Psalms 59: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

The speaker asks God to rescue him from violent men who are lying in wait to take his life, insisting that he has done nothing to deserve it. He pictures them as dogs that come back each evening, snarling and prowling around the city, and he asks God not to kill them outright but to scatter them and bring them down, so that people to the ends of the earth will know God rules over Jacob. The psalm closes with the speaker promising to sing in the morning about God's strength and faithful love, because God has been his fortress in trouble.

Claim by Claim

1. 59:1
   • The speaker asks his God to deliver him from his enemies.
   • The speaker asks God to set him securely on high, out of reach of those who rise up against him.
   • The speaker addresses God as his own God.
2. 59:2
   • The speaker asks God to deliver him from those who do evil.
   • The speaker asks God to save him from men of bloodshed.
3. 59:3
   • The speaker says his enemies lie in ambush for his life.
   • The speaker says strong men are banded together against him.
   • The speaker says this is not because of any transgression of his.
   • The speaker says this is not because of any sin of his.
   • The speaker addresses the LORD.
4. 59:4
   • The speaker says that though he is without fault, they run and take up position against him.
   • The speaker calls on God to rouse himself to meet and help him.
   • The speaker calls on God to look.
5. 59:5
   • The speaker addresses the LORD as God of hosts.
   • The speaker addresses him as the God of Israel.
   • The speaker calls on God to awake to punish all the nations.
   • The speaker asks God to show no mercy to any who treacherously do evil.
   • The word Selah stands here.
6. 59:6
   • The enemies come back at evening.
   • The enemies growl like a dog.
   • The enemies prowl around the city.
7. 59:7
   • The enemies pour out speech from their mouth.
   • Swords are in their lips.
   • They say that no one hears.
8. 59:8
   • The speaker says the LORD will laugh at them.
   • The speaker says God will mock all the nations.
9. 59:9
   • The speaker says he will watch and wait for God because of that strength, and the text leaves unclear whether the strength is the enemy's or God's, whom he addresses as his strength.
   • The speaker says God is his high fortress.
10. 59:10
    • The God of the speaker's steadfast love will go before him and meet him.
    • God will let the speaker look upon his enemies.
11. 59:11
    • The speaker asks God not to kill them.
    • The speaker gives as the reason that his people would otherwise forget.
    • The speaker asks God to make them wander and be scattered by his power.
    • The speaker asks God to bring them down.
    • The speaker addresses the Lord as our shield.
12. 59:12
    • The sin of their mouth is named as a cause.
    • The word of their lips is named as a cause.
    • The speaker asks that they be caught in their own pride.
    • The cursing and lying that they speak is named as a cause.
13. 59:13
    • The speaker asks God to consume them in wrath.
    • The speaker asks God to consume them until they are no more.
    • The speaker asks that people know that God rules in Jacob.
    • The speaker asks that this be known to the ends of the earth.
    • The word Selah stands here.
14. 59:14
    • The speaker asks that they come back at evening.
    • The speaker asks that they growl like a dog.
    • The speaker asks that they prowl around the city.
15. 59:15
    • They roam about for food.
    • If they are not satisfied they growl, or else spend the night; the text leaves this unclear.
16. 59:16
    • The speaker will sing of God's strength.
    • The speaker will sing aloud of God's steadfast love in the morning.
    • God has been the speaker's high fortress.
    • God has been a refuge for the speaker in the day of his distress.
17. 59:17
    • The speaker will sing praises to God.
    • The speaker addresses God as his strength.
    • The speaker says God is his high fortress.
    • The speaker says God is the God of his steadfast love.

Words Worth Explaining

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

59:1

A psalm is a song. People sang psalms to God, like a prayer with music. The old word "Deliver" here means "Rescue."

59:2

"Bloody men" in the King James does not mean men covered in blood or swearing; it renders a Hebrew phrase, "men of bloods," meaning killers, men guilty of shedding blood.

59:3

"My soul" here does not mean an inner spirit separate from the body. The Hebrew word covers a person's life or whole self, so lying in wait for his soul means lying in wait to kill him.

59:4

"Awake" is not a claim that God is asleep. Asking God to wake up, rouse himself or stand up is standard Hebrew prayer language for urging him to step in and act now.

59:5

"LORD God of hosts" translates a title meaning commander of armies; the "hosts" are heavenly forces pictured as troops under God's command. "Heathen" is the King James word for the goyim, the nations other than Israel; it carries no sense of "uncivilised." "Selah" is a Hebrew term that appears about seventy times in the Psalms and nowhere else outside them; its meaning is unknown. It is usually taken as a direction to the musicians or singers (a pause, a change of volume, or an instrumental interlude) and is left untranslated for that reason.

59:6

Dogs in ancient Israel were not pets but half-wild scavengers that roamed the edges of towns after dark, feeding on refuse and carrion. The comparison is to a pack circling the walls at nightfall, not to a household animal.

59:7

"Belch out" renders a Hebrew verb meaning to gush or pour forth, used of a spring; the image is speech spilling out uncontrolled. "Swords are in their lips" is a standard Hebrew figure for words used as weapons, slander, threats, false accusation. Their question "who doth hear?" is a claim that no one is listening and so no one will hold them to account.

59:8

"Have in derision" means to laugh at or treat with contempt. On "the heathen" see verse 5: it means the surrounding nations.

59:9

The Hebrew of the opening words is uncertain and the ancient copies differ. The King James follows a reading meaning "because of his strength"; many manuscripts and versions read instead "O my strength, I will watch for you," which matches verse 17, where the same phrase clearly addresses God. Both readings are defensible.

59:10

In 1611 "prevent" meant to go before or come out to meet someone, the opposite of its modern sense of blocking. "Let me see my desire upon mine enemies" translates a Hebrew idiom that is simply "let me look upon my enemies", to look at a defeated opponent, the posture of the winner surveying the loser.

59:11

The request is that the enemies be left alive but broken and dispersed rather than wiped out: a scattered, visibly beaten opponent stays in view as a lasting reminder, where a destroyed one is quickly forgotten. "Shield" was a common way of addressing a protector or patron in Hebrew.

59:12

"Cursing" here does not mean obscene language. It means calling down harm on someone by name, an act treated in the ancient world as effective speech, close to a legal or magical attack.

59:13

"Jacob" is used as the name of the nation, after the ancestor from whom the twelve tribes of Israel were traced. "To the ends of the earth" is a set phrase for the farthest inhabited edges of the known world.

59:15

Two words have shifted. "Meat" in 1611 meant food of any kind, not flesh specifically. "Grudge" meant to grumble or growl in complaint, keeping the dog image of verse 14 running.

59:16

"Mercy" again translates hesed, loyal and lasting love rather than pity. "Defence" again means a fortified stronghold, as in verse 9. Morning matters in the line because it is when the night prowlers of verses 6 and 14 have gone and the danger has passed.