Psalms of David

Psalm 57 is a more positive psalm than the previous one. The longest sections show trust in and praise to God. The difficulties are dealt with in much shorter sections. What Psalms 56 and 57 have in common is that they both begin with the same phrase, “Be merciful to me, O God” or “Be gracious to me, O God” in the ESV. It is exactly the same wording in Hebrew.

Psalms in Book 2 are like Book 1 in that they are mostly lament and distress although they now include a communal voice in addition to the singular voice of the first book.

The books of Psalms are roughly themed like this:

Book 1: Psalms 1 – 41: God is beside us.
Book 2: Psalms 42 – 72: God goes before us
Book 3: Psalms 73 – 89: God is all around us.
Book 4: Psalms 90 – 106: God is above us.
Book 5: Psalms 107 – 150: God is among us.

To the choirmaster: according to Do Not Destroy. A Miktam of David, when he fled from Saul, in the cave.

57 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.
² I cry out to God Most High,
    to God who fulfils 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!

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.

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

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

⁷ My heart is steadfast, O God,
    my heart is steadfast!
I will sing and make melody!
⁸     Awake, my glory!
Awake, O harp and lyre!
    I will awake the dawn!
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.

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

Psalm 57 ESVUK including breaks to reveal the structure.

David is in a cave says the Psalm introduction, so I am reusing a picture I have used before which is free to use and shows a cave in the same region of Israel as the one David was hiding in from King Saul. David would not have had floodlighting. In more ways than one David was in a dark place.

Psalm 57 is linked to Psalm 56, both start with the same words and both have a refrain, Where they differ is in the theme of the psalm, Psalm 56 is centred on the justice of God, and Psalm 57 is about God’s glory.

This psalm has the form of a chiasm. Chiasm, meaning crossing over, is a form used in nearly all of the Psalms and is a repetition of similar ideas in the reverse sequence. It also, unusually has a refrain in verses 5 and 11 before the repetition and at the end of the psalm: “Be exalted, O God, above the heavens! Let your glory be over all the earth!” The chiasm has only two parts: The negative things you expect from a lament such as this is a very short second part which frames the first refrain.

This short part of the song around the refrain is where David pours out his complaint. He again likens his oppressors to lions, but after the refrain, he talks about them falling into their own traps. This is the prophetic tense in the Bible and happens in the psalms mostly in laments. In the Bible, we can expect laments to be prophetic, as they often are. Do not dismiss laments as people grumbling, often God is speaking directly in these passages. The prophecy here is that David’s persecutors will fall into their own trap.

The main section of the psalm, verses 1 to 3 and 7 to 10 do not mention God’s glory in the same explicit way as the refrain’s Let your glory be over all the earth! But it is there in I will awake the dawn! (verse 8). God’s glory is seen as light in the Bible. It is seen in the column leading the Israelites through the desert as a column of cloud by day and fire by night. It is there in Moses’ face after he had been in God’s presence and had to wear a veil so as not to scare the people. After this time it will be seen in the glory of God filling the temple built in Solomon’s reign and in the New Testament the glory of God is revealed in Jesus at his transfiguration, but also in his crucifixion. God’s glory is seen in God taking on our troubles and sins himself, a wonderful gift of love, forgiveness and grace.

The problem with defining God’s glory as light is that David and his men are in a large cave. Lighting it up with flaming torches has the problem of where the smoke goes. David is literally in a dark place. But he knows that God is in the darkness which is why he can say to God, “In the shadow of your wings I will take refuge.”

David is confident because he knows God keeps promises. David knew he would survive because God had promised he would be king of Israel, and it hadn’t happened yet. We can have the same confidence in God’s unfailing love, in his forgiveness and in his wanting us to have good things. But it will not be easy. For David, it meant being a fugitive before being crowned king. For many Christians, it means suffering persecution even death because of their confident trust in God.

The lesson from this psalm is that God can be trusted. God’s glory shines even in our most difficult, darkest places.

---

< Psalm 56 | Psalm 57 | Psalm 58 >
< Previous | Psalms of David | Next >