Today’s Passage: Psalm 59
The danger here is not off in the wilderness somewhere. It is standing just outside his own door. Saul has sent men to watch the house, and David does not yet know whether he will live to see the morning. He prays anyway, and by the time the psalm is finished, before a single thing has changed and while the danger is still pressing on the walls, he has already begun to sing toward it.
As you read, hold this: I will sing of Your strength in the morning.
Context Watched by night — 1 Samuel 19:11–12
The title over this psalm tells us exactly when it was prayed: “when Saul sent men to watch David’s house in order to kill him.” The book of First Samuel fills in the scene. Saul sent his messengers to watch the house and to kill David in the morning, and his wife Michal warned him that if he did not run that very night he would be a dead man by daybreak. So she lowered him down through a window, and he ran. This psalm comes from inside that surrounded house, most likely from the very hours before that window became his only way out.
Psalm 59:1-2 (BSB)
For the choirmaster. To the tune of “Do Not Destroy.” A Miktam of David, when Saul sent men to watch David’s house in order to kill him.
¹ Deliver me from my enemies, O my God; protect me from those who rise against me. ² Deliver me from workers of iniquity, and save me from men of bloodshed.
He begins with the plainest words a frightened man can find. Deliver me. Protect me. Deliver me. Save me. There is no elaborate argument here yet, only the request itself, laid down twice over.
Psalm 59:3-5 (BSB)
³ See how they lie in wait for me. Fierce men conspire against me for no transgression or sin of my own, O LORD. ⁴ For no fault of my own, they move swiftly to attack me. Arise to help me, and take notice. ⁵ O LORD God of Hosts, the God of Israel, rouse Yourself to punish all the nations; show no mercy to the wicked traitors. Selah
He pleads his innocence, and again he says it twice. No transgression of my own. No fault of my own. This is not a man who brought the trouble on himself. He is being hunted for reasons that have nothing to do with any wrong he has done. And then he reaches for the largest titles he knows, the LORD God of Hosts, the God of Israel, and sets them against a threat standing right there outside the walls.
Psalm 59:6-8 (BSB)
⁶ They return in the evening, snarling like dogs and prowling around the city. ⁷ See what they spew from their mouths—sharp words from their lips: “For who can hear us?” ⁸ But You, O LORD, laugh at them; You scoff at all the nations.
This verse will return, almost word for word, at verse 14. The enemies’ boast, who can hear us, is answered here at once: God hears these snarling kelev, pronounced KEH-lev. Strong's H3611, dog. In that world the word rarely carried any affection. It brought to mind ownerless scavengers, the kind that circled a city after dark and snarled over scraps, creatures thought of as contemptible rather than beloved. David is not describing loyal companions at all. He is picturing his enemies as what a city’s stray dogs were understood to be: unwanted and unclean, prowling in the dark for whatever they could get. as plainly as anyone, and He is not the least bit intimidated by what so frightens David.
Psalm 59:9-10 (BSB)
⁹ I will keep watch for You, O my strength, because You, O God, are my fortress. ¹⁰ My God of loving devotion will come to meet me; God will let me stare down my foes.
His own watching mirrors their prowling, only it is aimed the other way. He keeps watch toward God, while they keep watch toward their prey.
Psalm 59:11-13 (BSB)
¹¹ Do not kill them, or my people will forget. Scatter them by Your power, and bring them down, O Lord, our shield. ¹² By the sins of their mouths and the words of their lips, let them be trapped in their pride, in the curses and lies they utter. ¹³ Consume them in wrath; consume them till they are no more, so it may be known to the ends of the earth that God rules over Jacob. Selah
Study notes Teach the hard middle
Do not kill them, he prays, or my people will forget. And then, a few lines on, consume them till they are no more. Two requests, but one aim behind them: first a public humiliation the nation would actually see and remember, and then judgment itself. Notice that neither line describes anything David does with his own hand. He asks God to do it, handing the whole matter over to Him rather than taking it up himself. So teach these lines as they stand. Do not baptize revenge, and do not sand the hard words down into a passing mood. The church has never settled on one tidy technique for praying a psalm like this, and this house will not pretend to hand you one. What it will not do is cut the psalm.
Psalm 59:14-15 (BSB)
¹⁴ They return in the evening, snarling like dogs and prowling around the city. ¹⁵ They scavenge for food, and growl if they are not satisfied.
The refrain comes back exactly as before. The enemies have not gone anywhere, and the threat outside is no smaller than it was. What has changed is not the danger at all. It is what David has decided to do with it.
Psalm 59:16-17 (BSB)
¹⁶ But I will sing of Your strength and proclaim Your loving devotion in the morning. For You are my fortress, my refuge in times of trouble. ¹⁷ To You, O my strength, I sing praises, for You, O God, are my fortress, my God of loving devotion.
In the morning, he says. And as he writes it he still does not know whether he will live to see that morning come. He is singing toward a daybreak he cannot promise himself, on the very night his wife is about to lower him through a window and send him running for his life. His resting place is not that the danger has passed, for it has not. It is that God is his fortress, his God of steadfast love.
I will sing of Your strength in the morning.