Psalms 57: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

A prayer of David asking God for mercy while enemies hunt him. He describes himself lying among lions and men whose words cut like swords, and says the trap they dug has caught them instead. The second half turns to singing: he calls on harp and lyre, promises praise among the nations, and repeats the refrain asking that God be lifted above the heavens and his glory cover all the earth.

Claim by Claim

1. 57:1
   • The speaker asks God to be gracious to him.
   • The speaker repeats the request for God to be gracious to him.
   • The speaker's soul takes refuge in God.
   • The speaker will take refuge in the shadow of God's wings.
   • The speaker will keep that refuge until the destructions pass by.
2. 57:2
   • The speaker will call out to God Most High.
   • God is the one who completes what he does for the speaker.
3. 57:3
   • God will send from heaven and save the speaker.
   • The rescue concerns the taunting of the one who pants after the speaker to swallow him up.
   • It is unclear whether God saves the speaker from his attacker's taunt or whether God taunts the attacker.
   • Selah.
   • God will send forth his loyal love.
   • God will send forth his faithfulness.
4. 57:4
   • The speaker's soul is among lions.
   • The speaker lies down among those who burn with rage.
   • Those he lies among are human beings.
   • Their teeth are spears and arrows.
   • Their tongue is a sharp sword.
5. 57:5
   • The speaker asks God to be exalted above the heavens.
   • The speaker asks that God's glory be over all the earth.
6. 57:6
   • They prepared a net for the speaker's steps.
   • The speaker's soul is bowed down.
   • They dug a pit in front of the speaker.
   • They themselves fell into the pit.
   • Selah.
7. 57:7
   • The speaker's heart is steady toward God.
   • The speaker repeats that his heart is steady.
   • The speaker will sing.
   • The speaker will make music in praise.
8. 57:8
   • The speaker calls his glory to awake.
   • The speaker calls the harp and the lyre to awake.
   • The speaker will rouse the dawn.
9. 57:9
   • The speaker will praise the Lord among the peoples.
   • The speaker will sing to the Lord among the nations.
10. 57:10
    • God's loyal love is great, reaching to the heavens.
    • God's faithfulness reaches to the clouds.
11. 57:11
    • The speaker asks God to be exalted above the heavens.
    • The speaker asks that God's glory be over all the earth.

Words Worth Explaining

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

57:1

"In the shadow of your wings" is a stock image in Hebrew poetry for shelter: a bird spreading its wings over its young. Some readers also hear an echo of the outspread wings of the carved figures over the ark in the temple, under which one took sanctuary.

57:2

"God Most High" translates the Hebrew title El Elyon, a very old name for God used in Genesis and in the psalms, marking him as highest over every other power.

57:3

"Selah" is a Hebrew word left untranslated because nobody knows what it means. It appears only in poetry meant to be sung, and is usually taken as a direction to the musicians, a pause, an instrumental break, or a change in volume.

57:4

The Hebrew word behind "burn with rage" is uncertain: it can describe people blazing with fury, or the flames themselves, so the line has also been read as "I lie down among devouring flames." The picture either way is of a man lying down surrounded by things that eat.

57:5

This line comes back word for word as the last verse of the psalm. Repeating a line at intervals like this is a standard device in Hebrew song, the equivalent of a refrain.

57:6

Both images come from hunting: a net pegged out flat on a path to tangle an animal's legs, and a covered pit dug so that the animal drops into it. Used of people, they mean a trap laid in secret.

57:7

"Fixed" in 1611 English means firmly set or immovable, not mended or repaired. The claim is that the singer's resolve is not wobbling.

57:8

The Hebrew says "awake, my glory." "My glory" here means the speaker's own inner self, the most honorable part of a person, standing for the whole. The harp and lyre are stringed instruments plucked by hand, standard equipment for temple singers. "I will wake the dawn" reverses the ordinary order: instead of the daylight waking the singer, he rises first and sings the sun up.

57:9

The King James "the people" translates a Hebrew plural, peoples. Paired with "the nations," it means foreign peoples generally. The point of the line is that this praise happens out in public among outsiders, not privately or only inside Israel.

57:10

"Mercy" and "truth" are the pair hesed and emet, which run together all through the Hebrew Bible. Hesed is loyal, promise keeping love; emet means reliability or faithfulness, being something you can lean on, rather than truth in the sense of a statement being factually correct.