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Psalm 59

Prayer for Deliverance from Enemies

To the leader: Do Not Destroy. Of David. A Miktam, when Saul ordered his house to be watched in order to kill him.

Deliver me from my enemies, O my God;

protect me from those who rise up against me.

Deliver me from those who work evil;

from the bloodthirsty save me.

Even now they lie in wait for my life;

the mighty stir up strife against me.

For no transgression or sin of mine, O L ord,

for no fault of mine, they run and make ready.

Rouse yourself, come to my help and see!

You, L ord God of hosts, are God of Israel.

Awake to punish all the nations;

spare none of those who treacherously plot evil. Selah

Each evening they come back,

howling like dogs

and prowling about the city.

There they are, bellowing with their mouths,

with sharp words on their lips—

for “Who,” they think, “will hear us?”

But you laugh at them, O L ord;

you hold all the nations in derision.

O my strength, I will watch for you;

for you, O God, are my fortress.

My God in his steadfast love will meet me;

my God will let me look in triumph on my enemies.

Do not kill them, or my people may forget;

make them totter by your power, and bring them down,

O Lord, our shield.

For the sin of their mouths, the words of their lips,

let them be trapped in their pride.

For the cursing and lies that they utter,

consume them in wrath;

consume them until they are no more.

Then it will be known to the ends of the earth

that God rules over Jacob. Selah

Each evening they come back,

howling like dogs

and prowling about the city.

They roam about for food,

and growl if they do not get their fill.

But I will sing of your might;

I will sing aloud of your steadfast love in the morning.

For you have been a fortress for me

and a refuge in the day of my distress.

O my strength, I will sing praises to you,

for you, O God, are my fortress,

the God who shows me steadfast love.

New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

17 My strength is with thee, I will sing psalms He expresses still more explicitly the truth, that he owed his safety entirely to God. Formerly he had said that the strength of his enemy was with God, and now he asserts the same thing of his own. The expression, however, which admits of two meanings, he elegantly applies to himself in a different sense. ³⁷⁶³⁷⁶ “Sed eleganter ambiguam locutionem diverso sensu ponit.” — Lat. In the French version, “Mais c’est une bonne rencontre et qui a grace, quand il met deux fois un propos ambigu, mais en divers sens.” God has the strength of the wicked in his hands, to curb and to restrain it, and to show that any power of which they boast is vain and fallacious. His own people, on the other hand, he supports and secures, against the possibility of falling, by supplies of strength from himself. In the preceding part of the psalm, David had congratulated himself upon his safety, by reflecting that Saul was so completely under the secret restraint of God’s providence as to be unable to move a finger without his permission. Now, weak as he was in himself, he maintains that he had strength sufficient in the Lord; and accordingly adds, that he had good reason to engage in praise, as James the inspired apostle exhorts those who are merry to sing psalms, (James 5:13.) As to the reading which some have adopted, I will ascribe my strength with praises unto thee, the reader cannot fail to see that it is forced. It is clear that the two clauses must be taken separately, as I have already observed.

³⁷⁶ “Sed eleganter ambiguam locutionem diverso sensu ponit.” — Lat. In the French version, “Mais c’est une bonne rencontre et qui a grace, quand il met deux fois un propos ambigu, mais en divers sens.”