Psalm 59 - The Righteous One's appeal against apostate Israel, to the Lord's might and mercy

"His own received him not." The Sweet Singer of Israel knew what it is to be cast of by those who should have been his closest friends; and it was on one of those occasions, when his father-in-law sent a band to take him, dead or alive, from his own house (1 Sam 19:14), that David was taught by the Holy Spirit to pour out his soul in these strains of strong appeal to justice and to mercy.

Perhaps it was at Ramah, when resting in Samuel's dwelling for a time, that this Psalm was written

• - a Psalm for David himself 
• - a Psalm for David's Son, when he too should be rejected by his own
• - a Psalm for all his followers when they would, in later ages, feel that the disciple is not greater than the Master. 

It is another Al-taschith and Michtam.

If a disicple, persecuted "for righteousness' sake" can confidently use the language of verse 4, saying "not for any particular crime in me, nor yet for general unholiness, but because I am yours; without being able to fix on anything to justify their hostility" - if a disicple can use this language, much more the Master.

And in this consciousness of being hated solely for "righteousness' sake," the Head and his members claim the help of the LORD as being:
1. God of hosts and therefore able
2. God of Israel and therefore willing (v5)

It seems to be apostate Israel (Tholuck says, heathen-minded Israel) who are primarily described  in verse 5 as "the heathen", these children of Abraham who are now children of the devilk - Israelites become Goim! (Isaiah 1:10).

They are in character and conduct like city dogs, prowling for prey, feeding on the filth of the town, scouring its streets as if to clear them of the godly.

But the LORD - he who in Psalm 2:4 was seen on teh throne of his glory deriding the kings of earth in their vain attempts - laughs at these impotent apostates.

In verse 7, the Psalmist complainingly utters, "for who is there that hears?"
And then verse 8 as one confident in God he exlaims:

His Strength (Yes, this is our stronghold - the idea flashes hope through the soul -
The LORD's strength - I will wait on you (v9)

The "sins of their mouth" may be especially their declared rejection of Messiah's grace. Then, an intecession ascends, like Elijah against Israel - a prayer that thee blind apostates may be scattered, though not destroyed from the earth.

The prayer of verse 13 -  "Consume them, in wrath consume them til they are no more..." reminds us of 2 Thess 2:16, "Wrath has come on them to the uttermost." As a nation, as a  kingdom, they are "consumed" but as a people they are "scattered," and men to earth's end are taught of Jacob's God by their doom.

It is a doom of retribution for their treatment of the righteous. A solemn "Selah" follows, like that which in verse 5 closed the prayer for divine interposition, that we may ponder the awful judgement, Jacob driven to the ends of the earth! (v13)

Now they are as hungry dogs in another sense than when they snarled at the godly - they prowl about the world for food (v14,15).

In spite of them, the Just One flourishes, singing of the LORD, mighty and merciful, and looks forward to a time when he shall sing louder still - a morning after a dark night, the resurrection-morning. "We contemplate when the morning is over, when the temptations of this world have passed, when robbers, the devil and angels we dread give us no fear, when we walk not by the lamp of prophecy but by the very Word of God, like the sun." (Augustine)

In verse 11, the Righteous One seems to see the sword hanging over apostate Israel, as when it was suspended over Jerusalem in the days of the pestilence that cut of 73,000 men of Isrrael.

Seeing this exterminating sword, he cries, "Slay them not!" He asks for a mitigation of their doom, even that which has been granted - their dispersion instead of their extirpation.  Let them be as Cain, Gen 4:12, "make them wander." 

Still, he fully agrees with the Lord as to their deserving wrath to the uttermost, and expresses this entire agreement in the closing verses.

It is therefore a Psalm in which the Head and members present their appeal against apostate Israel, and then consent to their long-enduring desoluation, in prospect of mercy breaking out of the gloom at last "in the Morning"

It is The Righteous One's appeal against apostate Israel, to the Lord's might and mercy.

Psalm 58 - The Righteous One reasoning with the ungodly in prospect of the day of vengeance.

Tholuck supposes that David was led to write this on the occasion of Joab murdering Abner. At any rate, it might suit that event. The Righteous One reasons with the ungodly in the prospect of their doom.

It is another Al-taschith and Michtam.

A difficulty meets us in verse 1, some rendering the Hebrew by a change in one letter, "You mighty ones, do you speak righteousness?" others retaining this as a verb, "Is justice then silent?" (Deut 1:16), or "Are you, then indeed dumb, so that you will not speak what is right?"  Horsley puts in this way: "Are you in earnest reflection when you talk of righteousness?"

It is addressed to "the sons of men" (v1), not rulers only, though to rulers also, as being among the sons of men. (See Psalm 82:6)
"The wicked are alienated (from God) from the womb;
The speakers of falsehood have gone astray as they are born (v3)

They are of the "seed of the serpent" and like the adder they hide their ears in the dust, in order not to be charmed, let the charmer chant however sweet and long. Men bury their conscience in the things of earth, and shut out the alluring sound of the tidings of love to the guilty.

Hence, judgement comes "woe to you, Chorazin" - woe to you, O earth, who have heard the offers of lover as the demands of law. In verses 6-9, the wrath is shown under which the mighty melt away "as a snail" suggesting (it has been thought) the idea of the filthy trail or mark which their beastly pollutions used to leave behind them.

The coming of the Son of man overtakes them. They are devising much and planning great schemes, but "before their pots can feel the blazing thorn", before their designs of ambition are reached, "he carries them away with a tempest" - the green and the dry, the sodden and the raw, their finished and their unfinished works, and themselves, too, with all their gratified and all their as yet ungratified desires.

There are seven similitudes: the lion's teeth broken; the torrents running off; the bow snapping apart; the snail wasting awway; the abortion that scarcely can be said to have had existence; the pots that never get time to feel the heart; the whirlwind that makes them its victim.

No doubt, at the sight of Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah, and Zeboiim, destroyed, angels saw cause to rejoice and sing, "Hallelujah."

Wickedness was swept away; earth was lightened of a burden; justice, the justice of God, was highly exalted; love to his other creatures was displayed in freeing them from the neighbourhood of such hellish contaminations. On the same principles, (entering, however, yet deeper int the mind of the Father, and sympathising to the full with his justice), the Lord Jesus himself and each one of his members shall cry "Hallelujah" over Antichrist's ruined army (Rev 19:3).

"The righteous shall rejoice when He sees the vengeance,
He shall wash his feet in the blood of the wicked." (v10)

He shall be refreshed at the end of his journey (John 13:5, Luke 7:44, Gen 18:4). He shall wipe off all the dust of the way, and end its weariness by entering into that strange, divine joy over sin destroyed, justice honoured, the law magnified, vengeance taken for the insult done to the Godhead, the triumph of the Holy One over the unholy.

It is not merely the time when that joy begins - it is also the occasion and cause of that day's rapturous delight. But what follows now?

It is said, v11, "And man shall say." Is not this the effect upon the world at large of turning them to know their God, his law, his justice, his hatred of sin, his love to his own? Now shall John 17:23 be fulfilled.

Seeing Christ and his bride, the Church, triumphant and glorified, "The world shall know that the Father sent him, and that the Father loved them as he loved Christ."

As they gaze on his and their enthroned glory, they shall confess, "Truly there is a reward for the righteous!" and shall bend their knee and say of Him who sits on the throne of his glory, with his princes who truly decree justice (Isaiah 32:1), "Truly, God judges the earth!"

Its government has come into the hands of the Just One and his saints; there is a God, there is a God who judges! O that the sons of men would hear in this their day! O that every ear was opened to these words of The Righteous One reasoning with the ungodly in prospect of the day of vengeance.

Psalm 57 - The Righteous One connecting his deliverance with the LORD's glory.

The title of the previous Psalm was peculiar and suitable to its theme. We may say the same of this Psalm: Al-taschith. i.e. destroy not; for it is suitable, whether taken as a musical term or as indicating the spirit breathed throughout.

We do not, however, think that it is taken from Deut 9:26, nor yet from 1 Sam 26:9 (as many writers suggest), where the sentiment occurs, addressed in the one case to God, in the other to man. We suspect it is a musical term of some sort, perhaps connected with the lofty ideas entertained regarding the harp and its accompaniments - the indestructible - common to all nations as an epithet of poetic and musical compositions.

Christ is the chief Speaker, entering into his own difficulties and those of his Church. The tone is such as we find in John 12:27,28, "Father, save me! Father, glorify your name!" But his people can use every word of it also. Perhaps the publican's prayer was drawn from the first verse, "O God, be merciful to me." (John 5:1)

The calamities, or rather the mischiefs of a malicious world and a malicious hell are spoken of, but spoken in order to fix our attention on the means of victory. The means of victory is (v2) "God Most high" God "who accomplishes all things" in spite of foes.

It is God too doing this with "mercy and truth" - the attributes that are prominent in redemption, kindness to the guilty in consistency with his adherence to everything his mouth has uttered.

"Selah" (v3) gives peculiar force to the words, "The devourer snorts at me! Selah." 

Stop, my soul, and ponder; for God sends help.

As for men they are as lions, in violence; or if you refer to their secret ways, they are equally to be distrusted' for their tongue scoffs at all that is holy (v4,6.)

They have fallen into their own pit - and another "Selah" calls us to ponder.

But God, God in his glory, let me ever be in his hands (v5,7)!

My heart is fixed, my glory (i.e. my soul) bursts into song, "I awake the morning dawn" to sing his praises. For full is He of tender mercy that reaches above the heavens, as well as of truth that stretches to the clouds, - such mercy and truth as was prayed for in v3, and which shines bright in all his redemption acts.

The issue must be glory to himself, infinite glory, glory above the heavens, glory above all the earth.

A flood of glory is to cover this earth above its highest mountains, to cover heaven, above its loftiest pinnacles.

The eye of the Psalmist is gazing on the ages to come in the New Heavens and New Earth, in which dwells righteousness.

David "in the cave" in the very presence of Saul, was taught by the Holy Spirit to sing this way for his own use and the use of the church, and the use of the Son of Man in the days of his flesh.

The Righteous One connecting his deliverance with the LORD's glory.

Psalm 56 - God's word enabling the Righteous One, amid his wanderings, to anticipate final rest.

The reason why fear gains ascendancy in a believing soul on occasions of danger and trouble is sententiously expressed by Augustine: "You see the magnitude of the evil; the power of the physician you do not see.

The faith which penetrates the unseen reaches the case. This Psalm, in verses 1,2, sets forth perils and evils in their magnitude, every day felt, every day repeating their vigorous assaults; but verses 3,4, declare the remedy.

"In the day of my fear, I will trust in you." (v3)

This is nothing less than the voice of the Master, of him who said in John 14:1,27, "Let not your heart be troubled, believe in God;" "Peace I give to you; not as the world gives, I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid."

"God I will extol - his Word." (v4)

I will rest my heart in God; I will praise God (Psalm 44:9, and v10 again); I will praise God with a special reverence to "his Word" - his promises, which are not like those of the world.

• David might refer to the Lord's special promise to him of the Seed who was to come - a promise that of course implied his preservation in order to his accomplishment.
• The Son of David has his eye on that same promise in another of its aspects, its implied engagement to supply strength and give victory. 
• Every believing one, in hours of darkness, reverts to that promise, saying to his soul, "He that spared not his own Son, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?"

It is thus that the Lord "magnifies his Word," making it felt to be the prominent and most attractive to sinful men of all his ways of revealing himself. (Psalm 128:2.)

The world goes on, adding sin to sin. The world goes on seeking daily to overthrow God by overthrowing his people' even as it sought to overthrow God by overthrowing his Son. (v5,6).

But: "Shall they escape by iniquity?" (v7) They have made a covenant with death and hell; shall it stand? No; if they were to escape by their iniquity, by their boldness in defying God, this would be a result wholly unlike the past dealings of God.  "God, in anger, has brought down the nations" (v7) and will do again on that day when their anger is hot against him (Rev 11:18)

On the other hand, He has never failed to take account of the wanderings and tears of his own. Their wandering and his bottle, correspond so far that every tear shed by them in their wanderings is in that bottle of his; as if he had travelled along with them through their wilderness, and never allowed one drop to reach the ground.

His bottle and his book of remembrance have preserved these precious tears; and if so, what good reason have we for exultation (v9-11) and for reiterating: "God I will extol - the Word!" (Fry suggests "God shall be the theme of my praise; He has spoken.)

I will praise the LORD, and why? That Word already referred to, v4, explains all. He has spoken. He has promised. All shall go on well. And then shall come the glorious issue: I shall walk before God in the light of the living. (v13)

Which, while not necessarily confined to the future, yet surely carries us forward to New Jerusalem days, when he who is "Life" and who by being so, is "the Light" of man, shall walk with his redeemed in the kingdom.

He himself is the grand example. His every tear was precious. His every step was marked. The book of remembrance has a record of these so vast, and ample and full, that, were it published here, "I suppose the world itself could not contain the volumes that could be written." 

He arose on the third day, "walking in the light of the living;" no more a prisoner in the darkness of the grave; no more subjected to the gloom of his Father's wrath; no more walking through the dark valley where love was withheld; entering on the endless brightness of divine favour at the right hand.

A believer's course resembles His, ending, too, in this unclouded noon of resurrection glory.

"O come that glorious morning, when the redeemed shall sing eternal praise to the God of salvation, for having delivered their souls from death, and feet from falling, that they might walk before him in the land of the living." (Horne)

One point we have not noticed. The title of this Psalm is peculiar. It is "Michtam" in common with Psalm 16 and many others. But it is also: Upon Jonath-elem-recho-kim. Hengstenberg renders this: The silent dove among strangers. This well expresses the substance of the Psalm, as being the breathing of the One who did not return reviling for being reviled, but groaned his sorrows in the ear of God. Yet we have reason to believe the titles refer to instruments "upon" which the tune was played. No doubt a tune and instrument suited to the subject, used on occasions of melancholy interest such as "Dove among strangers" may suggest.

In either view the title corresponds to what we gather up as the substance of the Psalm, written by inspiration when David had put himself into the hands of the Philistines, and was sore afraid (1 Sam 21:12) namely, God's word enabling the Righteous One, amid his wanderings, to anticipate final rest.

Psalm 55 - The Righteous One's weary soul resting in the certainty of what the Lord will do.

As before we have a Psalm on Neginoth and a Maschil, and then "Of David." We may read these strains as expressing David's feelings in some peculiar seasons of distress, and as the experiences of Christ's Church in every age; for we find much, very much, that accords altogether with humanity in a state of intensely stirred emotion, and affection wounded to the quick.

Yet still it is in Jesus, the Man of Sorrows, that the Psalm finds its fullest illustration. His was the soul that was stirred to its lowest depths by scenes such as those described here.

The quotation of 41:9 by our Lord is almost equivalent to the quotation of verse 13, they are so similarly worded.

It is the wickedness of the wicked that raises this mournful cry and makes him say: "I mourn in my complaint," or "give free course to my sorrow" (v2)

It is no unlikely that our Lord, possessed as he was of true humanity, might often give utterance to this expressive wish (v6), "O that I had wings as a dove," when seeing the turtle dove fly out from the olives of the Mount of Olives over guilty Jerusalem, the city in which He saw "violence and strife" - wickedness, deceit and guile, never absent from her streets.

Either there, or standing on some of the hills around Nazareth, He might witness the home-loving dove's swift flight. Paxton says, the dove when flying to its rest never rests on trees or the like as other birds, but uses one wing while the other rests.

He might hear its peace-suggesting note, and be led to this utterance of strong feeling, not at all unfit for Him who so rejoiced in the thought "And now I am no more in the world! Now I come to you, Holy Father" (John 17:11).

He to whom he was thought to bear so close a resemblance (Matt 16:14), the weeping prophet Jeremiah, gave utterance to this wounded feeling in strains that naturally took a similar form, "O that I had in the wilderness a lodging place" though only that of the wayfaring man! (9:2).

But the melancholy Psalmist here rises a degree beyond this - "I would remain in the desert" (v7)

Then there is a Selah pause, as there is in the middle of verse 19, indicating the calm, solemn state of soul in which these things were uttered.

The prayer in verse 9 reminds us of Babel, where the language of earth was divided that pride might be humbled forever, and its aims irretrievably baffled; while verse 15, "go quick to hell," at once recalls the doom of Korah and his company, who rejected the true High Priest, and the Lord's King in Jeshrun.

Our Lord describes Israel in verse 13, "hi s own" nation (John 1:11), though especially Judah one of his trusted ones who owned him as Master; and "my equal" signifies, "You who were by my side on equal terms."

He permits them to perish in unbelief, they having rejected the true Priest and King. He no longer plays the Intercessor's part toward such, but stands over them as Judge, pronouncing their doom.

Then in v16,17, we hear him express his confidence of full deliverance. "The twelve legions of angels" whom He might at any time have called to his help, have arrived, or rather He sees them on their way.

"For there are many with me.
God hears and answers,
Yes he sits enthroned forever. Selah. (v19)

It is a glance at future redress for every wrong, in the Day of Vengeance and the Year of the Redeemed.

In prospect of this, verse 22 invites us to cast our burden upon the Lord, whatever that burden is, even if it is the crushing weight of persecution, and reproach and treachery.

The Lord will "provide" as Joseph did, Gen 45:11,  and as 1 Kings 4:7, "the godly shall not be tossed about forever;" the Lord shall arise to hurl the foe into "the pit of destruction" (the lake of fire, Rev 20:15), in which Antichrist sinks forever.

In the last verse there is something of an enthymeme (and informal syllogism); for while the clause, "the bloody and deceitful men shall not live half their days" predicts and portrays their doom, as cut off by untimely judgement, the responsive clause, "And I will trust in you" tells of no proper converse, no judgement in favour of the godly.

But it nevertheless contains in it the equivalent to a declaration that his lot shall be the reverse of the bloody and deceitful. It is equivalent to saying, "We go different ways - they on the broad road, where ruin overtaken them speedily, and I on the safe road of faith in you, where I shall soon meet with Him whom unseen I loved, and in whom I believer, though as yet I have not seen him." 

Does not this Psalm depict - The Righteous One's weary soul resting in the certainty of what the Lord will do.

Psalm 54 - The Righteous One's help found in the Lord's name.

The title is such as we have already met with, "On Neginoth" and "Maschil;" and the occasion when it was first written is mentioned as the time when the men of Ziph informed against David.

The burden of this Psalm is simply - to what quarter should one look for help in times of trouble?

Wholly to the Lord. "Save me by your name" (v1), reminds us of John 17:11. We are kept by the putting forth of God's perfections on our behalf, truth, mercy, love, power, wisdom, holiness.

Our Lord was so kept by the Father, when he prayed in the words of verse 1, using them as his own, and giving his Church an instance in himself of that safe keeping.

The Selah pause of thoughtfulness in verse 3 is beautifully followed by "Behold" of verse 4. It is a silent prayer followed by confidence of an answer.

It is in verse 6 and 7 that the future dawns on our view. David, David's Son, and all who follow David's Son, may exult in the prospect of that sacrifice of thankfulness to be offered.

When delivered out of all distress, we shall look with triumph on our enemies; for as Calvin remarks (quoted by Hengstenberg), "Only let the eye be pure, and we can piously and holily refresh ourselves with the manifestations of God's justice."

That will be the time of the hallelujah in Rev 19:1-4, all resulting from his name glorified, his name manifested as "good" (v6.)

We have therefore in this short Psalm - The Righteous One's help found in the Lord's name.

Psalm 53 - The Righteous One's view of earth, and the victory of God's people.

The unknown instrument "Mahalath" (derived from the Ethiopic root 'to sing'), is here fixed on as the one to be used by "the chief Musician." And the music is to be sleected with care, for this Psalm is, like some others, one that has the mark "Maschil."

The state of earth ought to be deeply felt by us. The world lying in wickedness should occupy much of our thoughts. The enormous guilt, the inconceivable pollution, the ineffably provoking atheism of this fallen province of God's dominion, might be a theme for our ceaseless meditation and mourning.

To impress it the more on us, therefore, this Psalm repeats what has been already sing in Psalm 14. It is the same Psalm, with only a few words varied; it is "line upon line, precept upon precept;" the harp's most melancholy, most dismal notes again sounded in our ear.

Not that the Lord would detain us always or disproportionately long amid scenes of sadness, for elsewhere he repeats in like manner that most triumphant melody, Psalm 60:6-12, 113:6-13; but it is good to return now and then to the open field on which we all were found, cast out in loathsome degradation.

There is one variation of some interest. It is in verse 5. The words of 14:5 are referred to, but altered to express much more of triumph and victory on the part of God's despised ones; for the two passages run thus:

"There were they in great fear where no fear was,
For God has scatted the bones of the encamper against you.
You have put them to shame!
For God has despised them!" (Psalm 53)

"There were they in great fear,
For God is in the generation of the righteous.
You shamed the counsel of the poor,
Because the Lord is his refuge." (Psalm 14)

Besides substituting "Elohim" for the LORD throughout, the changes in the Psalm before us seem to have been made on purpose to declare emphatically the complete overthrow of the ungodly.

"You" is emphatic in verse 5, and like Isaiah 37:22, the verse expresses victory over the ungodly. The term in verse 6 is to be noted. In Psalm 14:6 it was, "O that the salvation were become" in this Psalm it is salvations. Full, entire deliverance.

On these grounds they may be right who suggest that Psalm 14 may be read as a report of the Son of man regarding the earth at his First Coming and 53 as his description of its state and prospects at his Second (see Ryland.)

There is certainly more said of the full victory; so that while we gave Psalm 14 the title of "The Righteous One's view of earth and its prospects" we are inclined to state the contents of this as- The Righteous One's view of earth, and the victory of God's people.