Psalms 56: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

This psalm is a prayer for help while enemies hunt the speaker down. He describes people who twist his words, watch his steps, and lie in wait for his life, and he answers his own fear by saying he trusts God and will not be afraid of what human beings can do. He asks God to take account of his tears and to bring his enemies down, and he ends by promising thanks because God has rescued him from death.

Claim by Claim

1. 56:1
   • The speaker asks God to be gracious to him.
   • The speaker says that man tramples and snaps at him.
   • The speaker says an attacker fights against him all day long.
   • The speaker says that attacker oppresses him.
2. 56:2
   • The speaker says his watching enemies trample and snap at him all day long.
   • The speaker says many are fighting against him.
   • The speaker addresses the one fighting or the one he appeals to with a word that can mean either 'O Most High' or 'haughtily/proudly', and the text is ambiguous which is meant.
3. 56:3
   • The speaker says that on the day he is afraid, he trusts in God.
4. 56:4
   • The speaker praises God's word, and does so in God.
   • The speaker has put his trust in God.
   • The speaker says he will not be afraid.
   • The speaker asks what flesh can do to him.
5. 56:5
   • The speaker says his enemies twist his words all day long.
   • The speaker says all their thoughts against him are for evil.
6. 56:6
   • The speaker says they band together against him.
   • The speaker says they hide themselves and lie in wait.
   • The speaker says they watch his steps.
   • The speaker says they are waiting to take his life.
7. 56:7
   • The speaker asks whether they will escape despite their iniquity.
   • The speaker asks God to cast down the peoples in his anger.
8. 56:8
   • The speaker says God has counted his wanderings.
   • The speaker asks God to put his tears into God's bottle.
   • The speaker asks whether his tears are not in God's book.
9. 56:9
   • The speaker says that on the day he cries out to God, his enemies will turn back.
   • The speaker says he knows this.
   • The speaker says God is for him.
10. 56:10
    • The speaker praises God's word, and does so in God.
    • The speaker praises the word, and does so in the LORD.
11. 56:11
    • The speaker has put his trust in God.
    • The speaker says he will not be afraid.
    • The speaker asks what man can do to him.
12. 56:12
    • The speaker says his vows to God are upon him.
    • The speaker says he will pay thank offerings to God.
13. 56:13
    • The speaker says God has delivered his life from death.
    • The speaker says God has kept, or asks whether God will keep, his feet from stumbling; the text is ambiguous between the two.
    • The speaker says the purpose is that he may walk before God in the light of the living.

Words Worth Explaining

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

56:1

"Swallow me up" is a standard Hebrew image for total destruction, the way a beast gulps down prey or the ground opens and takes someone under. It is not about eating; it means wiping out completely, leaving nothing.

56:2

The Hebrew word behind "most High" is uncertain here. It can be a title for God ("O Most High"), or a description of the attackers, fighting "from on high," that is, arrogantly or from a position of advantage. Translations split between the two, and the wording allows either.

56:3

"What time" here does not ask a question. In 1611 English it meant "at the time when," so the line reads "whenever I am afraid, I will trust you." Notice that the fear is not denied; the trust happens inside it.

56:4

"His word" means what God has said, specifically a promise God has made. The Hebrew line is very compressed, and can be read either as "in God I praise his promise" or "by God's help I praise his promise."

56:5

"Wrest" is an old word for wrenching something out of its proper shape, related to "wrestle." It describes enemies taking the speaker's actual words and bending them into something incriminating, the way a hostile witness quotes you out of context in court.

56:6

"Mark my steps" means watch and record every move, like trackers following a trail. "Wait for my soul" uses "soul" in its normal Hebrew sense of a person's life or breath, so the line means they are lying in ambush to take his life, not hunting some spiritual part of him.

56:7

The first line of this verse is one of the difficult spots in the Hebrew, and translators fill it out differently: roughly "is escape theirs, given such wickedness?" The word rendered "people" is the plural normally used for foreign nations or peoples, not for an individual's personal enemies.

56:8

In 1611 "tell" meant "count" (as in a bank teller counting money). The "bottle" is a leather waterskin, the ordinary container for liquid, the image is of God saving the speaker's tears rather than letting them fall and vanish. The Hebrew words for "wanderings" and "bottle" sound nearly identical, which is part of the effect. The "book" is a written record, like the registers kings kept of their subjects and their affairs.

56:10

"LORD" printed in capitals stands for the personal name of Israel's God, four Hebrew consonants often written YHWH. Jewish readers avoided pronouncing it and said "the Lord" instead; English Bibles keep that practice by using the capitalised word.

56:12

People in trouble commonly promised God a specific gift or sacrifice if they were rescued; once rescued, the promise had to be paid. "Vows are upon me" means that debt is now due. The "praises" or thank offerings were an actual sacrifice brought to the sanctuary and eaten as a shared meal, with the story of the rescue told publicly.

56:13

"Walk before God" is an idiom for conducting one's whole life in God's presence and service, not for taking a walk. "The light of the living" is likewise an idiom: daylight is what living people see, so the phrase simply means being alive, as opposed to the darkness of the realm of the dead.