Betrayal and Trust

Psalm 55

To the choirmaster: with stringed instruments. A Maskil of David.

¹Give ear to my prayer, O God, and hide not yourself from my plea for mercy!

²Attend to me, and answer me; I am restless in my complaint and I moan,

³because of the noise of the enemy, because of the oppression of the wicked. For they drop trouble upon me, and in anger they bear a grudge against me.

⁴My heart is in anguish within me; the terrors of death have fallen upon me.

⁵Fear and trembling come upon me, and horror overwhelms me.

⁶And I say, “Oh, that I had wings like a dove! I would fly away and be at rest;

⁷yes, I would wander far away; I would lodge in the wilderness; Selah

⁸I would hurry to find a shelter from the raging wind and tempest.”

⁹Destroy, O Lord, divide their tongues; for I see violence and strife in the city.

¹⁰Day and night they go around it on its walls, and iniquity and trouble are within it;

¹¹ruin is in its midst; oppression and fraud do not depart from its marketplace.

¹²For it is not an enemy who taunts me— then I could bear it; it is not an adversary who deals insolently with me—then I could hide from him.

¹³But it is you, a man, my equal, my companion, my familiar friend.

¹⁴We used to take sweet counsel together; within God’s house we walked in the throng.

¹⁵Let death steal over them; let them go down to Sheol alive; for evil is in their dwelling place and in their heart.

¹⁶But I call to God, and the Lord will save me.

¹⁷Evening and morning and at noon I utter my complaint and moan, and he hears my voice.

¹⁸He redeems my soul in safety from the battle that I wage, for many are arrayed against me.

¹⁹God will give ear and humble them, he who is enthroned from of old, Selah

   because they do not change and do not fear God.

²⁰My companion stretched out his hand against his friends; he violated his covenant.

²¹His speech was smooth as butter, yet war was in his heart; his words were softer than oil, yet they were drawn swords.

²²Cast your burden on the Lord, and he will sustain you; he will never permit the righteous to be moved.

²³But you, O God, will cast them down into the pit of destruction; men of blood and treachery shall not live out half their days. But I will trust in you.

When you stand these psalms/prayers next to the events in David’s life that inspired them you can really see how vibrant and practical his faith was. God was his constant companion and confidant. He turned to the Lord with honesty and passion for every event in his life. Psalm 55 is another prayer (or perhaps more accurately, journal entry!) in which David pours out the pain in his heart over the circumstances of his life.

We find the story attached to this psalm in 2 Samuel 15-17. It happens later in David’s reign as king and is fraught with family drama and betrayal. His son, Absalom conspires against him with the help of David’s friend and adviser Ahithophel. Absalom decides to overthrow David as ruler and take the throne himself. David is made aware of this treachery and gathers up his court and flees Jerusalem. Aside from his tragic sin with Bathsheba and the murder of her husband, this is probably the lowest point in David’s reign as king. His own son is seeking his death. But he shows his love for his people and tremendous wisdom as he chooses not to stay in Jerusalem and fight but instead to avoid the bloodshed that would bring and leaves Jerusalem to Absalom instead. In the end, Absalom’s attempted coup fails and he is killed. David returns to Jerusalem at the king and regains his throne. It’s a difficult story, to say the least.

This psalm is almost perfect in its ability to place us into the center of David’s grief over these events. But we also see that even in the midst of this pain, he is still trusting in the Lord for rescue. “Cast your burden on the Lord, and he will sustain you; he will never permit the righteous to be moved”; this says it all. In the end, David leaves even those who hate him in the hands of God to do with as He will. That can be tough because we want to take care of circumstances on our own and vengeance can be so enticing. But David leaves all of it in God’s hands. That's our role model for the day - learning how to leave even the most tragic of events in God's hands.