"To the choirmaster: according to The Dove on Far-off Terebinths. A Miktam of David, when the Philistines seized him in Gath.
56 Be gracious to me, O God, for man tramples on me;
all day long an attacker oppresses me;
2 my enemies trample on me all day long,
for many attack me proudly.
3 When I am afraid,
I put my trust in you.
4 In God, whose word I praise,
in God I trust; I shall not be afraid.
What can flesh do to me?
5 All day long they injure my cause;
all their thoughts are against me for evil.
6 They stir up strife, they lurk;
they watch my steps,
as they have waited for my life.
7 For their crime will they escape?
In wrath cast down the peoples, O God!
8 You have kept count of my tossings;
put my tears in your bottle.
Are they not in your book?
9 Then my enemies will turn back
in the day when I call.
This I know, that God is for me.
10 In God, whose word I praise,
in the Lord, whose word I praise,
11 in God I trust; I shall not be afraid.
What can man do to me?
12 I must perform my vows to you, O God;
I will render thank offerings to you.
13 For you have delivered my soul from death,
yes, my feet from falling,
that I may walk before God
in the light of life."
Psalm 56
There is a sense in which the message of this Psalm is similar to that of Psalm 55, in its outline of the pilgrimage from fear to faith. One difference is that whereas in the previous one the Psalmist had turned to the Scriptures and found a timely word in them for his need, here the grace 'comes' to him in the context of his prayer and meditation. As to the structure of the Psalm, there is a kind of refrain occurring twice (4 and 10, 11), which divides the Psalm into two sections and a conclusion. Both sections, 1-3 and 5-9, deal with much the same situation with the second section elaborating it in more detail. The Psalmist opens with a call for mercy (1) rather than for help. This is good theology, for it is the recognition that we have no call on God as of right to help us. It is not merely that David may have been conscious of wrongdoing, as he probably was at this point (for the superscription of the Psalm speaks of his being in Gath, and this is where he used dissimulation to save his life, and feigned madness before Achish, king of Gath - sometimes it is really our own fault that we get into trouble!), but aside from that, in a far deeper sense, we need always to ask for mercy. It is only in mercy that a holy God can have dealings with us. So David is on sure ground here when he casts himself on the Divine mercy; the situation, which makes him cry thus is described in 1b, 2. There is a certain drama in the way this is expressed: on the one hand, there are the enemies, the antagonists, and the fighting; on the other hand, there is God. But we should notice how the Psalmist puts it: the fighting, the oppressors, the enemy, are hedged in on either side by God, sandwiched by Him, so to speak: 'O God (1)...O Thou most high (2)' - and in between, the enemies. This is comfort and assurance indeed.