When my enemy is winning

A David psalm.

¹ How long, Yahveh
will you go on ignoring me?
How long will you hide your face
whenever I seek your help?
² How long must I store up anxious cares
while grief fills my heart day after day?
How long will you let my enemy
have the upper hand?

³ Look at me!
Answer me, Yahveh, my God!
Give light to my eyes
before death’s darkness takes me
⁴ my enemy crows, “I won!”
and my foes celebrate my downfall.

⁵ But I trust in your undying love—
my heart rejoices in your certain rescue.
⁶ Yes, I’ll sing praise to Yahveh
because he’s been so good to me.

In his four opening how longs, David isn’t asking God for a timeframe. He’s demanding action. His situation is all wrong, and everything points back to God, who is ignoring him—even worse, seemingly evading him. That explains the note of holy exasperation here. Exasperation because his covenant God is never there for him when he needs him. Holy because David is just asking God to do what he promised to do. Instead of peace and prosperity, David’s days are filled with anxiety, grief and discouragement, his enemies on top. He demands that God look at him, answer him and revive him before its too late and his enemies dance on his grave.

David pivots in verse five, not because his situation has changed, but because—far more importantly—God’s commitment to him hasn’t changed. David’s downfall would spell God’s own defeat, and that isn’t going to happen. The certainty and strength of Yahveh’s covenant love give him hope. Though God hasn’t rescued him, David knows it’s as settled as if it had already happened. So with his hope more certain than the darkness around him, he can see himself singing praise to God for acting on his behalf.

Lord, I echo David’s cry: How long will I be locked in a battle where the forces of darkness have the upper hand? Yet when I think how strong your love for me is, there can be no doubt about who will come out on top. I will yet praise you for you are truly worthy! Amen.

When truth is gone

A David psalm.

¹ Help, Yahveh!
There’s no one faithful left!
People of integrity are fast disappearing!
² Everyone lies to each other.
They flatter and fawn
—say one thing, think another.
³ May Yahveh cut off their sweet-talking lips
and cut out their big-talking tongues.
⁴ They boast, “We say whatever we like
and get whatever we want.
We answer to no one!”

⁵ But Yahveh says, “I’m going to take action now.
because the poor are being plundered
the needy are groaning
I will grant them the protection they long for.”
⁶ Yahveh’s words are unalloyed
like silver refined in a furnace seven times over.
⁷ You, Yahveh, will protect us.
You’ll guard us forever from this lying lot
⁸ even though the wicked strut about
and everyone everywhere honors moral rot.

Lamenting that nobody tells the truth or keeps their word, David cries for help. People boast and brag as if objective reality were totally irrelevant. All that matters is how they call things. They blame others for their wrongs. They praise those they detest to get what they want from them. Playing loose, they view their words as instruments of will and themselves as able to write their own rules. Their goals throughout are to plunder the poor, maintain their power and have everything for themselves. They assure themselves they’ll never have to answer to anyone for their words or actions. This explains David’s urgency.

Mercifully, God commits to acting on behalf of the poor. He knows the powerful have taken what little the poor had from them. He’s heard the earth’s wretched groaning and cares enough to defend them.

In sharp contrast to the empty talk of earth’s powerbrokers, God’s words are utterly reliable, purified to the nth degree. So David expresses his confidence in God. On the surface, nothing has changed. Yet in charge, the wicked still swagger and crow. And everybody still honors moral filth. But David knows everything has fundamentally changed because God has spoken.

On the surface nothing’s changed since David wrote this, God. The power-hungry still abuse their words and the poor alike. People still celebrate immorality. Yet you’ve spoken definitively in Christ and your word is truth. So I now simply ask you to do what you’ve pledged to do. Amen.

When the bottom falls out

A David psalm.

¹ I’ve taken refuge in Yahveh.
How can you say to me:
“Fly away like a bird to the mountains”?
² “Look, the wicked stand poised, ready to shoot!
They’ve put their arrow to the string
and bent back their bow
to shoot the upright from the shadows.
³ If the foundations of justice are destroyed
what can those who want things made right do?”

⁴ Yahveh is still in his holy temple
his heavenly throne secure as ever.
He takes everything in
examines everyone everywhere.
⁵ Yahveh the Just probes the wicked
and he can’t stand anyone who loves brutality.
⁶ He’ll rain down burning coals and sulphur on them
served up on a scorching whirlwind.
⁷ Being just, Yahveh loves justice.
Those who want to please him
will behold his face.

What can good people do when evildoers take control and mercilessly jerk them around? What can they do when the very people who should protect them attack them whenever they can? Such moral chaos leaves just two options. Fear tells you to run for the hills. Fear for your life, your livelihood, your social standing, or just the fear that nothing will ever change—so you just give up and walk away. The other option is to stay put, but you need a very good reason to do that.

David gives us that reason in verse 4. Yahveh isn’t just present in his holy temple—down the street—to hear and to help. He’s also fully in charge and watching every move the ruthless make, despite all appearances to the contrary. He will call the violent to account and loathes them as much as he loves those who do right. Unlike the pagan gods, he’s perfectly just and always sides with those who seek justice. He doesn’t always come running when we want him to. But his one and only response to evil is judgment, while he invites all who want things made right into a face-to-face relationship with him.

Lord, when evildoers use their power to crush and to kill, you see all they do and will yet judge their evil deeds. Thank you that you’re just and care for the weak and poor. Please root out corruption in the name of law and order. Replace it with true justice, I pray. Amen.

God of the poor and weak

¹ Why are you avoiding me, Yahveh
hiding away when I’m in trouble?
² Evildoers brazenly harass the powerless.
Make them victims of their own schemes!
³ The wicked celebrate their unbridled lusts.
They applaud the greedy and curse Yahveh.
⁴ Too full of themselves to seek him
they push him right out of their minds.
⁵ Yet they succeed in all they do
and scoff at their opponents
without regard for your judgment.
⁶ They tell themselves
“Nothing will ever shake us—
our luck will never run out!”
⁷ Their mouths spew curses, lies, threats.
Mischief and evil well up
from under their tongues.
⁸ They lurk on the edge of town
stealthily watching for the innocent
waiting to get them alone and murder them.
⁹ They lurk like lions
ready to pounce on the helpless
to grab them and drag them away.
¹⁰ The hapless are crushed
and collapse, overpowered.
¹¹ The powerful tell themselves,
“God doesn’t even care.
He’s looking the other way
and won’t see a thing!”

¹² Do something, Yahveh!
Raise your hand to judge.
Don’t forget the afflicted.
¹³ How dare the wicked sneer at God
scoffing, “He’ll never call us to account!”
¹⁴ But you do see!
You see the trouble and torment they cause
and will yet square accounts with them.
The poor and helpless trust in your care
for you’re the helper of orphans.
¹⁵ Break the striking arm of the wicked.
Go after their evil till there’s none to be found.
¹⁶ Yahveh is king forever and ever.
Those who worship other gods
will ultimately disappear from his land.

¹⁷ Yahveh, you know the hopes of the helpless.
You will surely hear their cries
and give them courage to go on.
¹⁸ You’ll champion the cause of orphan and oppressed
so that mere mortals terrorize no more.

This double-psalm[a] has an agonizing “Why?” at its heart (10:1-11). Hounded by the wicked, David is desperate for God, but he’s nowhere in sight. Psalm 1 says the wicked don’t prosper, but that’s not what David sees in the real world. Each success makes the wicked more arrogant. Religious or not, they refuse to let God cramp their style, one marked by greed, aggression, curses, lies, threats, murder. They’re confident the sun will always shine on them, that God has too much else to think about to bother with them.

But God sees what they do and the pain they cause. He’s the defender of orphans and the powerless even when it doesn’t look like he is. So David urges him to remember the afflicted, defend the weak and put the wicked out of commission. However bleak things are, God still reigns and will root evil out of the land till those who serve false gods and live like God doesn’t care what they do and are no more.

Yahveh knows the hopes of the powerless. He’ll hear their cries, give them courage and champion their cause till mortals are indeed put out of the business of terror for good.

Increasingly contemptuous of you, evildoers attack the powerless more and more. It looks like you don’t care, don’t even see. But you see everything, Lord. So we cry out to you to remember the poor. Stand up and defend them till you’ve totally rooted evil out of the land. Amen.

[a] The form of Psalms 9 and 10 tell us that they were written as one psalm. On this, see my commentary on Psalm 9 above.