Psalm 55: you don’t need courage, just God
There are three things that I notice right away when reading this psalm:
- The most obvious is the pain one feels when a “friend” betrays you,
- David wasn’t as brave as people have come to believe, and
- A day is described as such: “evening, morning, noon.”
I don’t want to beat the first point to death. If we all haven’t been there, we will at some point - it’s guaranteed. When we go through such a time, it’s nice to know others went through it as well, that we can turn to this psalm for some support, and that God will never betray us.
Take a look at some of the language David uses to describe his state, and wonder, is this the great leader of Israel?
- “I shudder at the enemy’s shouts, at the outcry of the wicked…”
- “My heart writhes within me, the terrors of death come upon me, fear and trembling overwhelm me, and shuddering grips me.”
- “How far I would escape, and make a nest in the desert!”
It’s with some surprise that I read those verses. Hey, all that happened is that he got slandered! There are a lot of things that are a lot scarier, right? If he reacts like this to slander, how will he react when enemy troops surround Jerusalem? He’s the king, he should show some backbone.
Please don’t misunderstand me. I’m not trying to slander David’s memory. The point I’m trying to make, is that he was able to be the great leader he was through God. We can see for ourselves that he wasn’t very brave, or at least in this particular instance, he wasn’t all there. But the one right thing he kept doing is trusting upon God. Take a look at this: “Unload your burden onto Yahweh and He will sustain you; never will he allow the upright to stumble.” (verse 22) He’s got his priorities straight, and this gives us hope. There are plenty of us, myself included, who aren’t brave or courageous, either consistently, or at certain times when the chips are down. But if we trust in God, we, like David, can get through the tough times, and things will be alright.
Now, take a look at verses 16 and 17, which I quoted at the beginning: “For my part, I appeal to God, and Yahweh saves me; evening, morning, noon, I complain and I groan.” The NJB has a footnote for verse 17, and it’s this: “The hours of prayer, Dn 6:11.” Evening, morning and noon were the times when the Israelites would pray to God. What does this have to do with us? Well, how do we describe the day? We say morning, noon and evening. David says evening, morning and noon. He does it because that was the normal progression of a day back then. The day started when the sun went down and the previous day ended. There was night, then the day, including morning and noon. When evening came, the next day began.
This same succession is found in Genesis: “God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light. God saw that light was good, and God divided light from darkness. God called light ‘day’, and darkness He called ‘night’. Evening came and morning came: the first day…” This is found in verses 5, 8, 13, 19, 23 and 31 of the first chapter of Genesis, and these verses bring us to verses 1-3 of the second chapter of Genesis: “Thus heaven and earth were completed with all their array. On the seventh day God had completed the work He had been doing. God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on that day He rested after all His work of creating.”
We are to discover two things from these descriptions of the succession of a day. The first is that the day rightfully begins when the sun goes down, not at midnight. That’s a concocted idea and took seed when people wanted to find a clean division between each day, one that occurred at precisely the same, all the time. It may be good for time-keeping, but it’s not Biblically correct. The second is that the proper day of rest is on the seventh day - the Sabbath, or Saturday. God established this at the beginning of the world, and His people have followed this desire of His throughout time. Adam, Noah, Abraham, Israel, David and Jesus Christ followed it. Even the early Christians followed it, until very misguided people decided to change it, against God’s will.
We would do well to follow God’s will, not people’s whims, and we’d be much better off if we’d trust in Him completely, as David did, at countless times in his life.
