Psalm 57

1 Be merciful to me, O God, be merciful to me, for in you my soul takes refuge; in the shadow of your wings I will take refuge, till the storms of destruction pass by.

David states his central proposition in the first lines with parallel repetition that drive home the fervency of his prayer and his strength of his confidence. First, his prayer for mercy is founded upon his belief that God is good. He appeals to the benevolent nature of God to intervene on his behalf. His world is falling apart, his life is literally on the line, and he’s lost all that was once certain. He draws strength from the one thing that he knows does not change -- the character of God, and he knows that God is first and foremost good and kind. Based on his past experience with God’s benevolence, David declares that the deepest part of his being, his soul takes refuge in God himself. Employing a frequent metaphor in the Psalms, David imagines himself as a young bird taking refuge in the shadow of the winds of a mothering bird. As the storms of destruction beat him with rain, wind and hail, the blows are taken by the adult bird while her young are sheltered from their fury. Birds and nests are pretty amazing things. These small animal craft shelters in trees and bushes that are low enough to the ground to be safe from the high winds and rains above and high enough from the ground to be safe from predators below. The bowl-shaped nest protects the young chicks on all sides except for the top where the mother bird covers them with her waterproof feathers under her wings. The amazing interlocking design of feathers and the oil that covers them to help them shed water makes them the perfect shelter. Instinctually, the parenting bird will place their life and body on the line for their young. This is the way God cares for us. By nature he protects us from harm, even to the point of giving his own life to save us. If that is how God cares for the birds of the sky, how much more will He care for you? Next time it storms, think of the birds who are sheltering in nests in trees and shrubs. It’s windy, wet, and cold, but they by nature protect the vulnerable in the same way that God protects us. 

2 I cry out to God Most High, to God who fulfills his purpose for me.

3 He will send from heaven and save me; he will put to shame him who tramples on me. Selah God will send out his steadfast love and his faithfulness!

David uses three different names for God in verse 2. He cries out to Elohim Elyon El -- God Most High God. The term “most high” is a reference to the fact that there are multiple gods. In David’s world these were the gods of the nations, each having their own unique nationalistic function. And even though in our modern world we’ve debunked the idea that there are gods in every storm and harvest, we still make impotent things omnipotent -- technology, youth, power, beauty, fame, pleasure, wealth -- all of these gods are worshiped universally and elevated to the status of “most high.” David’s statement that Elohim is “most high” is his assertion that He is above all other gods in David’s life. This same God “brings to an end” or “completes” (all things) in David’s life. The ESV says that God “fulfills his purpose for me.” David has been anointed king of Israel and yet he is hiding in a cave. He knows God has a purpose for him because of that anointing, and thus he is confident that God is able to deliver on that promise. Knowing that God has a purpose for you is a powerful reality in your life. Many people search for meaning in life and ultimately give up. I don’t mean they commit suicide, but they settle for existence rather than fulfilling God’s purpose for their lives. Because David knows why he is on the earth and because he knows that God designed him for that purpose, he can say with confidence that God will send from heaven to save him. He will turn the situation around so that David’s oppressors are the ones who are hiding in a cave so to speak. God will act demonstrating two of his character traits: steadfast love and truth/faithfulness. Convinced of these two things, David can ride out the storm from the safety of his cave while God works things out on the outside. In the context of this psalm, if this is the cave at Adullam, God is working through the Philistines to distract Saul from his pursuit. If this is the cave at Ein Gedi, God is working to deliver David’s enemy Saul into his hands so that David can spare his life and demonstrate his good intentions toward him. God is orchestrating these things outside the cave, beyond David’s control. The lesson for us is clear. While God shelters us in a cave of protection, He is at work outside, bringing to completion his purpose for us, shaming the enemy of our souls. He ultimately does this by sending from heaven his love and faithfulness in the form of his son, Jesus Christ. The selah is in an unexpected place here. If it is a pause perhaps it is a moment for us to contemplate all that comes before it and in light of that declare our confidence in God’s imminent and superior rescue. 

4 My soul is in the midst of lions; I lie down amid fiery beasts— the children of man, whose teeth are spears and arrows, whose tongues are sharp swords.

David is not alone in his cave. Even though he is literally alone in hiding from his enemies, they are camping all around him in his mind. Indeed it is often the mental damage from enemies that can be one of the worst aspects of their torment. His soul is right in the middle of lions. This is a metaphor that reminds us of the literal lion’s den in which Daniel was tossed. It is also reminiscent of the imagery of Psalm 22 and of Jesus’ being surrounded by Roman soldiers, men intent on killing him. Then David takes it to another level with a vision of fiery beasts, creatures flaming with destructive intent. In Psalm 104 the same word is used of lightning as “flaming messengers” of God, Hebrews 1:7 interpreting this as “angels”. Is David alluding to the demonic nature of his enemies here, corresponding to the fiery throne angels of God? Perhaps, or maybe he’s simply magnifying the power of the lions. In the parallel line he identifies these lions as “sons of Adam” with spears and arrows for teeth and sharp swords for tongues. The most dangerous animal is man. David is being hunted by an apex predator, top of the food chain in a real life version of The Most Dangerous Game. The power of the tongue is stated elsewhere in the Psalms and most famously in James 3 as the greatest weapon of man (and the hardest to control). David has been savaged in the court of public opinion. He went from celebrated war hero (killing Goliath and countless other Philistines) to being a traitor who would plot a coup to overthrow the king (not true). The sons of Adam are capable of great good or great evil depending on how they use that great tool of theirs, the tongue. Without God, a moral compass or a sense of justice, humans can become animal-like in their drive for satisfying their appetites. Psalm 14 and 53 describe the commodification of human beings, sold as a loaf of bread for the pleasure of the eater. Words hold the power of life and death so use your words today to promote life. 

5 Be exalted, O God, above the heavens! Let your glory be over all the earth!

David abruptly breaks into song. It is striking how quickly he moves from storms of destruction, lions, fiery beasts, and deadly men to an acknowledgement of the greatness of God. It is a refrain to which he will return in the final verse of the psalm, making this psalm another of the few psalms that have a repeating chorus. There is a profound lesson in the very structure of the psalm. When overwhelmed by destruction, fear, and death there’s a certain prescription for relief: worship. David chooses to worship right on the heels of a desperate prayer in a desperate situation. He literally fears for his life, his reputation is in tatters and he’s hiding alone in a cave, backed into a corner from which there seems to be no escape. So what does he do? He worships. He envisions God on his throne ruling above it all, high over the heavens, his weighty beauty covering the earth like the canvas of a tent. His worship is stated as a prayer, “Be exalted...let your glory be…”, but it is really an acknowledgment of reality that David is directing toward himself. David is telling himself to recognize the supremacy and ultimate beauty of God in the midst of the darkest circumstances. Tim Keller in his sermon on Psalm 95 calls this the Samwise Gangee psalm in reference to Tokien’s Lord of the Rings, in that moment of utter discouragement when Sam and Frodo look out across the darkness of Mordor and contemplate the impossible task before them. Sam sees a lone star above the rocky peaks and it reminds him of light and high beauty that is forever beyond the reach of the darkness. God is light and high beauty that is forever beyond the reach of the darkness. Fix your heart, soul and mind and on him, and all will be placed in perspective. Let worship be your northern star, your guiding light, your certainty of a future when all seems lost. God is forever on the throne and nothing that you can do and nothing that can be done to you can change that. This is the central truth of this psalm and lest we forget it, David repeats it again in verse 11. The act of worship may be singing a song, it may be praying, it may be simply sitting and contemplating the overwhelming presence of God manifest in his creation. It may be reflecting on the beauty and the ugliness of the cross and the transforming reality of an empty tomb. These acts of contemplation and reflection reposition us to be faithful and forward-moving when surrounded by lions and destructive storms. 

6 They set a net for my steps; my soul was bowed down. They dug a pit in my way, but they have fallen into it themselves. Selah

David’s mood swings seem to continue with a return to reflection on his troubles. His enemies have set two types of traps for him. The first is the type that is used to capture birds, significant considering that David likened himself to a bird in verse 1. They hoped to capture him while he was moving, surprising him and entangling him hopelessly until they could come and subdue him. The second is a pitfall, a hole in the ground that is covered with branches and leaves. Again the prey would be walking along and with attention elsewhere (looking for nets?) when all of a sudden the bottom would drop out from under them and they would find themselves in a whole they couldn’t get out of. The knowledge that these traps were out there for him brought David’s soul down low. It was discouraging. It was limiting. Nothing could move forward in his life until this threat was neutralized. Yet even in this situation he is able to see the justice of God. A repeated image in the psalms is of David’s enemies caught in traps of their own making (54:5 for example, “let evil recoil on those who slander me”). David’s confidence is rooted in what he believes about the nature of God. In other words, his theology informs him that God is sovereign and just, and so he need not fear the injustice of his enemies. God will see to it that the harm they intend for others will come to themselves instead. This conviction about the justice of God allows us to be non-violent in our treatment of our enemies. We trust God to work justice for all the oppressed (103:6), and so we can walk a little easier. 

7 My heart is steadfast, O God, my heart is steadfast! I will sing and make melody!

8 Awake, my glory! [my whole being] Awake, O harp and lyre! I will awake the dawn!

The return to singing and worship is even more exuberant and enthusiastic here. The translators felt compelled to use exclamation points! The repetition is downright rhythmic in Hebrew. “Steadfast my heart O God steadfast my heart”. David’s heart had moments earlier in the psalm when it was endangered of being swept away by a storm, devoured by a lion or trapped in a net or pit, but here he expresses triumph over everything troubling him. He declares his faithfulness, his trust in the One who is exalted over the heavens and whose glory covers the earth. In spite of everything, his heart will remain steady and strong. The outward expression of this inward confidence is the production of music -- “I will sing and psalm [make music]”. I bet the acoustics in the cave were good for this! He elaborates in the following verse, “Awake my glory, awake harp and lyre, I will awaken the dawn!” A few verses earlier David was speaking of God’s glory covering the earth, but now the attention is on his own glory. Other translations use the word “soul” here although it is not the text. Perhaps David wants to make a connection between his glory and the glory of the earth, that he desires to be in alignment with reality when it comes to worship. The reality is that all creation worships God by nature, and David simply desires to bring his will into harmony with that reality. David’s glory is his humanity with all of its gifts and talents, including the musical ones. He is inviting all that is good and beautiful within him to express the truth about God. He’ll do this with musical instruments that humans have created, the arts as a means for glorifying God. The phrase “awaken the dawn” suggests that David will sing in the night until the sun rises in the east. He will sing in the darkness until it is light. This is what we must do when we find ourselves in the dark. Sing until it is light. This is what Paul and Silas did at midnight in a Philippian jail (Acts 16). Engage your glory in the magnification of God’s glory. Find strength in the deepest part of your being to be faithful and express this through song. 

9 I will give thanks to you, O Lord, among the peoples; I will sing praises to you among the nations.

10 For your steadfast love is great to the heavens, your faithfulness to the clouds.

From the darkness of his cave, David declares that he will praise the Lord (adonai) among the peoples and sing his praises among the nations. The word for “give thanks” or “praise” is from the root work “to throw or cast”, probably suggesting the posture of worship as reaching toward the heavens, raised hands, directing expressions of worship through praying and singing upward. The audience here is not just the Lord himself, but the peoples and nations of the earth. This is reminiscent of David’s prayer before slaying Goliath, a prayer that recognized the witness of the nation of Israel before the nations of the world. David understands that his response in this crisis has a direct impact on the pagan nations who will hear his story. And so he unashamedly worships before the watching eyes of the world. This is absolutely true today as well. The world is watching for genuine faith and looking for truth, in spite of outward appearances. They haven’t necessarily drunk deeply from the western well of personal happiness through self-indulgence. Or perhaps they have and still find themselves thirsty. David’s proud, public worship is motivated by God’s hesed (faithful love) and his emeth (truth, faithfulness, firmness). David uses cosmic rulers to measure these characteristics of God and they still come up short. His faithful love is great to the heavens, his faithfulness to the clouds (lit. dust, mist, haze). In David’s time, the heavens and the clouds were unreachable, beyond the ability of men to experience, and so to David they were in effect infinite and a perfect metaphor for the love and truth of God that were beyond measure. Likewise today, even though we can measure the heavens in light years and the clouds in kilometers, they are still great beyond grasping, and so is the love and faithfulness of God. Remember this when you gaze at the wispy clouds above or the nighttime sky. The vastness of the love and faithfulness of God is beyond our measure or comprehension. There is an endless supply, so don’t think you can ever sin so deeply or run so far that you can out reach and out run Him. David realized this in the darkness of a cave and the lights came on for him. In the darkest times and places of your life, look to the heavens, to the dawn, to the sunset and consider the vastness of God’s great love and faithfulness. This cosmic power who created all that you see with his words is infinitely supplied with love and truth. You cannot exhaust his treasure, so place your trust in him to resource you through it all. 

11 Be exalted, O God, above the heavens! Let your glory be over all the earth!

The chorus of verse 5 is repeated here to accent the primary theme. David returns to this short prayer as if to say this is the most important truth to take away from this psalm and this situation. No matter how dark it is and no matter how trapped you may feel, God will be exalted beyond our ability to comprehend and he will be glorified worldwide. He reigns sovereign and He has the capacity to redeem any situation and turn it into praise. Last night we watched A Hidden Life, the true story of an Austrian farmer who refused to pledge loyalty to Hitler during WWII, directed by Terrence Malick. I couldn’t help but think of this psalm (and many others). This was a man who was convinced that God’s glory reign supreme and he and his family paid a high price. It’s easy to sing God’s praises and demand his glory in the comfort of a church congregation. It’s another to do it before the guillotine. David is before the guillotine. The outcome is far from certain, and yet his aim is for the glory and exaltation of God regardless of what happens to him. Do you have convictions that you would be willing to die for, or could they be exchanged for a longer life? I suppose David could have surrendered to Saul and pledged loyalty to him (although he had already made such pledges numerous times). David could have abandoned his faith in God and said, “The heck with it. God’s not taking care of me, why should I care about his reputation! I’ll put my trust in my own wiles.” He could have feted himself to a pity party in that cave and rightfully raise his fist at God. But he doesn’t do any of those things. He worships. He lifts his eyes to the heavens and sees the expanse of the stars in the night sky. He sees the unfolding sunrise as God’s glorious light gradually illuminates the desert terrain, spilling color on otherwise dull rock and dust. He acknowledges the presence and power of someone greater than himself, and he places his life and his future fully in the care of this Being whom he cannot see but whom he knows is more real than anything else before him. Wake up and worship each morning. Start your day with your feet firmly planted in the reality of God’s presence and glory. Emerge from your cave and see the light.