Study

a Bible passage

Click a verse to see commentary
Select a resource above

Psalm 55

Complaint about a Friend’s Treachery

To the leader: with stringed instruments. A Maskil of David.

1

Give ear to my prayer, O God;

do not hide yourself from my supplication.

2

Attend to me, and answer me;

I am troubled in my complaint.

I am distraught 3by the noise of the enemy,

because of the clamor of the wicked.

For they bring trouble upon me,

and in anger they cherish enmity against me.

 

4

My heart is in anguish within me,

the terrors of death have fallen upon me.

5

Fear and trembling come upon me,

and horror overwhelms me.

6

And I say, “O that I had wings like a dove!

I would fly away and be at rest;

7

truly, I would flee far away;

I would lodge in the wilderness; Selah

8

I would hurry to find a shelter for myself

from the raging wind and tempest.”

 

9

Confuse, O Lord, confound their speech;

for I see violence and strife in the city.

10

Day and night they go around it

on its walls,

and iniquity and trouble are within it;

11

ruin is in its midst;

oppression and fraud

do not depart from its marketplace.

 

12

It is not enemies who taunt me—

I could bear that;

it is not adversaries who deal insolently with me—

I could hide from them.

13

But it is you, my equal,

my companion, my familiar friend,

14

with whom I kept pleasant company;

we walked in the house of God with the throng.

15

Let death come upon them;

let them go down alive to Sheol;

for evil is in their homes and in their hearts.

 

16

But I call upon God,

and the L ord will save me.

17

Evening and morning and at noon

I utter my complaint and moan,

and he will hear my voice.

18

He will redeem me unharmed

from the battle that I wage,

for many are arrayed against me.

19

God, who is enthroned from of old, Selah

will hear, and will humble them—

because they do not change,

and do not fear God.

 

20

My companion laid hands on a friend

and violated a covenant with me

21

with speech smoother than butter,

but with a heart set on war;

with words that were softer than oil,

but in fact were drawn swords.

 

22

Cast your burden on the L ord,

and he will sustain you;

he will never permit

the righteous to be moved.

 

23

But you, O God, will cast them down

into the lowest pit;

the bloodthirsty and treacherous

shall not live out half their days.

But I will trust in you.


20. He hath sent his hands against those that were at peace with him He afterwards speaks in verse 23d in the plural number, but here it is probable that he begins by addressing the leader and head of the wicked conspiracy. He accuses him of waging war in the midst of peace, and being thus guilty of a breach of faith. He had neither suffered provocation, nor had he announced in an open manner his intention to give battle, but had commenced the attack unexpectedly and with treachery. The same charge is insisted upon still further, when it is added, that butter and oil were in his lips, while war was in his heart, and his words themselves were darts. To appearance they were soft and agreeable, but they covered a hidden virulence and cruelty which wounded like a sword or like darts, 320320     In the figurative language of the East, severe, unfeeling, and injurious words are often compared to swords, daggers, arrows, etc. Thus it is said in Psalm 59:7, “Swords are in their lips; for who, say they, doth hear?” and in Proverbs 12:18, “There is that speaketh like the piercings of a sword.” In our own language, a similar figure of speech is quite common, as when we speak of keen, cutting, and piercing words, and of the wounds which they inflict. “I will speak daggers to her.” — Hamlet. according to the common proverb, that deceivers carry on their lips poison besmeared with honey. It is well known how many fair promises and flatteries Saul addressed to David with a view to entrap him, and we may conjecture that the same arts were practiced by his courtiers. It is one special trial of the Lord’s people, that they are exposed to such attempts on the part of crafty men to seduce them into destruction. Here the Holy Spirit puts a mark of reprobation upon all subtilty of this kind, and particularly upon treacherous flatteries, exhorting us to cultivate simplicity of intention.


VIEWNAME is study