Psalms 55: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

The writer begs God to listen while fear and dread press on him, and he wishes he could fly away like a dove and hide in the desert. He describes violence and lies filling the city, then names his real wound: the attacker is not a stranger but a close friend who once walked with him to God's house. He asks God to bring these people down, and says he himself will keep praying morning, noon, and evening, and will trust God to sustain him.

Claim by Claim

1. 55:1
   • The speaker asks God to listen to his prayer.
   • The speaker asks God not to hide himself from his plea for mercy.
2. 55:2
   • The speaker asks God to pay attention to him.
   • The speaker asks God to answer him.
   • The speaker says he is restless and unsettled in his complaint.
   • The speaker says he moans aloud.
3. 55:3
   • The speaker's distress is caused by the voice of the enemy.
   • The speaker's distress is caused by the pressure of the wicked.
   • The speaker says they bring trouble down upon him.
   • The speaker says they bear hostility against him in anger.
4. 55:4
   • The speaker says his heart writhes in anguish within him.
   • The speaker says the terrors of death have fallen on him.
5. 55:5
   • The speaker says fear and trembling have come upon him.
   • The speaker says horror has covered him over.
6. 55:6
   • The speaker said he wished he had wings like a dove.
   • The speaker said that with such wings he would fly away.
   • The speaker said he would settle down and be at rest.
7. 55:7
   • The speaker said he would flee far away.
   • The speaker said he would lodge in the wilderness.
   • The word Selah stands at this point.
8. 55:8
   • The speaker said he would hurry to a place of escape.
   • The speaker said he would escape from the driving wind and the storm.
9. 55:9
   • The speaker asks the Lord to swallow up and confound them.
   • The speaker asks the Lord to divide their tongues.
   • The speaker says he has seen violence and strife in the city.
10. 55:10
    • Day and night they go around the city on its walls.
    • Trouble and wrongdoing are inside the city.
11. 55:11
    • Ruin and destruction are within the city.
    • Oppression and deceit never leave the city's public square.
12. 55:12
    • It was not an enemy who reproached the speaker.
    • The speaker says that if it had been an enemy, he could have borne it.
    • It was not one who hated him who exalted himself against him.
    • The speaker says that if it had been such a person, he would have hidden himself from him.
13. 55:13
    • The speaker says it was the person he is addressing who did this.
    • The speaker says that person is a man of his own rank.
    • The speaker says that person is his companion and guide.
    • The speaker says that person is his close acquaintance.
14. 55:14
    • The speaker and that person shared close, sweet counsel together.
    • The speaker and that person walked into the house of God among the crowd.
15. 55:15
    • The speaker asks that death seize them.
    • The speaker asks that they go down alive into Sheol.
    • The speaker gives as the reason that evil is in their dwellings and among them.
16. 55:16
    • The speaker says he will call on God.
    • The speaker says the LORD will save him.
17. 55:17
    • The speaker says he will complain and moan evening, morning, and noon.
    • The speaker says God will hear his voice.
18. 55:18
    • God has redeemed the speaker's life in peace from the battle waged against him.
    • The reason given is that many were with him; the wording is ambiguous and can equally mean that many were against him.
19. 55:19
    • God will hear.
    • God will afflict and humble them.
    • God is enthroned from of old.
    • The word Selah stands at this point.
    • They undergo no changes.
    • They do not fear God.
20. 55:20
    • That person stretched out his hands against those who were at peace with him.
    • That person violated his covenant.
21. 55:21
    • The words of his mouth were smoother than butter.
    • War was in his heart.
    • His words were softer than oil.
    • His words were drawn swords.
22. 55:22
    • The hearer is told to cast his burden on the LORD.
    • The LORD will sustain the one who does so.
    • The LORD will never let the righteous be shaken.
23. 55:23
    • God will bring them down to the pit of destruction.
    • Men of bloodshed and deceit will not live out half their days.
    • The speaker says he will trust in God.

Words Worth Explaining

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

55:1

"Give ear" is an old way of saying "listen to me." It pictures God turning his ear toward the person praying. "Supplication" means begging hard for help.

55:2

Where the King James has "make a noise," the Hebrew verb means to moan or be in turmoil, the restless sound of distress, not noise in the sense of commotion.

55:3

"Cast iniquity upon me" renders a Hebrew phrase that can mean either to topple trouble down onto someone or to hurl accusations at them; both senses fit here, and translators divide over which is meant.

55:4

"Sore pained" does not mean a little sore. In 1611, "sore" meant very much, so this means hurting badly.

55:5

Horror means a scared feeling so big that it fills you up.

55:6

Doves in this part of the world nested in holes in cliff faces, in country no one could easily reach. The wish is not just for wings in general but for the particular escape a dove has: gone in seconds, and settled somewhere out beyond anyone's reach.

55:7

Selah appears seventy-one times in the Psalms and nobody knows what it means. It is left untranslated because it is probably a direction to the musicians (a pause, an instrumental break, or a cue to lift the voices), rather than part of the words being sung.

55:9

"Divide their tongues" is a request that the plotters' speech be split and confounded so their scheme falls apart. The same image drives the Babel story in Genesis, where one shared language is confused into many and the building project collapses.

55:10

The picture is of violence and strife patrolling the top of the city wall day and night, like the sentries whose job was to guard the city. The threat has taken the watchmen's place.

55:11

"Guile" means tricking people on purpose, using clever words to fool them.

55:12

"Reproached" means insulted. To "magnify himself against me" means to puff himself up and act like he is better.

55:13

The King James "my guide" can suggest a mentor or leader, but the Hebrew means someone of the speaker's own rank and intimate circle. The three terms (equal, companion, close friend) describe a peer, not a superior.

55:14

"The house of God" is the sanctuary in Jerusalem, the central place of worship. Walking there "in company" refers to the crowd of pilgrims moving together in procession at a festival, a public, shared act, which is what makes the betrayal by a fellow worshiper sting.

55:15

In the King James, "quick" means alive, not fast. "Hell" here translates Sheol, the underworld where Hebrew tradition placed all the dead alike; it is the realm of the grave rather than a place of punishment. Going down there alive echoes the story in Numbers 16 where the ground opens and swallows rebels whole.

55:16

LORD in big letters stands for God's own special name.

55:17

Evening comes first because the Hebrew day began at sunset, not at midnight. The three times name a full daily round rather than a fixed schedule of services.

55:18

The last clause is genuinely ambiguous in Hebrew and reads roughly "for in many they were against me." It can mean many were arrayed against the speaker, or that many stood with him; ancient and modern translators split both ways.

55:19

"They have no changes" means their circumstances never turn against them, nothing in life ever knocks them down or forces them to reconsider. That untroubled run, not any argument, is given as the reason they have no fear of God.

55:20

A covenant was a formal sworn agreement, as binding as a legal contract and normally sealed with an oath before God. Here it is the pledge that held the two men together as friends or allies, which makes breaking it a sworn offense, not merely a disappointment.

55:21

Butter here is curds (thick soured milk, a soothing food) and oil is olive oil, rubbed on the skin to soften and calm it. Both images are of something smooth and pleasant on contact, set against the drawn sword underneath.

55:22

The Hebrew noun behind "burden" occurs nowhere else in the Bible and means something like "what has been given to you" (your lot, or the load assigned to you), rather than a weight you picked up yourself.

55:23

"The pit" is a standard Hebrew word for the grave or the underworld. "Half their days" measures against a normal full lifespan, which the ancient world counted as a reward and its opposite as a mark of a life cut short.