Resting in a Righteous God

Similar to prior psalms, this opening description tells us David wrote this psalm, too, only here it calls the psalms a “shiggayon” (or as my good friend, Rod Johnson calls is, a “shindig”). Like “on the eighth” at the start of Psa 6, we can’t be sure what this word means. It appears only twice in the Bible, the second time being a plural form in Hab 3:1, the only musical notation in all the OT prophets.

This musical term seems to be related to another word that means “to stagger, wander” or “to go astray and reel,” so perhaps it describes a song to be played or sung with an uneven, irregular beat, meter, or rhythm which would express a more animated, agitated tone. Though such a style would fit David’s (and Habakkuk’s) situation well, we cannot be entirely certain.

Unlike the most recent psalms in the Psalter, this opening description offers some actual explanation of the circumstances which caused David to write it. Technically, it doesn’t say anything bout the circumstance but tells us about a person instead, called “Cush, a Benjaminite.”

Unfortunately, we don’t know anything about Cush except that he was a “Benjaminite.” There are no OT stories that include a man by this name, but we do know being from the tribe of Benjamin made him a relative of King Saul, the former king of Israel who had pursued David with the intent to kill him. Knowing this we can offer several possible explanations:

Cush may have been one of the men (or a group of men, as men in the family of Cush) who helped Saul pursue David before he was installed as God’s chosen king (1 Sam 22:88; 24:9; 26:19).

Cush may have been a man from the tribe of Benjamin who later opposed David during the time of Absalom’s rebellion (2 Sam 16:5ff; 20:1ff).

While either of these options are legitimate possibilities as a cause for this psalm, we cannot be certain either way. All that we can know for sure is that David experienced a both life-threatening and reputation-threatening ordeal from either a man or men from the tribe of Benjamin.

Have you ever faced a life-threatening or reputation-threatening ordeal because of your faith in God? David did on more than one occasion, including this occasion. What made it even more painful was that he was suffering unjustly. Have you ever suffered unjustly or experienced undeserved difficulties? When God’s people experience undeserved suffering, they can trust in a righteous God to do the right thing.

Sometimes God’s people face hostile situations. (v. 1-2)

Yahweh, my God, in you I seek shelter;

rescue me from all my pursuers and save me,

or they will tear my throat like a lion,

and shred me to pieces with no one to save me.

Though David and his royal line had been chosen to be the king over Israel and eventually over the nations of the world, he relied entirely upon God to both shelter (defense) and save (offense) him from hostile situations. He did not rely primarily on sophisticated military strategies. He relied upon God.

David visualizes this particular trial as though he were a lone gazelle being hunted by a ravenous lion. If captured, he envisioned that lion sinking his teeth into his throat and shredding his carcass to pieces.

Have you ever experienced a trial that fits such a description?

A clear conscience encourages confident prayer. (v. 3-5)

Yahweh my God, if I have done this,

if there is injustice on my hands –

if I have repaid evil to one who is at peace with me,

or shown hostility without a cause –

then let my enemy pursue my throat and overtake me;

let him trample – to the ground – my life

and make my honor dwell in the dirt. Selah.

Though David generally refrains from offering his own good behavior (his righteousness) as a reason for God to hear his prayers and save his life, he does so here, but why? Is David being self-righteous and proud? Is he basing his faith on his own behavior and good works? For as one person has candidly observed, “When a man says he has a clear conscience, it often means he has a bad memory.”

No one is ever truly innocent before God. There is always another aspect of sinfulness or layer of selfishness which we must acknowledge and overcome with God’s help. Of all people, David knew this to be true. In this prayer, David is not claiming to be sinless or to have earned God’s favor by being good. Instead, he is offering his innocence from the particular charge made against him.

In some particular way, David was being accused of treating someone else unjustly, of stabbing a trusting friend in the back, of engaging in violence against another party without a good or justifiable reason. Though David acknowledged his sinfulness before God, he had a clear conscience on this particular accusation.

Being confident of his innocence of the accusation being leveled against him, he placed himself at the mercy of God. He granted his full permission for his accuser(s) to overtake him, kill him, and ruin his reputation. In this instance, David exhibits the power of a clean conscience.

As James Philipp explains, “Faith is strong only when the conscience is clear and the heart is pure.”

Or as Thomas Watson explains, “A good conscience can sleep in the mouth of a cannon.”

So, as William Jenkyn advises, “Cleanse your conscience and your faith will be out of danger.”

And as Joseph Addison concludes, “A good conscience is to the soul what health is to the body; it preserves a constant ease and serenity within us.”

The apostle Paul himself said this when he was placed on trial after being falsely accused of inciting rebellion against the Roman government: “This being so, I myself always strive to have a conscience without offense toward God and men” (Acts 24:16).

Are you treating other people in your life justly and properly?

Are you building trust with others rather than breaking it?

Are you causing hurt and pain to other people or healing, encouragement, and hope?

How you treat people today affects the condition of your conscience before God. If you treat other people well, your confidence in prayer increases. If you mistreat other people, your confidence in prayer diminishes. If you treat people right, your confidence in God will remain even when people accuse you falsely.

A clear sense of God’s exalted position encourages prayer. (v. 6-9)

Rise up, Yahweh, in your anger;

rise up high against the raging of my enemies;

wake up for me – decree justice.

An assembly of nations surround you;

return – over them – to your exalted place.

Yahweh will judge the peoples;

adjudicate me, Yahweh, according to my righteousness,

and according to my innocence, Exalted One.

May the evil of wicked people come to an end, but establish the righteous –

examiner of inner thoughts and feelings, righteous God.

In this next section of David’s prayer, he moves from affirming his clear conscience on the matter at hand to affirming his confidence in God’s position as the sovereign judge.

First, he asks God to rise up on his behalf, to rise up high. Though his enemies were behaving aggressively and angrily towards him, he believed that God’s perfect justice would provoke such strong anger in him that it would overshadow whatever anger unjustified anger his enemies exhibited towards him.

This imagery resembles how a boy says to another boy, “My daddy is bigger than your daddy.” Here David believes God’s anger is more frightening than his enemies’ anger. With this confidence, he asks God to be aroused to action, like a father reclining indoors until he hears his young child being chased outside by a pack of neighborhood dogs – then he jumps to action to make things right.

Next, David alludes to the scope of God’s jurisdiction, which is not just the nation of Israel but the nations of the world. With this vast jurisdiction in mind, David asks God to take his place in the courtroom over all the world – the true supreme court. From this place of universal judgment, God will judge “the peoples,” a reference to all people not just Israel. There is not a person and not a nation who falls outside of God’s judicial circuit.

Next, David asks God, whom he speaks to most respectfully as “Exalted One” (similar to how we address a judge today as “Your Honor”), and he asks God to give him a favorable verdict because he was innocent from the accusations at hand.

In particular, he asks for the bad things that wicked people were doing to him and to others would come to an end. In contrast, he also asks God to confirm his innocence and the innocence of all people who were in the right. Here, David enlarges his perspective from his present personal problem to all similar scenarios. He believed that God treats all his people – not just King David – with equal fairness and justice. He did not view his struggle as especially isolated and unique and request special treatment. He prayed as though he was any ordinary follower of God, not a VIP who deserved special treatment.

Finally, he reveals a reason why he trusted God to judge not only him fairly but everyone else fairly, too. He knew God as an “examiner of inner thoughts and feelings.” “Thoughts and feelings here” means “hearts and kidneys,” which was an ancient way of referring to our innermost thoughts and feelings. In other words, David knew that not only is God perfectly righteous in his thoughts and feelings, but he is perfectly right in his evaluation of our thoughts and feelings, too.

This is the benefit of being on God’s side. You can trust him to carry out justice because he knows the precise nature of the action required. Apart from him, even the best judge is unable to deliver perfect justice because perfect justice requires more than circumstantial evidence and verbal testimonies but an accurate and precise knowledge of the defendant’s feelings, thoughts, and motives. You we don’t know or see people with this level of internal accuracy and detail, we may enforce justice too little or too much, but God’s justice is always just right.

A clear picture of God’s readiness to act encourages confident prayer. (v. 10-13)

My defense is with God,

the deliverer of the upright heart.

God is a righteous judge,

ready to punish every single day.

If someone does not relent,

he sharpens his sword;

he bends and aims his bow.

And for that one he sets up his lethal weapons;

he prepares his flaming arrows.

Having affirmed his personal innocence and also God’s position as the exalted and preeminently qualified judge of all people, David forms a clear picture in his mind of God’s readiness to act as needed.

Once again, he views God as both his shield (defense) and deliverer (offense). Once again, he also affirms that God is a righteous judge, though in this case he emphasizes God’s readiness to act in judgment, not just pass a verdict.

At this point, he shifts his mental image from God as a judge sitting on the seat of judgment to God as a warrior preparing to fight. If a person does not relent from their false accusations against an innocent person or of their mistreatment towards that person, then God will take swift action, even deadly action if needed.

David envisions God as an infantry soldier sharpening his sword or a marksman bending and aiming his bow at a target. He envisions God as preparing his weapons for lethal, mortal combat and pitching his arrows to be lit with fire. Such imagery assures David that God will do whatever is necessary to counter David’s adversaries moves against him. To entrust justice does not necessarily mean that he will go easy on your adversaries. If justified and required, he will act with strategic force and lethal force.

Are you firmly persuaded that God is the exalted judge over all people who is able to judge with perfect knowledge, and that he is also prepared to do whatever is necessary to defend you against your foes and even attack them as necessary? Before you take matters into your own hands, get a clearer picture of God’s exalted position and his readiness to act on your behalf.

A clear belief in poetic justice encourages confident prayer. (v. 14-16)

See the one who becomes pregnant with wickedness,

then gives birth to trouble and delivers deception.

A cistern he dug, and he shoveled it;

then he fell into the pit he prepared.

His painstaking labor returns upon his own head;

and upon his own skull his violence comes down.

Before closing out his prayer, David turns his attention to those who falsely accusing and mistreating him. With a clear sense of God’s exalted position and readiness to act in mind, he was now persuaded that poetic justice would unfold.

By using the childbirth process as an analogy, he describes a person who becomes pregnant with wickedness, then gives birth to trouble and delivers deception instead. The idea here is that an unjust person who mistreats others believes they are carrying out something good, but when their labor reaches full term, they realize too late that they’ve given birth to a monster.

James, a stepbrother to Jesus Christ and a pastor of the original church in Jerusalem, taught in a very similar way when he said, “When desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, brings forth death” (Jam 1:15).

Next, David shifts to another analogy, that of digging out a deep pit into the ground. Though this difficult, backbreaking work was normally performed to hold rain and runoff water for the dry season, David speaks of this particular pit being dug as a trap to catch righteous people, similar to how Joseph’s brothers threw him into a pit to be traded away to slavers. In a twist of dramatic irony, David envisions the unjust person going to extreme pains to dig this pit only to fall into it himself. Whatever violence the ungodly person planned to carry out on the righteous ends up coming back to hurt him instead, even crushing his own skull.

A clear view of God’s justice encourages confident praise. (v.17)

I will praise Yahweh according to his righteousness,

and I will praise with music the name of Yahweh, the Most Exalted One.

David concludes his prayer by switching from a prayer request to a praise.

He believes that he is innocent of the false accusations prompting the threats and mistreatment against him.

He believes God is in a superior position to judge rightly.

He believes God is ready and fully prepared to act on his behalf.

He believes that poetic justice will unfold for those who are mistreating him.

Therefore, he has nothing else to say so he chooses to praise God, even by preparing a song to sing to him, a song that praises God as the Most Exalted One whom he can trust to defend him and act on his behalf, even in a harrowing, life-threatening situation. Such a response to this trial reminds me of how Paul and Silas sang praises to God at midnight as they sat in a prison cell in the city of Philippi, their backs beaten, bruised, and bloodied and their feet raised up in the stocks.