Journal

Psalm 7 - Who fights for who?

Posted on January 30th, 2006, in the afternoon

I've been reading and meditating on Psalm 7 for a couple of weeks as part of my series on Worshipping with the Psalms.

More on David's enemies?! If I didn't know that the Psalms cheer up I would be beginning to despair at the 143 I still have to go. We'd certainly have a pretty skewed idea of what worship was about if we only had the first few Psalms.

Psalm 7 was written against an individual - Cush, a Benjaminite - who is named before the text. David asserts his innocence in the face of his enemies, calling God to come to his defence. After cursing himself if he is lying, David worships God for his justice and for the fact that the schemes of the wicked backfire.

Clearly David had cause to bring these words to God; he had more than his fair share of trouble. But I'm still unsure as to how these psalms of self-righteouness are useful for public worship.

Again, the psalm makes more sense as a whole if I read 'spiritual' enemies in the place of David's human enemies. In that light, I can relate to this psalm in thinking of some of the more satisfying moments of victory over the various contradictions and whispered temptations I experience in my own life.

And I love the imagery of some of these verses, even if I find them strange images to worship God with:

See, he [David's enemy] is pregnant with evil,
conceives trouble, and gives birth to deceit.
He dug a pit and hollowed it out,
but fell into the hole he had made.

Psalm 7.14-15

I think the main thing that strikes me in Psalm 7 is David's sheer boldness in the way he calls on God to aid him in his trouble:

Rise up, Lord, in Your anger;
lift Yourself up against the fury of my adversaries;
awake for me.

Psalm 7.6

I've been greatly influenced in my understanding of how we pray about our own agendas by the passage in Joshua (5.13-15) when, before attacking Jericho, Joshua encounters an angel. Joshua asks whether the angel will be fighting for Israel or for their enemies, and is effectively told that he should rather be asking whether Israel are on the Lord's side.

That outlook very much characterises my attitude to times when my own agenda seems to be confounded. It seems presumptious to call God to act in my interest. But David has no such issue.

I want the whole of scripture to shape my thinking, so I need to consider the meaning of David's assertiveness in Psalm 7.

In conclusion, I find myself picking at a text like Psalm 7 for individual verses, phrases and ideas that I can relate to in devotion. There are some "good bits", but I really don't find this an satisfying way to relate to scripture. Maybe I don't have enough enemies.