A shiggaion[b] of David, which he sang to the Lord concerning Cush, a Benjamite.
Psalm 7
Lord my God, I take refuge in you;
save and deliver me from all who pursue me,
2 or they will tear me apart like a lion
and rip me to pieces with no one to rescue me.
3 Lord my God, if I have done this
and there is guilt on my hands—
4 if I have repaid my ally with evil
or without cause have robbed my foe—
5 then let my enemy pursue and overtake me;
let him trample my life to the ground
and make me sleep in the dust.
6 Arise, Lord, in your anger;
rise up against the rage of my enemies.
Awake, my God; decree justice.
7 Let the assembled peoples gather around you,
while you sit enthroned over them on high.
8 Let the Lord judge the peoples.
Vindicate me, Lord, according to my righteousness,
according to my integrity, O Most High.
9 Bring to an end the violence of the wicked
and make the righteous secure—
you, the righteous God
who probes minds and hearts.
10 My shield is God Most High,
who saves the upright in heart.
11 God is a righteous judge,
a God who displays his wrath every day.
12 If he does not relent,
he will sharpen his sword;
he will bend and string his bow.
13 He has prepared his deadly weapons;
he makes ready his flaming arrows.
14 Whoever is pregnant with evil
conceives trouble and gives birth to disillusionment.
15 Whoever digs a hole and scoops it out
falls into the pit they have made.
16 The trouble they cause recoils on them;
their violence comes down on their own heads.
17 I will give thanks to the Lord because of his righteousness;
I will sing the praises of the name of the Lord Most High.
Once again David is in trouble and he turns to God, praying for God’s deliverance and action. This could fit either with when he was on the run from Saul or, later on, on the run from Absalom. Either way, as he prays, David’s prayers take a wider turn, as he looks beyond his own situation and sees what God will do. This Psalm is one that makes me stop frequently as I read it – it doesn’t look quite like how I would pray, or how I would recognise people praying, so it works to make me question my prayers – and I’ve tried to reflect something of that wrestling in these reflections. I think the Psalm splits into four sections. The first is here:
LORD my God, I take refuge in you;
Psalm 7:1-5
save and deliver me from all who pursue me,
2 or they will tear me apart like a lion
and rip me to pieces with no one to rescue me.
3 LORD my God, if I have done this
and there is guilt on my hands—
4 if I have repaid my ally with evil
or without cause have robbed my foe—
5 then let my enemy pursue and overtake me;
let him trample my life to the ground
and make me sleep in the dust.
David begins by declaring that Yahweh is his God, and that he takes refuge in him. David is in danger, so he goes to Yahweh his God and appeals to Yahweh to save him from his enemies. He knows that without Yahweh’s intervention he is finished. He is going to be torn apart like the prey of a lion, and no-one will rescue him. And knowing that, his first instinct is to cry out to Yahweh – because he knows Yahweh can save.
And then the prayer takes a turn that throws me. David seems to be being falsely accused of something – and so he says “if I have done this evil, then fair enough, let this fate overtake me”. This isn’t the statement of the person trying to bluff their way out from the critics. Sometimes in public life we hear a politician protest their innocence, and it rings hollow – especially when they are later proved false.
Here we have the statement of David asking God to be the righteous judge between him and his enemy. David is opening his life up to God, and asking God to act in line with his righteous judgment. If David is guilty, then David asks that God will show that – David is in fact more concerned that God be shown to be right, than that he himself be vindicated. Do my prayers and desires reflect that reality?
6 Arise, Lord, in your anger;
7:6-9
rise up against the rage of my enemies.
Awake, my God; decree justice.
7 Let the assembled peoples gather around you,
while you sit enthroned over them on high.
8 Let the Lord judge the peoples.
Vindicate me, Lord, according to my righteousness,
according to my integrity, O Most High.
9 Bring to an end the violence of the wicked
and make the righteous secure—
you, the righteous God
who probes minds and hearts.
Then David calls on God to get up in anger, because it is God’s anger that will protect David against the rage of David’s enemies. “Arise” sounds rather formal – but it simply means “Get up” – take action – do something. Think of a child demanding a parent get up and play, or get up and pay attention to their request. And if that doesn’t sound impertinent enough, David’s next call is for God to wake up and sort out justice.
We tend to fear judgment – but David seems to long for it. For David judgment means relief from his enemies and from the violence of the wicked. Judgment means security for the righteous – from the righteous God who probes hearts and minds. There is a mixture here of language which to our ears sounds demanding, and self righteous – ‘vindicate me according to my righteousness, according to my integrity’, and language that sounds all together more humble – acknowledging that God is King, and a righteous judge who probes minds and hearts.
The context of this is important. If we think of David’s life we can think of two times when David was on the run from an enemy – and where David was relatively ‘innocent’ – Saul was trying to kill him because he was jealous, and Absalom was trying to steal his kingdom. In neither case was David the aggressor, and in both cases he went to unusual lengths not to be aggressive. His integrity consisted in his desire for peace, and in the case of his conflict with Saul his desire not to remove the Lord’s anointed. David’s life in other respects was not always full of integrity to be sure, but in the matter of the throne especially he speaks as one who is innocent, and who does not use violence for his own ends.
We have to wait for another king before we find one who in all respects is full of integrity – and who uses his righteousness to bring about our righteousness. If we are under pressure from others we can use these words to bring that pressure to God, to ask him to judge and to vindicate us. Yet we do that in the knowledge that we too need to be ready to be judged by God, to have him search our hearts and minds and find us out. We need to be both be honest about the pressures we are under, and what we desire God to do, and to be open to God’s searching of our lives. Perhaps we are afraid to be honest with God about how we feel about how he should act towards those who are bringing pressure, because we do not want to invite the searching of our hearts that must also go with this?
10 My shield is God Most High,
7:10-17
who saves the upright in heart.
11 God is a righteous judge,
a God who displays his wrath every day.
12 If he does not relent,
he will sharpen his sword;
he will bend and string his bow.
13 He has prepared his deadly weapons;
he makes ready his flaming arrows.
14 Whoever is pregnant with evil
conceives trouble and gives birth to disillusionment.
15 Whoever digs a hole and scoops it out
falls into the pit they have made.
16 The trouble they cause recoils on them;
their violence comes down on their own heads.
17 I will give thanks to the Lord because of his righteousness;
I will sing the praises of the name of the Lord Most High.
And so we come to the end of the Psalm, we are reminded that God is both David’s shield, and the righteous judge, whose anger is on display every day. Then from v12 until v14 it is difficult to see who is being talked about. Verse 12 simply says “if he does not relent” – it could be talking about a trouble maker, or it could be talking about God displaying his anger. Perhaps, in the light of v16 there is supposed to be a degree of ambiguity because of the way in which God’s anger plays out.
It is true, as v12-13 can suggest to us that God is ready to judge. If God does not relent from his anger, then the result will be deadly. But, v14-16 explain how that wrath and preparedness to judge play out in life. The metaphor is vivid in these verses – if the order pregnancy and conception seems a little odd, it is also possible to translate the first verb as ‘bring forth’ or ‘be in labour’ and the second as ‘be pregnant’ – so the point is not so much the order as it is the bringing forth evil, trouble and disillusionment. It could more literally be translated: “behold he brings forth evil, he is pregnant with trouble and gives birth to deception” – and so clearly the “he” by this point definitely refers to a wicked man, set on bringing about trouble.
The irony of the Psalm is that this determination to bring trouble succeeds only too well – the trouble ends up bringing down violence on their own heads. As Jesus put it “those who live by the sword die by the sword”. It looks to us like the violent and the wicked succeed, but ultimately God’s justice is shown by the reality that at some point they come to their deserved end.
And so David finishes the Psalm by praising God because of his righteousness, shown in judgment. And as he does so I want to close with a final thought. I’ve found this Psalm an uneasy one to read in the way it speaks of judgment, and seems to both ask God to judge, and to delight in that judgment in a particularly personal way. I wonder if that discomfort comes from the way I want my prayers to be “correct”.
I know, that ultimately, I should forgive those who hurt me, and I know that ultimately I am a sinner who cannot stand before a holy God without Jesus’ righteousness and mercy. And so to pray that God vindicate me according to my righteousness and that he destroy my enemies sounds wrong. But I wonder if that is me putting the end before the beginning. Because while I know the theology of forgiveness and of sinfulness to be true, it doesn’t always feel like that or look like that – either in my life or that of others. And if it doesn’t feel like that or look like that, then those feelings have to be part of my prayers. I can’t just pray sound theology back to God – instead all my wrestlings and confusions and desires have to be part of my prayers.
And furthermore listening to the wrestlings and confusions of David helps me see where my sound theology can lead me astray – where leaping too quickly to the ‘answers’ leads me not to see the horror of the wickedness of those who give birth to wickedness, trouble and deception, and the integrity of those who are under pressure through no fault of their own. I need these Psalms to keep me honest, and not reliant on “misguided piety” (to quote from Rich Mullins singing a different Psalm).
.
Joshua's Tree Rooted 