compared (ya'aroch) to Hashem?"
Why? Because the morning illuminates the darkness, and through it all the beasts of the forest that prowl and hunt at night disappear, as we recite in the psalm for Rosh Chodesh: "You make darkness, and it is night, in which all the beasts of the forest creep forth." When morning comes, the bandits and wild beasts retreat to their dens. And so I say: Master of the Universe, You are to me like the morning - You banish those beasts of the forest; You return souls to dead corpses. When You appear and are exalted, the righteous will rejoice and Your light will shine upon them, while the wicked will retreat to their dens, fall, and be punished, as Hashem executes judgment and justice upon them.
Furthermore, just as morning inevitably follows night, so do I expect that Your salvation will inevitably follow distress. If there is distress, "I look to You and wait" - I wait, because morning follows night. You are likened in my eyes to the morning: just as the morning is the salvation from the night, so will You be the salvation from the enemies.
Rashi explains the concept of the morning differently: the morning is the time of judgment for the wicked. Therefore, David says, "Hashem, in the morning You hear my voice" - for in the morning Hashem exacts retribution from the wicked, as it is said, "Every morning I will destroy all the wicked of the land," "Be their arm every morning," and "For morning by morning it shall pass through" - which is said regarding the enemy, that Hashem will come against them, subdue them, and distress them.
And where else do we find that Hashem executed judgment in the morning? With the people of Sodom. There it is written that the catastrophe occurred right at the end of the night, at the very onset of morning. Why? Because some believed in the god of the night, while others believed in the god of the day. Had He done so by day, they would have said: "At night He was unable, because the god of the night rules"; and had He done so by night, they would have said: "By day He was unable." What did the Holy One, blessed be He, do? He did it between night and day, right at daybreak, and then brought upon them sulfur and salt. From this we see that right with the arrival of morning, the Holy One, blessed be He, executes judgment upon the wicked.
And the Radak explains in a straightforward manner: "In the morning You hear my voice" - because the morning is man's time of prayer; before engaging in worldly affairs, he prays. Therefore I ask: Hashem, in the morning hear my voice, for morning is the time of prayer.
The opening of the psalm serves as a profound introduction to the concept of prayer. "El hanechilot" - whether as the name of a musical instrument or melody, whether referring to the enemy hordes arriving like a swarm (nachil), or whether as a tune resembling the humming of bees - David recites it against his adversaries. Within the body of the prayer itself, the four conditions of the author of Sefer HaIkkarim are fulfilled: conciseness and poetic elegance, harmony between inner thought and spoken words ("understand my meditation"), requesting only essential needs ("listen to the sound of my cry"), and placing trust in Hashem alone ("for to You I pray"). David addresses "my King and my God" - the Judge who renders judgment, and the God who has the power to alter the decree even without merit. Finally, "in the morning You hear my voice": the time of prayer, the time of judgment for the wicked, and in the words of the Malbim - You are compared in my eyes to the morning, for just as morning inevitably follows night, so inevitably will Your salvation follow distress.