Psalms 59

Psalms 59:1-17

The visitation of the Gentile world. To the chief musician, Al-tashcheth, Michtam of David, when Saul sent, and they watched the house to put him to death. The next psalm presents the visitation of the world, the last being apparently thus (and as the opening verses would seem to indicate) the judgment in Israel. Its scope is therefore far wider than its occasion would suggest, as the fifth verse plainly shows, where God is appealed to visit all the nations, and that as Jehovah, God of Israel. This agrees with their being seen where the prophecy of Zechariah and others shows them to be gathered when the Lord appears -around the city (impliedly Jerusalem). The ninth and seventeenth verses compared show, more plainly than the last psalm; the Michtam character.

1. The first section gives the cause (or at least the immediate occasion) of the judgment. Enemies are rising up against the psalmist, workers of vanity and men of blood. He lays his case before Jehovah, Israel’s covenant-God, declaring his blamelessness in the matter. He reiterates this, and invites Him to come in and see if it be not so. Jehovah is then again invoked, and specifically as the God of Israel, to visit all the nations, and to stubborn plotters of iniquity to show no grace.
2. Then a brief section puts in contrast the parties opposed. On the one hand the enemies, like a pack of dogs, howling with disappointment, as they roam about in the evening gloom, the words upon their brave lips swords, because they apprehend no hearer. But on the other side is One who hears nevertheless, and, if He keep silence does so as counting all the restless attempts of men for His dethronement at their proper worth. He “laughs” at them: His appreciation of their folly being put, as commonly, in strong human language. Here, then, are the contestants in this strange, abhorrent warfare of the creatures with their God.
3. They have not sanctified Him: He must therefore, perforce, for He is holy, sanctify Himself in them, and at their cost. And this, as we have seen elsewhere, and more than once, is the meaning of the “ban” (Leviticus 27:28-29, notes). We have seen it in Hermon (Psalms 42:1-11, notes) dominating, in some sense, the land of Israel. The principle of it has been enforced in Israel in the last psalm. Here we find it in the wider sphere of the Gentile nations. God hears the cry of His people, suffering at the hands of those who have cast off all restraint, -a cry which the psalmist here utters in direct appeal to Him. “My Strength,” he cries, “I wait upon thee: for God is my high tower.” Safe he will be here, lifted up upon that glorious elevation, far above the rage of his adversaries, though to human eyes right amongst them and therefore he says, “My God. will be before me with His mercy; and God’ shall make me see my desire on those that watch me,” -the keen-eyed wild beasts ready for a spring. But he cares not for mere extermination; nor is it enough that the enemies should be removed. He realizes the lesson that Israel had to learn in these enemies of theirs, who both in their presence and their removal are but signs, either of divine anger or its passing away. Hasty removal would not do, therefore. The lesson must be rightly learned, so as to abide in them; for it is the lesson of sin and its bitter fruit. “Slay them not,” therefore, he says: not meaning that that is not to be in the end, for presently he will be found saying the opposite of that; but keep them sufficiently before the eyes of the people so that the lesson of their doom may take effect: for it is still the lesson of divine holiness and of sin’s necessary judgment. “Slay them not, lest my people forget: make them. wander by thy power; and bring them down, O Lord our shield.” Thus it would be their own doom for so many centuries, that would be repeated in the case of these their enemies -an impressive reminder of God’s equal ways. Their indictment follows, their ways, which invite and necessitate judgment: the sin of their mouth, the pride of their heart, their profanity and falsehood. For this comes at last the full recompense, not indeed the eternal judgment, but as to the earth which they have polluted with their misdeeds, and which now in its own interests casts them forth. At last it shall be known, even by them, in the blow that falls upon them, that there is a God who rules in Jacob -none the less plainly when he is seen as “Jacob”; and also to the ends of the earth. In this utter consumption from the earth, the ban is fully executed.
4. In the last section of the psalm we have the experience, the brief rehearsal by delivered. Israel, of the story in its simplest elements. Again we see the hungry dogs uttering in the twilight their howl of disappointment; the lusts that crave and conquer and madden them for the prey that after all passes out of their reach. The evening deepens into night, and still the dogs are there; but morning comes and joy, and the phantoms of the night are vanished. In the morning they sing aloud of the mercy that has been with them.

God has abundantly fulfilled their prayer. He has been their high tower and refuge in the day of their strait. Well may the “Michtam” ending speak of it as what shall now be forever on their hearts: “Unto Thee, my Strength, I will sing: for God has been my high tower, -my merciful God.”