Deliver me from my enemies!

Captain Michael Hutchings urges us to rely on God.

Key text

• Psalm 59

In July, a horrific knife attack at a dance workshop in Southport caused several deaths and left a number of children and adults in a critical state. The following evening, thugs attacked the local mosque, inflicting further pain on a community in mourning.

Such events can provoke angry prayers that are more resemblant of an incensed stream of consciousness than a polite dialogue with God. How do we process the accompanying emotions, and how do we approach God in such circumstances?

Journey through the Psalter, Ian Stackhouse describes the Psalms as ‘like an anatomy of the soul’; to pray them is to express ‘a whole gamut of emotions’ and ‘it is precisely the rawness of them that makes them so universally appealing’.

Psalm 59 is a case in point. It’s loaded with impassioned language that might shock God if he didn’t have broad shoulders and didn’t already know what we were going to say.

Pause and reflect

• Have you ever felt so enraged that you have ‘let it all out’ to God in an uncensored outpouring of emotion? 
• Did you feel relief at a burden shared, or shock at the candid nature of your prayer?

The title of Psalm 59 links it to 1 Samuel 19:11, where ‘Saul sent men to David’s house to watch it and kill him in the morning’. In a deteriorating, dangerous relationship with Saul, David’s life is at risk, as reflected in the opening words: ‘Deliver me from my enemies.’ His feeling of vulnerability is accompanied by his protestation of innocence. The conspiracy against him is ‘for no offence or sin of mine’ (v3) – ‘I have done no wrong, yet they are ready to attack me’ (v4). Elsewhere in Psalm 59 the perspective appears more national than personal (see v5; v8; v11 and v13), suggesting that the original psalm may have undergone adaptations after David became king, with its final form and language reflecting subsequent events in the life of Israel.

The psalm divides into two sections. Verses 1 to 10 describe David’s predicament and his initial plea to God, while verses 11 to 17 cover David’s specific requests to God.

In Psalms for Everyone, Part 1, John Goldingay hits the nail on the head when he states: ‘There’s a lot of anger in Psalm 59.’ David’s thoughts and feelings spill out of him like an uncontrolled emotional roller coaster.

David’s enemies are ‘evildoers’ who are ‘after my blood’ (v2), and ‘fierce men’ who ‘conspire against me’ (v3). They ‘lie in wait’ (v3) and they are ‘ready to attack me’ (v4).

David’s language is particularly graphic in two corresponding sections (see vv6 and 7; 14 and 15), in which he depicts his enemies as ‘snarling like dogs’ that ‘prowl about the city’ (v6; v14), and who ‘howl if not satisfied’ (v15). The fact that their words, ‘as sharp as swords’, are spoken with apparent impunity (v7), suggests a real fear of both weapons and words.

Pause and reflect

• Have you ever come under unjustified attack at the hands of another person or group? 
• How would you describe that attack and how did you handle it?

David’s plea to God is that he might intervene. He calls on God to ‘deliver me’, to ‘save me’ and to ‘be my fortress’ (vv1 and 2); to ‘arise to help me’ and ‘look upon my plight' (v4), and to ‘rouse yourself’ (v5). David’s conviction is that God can, and must, act.

How exactly should God treat David’s enemies? David’s requests seem a little inconsistent, and his motives – including a desire to gloat over those who slander him (see v10) – perhaps less than admirable. The demand that God should ‘punish the nations; show no mercy to wicked traitors’ (v5) is echoed in verse 11, which calls on God to ‘uproot’ and ‘bring down’ David’s aggressors.

David’s request: ‘But do not kill them … or my people will forget’ (v11) suggests a hope that they might become a living example of what happens when you attack God’s people. And yet, the demand that they might be ‘caught … in their pride’ (v12) is swiftly followed by a contradictory call for God to ‘consume them in your wrath … till they are no more’ (v13). Why? So that it will be known that God rules.

Pause and reflect

• Have there been times when, in your prayers, you have almost dictated to God the action he should take? 
• What motivated those prayers?

While David’s requests of God may seem somewhat inconsistent and conflicting, his ultimate faith in God is unquestionable. Both the first and second sections of this psalm conclude with a powerful statement of reliance upon God (see vv9 and 10; 16 and 17).

Perhaps we can relate to David, as we attempt to process and express angry emotions to God, and as we struggle with the motives and desires that are revealed in our prayers. Psalm 59 shows that sometimes the best thing we can do is to ‘let it all out to God’. The greater challenge may be for us to leave it all with God.

Ian Stackhouse comments: ‘What looks on the surface like a psalm full of curses turns out to be a psalm full of faith … Psalm 59 teaches us that by praying our vindictiveness it is possible to get to a place where we exhaust our anger and learn instead to trust.’

Whatever threat we may perceive in the evening (see v6; v14), may we proclaim in the morning: ‘I will sing of your love; for you are my fortress, my refuge in times of trouble’ (v16).