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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.


12 Of a truth, it was not an enemy that cast reproach upon me He informs us of one circumstance which added bitterness to the injuries under which he suffered, that they came from the hands not only of his professed enemies, but of such as 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 had an open enemy reproached him, he could then have met it, as one meets and parries off a blow which is 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 shall find that the repetition in the verse is more perfect; reading in the one member, 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 that secret description which rendered self-defense impossible. With regard to the individual whom he had particularly in view, when he preferred this accusation, I do not imagine that it was Ahitophel, for the psalm itself would not appear to have been written upon the persecution of Absalom. Whether it may have been some notorious traitor in the city of Keilah, it is impossible to determine. Not the least probable conjecture is, that it may have been some great man at court, whose intimacy with David was generally known. Possibly he may have had more than one in his eye, courtiers who had sacrificed former friendship to a desire of rising in the royal favor, and lent their influence to destroy him. These, with some more eminent person at their head, may be the parties aimed at. At any rate, we are taught by the experience of David, as here represented to us, that we must expect in this world to meet with the secret treachery of friends, as well as with 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 species of foe which, as Bernard expresses it, we can neither fly from nor put to flight. Whoever might be the individual referred to, David calls him a man of his own order, for so the term ערך, erach, should, in my opinion, be translated, and not as some, his equal in estimation, or as by others, a man esteemed by him to be his second self. 308308    This is the sense put upon the Hebrew word ערך, erach, by the LXX., who read, “Σὺ δὲ ἄνθρωπε ἰσφ́ψυχε,” “But thou, a man whom I love and esteem as I do my own soul;” the word ἰσόψυχος signifying ἱσος ἐμὢψυχἦ, equal to my soul He complains of the violation of the common bond of fraternity, as none needs to be told that there are various bonds, whether of relationship, profession, or office, which ought to be respected and held sacred. He makes mention also of his having been his leader and commander, of their having enjoyed sweet interchange of secret counsel together, and of their having frequented the religious assemblies in company, — all of which he adverts to as circumstances which lent an additional aggravation to his treachery. The term רגש 309309     “Properly, a noisy crowd; hence, genr. crowd, multitude.” — Gesenius It is from רגש, ragash, to rage, to make a noise, tumult; of nations, Psalms 2:1. , 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 would inform 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 religious. We are taught by the Spirit to reverence all the natural ties which bind us together in society. Besides the common and universal one of humanity, there are others of a more sacred kind, by which we should feel ourselves attached to men in proportion as they are more nearly connected with us than others by neighborhood, relationship, or professional calling, the more as 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?


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