John Calvin Commentary Psalms 55

Give ear to my prayer, O God! From the language with which the psalm opens, we may conclude that David at this time was suffering heavy distress. It must have been no ordinary amount of distress that produced such an overwhelming effect on a saint of his distinguished courage.

The translation that has been given of אריד, arid, I will prevail, does violence to the context. For, far from boasting of the fortitude that would govern his address, he is anxious to convey an impression of his wretchedness by intimating that he was constrained to cry out aloud.

What is added in the third verse, By reason of the voice of the enemy, may be viewed as connected either with the first verse or the one immediately preceding, or with both. By the voice some understand such a noise as is caused by a multitude of men, as if he had said that the enemy was mustering many troops against him; but he rather alludes to the threats that we may suppose Saul was in the habit of venting against this innocent prophet.

The interpretation, too, that has been given of casting of iniquity upon him (as if it meant that his enemies loaded him with false accusations) is strained and scarcely consistent with the context. The words are designed to correspond with the following clause, where it is said that his enemies fought against him in wrath. Therefore, to cast iniquity upon him means, in my opinion, nothing more than to discharge their unjust violence upon him for his destruction, or iniquitously to plot his ruin.

If any distinction is intended between the two clauses, perhaps fighting against him in wrath may refer to their open violence, and the casting of iniquity upon him to their deceitful treachery. In this case, און, aven, which I have translated as iniquity, will signify hidden malice. The affliction of the wicked is here to be understood in the active sense of persecution.

And in applying the term wicked to his enemies, he does not so much level an accusation against them as implicitly assert his own innocence. Our greatest comfort under persecution is conscious rectitude—the reflection that we have not deserved it. For from this springs the hope that we will experience the help of the Lord, who is the shield and defense of the distressed.

My heart trembles within me. Here we have additional evidence of the extremity of David’s sufferings. He who uses these words was no soft or effeminate person, but one who had given indubitable proofs of constancy. Nor does he complain merely of the atrocious injuries inflicted on him by his enemies.

He exclaims that he is overwhelmed with terrors, and thus acknowledges that his heart was not insensible to his afflictions. We may learn from this passage, therefore, not only that the sufferings David endured at this time were heavy, but also that the fortitude of the greatest servants of God fails them in the hour of severe trial. We are all good soldiers as long as things go well with us, but when brought into close combat, our weakness soon becomes apparent.

Satan avails himself of the advantage, suggests that God has withdrawn the supports of his Spirit, and instigates us to despair. Of this we have an example in David, who is here represented as struggling with inward fears, as well as a complication of outward calamities, and sustaining a severe conflict of spirit in his application to the throne of God. The expression terrors of death, shows that he was on the verge of sinking unless Divine grace interposed.

And I said, Who will give me wings like a dove? These words mean more than merely that he could find no way to escape. They are meant to express the deplorable state of his situation, which made exile a blessing to be coveted. This was not the common exile of humankind, but an exile like that of the dove when it flies far off to some deserted hiding place.

They imply that he could only escape by a miracle. They indicate that even the privilege of retreat through ordinary banishment was denied him, so that he was worse off than the poor bird of heaven, which can at least fly from its pursuer. Some think that the dove is singled out because of its swiftness.

The Jews held the ridiculous idea that the Hebrew reads wing in the singular number, because doves use only one wing in flying; whereas nothing is more common in Scripture than such a change of number. It seems most probable that David meant by this comparison that he longed to escape from his cruel enemies, just as the timid and defenseless dove flies from the hawk.

Great, indeed, must have been the desperate situation to which he was reduced, when, in the turmoil of his spirit, he could so far forget the promise of the kingdom made to him as to contemplate a disgraceful flight and speak of being content to hide himself far from his native country and the company of other people, in some solitude of the wilderness.

Furthermore, he adds—as if by way of concession to the fury of his adversaries—that he was willing (if they would grant it) to wander far off, and that he was not proposing terms of a truce to them which he never intended to fulfill merely to gain time, as those do who entertain some secret and distant hope of deliverance.

We can surely say that these are the words of a man driven to the brink of desperation. His situation was so extreme that, though prepared to abandon all, he could not obtain life even on that condition. In such circumstances, in the anguish of this anxiety, we should not be surprised that his heart was overwhelmed with the sorrows of death.

The Hebrew word סועה, soah, which I have translated as raised, is translated by some as tempestuous; and there can be no doubt that the Psalmist means a stormy wind stirred up by a whirlwind. When he says that this wind is raised by the whirlwind, by this circumlocution he means a violent wind, such as compels the traveler to flee and seek shelter in the nearest dwelling or refuge.

Destroy, O Lord; and divide their tongue. Having now composed his mind, as it were, he resumes the exercise of prayer. Had he indulged longer in this strain of complaint, he might have sanctioned the folly of those who do themselves more harm than good by the excessive use of this barren kind of comfort.

Some complaining exclamations, which cannot be altogether justified, will occasionally escape from the lips of a saint when he prays, but he soon recalls himself to the exercise of believing supplication. In the expression, divide their tongue, there seems to be an allusion to the judgment that fell upon the builders of Babel (Genesis 31:7). He generally means to pray that God would break their criminal confederacies and disrupt their impious counsels, but evidently with an indirect reference to that memorable proof God gave of his power to thwart the designs of the wicked by confounding their communication.

In this way, even to this day, he weakens the enemies of the Church and splits them into factions through the force of mutual animosities, rivalries, and disagreements in opinion. For his own encouragement in prayer, the Psalmist proceeds to insist upon the wickedness and malignity of his adversaries. This is a truth never to be forgotten: that just as men grow rampant in sin, it may be anticipated that divine judgments are about to descend upon them.

From the unbridled license prevailing among them, he comforts himself with the reflection that God's deliverance cannot be far away; for he visits the proud, but gives more grace to the humble. Before proceeding to pray for divine judgments against them, he wished to indicate that he had full knowledge of their evil and injurious character.

Interpreters have expended unnecessary effort in determining whether the city mentioned here was Jerusalem or Keilah, for David, by this term, seems merely to denote the open and public prevalence of crime in the country. The city stands in contrast to more hidden and obscure places, and he insinuates that strife was practiced with shameless publicity.

Even if the city meant was the capital of the kingdom, this is no reason not to suppose that the Psalmist had in view the general state of the country; but the term is, in my opinion, evidently used in an indefinite sense, to indicate that such wickedness as is generally committed in secret was at that time openly and publicly perpetrated.

It is with the same aim of highlighting the aggravated character of the wickedness then reigning in the nation that he describes their crimes as going about the walls, keeping guard or watch, so to speak, upon them. Walls are supposed to protect a city from plunder and invasion, but he complains that this order of things was inverted — that the city, instead of being surrounded by fortifications, was beset with strife and oppression, or that these evils had possession of the walls and went about them.

I have already commented elsewhere on the words און, aven, and עמל, amal. In announcing that wickedness was in the midst of the city and deceit and guile in her streets, he points to the true source of the prevailing crimes; just as it was to be expected that those who were inwardly corrupt and given to such mischievous devices would indulge in violence and in persecuting the poor and defenseless.

In general, he is to be understood in this passage as alluding to the deplorable confusion that marked Saul's government, when justice and order were, in a way, banished from the realm. And whether his description was intended to apply to one city or to many, matters had surely reached an ominous crisis in a nation professing the true religion when any of its cities had thus become a den of robbers. It may also be observed that David, in denouncing a curse upon cities of this kind (as he does in the psalm before us), was obviously supported by what must have been the judgment of the Holy Spirit against them.

Of a truth, it was not an enemy that cast reproach upon me. He informs us of one circumstance that added bitterness to the injuries he suffered: that they came not only from the hands of his professed enemies, but also from those who pretended to be his friends.

Those mistake the meaning of נשא, nasa, who interpret it as if David had said that he could patiently have borne the reproach of an open enemy. What he says is that if an open enemy had reproached him, he could then have met it, as one meets and parries a blow aimed at him.

Against a known foe we are on our watch, but the unsuspected stroke of a friend takes us by surprise. By adopting this view of the word, we will find that the repetition in the verse is more perfect, reading in the one part, I would have met it; and in the other, I would have hidden myself. When he speaks of the enemy magnifying himself against him, he does not simply mean that he used insulting language, but in general, that he summoned all his violence to overthrow him.

The sum of David’s complaint in this passage is that he was assailed by treachery of such a secret kind that it made self-defense impossible. Regarding the individual he particularly had in mind when he made this accusation, I do not think it was Ahitophel, for the psalm itself does not seem to have been written about Absalom’s persecution.

Whether it was some notorious traitor in the city of Keilah is impossible to determine. A very plausible conjecture is that it was some great man at court whose intimacy with David was generally known. Possibly he may have had more than one person in mind—courtiers who had sacrificed former friendship for a desire to rise in royal favor and lent their influence to destroy him.

These, with some more eminent person at their head, may be the individuals he was referring to. At any rate, David’s experience, as represented to us here, teaches us that we must expect in this world to encounter the secret treachery of friends, as well as undisguised persecution.

Satan has assaulted the Church with sword and open war, but he has also raised up domestic enemies to injure it with the more secret weapons of stratagem and fraud. This is a type of foe that, as Bernard expresses it, we can neither flee from nor cause to flee.

Whoever the individual referred to may be, David calls him a man of his own order, for the term ערך, erach, should, in my opinion, be translated this way—and not as some render it, his equal in estimation, or as others do, a man esteemed by him to be his second self. He complains of the violation of the common bond of fraternity, as it is well known that there are various bonds (whether of relationship, profession, or office) that ought to be respected and held sacred.

He also mentions that this person had been his leader and commander, that they had enjoyed sweet interchange of secret counsel together, and that they had frequented religious assemblies together—all of which he refers to as circumstances that further aggravated the treachery. The term רגש, regesh, does not seem to signify here the stir attending the convention of an assembly, but rather company, intimating that he was his close companion when they went to the house of God.

Thus he informs us that he was betrayed by one who had been his intimate associate and to whom he had looked up as a leader, in matters not only secular but also religious.

We are taught by the Spirit to reverence all the natural ties that bind us together in society. Beyond the common and universal tie of humanity, there are others of a more sacred kind. By these, we should feel attached to people to the degree that they are more closely connected with us than others—whether by neighborhood, relationship, or professional calling—all the more because we know that such connections are not the result of chance, but of providential design and arrangement.

Need I say that the bond of religious fellowship is the most sacred of all?