The Book of Psalms

Word Study

"draw out," Hebrew hareq (הָרֵק), unsheathe, empty out. David opens the psalm pleading with God to take up arms in his defense, "Take hold of shield and buckler... Draw out also the spear", picturing God as a warrior rising to fight for His servant. The word is the act of emptying a weapon out of its sheath, the moment before battle is joined.

"spear," chanit (חֲנִית). Alongside the shield and buckler of the previous verse, David asks God to take up the offensive weapon too. He wants God not merely defending him but advancing against his attackers.

"stop the way," segor (וּסְגֹר), bar, close off. His second request is that God would block the road, shutting the pursuers off from their prey. It is a plea that the pursuit itself be brought to a halt.

"persecute me," rodfai (רֹדְפָי). These are the men to be barred: those who chase him down. The whole opening of the psalm is the cry of a hunted man asking God to stand between him and the hunters.

"say," emor (אֱמֹר). But amid these urgent requests for outward deliverance comes a request for something deeper and more precious: "say unto my soul, I am thy salvation." Outward deliverance may be delayed, but this inward word can steady the soul at once.

"my soul," nafshi (נַפְשִׁי). Notice how personal it is: not merely "be my salvation," but "say unto my soul" -- speak it to me, let me hear it within. When the heart is battered by enemies and doubts, this is what it most needs, God's own voice saying, "I am thy salvation."

"thy salvation," yeshu'atekh (יְשֻׁעָתֵךְ). More than rescue from his enemies, David longs for the personal assurance, spoken into his heart, that God Himself is his salvation. In the storm of trouble and false accusation, the greatest comfort is not first the removal of the trouble but that whispered assurance: I am yours; I am your salvation.

Explanation

Notice how the weapons are distributed. David asks God to take up the shield, the buckler, and the spear (vv2-3); he arms himself with nothing. The warfare belongs to God, and the believer's part is not to fight but to hear. And what David asks for himself is not a weapon at all but a word: "say unto my soul, I am thy salvation." The whole psalm swings on this axis, between the loud clash of an outward battle he leaves in God's hands and this one quiet request within. It is a striking arrangement: a man can stand in a war he is not the one fighting, and still be at peace, if only he has heard that sentence spoken over him.

Gospel Focus

"Say unto my soul, I am thy salvation", this longing is answered fully in Jesus Christ, in whom God speaks His salvation personally to the soul. The word yeshu'ah, salvation, is the very root of the name Jesus, so David's prayer, "say unto my soul, I am thy salvation," is answered when God says to us, in effect, "Jesus is thy salvation." In Christ, God does not merely offer a distant deliverance but speaks His saving love into our hearts by the Spirit, "the Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God" (Romans 8:16). Jesus speaks peace to the troubled soul, "Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you" (John 14:27), and gives an assurance the world cannot shake, "my sheep hear my voice... and they shall never perish" (John 10:27-28). When enemies rage, false accusations fly, and the heart is battered, the believer's deepest need is met not first by the removal of trouble but by the inward voice of Christ assuring the soul that He is our salvation. Ask Him for this word, and listen for it: in the storm, the Saviour says to His own, "I am thy salvation," and the soul that hears it is anchored, whatever the outward battle.

Word Study

"all my bones," Hebrew kol-atzmotai (כָּל־עַצְמוֹתַי), his whole frame, his entire being. Looking ahead to his deliverance, David says that "all my bones shall say" it -- his whole being will worship, for such deliverance calls forth praise from the depths.

"who is like unto thee," mi khamokha (מִי כָמוֹךָ). He breaks into wonder at the character of God: "LORD, who is like unto thee?" The Hebrew mi khamokha is the cry of Moses at the Red Sea, "Who is like unto thee, O LORD, among the gods?" (Exodus 15:11), the language of a soul astonished at the incomparable God.

"the poor," ani (עָנִי), the afflicted, humble. And what particular greatness draws out this wonder? Not God's power in the abstract, but His way of using it: "which deliverest the poor from him that is too strong for him." God's greatness shines most in His rescue of the weak from the mighty.

"too strong," chazaq (חָזָק). The oppressor is too strong for the poor man; the victim cannot save himself. This is the incomparable glory of God: He uses His omnipotence not to crush the weak but to defend them, taking the part of the afflicted against those too strong for them.

"the needy," evyon (אֶבְיוֹן). The verse names the helpless twice over, "the poor and the needy", as if to make sure no one under oppression thinks himself overlooked.

"spoileth," gozlo (גֹּזְלוֹ), robs, plunders. The strong man does not merely oppress; he strips his victim bare. Yet God steps in on the side of the helpless and overturns the strength of the wicked. Who is like our God, who champions the helpless?

Explanation

"Who is like unto thee" is not a phrase David coined; it is the song Israel sang at the Red Sea, "Who is like unto thee, O LORD, among the gods?" (Exodus 15:11), and it is the very meaning of the name Micah, "who is like Yah." Reaching for it, David interprets his own small trouble by the nation's founding rescue, reading a private deliverance in the light of the great public one. This is how faith reasons: it measures today's danger against what God has already done, and finds the God of the Red Sea unchanged. And he says his "bones" will say it, the mute inner framework of a man given a voice; worship here does not stay on the lips but reaches to the marrow.

Gospel Focus

"LORD, who is like unto thee, which deliverest the poor from him that is too strong for him", the incomparable God who rescues the helpless has done so supremely in Jesus Christ, delivering us from an enemy far too strong for us. We were poor and needy, held captive by sin, death, and the devil, powers "too strong" for any man to break. But God stepped in on the side of the helpless: Christ came to bind "the strong man" and spoil his house (Matthew 12:29), and through death "he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil; And deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage" (Hebrews 2:14-15). Who is like our God, who did not leave us to be plundered by an enemy we could never overcome, but came Himself, in the person of His Son, to rescue us? The gospel is the story of the poor and needy delivered from him that is too strong for them, not by our strength, but by the mighty arm of the Lord. So we join Moses at the sea and David in his trouble, and with all our bones we say, "LORD, who is like unto thee?", the incomparable God who in Christ has delivered us from every foe too strong for us, and made us His own.

Word Study

"wrongfully," Hebrew sheqer (שֶׁקֶר), falsely, with a lie. David's deepest grievance is the injustice of his enemies' hatred. Their standing against him rests on a lie; there is no truth in the charge that fuels it.

"rejoice over me," yismechu-li (יִשְׂמְחוּ־לִי). David asks God not to let his enemies triumph in their false rejoicing. Their gladness is built on his ruin, which is why he prays it may never come.

"wink with the eye," yiqretzu-ayin (יִקְרְצוּ־עָיִן), a gesture of malicious scorn. The malice shows itself in a small, silent signal passed between enemies -- contempt too sly to be spoken aloud.

"hate me," son'ai (שֹׂנְאַי). Earlier David described how they repaid his love: "They rewarded me evil for good" (v12); when they were sick, he had mourned and fasted and prayed for them (v13), yet they turned on him. This is one of the bitterest of sufferings, to be wronged by those you have loved.

"without a cause," chinnam (חִנָּם), for nothing, gratuitously. Now he sums up their malice: they "hate me without a cause." Their hatred is not provoked by any wrong he has done but is pure, unearned malice. And it is precisely here that David's experience becomes prophetic, for the Lord Jesus took this very phrase and applied it to Himself. The righteous sufferer, hated without a cause, points beyond David to the perfectly righteous One, hated and crucified though He had done only good; and God vindicated the greater David, raising Him from the dead so that His enemies' rejoicing was turned to defeat.

Explanation

There is a haunting symmetry hidden in the word "without a cause." The Hebrew is chinnam, "for nothing, gratuitously", the same word Satan flung at God about Job, "Doth Job fear God for nought?" (Job 1:9), and the same root that elsewhere means a thing given freely, for no price. So David is hated chinnam, for nothing he has done; and the mercy of God is given chinnam, for nothing we have earned. Undeserved hatred is answered, in the end, by undeserved grace. And the "wink with the eye" completes the portrait: not a loud, open enmity but the small conspiratorial signal of those who gloat in private (Proverbs 6:13), malice that is sly rather than honest.

Gospel Focus

"They... hate me without a cause", the Lord Jesus Christ quoted these very words as fulfilled in Himself. On the night before the cross He told His disciples that the world's hatred of Him fulfilled the Scripture: "But this cometh to pass, that the word might be fulfilled that is written in their law, They hated me without a cause" (John 15:25). David was hated without cause, but Christ supremely so, for He alone was without any sin to provoke it; He went about doing good, healing, forgiving, and loving, and was repaid with a cross. He was the ultimate righteous Sufferer, rewarded evil for good, hated gratuitously by the world He came to save. Yet His unjust suffering was the very means of our salvation: the hatred that nailed Him to the tree was the love that bought our redemption, for He bore in innocence the penalty of the guilty. And God vindicated Him, turning His enemies' rejoicing to defeat by raising Him from the dead, so that the One hated without a cause now reigns as Lord of all. For the believer who suffers unjustly, hated or wronged for doing good, this is deep comfort: we follow a Saviour who was hated without a cause before us, who understands, who bids us commit our cause to God as He did, and who will vindicate His own at the last, as the Father vindicated Him.