Saturday of the Fourth Week of Lent | Psalm 7

Hello friends, and welcome to Psalm 7. This one is a prayer for rescue, and for justice—for righteous judgment, and for vindication. "Save and deliver me." "Bring to an end the violence of the wicked." Have you ever prayed that prayer? Have you ever sung that prayer? There is a power in song—an ability to draw out the heart, to help us cry out to God from our anger, angst and anguish. David knew that power. He wrote this psalm, and the opening words tell us that he sang it "to the Lord concerning Cush, a Benjamite." From the context, it appears that Cush has slandered David. Some of you know what it's like to be slandered. Falsely accused. You try to do right, and someone starts telling everyone else you did wrong. Suddenly people are talking about you. Your reputation is on the line, your good name muddied. People don't look at you the same—don't trust you the same. Now that's a rough trial for anyone, but for someone entrusted to lead like David, slander like that can undermine everything he does. So to read this psalm well, you've gotta put your heart in that place: slandered, desperate for vindication. That's an important word here in the psalms. See slander is tricky. Try to defend yourself, and they just challenge you more. What you really need is someone who knows everything and who everyone trusts to step up and tell them you're innocent! What you really want is for God to tell the world, "He didn't do it!" That's vindication. David steps up to the great Judge of all the earth and asks him: "Vindicate me, Lord, according to my righteousness" (Psalm 9:8). Okay, pause there. Some of us have a serious problem with this one. David, you're not righteous. None of us are, except Jesus, and you're not him. This is going to come up repeatedly in Psalms, so let's deal with it now. Some scholars address the difficulty by agreeing: Jesus is righteous. And he took our sin so that we could become God's righteousness. So when we pray in Jesus' name, we are righteous! Makes sense. Others take it a step further, asking the question: How would this psalm sound if Jesus were the one praying it? That's an intriguing challenge for every psalm. The New Testament often quotes the psalms and puts many of the words in Jesus' mouth, as if he is the one speaking. Prophetic passages work that way sometimes. And do you recall that Jesus was slandered? Have you ever thought about how that felt? Standing there, bound and beaten, a spectacle for all, accusations hurled at him. Before the Sanhedrin. Again before Pilate! Mocked and ridiculed, accused of nonsense. So I think that reading this from Jesus' view is valid, but I also think David's plea is valid on its own. CS Lewis offers a fantastic insight here in his Reflections of the Psalms. Great book. Lewis points out that Christians tend to read references to justice and judgment differently than Jews. Christians often think first of God's final judgment, whereas Jews—particularly here in psalms—are concerned with earthly judgment, like a civil case where one person has wronged another. To be righteous in God's final judgement is to be truly and completely good in God's sight. But to be righteous in a civil case simply means to be right and innocent in the matter at hand. David was certainly guilty on other counts, but he did not do the things that Cush accused him of! And that matters. Earthly justice matters a great deal to God—for one person, and for all peoples. Both will be considered in this psalm. So let's get into it. My soundtrack for study time was songs of the Civil Rights Movement. It's no coincidence that great movements of justice have had gospel songs for their anthems. The introductory words call this a shiggaion of David. Verse 1: "Lord my God, I take refuge in you; save and deliver me from all who pursue me, or they will tear me apart like a lion and rip me to pieces with no one to rescue me" (Psalm 7:1-2). Refuge is a mighty word. It's used often here in the psalms. It's a very personal word for David. He was a hunted man. He knew precisely how it felt to hide silently in a cave, waiting and hoping for danger to pass. "Lord my God, I take refuge - in you" (Psalm 7:1a). David pours out a desperate cry. Lord, they're tracking me down like lions, ready to rip me to shreds. Slander threatens your name, your character, shredded. Verse 3 is a clue of what they accused him of: "Lord my God, if I have done this and there is guilt on my hands—if I have repaid my ally with evil or without cause have robbed my foe" (Psalm 7:3-4). Now knowing that it was a Benjamite accusing David, this was probably related to King Saul. Most Benjamites sided with Saul in his rift with David, though David didn't even want a rift. Many held a grudge against David, and spread lies to undermine his Kingship. Here they likely accused him of betraying Saul—turning on his ally—the reverse of the truth. "Lord if I'm guilty"...verse 5: "then let my enemy pursue and overtake me; let him trample my life to the ground and make me sleep in the dust" (Psalm 7:5). For David, loyalty is paramount. If I betrayed, take me out God. I would deserve it. Verse 6: "Arise, Lord, in your anger; rise up against the rage of my enemies. Awake, my God; decree justice" (Psalm 7:6). Watch David's response carefully. His enemies rage against him. He doesn't slander back. He doesn't let anger get the best of him. Man's anger doesn't produce God's righteousness. He calls on God's anger. Arise Lord! Awake my God! Decree justice! Those words are crucial to the heart-cry of the psalms: Lord, decree justice. Verse 7: "Let the assembled peoples gather around you, while you sit enthroned over them on high" (Psalm 7:7). David's imagination grows vivid here. Sick and tired of slander and gossip swaying opinions, he envisions all the peoples gathered to God's throne. Let the Lord sit enthroned, let him declare. In verse 8: "Let the Lord judge the peoples. Vindicate me, Lord, according to my righteousness, according to my integrity, O Most High" (Psalm 7:9). Now remember, David is not claiming to be sinless. He is claiming to be innocent in this matter. That's valid. Just as it's valid for you to want your name cleared of accusations you didn't do, even though you're not perfect. But I do wonder about this verse—if there isn't a pre-echo of something greater, a longing for vindication far greater—one that we cannot possibly earn or deserve, but nonetheless desire. To stand before God Almighty and be declared righteous. To have integrity, to fend off every slanderer, even our own guilty conscience. Hmmm. But maybe that's my own heart reading into it. For his part, David takes his plea to another lofty goal. Verse 9: "Bring to an end the violence of the wicked and make the righteous secure—you, the righteous God who probes minds and hearts" (Psalm 9:9). Now there is a noble prayer: end the violence. The Hebrew word simply means evil. End it Lord. End it. And David looks to God: you are righteous, you probe minds and hearts. Slander and gossip can make it so hard to know who's right, who's fake, who's true. God knows. Verse 10: "My shield is God Most High, who saves the upright in heart" (Psalm 7:10).  I love that picture. Slander is like arrows. My shield is God. Just try to get through this. Verse 11: "God is a righteous judge, a God who displays his wrath every day. If he does not relent, he will sharpen his sword; he will bend and string his bow. He has prepared his deadly weapons; he makes ready his flaming arrows" (Psalm 7:11-13). David's image of God may surprise you, but it is thoroughly Biblical. I can't help but wonder if David has been meditating on Exodus 15—Moses' victory song. "The Lord is a warrior" (Exodus 15:3). David is not seeking his own vengeance, he is looking to the true avenger. "Vengeance is mine, says the Lord, I will repay" (Romans 12:9). And to further talk himself out of taking his own revenge, David reminds himself in verse 14: "Whoever is pregnant with evil conceives trouble and gives birth to disillusionment. Whoever digs a hole and scoops it out falls into the pit they have made. The trouble they cause recoils on them; their violence comes down on their own heads" (Psalm 7:14). David's heart finds rest in the knowledge that evil deeds have a boomerang effect. Justice. God does that. And with his heart at peace once again, David closes with verse 17: "I will give thanks to the Lord because of his righteousness; I will sing the praises of the name of the Lord Most High" (Psalm 7:17).