Today’s Passage: Psalm 7
David does not only protest that he is innocent. He goes further and tells God what ought to happen to him if he is not, and that is a far riskier prayer than a simple denial. He begins with refuge, and then he swears an oath, and then he asks for a court, and at the last he gives thanks before any verdict has been announced.
As you read, hold this: I take refuge in You. Judge me if I am guilty.
Context Cush the Benjamite — and how little more we know
“A Shiggaion of David, which he sang to the LORD concerning the words of Cush, a Benjamite.” The word Shiggaion is a rare one, and the translation’s own note calls it a musical or liturgical term; it turns up only once more, over Habakkuk 3. Cush is never named anywhere else in Scripture. Because he is a Benjamite, the natural guess is that he belonged to Saul’s tribe, and that his words were an accusation in the years when Saul hunted David. But that is only a guess drawn from a single clue, for the psalm itself never explains the charge. What it does show us is David’s response to a false word he cannot un-say in public.
Psalm 7:1-2 (BSB)
A Shiggaion of David, which he sang to the LORD concerning the words of Cush, a Benjamite.
¹ O LORD my God, I take refuge in You; save me and deliver me from all my pursuers, ² or they will shred my soul like a lion and tear me to pieces with no one to rescue me.
The heading is part of the text, and David sang all of this. Before he offers a single word in his own defense, the first image is a chase: a lion closing in, and no one there to rescue him. Refuge is the first word of the prayer, not the last.
Psalm 7:3-5 (BSB)
³ O LORD my God, if I have done this, if injustice is on my hands, ⁴ if I have rewarded my ally with evil, if I have plundered my foe without cause, ⁵ then may my enemy pursue me and overtake me; may he trample me to the ground and leave my honor in the dust. Selah
Study notes An oath that puts his life on the table
This is not a simple “I didn’t do it.” It is an old legal form, in which a man names the charge inside an if and then names the punishment he is willing to accept should that if prove true. If I repaid an ally with harm, if I plundered a man who had given me no cause, then let the enemy catch me and trample me and leave my honor in the dust. He is offering his own life as collateral, and not merely asking to be believed.
Psalm 7:6-8 (BSB)
⁶ Arise, O LORD, in Your anger; rise up against the fury of my enemies. Awake, my God, and ordain judgment. ⁷ Let the assembled peoples gather around You; take Your seat over them on high. ⁸ The LORD judges the peoples; vindicate me, O LORD, according to my righteousness and integrity.
The oath requires a court. David does not ask God to take his word in private; he asks Him to sit down, to gather the peoples, and to rule. Vindicate me, he prays, and the ground he stands on is the very integrity he has just put under oath.
Psalm 7:9-11 (BSB)
⁹ Put an end to the evil of the wicked, but establish the righteous, O righteous God who searches hearts and minds. ¹⁰ My shield is with God, who saves the upright in heart. ¹¹ God is a righteous judge and a God who feels indignation each day.
Hearts and minds: this is the hidden inner life that no human court can open. David can invite that search because verses 3–5 have already placed him under it. God is not a bored referee, for He feels indignation each day. The Judge is not neutral toward evil.
Psalm 7:12-16 (BSB)
¹² If one does not repent, God will sharpen His sword; He has bent and strung His bow. ¹³ He has prepared His deadly weapons; He ordains His arrows with fire. ¹⁴ Behold, the wicked man travails with evil; he conceives trouble and births falsehood. ¹⁵ He has dug a hole and hollowed it out; he has fallen into a pit of his own making. ¹⁶ His trouble recoils on himself, and his violence falls on his own head.
The sword is already sharpened and the bow already bent, and yet the unnamed “one” is still being given room to repent. Then comes the old picture: a man digs a pit and falls into it himself.
Word study Two pits — bor and shachath (Psalm 7:15)
Hebrew: בּוֹר (bor), pronounced bohr, Strong’s H953, is a hole, a cistern. Beside it stands שַׁחַת (shachath), pronounced shah-KHAHT, Strong’s H7845, a pit dug as a trap, and in other lines ruin itself. He digs the one kind of hole, and he falls into the other.
"He who digs a pit will fall into it, and he who rolls a stone will have it roll back on him." Proverbs 26:27 (BSB)
Verse 16 does not show God shoving the man into the pit. It shows his own trouble recoiling upon him by its own weight.
Psalm 7:17 (BSB)
¹⁷ I will thank the LORD for His righteousness and sing praise to the name of the LORD Most High.
The chase ends in thanks. The text never tells us how the case was finally closed, and yet David trusts the Judge enough to thank Him before the verdict is ever read. I take refuge in You. Judge me if I am guilty.