ChristadelphianBooksOnline
George Booker
Psalms Studies - Book 2

Psalm 59

1. Title

Michtam (see on Psalms 56, 57, and 58).

2. Historical context

Of David, when Saul sent, and they watched the house to kill him (1 Sam. 19:8-24). David escaped through the warning of his wife Michal, who was also Saul’s daughter. Michal let David down through a window, so that he escaped, and put an image and a goat’s hair bolster in the bed, where she said that David lay sick. This was the beginning act in David’s long wanderings to elude Saul.

These historical titles are not to be set aside. And yet a careful attention to details reveals difficulties. Not a few of the phrases in this psalm are distinctly inapt to the title.

5.	Awake to visit all the heathen (goyim, Gentiles, or nations). One has to assume this means Gentiles, and further assume that Doeg and other non-Israelites were at work. This may be the case, but there is no solid evidence to support the assumption.
6.	They make a noise like a dog is inappropriate to men on silent watch to capture David. So also is: they go round about the city.
8.	All the Gentiles (goyim again) in derision.
11.	Lest my people forget... O Lord, our shield. The words imply a king speaking on behalf of his people. They are not appropriate, obviously, to David at the time of 1 Sam. 19. So also the plural: our shield. (There is the possibility, of course, that David added these thoughts to the original psalm much later, after he had become king.)
12.	For the sin of their mouth... cursing and lying. Does this fit easily into 1 Sam. 19?
13.	Let them know that God ruleth in Jacob unto the ends of the Land. This is hardly appropriate to 1 Sam. 19 either.
15.	Let them wander up and down for food. Neither is this.

Such a piling up of language inappropriate to the title raises the consideration that verses 5-17 (or parts thereof) were an addition supplied in the time of Hezekiah. Par. 6 will work out some of the reasons for this.

3. Subscription

Shushan-eduth. There is some evidence that Shushan (Lily) links with Passover (see Psalms 44 and 68; Thirtle, The Titles of the Psalms, pp. 30-48). Also, the lily was an oft-mentioned Temple motif (1 Kings 7:22, 26; 2 Chron. 4:5; it is referred to many times in the Song of Songs, along with other temple symbolism: 2:1,2,16; 4:5; 5:13; 6:2,3; 7:2). This might in the context of this psalm (see Par. 6) suggest Hezekiah’s fervent prayers to the God enthroned there, for deliverance from Sennacherib’s host.

The Companion Bible suggests, without much evidence, that Shushan-eduth (the “Passover of Testimony”) was “the Little Passover”, which was permitted a month later than normal for the benefit of those unclean, or those on a journey at the proper date (Num. 9:6-11). This concession had been invoked, somewhat inaccurately, for the keeping of Hezekiah’s great Passover (2 Chron. 30:15). It would be necessary also on the later occasion when, in answer to Hezekiah’s pleas, the Assyrian army was decimated outside Jerusalem. Siege conditions and also the defilement of many through contact with the dead (when the camp was plundered and then cleaned up) would require such a “Little Passover” (see Isa. 31:5 — cp. “passing over” there with Exod. 12:13,23,27; Isa. 30:29; 26:20,21).

4. Structure

Thus, Psalm 59 consists really of two psalms (cp. 1 Chron. 16:7-36):

a.	Verses 1-4, appropriate to the David title.
b.	Verses 5-17, a Hezekiah psalm (or a Davidic psalm, amplified and updated by Hezekiah): about the vanquishing of the Assyrians.

This second psalm can be analyzed thus:

	5.	God rules in Israel. Selah.
		6.	The besiegers.
			7.	Their behavior.
				8.	God laughs.
					9.	My strength and defense.
(10-13a. The fate of the besiegers.)
	13b.	God rules in Jacob. Selah.
		14.	The besiegers (v. 6 repeated).
			15.	Their behavior.
				16a.	The psalmist sings.
					16b,17.	My strength and defense.

5. David in danger: vv. 1-4 and 1 Samuel 19:8-24

1.	Characteristically, there is no imprecation against Saul.
	Defend. Hebrew *sagab,* related to *misgab* (“fortress” or “defense”) in vv. 9,16,17. God was David’s only true defense; by contrast, his own home was a “death-trap”, as he himself realized (1 Sam. 19:12).
2.	Deliver me. And he fled to Samuel and the sanctuary.
3.	They lie in wait, as the psalm title also says.
	Not for my transgression, nor for my sin. “Without my fault” (v. 4) is further repetitive. In other crises David could not say this (e.g. Psa. 6, 39, 41, etc.); but in this situation he was without fault. As Jonathan asked Saul, “Wherefore then wilt thou sin against innocent blood, to slay David without a cause?” (1 Sam. 19:5; cp. 18:14; 24:11; 26:18).
4.	They run, as armed soldiers rushing to the assault (Psa. 18:29).
	Awake to help me, and behold my innocence and their transgression.
6,14.	A noise like a dog... round about the city. If this section (or a part of it) belongs to David too, then this may suggest a watch at night on David’s house, and later a loud and frantic search of the whole city. The (Gentile?) messengers sent to arrest David (1 Sam. 19:11) re-minded him (when he heard of it later? or when he watched them from a hiding place?) of a howling pack of disgruntled (v. 15) mad dogs.

6. Hezekiah in danger and Jerusalem besieged: vv. 5-17

5.	Lord God of hosts, the God of Israel. Isa. 37:16; Psa. 80:4,19; 84:8.
	Be not merciful to any wicked transgressors. This is appropriate to the Assyrian blasphemers of the God of Israel.
	Selah. With reference to Jehovah the great protector — the “Rock” — and especially at Passover time.
6.	They make a noise like a dog. A suitable description for Gentiles (v. 5), i.e. the Assyrians.
	And go round about the city. This is an exact description of a siege, but not of the guarding of David’s house.
7.	They belch out with their mouth. The verb signifies “to gush out” (s.w. “poureth out”: Prov. 15:2,28) — i.e. as a fountain (cp. idea, James 3:11). With v. 6, it suggests rabid dogs! The whole is a contemptuous description of the Assyrian propaganda: Isa. 36; 37. Mouth, singular, is correct — Rabshakeh was the sole spokesman.
	Swords are in their lips: 55:21; 57:4; 64:3-5; 109:2,3; Prov. 12:18.
	Who, say they, doth hear? The adversary is essentially an “atheist”, called to give account to nobody (so he thinks): cp. Psa. 10:4,11,13; 53:4; 64:5; 73:11; 94:7. This was Rabshakeh’s main theme: ‘As a help, Jehovah is useless.’
8.	Thou shalt have all the heathen in derision. The Assyrian army was not just Assyrian but a very “mixed bag” (Isa. 21:13-17; 29:7; 30:28; Mic. 4:1; Psa. 47:3; 79:6; 118:10; 137:7; Amos 1:11; Obad. 10,13).
9.	My strength (LXX, RV), I will wait upon thee. Hezekiah’s dependence upon God: Isa. 37:1,14-20, etc.
	My defence (misgab — s.w. vv. 16,17) means a fortress (RSV), like Jerusalem.
10.	Prevent should be “precede” in modern language, “go before”, or — more freely — “be my champion” (NEB)!
11.	Slay them not, lest my people forget could be read as a question: Wilt thou not destroy them? And God did (Isa. 37:36)! But instead of remembering such a signal deliverance, Israel did forget — in the very next reign. Verse 13a is no contradiction, for it really means: ‘Have done with them, get rid of them.’
12.	For the sin of their mouth and the words of their lips let them even be taken in their pride: and for cursing and lying which they speak. All this befits the verbal onslaught made by Rabshakeh.
13.	Let them know... could be “that men may know... ” (RSV).
	God rules in Jacob echoes 1 Sam. 17:46 — a similar situation: when David was face to face with a mighty foe, Goliath.
14.	This is a repetition of v. 6 perhaps because there were two separate attempts to talk Hezekiah and his city into surrender: Isa. 36:4; 37:10.
15.	Let them wander up and down for meat. Assyrian besiegers scouring the countryside for food supplies. The pronouns are emphatic: Let them... but I... (v. 16).
16.	I will sing aloud of thy mercy. As he did for God’s other great mercy: his 15-year extension of life (Isa. 38:20).
	In the morning echoes Isa. 37:36. The piling up of appropriate phrases is very effective: Thy power... My defence and refuge... my strength... my defence (v. 17).

7. Messianic application

It is desirable first to observe the outline of the type traceable in 1 Samuel 19. As Saul and his men represent the Lord’s enemies, so Jonathan fills the role of the believers who strengthened the Beloved with their loyalty. Corresponding to Michal and her work in saving David, there are (perhaps) the angels. As she contrived a rough outline of a man asleep in bed, so there were burial clothes in the tomb after the Lord’s resurrection (John 20:6-8)! Remarkably, for “image” (1 Sam. 19:13) the LXX has kenotaphia (like our word “cenotaph”), empty tombs! Those lying in wait, yet achieving nothing, are like the guard at the tomb of Jesus (Matt. 27:65,66), in a futile endeavor to prevent the resurrection (28:4). As David fled to the sanctuary of the Lord, so Jesus ascended to heaven. One day, as Saul came to the divine presence and became a changed man (1 Sam. 19:23,24), so also there will yet come a remarkable conversion of Israel, so that all the world marvels: “Saul also among the prophets!”

Or is the proper antitype Saul/Paul, the Benjamite nemesis of the early church miraculously converted to apostle of Christ?

Quite a few psalm details can be readily pinned to this picture:

1.	Defend me is “set me on high” (mg.) — a possible reference to Christ’s ascension.
3.	They lie in wait for my soul. Repeated plots against the life of Jesus (see references, Psa. 10:9).
	Not for my transgression. The Lord’s utter sinlessness (John 8:46; 1 Pet. 2:21,22).
4.	Help me. Hebrew “to meet me”: “And there [in Gethsemane] appeared an angel unto him from heaven, strengthening him” (Luke 22:43).
	O Lord God of hosts. Hosts = “twelve legions of angels” (Matt. 26:53).
5.	All the Gentiles. Pilate, the Roman centurions, Herod (the “pseudo-Jew”!), and cast-off Israel, rejector of God’s special covenant.
6.	Like a dog: Psa. 22:16,20; Phil. 3:2.
7.	They belch out with their mouth. The crude and cruel Caiaphas in John 11:49-51.
	Swords are in their lips: “Come, let us kill him, that the inheritance may be ours” (Luke 20:14,15).
8.	Laugh... in derision. The Hebrew words are the same as in Psa. 2:4.
11.	Scatter them by thy power. “And they... shall be led away captive into all nations” (Luke 21:24; cp. Lev. 26:33; Deut. 4:27; 28:64; 30:3,4; Jer. 16:13). Compare the wanderings of Cain, because of his sin in slaying his innocent brother (Gen. 4:12-16).
14.	At evening. The repetition of v. 6 suggests the two nights Jesus was in the tomb.
16.	I will sing aloud of thy mercy in the morning. The Lord’s hymn of praise on the morning of his resurrection (31:5b; also cp. 30:5). And no doubt angels joined in, as at his birth. As the darkness of night belongs to the ungodly (John 1:5; 8:12; 12:35; 13:30; Col. 1:13; Eph. 4:18; 1 John 1:6; etc.), so the light of morning belongs to the godly (1 Thes. 5:4,5; Psa. 90:14; 143:8; 2 Sam. 23:4; John 12:36; Eph. 5:8; 1 John 1:7; etc.).