In a few days, we will read that the apostle Judas ‘became a traitor’ (Luke 6:16). Today’s psalm emerges out of David’s bitter experience of betrayal by his own people (see the superscription). The psalm has three sections: a plea for help (vs 1,2); seeing problems in perspective (vs 3–5); a promise of praise (vs 6,7).

David has confidence – both in God’s power to save (v 1) and in God’s readiness to listen to his prayer (v 2). Like the man with leprosy who prayed, ‘Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean’ (Luke 5:12), David believes that God is both able and willing to help. 

David not only brings his problems to God, he brings God’s perspective to bear on his problems! Because of this, David doesn’t merely see his enemies as ‘arrogant’ and ‘ruthless’ but, fundamentally, as ‘people without regard for God’ (v 3). In contrast, David has great regard for God. And his view of God is not dimmed or diminished by present trouble; instead, he looks to God as his mainstay and sustainer in the immediate crisis (v 4), and also as his ultimate vindicator (v 5; also v 1). It is his faith in this supreme ‘triumph’ that leads to David’s promise of thank-offerings and praise (vs 6,7).

‘The Lord is my strength and my song; he has become my salvation. He is my God, and I will praise him, my father’s God, and I will exalt him.’¹

Today’s psalm is a prayer for deliverance from enemies who want to kill David. It has a chiastic structure in which the seven verses follow a pattern: a1-b1-c1-d-c2-b2-a2. In such a symmetrical structure, the middle verse (d) is the key: verse 4, David’s declaration of trust in God, who is his help and the one who sustains him. Verse 1 is David’s cry for vindication, verse 7 his statement of assurance that he will look in triumph on his enemies. Similarly, verse 3 states his situation and verse 5 is his request for God to judge his foes. The whole psalm frames and moves towards the beautiful statement about God’s faithful character in verse 4. 

David models a way to come to God with emotional honesty, expressing his true feelings and needs. He boldly requests that God will save him and vindicate him by his might. He acknowledges his enemies who are aggressively seeking his life and he asks God to repay evil to his enemies. He does not take it upon himself to seek vengeance, but trusts in God’s justice to vindicate him and judge his enemies. There is an appeal to the spiritual principle of reaping and sowing and a confidence that those who have caused him trouble will themselves reap trouble in time.

The psalm moves from prayer to praise, a common pattern throughout the psalter. As David pours out his heart honestly to God, his spirit is lifted and he praises God, his helper, protector, friend and vindicator. This progression encapsulates much of the Christian life. As we learn to come to God in honest prayer with our troubles, worries, fears and pain, he reminds us of who he is and helps us to worship him for that reality.

How can you bring your pain and worry to God in prayer and in faith? Allow God to remind you of his character and lead you into praise.

¹ Exod 15:2, NIV, 1983