Today’s Passage: Psalm 57
David prays this psalm from inside a cave, with death close enough to touch, and in the very middle of his own pleading he reaches for something far larger than his rescue: that the glory of God would fill the whole sky. Be exalted, O God, above the heavens, he says, and he says it twice, once at the center of the prayer and once again at its close, both times while he is still hidden underground.
As you read, hold this: Be exalted, O God, above the heavens.
Context When he fled from Saul into the cave
The heading does not tell us which cave it was, and two episodes would fit. There is Adullam (1 Samuel 22:1), and there is En Gedi (1 Samuel 24:3), both of them real limestone caverns, both of them moments when Saul’s pursuit had backed David down into the ground. Scripture never settles which one, and we should not choose one simply to sound more certain than the text allows.
Psalm 57:1 (BSB)
For the choirmaster. To the tune of “Do Not Destroy.” A Miktam of David, when he fled from Saul into the cave.
¹ Have mercy on me, O God, have mercy, for in You my soul takes refuge. In the shadow of Your wings I will take shelter until the danger has passed.
He asks for mercy twice over. He is already tucked inside a hiding place of stone, and still he asks for a covering that stone cannot give, the shelter of God’s own wings until the danger has passed. Notice that he does not pretend the danger is gone. He waits it out under God while it is still very much upon him.
Psalm 57:2-4 (BSB)
² I cry out to God Most High, to God who fulfills His purpose for me. ³ He reaches down from heaven and saves me; He rebukes those who trample me. Selah God sends forth His loving devotion and His truth. ⁴ My soul is among the lions; I lie down with ravenous beasts—with men whose teeth are spears and arrows, whose tongues are sharp swords.
He calls upon God Most High, the One who stands above every threat closing in on him, the lions included. And verse 4 is not poetic decoration. In the place where David is sitting, words themselves have come to cut like weapons, teeth like spears and arrows, tongues like sharpened swords.
Psalm 57:5 (BSB)
⁵ Be exalted, O God, above the heavens; may Your glory cover all the earth.
Word study "Be exalted" — rum (Psalm 57:5)
Hebrew: רוּמָה (rumah), from רוּם (rum), pronounced room. Strong’s H7311. To rise. To be high. To be lifted up.
It comes as an imperative, not as a calm description of greatness observed from a safe distance. It is a request that God’s own height be put on open display, above the very heavens, at the moment when David’s own circumstances could hardly sink any lower. He is hidden, he is underground, and the plain geography of the prayer makes its own quiet argument: the lower he is brought, the higher he asks the glory of God to rise.
This is the first of two identical lines, and it is the hinge on which the whole rest of the psalm turns.
Psalm 57:6 (BSB)
⁶ They spread a net for my feet; my soul was despondent. They dug a pit before me, but they themselves have fallen into it! Selah
The very trap they set for him becomes the trap they fall into themselves. And notice that David does not claim he pushed them in. He simply watches the pit do its own work, the snare turning back upon the ones who dug it.
Psalm 57:7-8 (BSB)
⁷ My heart is steadfast, O God, my heart is steadfast. I will sing and make music. ⁸ Awake, my glory! Awake, O harp and lyre! I will awaken the dawn.
Steadfast, and he says it twice, the way a man steadies his own heart by naming what he means to do. My heart is steadfast, O God, my heart is steadfast. I will sing. He talks himself into the resolve that the rest of the verse then goes out and acts upon. He will not sit and wait for morning to make him glad. He sets himself to wake the dawn instead, his praise arriving before the sun does.
Psalm 57:9-10 (BSB)
⁹ I will praise You, O Lord, among the nations; I will sing Your praises among the peoples. ¹⁰ For Your loving devotion reaches to the heavens, and Your faithfulness to the clouds.
He is still hidden in the cave, yet his praise has already widened out far past his own survival. He speaks of the nations and the peoples, an audience he has no earthly way of reaching from the place where he is sitting. The song is already bigger than the singer’s trouble.
Psalm 57:11 (BSB)
¹¹ Be exalted, O God, above the heavens; may Your glory cover all the earth.
The refrain returns exactly as it first came, word for word, and nothing visible has changed between the two sayings of it. What he has said twice over is simply what he longs to be true regardless of the cave, whether or not his own rescue ever arrives.
Be exalted, O God, above the heavens.