Psalms 20: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

This psalm is a prayer for the king. The people ask that the LORD answer him in trouble, send him help, remember his offerings, and give him what he plans. Then a single voice says he knows the LORD saves his chosen king, and the people say that some rely on chariots and some on horses, and that they will call on the name of the LORD. The psalm ends by asking God to save the king and answer the people when they call.

Claim by Claim

1. 20:1
   • A wish is expressed that the LORD answer you in the day of trouble.
   • A wish is expressed that the name of the God of Jacob set you securely on high.
   • The address is to a single person, spoken of as 'you'.
   • God is identified as the God of Jacob.
2. 20:2
   • A wish is expressed that God send you help from the sanctuary.
   • A wish is expressed that God support you from Zion.
3. 20:3
   • A wish is expressed that God remember all your grain offerings.
   • A wish is expressed that God regard your burnt offering with favor.
   • The notation Selah stands at this point.
4. 20:4
   • A wish is expressed that God give you according to your own heart.
   • A wish is expressed that God bring all your plans to fulfillment.
5. 20:5
   • The speakers say they will shout for joy at your deliverance.
   • The speakers say they will raise banners in the name of our God.
   • A wish is expressed that the LORD fulfill all your requests.
6. 20:6
   • The speaker says he now knows that the LORD saves his anointed one.
   • The LORD will answer his anointed from his holy heaven.
   • The LORD answers with the saving might of his right hand.
7. 20:7
   • Some rely on chariots.
   • Some rely on horses.
   • The speakers say they will call to mind the name of the LORD our God.
8. 20:8
   • They are brought down.
   • They have fallen.
   • We have risen.
   • We stand upright.
9. 20:9
   • The LORD is asked to save.
   • A request is made that the king answer us on the day we call.
   • The wording allows either that the LORD is asked to save the king, or that the king is the one asked to answer.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

20:1

The "you" here and through verse 5 is a single person, addressed by a group, the king, before he goes out to battle. In Hebrew a person's name stood for the person himself: his character, his reputation, his power to act. "The name of the God of Jacob" means the God of Jacob himself, present and able to help. Jacob was the ancestor from whom the twelve tribes of Israel traced their descent, so "the God of Jacob" identifies this God as the one bound to Israel by long-standing agreement.

20:2

The sanctuary is the temple in Jerusalem, the building where sacrifices were offered and where God was understood to be present among his people. Zion was originally the name of a fortified hill in Jerusalem; by the time this psalm was written it stood for the temple mount, and by extension for Jerusalem itself as the place God had chosen.

20:3

A burnt offering was an animal killed and then burned whole on the altar, so that none of it was eaten (the most costly form of sacrifice, since the worshiper kept nothing back. Offerings like this were customary before a king went to war. "Remember" in Hebrew is not simply calling something to mind; it means to keep it in view and act on it favorably. "Selah" is a term left untranslated because no one now knows what it meant. It appears in the psalms at breaks in the text and was probably a direction to the musicians) a pause, a change of volume, or an instrumental passage.

20:4

"Counsel" in 1611 English meant a plan or a settled course of action, not advice given to somebody else. "Fulfil all thy counsel" is asking God to make the king's strategy actually work.

20:5

Banners were the standards an army carried into battle, marking who the troops belonged to and where the line was. Raising them was the gesture of an army in victory. Some read the Hebrew verb here as "we will set up our banners"; others take it from a similar-sounding root meaning "we will be marked out" or "we will wave a flag," and the sense is the same either way: a public display of whose side one is on.

20:6

"Anointed" translates the Hebrew *mashiach*, from which the English word "messiah" comes; the Greek equivalent gives us "Christ." It means a person who has had olive oil poured over his head, the ceremony by which Israel's kings and priests were installed in office. Here it means the reigning king. The right hand is the sword hand and the strong hand; "the saving power of his right hand" is a standard way of speaking of God's strength put to use.

20:7

Chariots and cavalry horses were the most expensive and most feared military equipment of the ancient world, the technology only wealthy states could field. Israel's armies were largely foot soldiers, and its law warned its kings against building up stocks of horses. The contrast is between military hardware and reliance on God, not between two kinds of piety.

20:9

The Hebrew of this line can be divided two ways, and translators disagree. Read as the King James Version reads it, it is a plea to God to save, followed by a request that the king listen to the people. Read the other way, followed by most modern translations, it asks God to save the king and to answer the people when they call. The difference turns on where the pause falls and which word goes with which; the Hebrew consonants permit both.