"To the choirmaster: with stringed instruments. A Maskil of David, when the Ziphites went and told Saul, “Is not David hiding among us?”
O God, save me by your name,
and vindicate me by your might.
2 O God, hear my prayer;
give ear to the words of my mouth.
3 For strangers have risen against me;
ruthless men seek my life;
they do not set God before themselves. Selah
4 Behold, God is my helper;
the Lord is the upholder of my life.
5 He will return the evil to my enemies;
in your faithfulness put an end to them.
6 With a freewill offering I will sacrifice to you;
I will give thanks to your name, O Lord, for it is good.
7 For he has delivered me from every trouble,
and my eye has looked in triumph on my enemies."
Psalm 54
Two points should be noted in particular in the first stanza. In 1 the Psalmist prays 'Save me by Thy Name'. This is an important and significant concept, for the Name of God is His manifested nature and character, the sum of all of Him, which has been made known by His Word and work. It expresses what He is and what He has done. In New Testament terms, therefore, this opens a wonderfully rich concept for us, for in Christ we know what God is like and what He has done for us. To appeal for help, therefore, from the name of God is to lay hold on the immense and incalculable resources that are in the passion and victory of Christ. This is where help lies for us: 'He that spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?' (Romans 8:32). It is very wonderful to think that all the resources of the Godhead, as expressed in the work of Christ, are available to the trusting soul in time of need. The second point lies in the significant association of ideas in 3, the assumption that, in opposing him, these enemies are against God. We should remember who it is who is speaking: David, the Lord's anointed, and he was therefore the target of much godless opposition. This is something that a man, conscious of the Divine hand upon him in his call to service, may also assume when men oppose him in his capacity as servant of God (as distinct from his personal capacity). Because he is a servant of God, then his cause and God's are identified and therefore his enemies are God's enemies.