The Song of the Hunted

Psalm 7 is the last in a string of individual laments from Psalms 3 to 7, and this one begins on a frantic note. It’s a “Shiggaion,” a musical term that only occurs here in the Psalms and likely means wild, emotional, agitated. We don’t know exactly what was causing David to be upset other than general persecution and slander. The title names “Cush, a Benjaminite,” and since David’s rival Saul was from the tribe of Benjamin, Cush might have been an ally of Saul who was oppressing David. The psalm begins with a prayer that sounds more panicked than confident: “O LORD my God, in you do I take refuge; save me from all my pursuers and deliver me, lest like a lion they tear my soul apart, rending it in pieces, with none to deliver.” David is running for his life, looking over his shoulder, chased either literally or metaphorically. He feels hunted. David then takes an oath; verses 3-5 have the formal language of an ancient vow, like a witness in the courtroom who raises their hand and swears to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. “O LORD my God, if I have done this, if there is wrong in my hands, if I have repaid my friend with evil or plundered my enemy without cause…” These are the accusations that David is protesting. He says, “I’ve never sought another person’s blood or betrayed an ally or even taken advantage of my enemies. But if it was true… “let the enemy pursue my soul and overtake it, and let him trample my life to the ground and lay my glory in the dust.” This is as strong of an appeal that you can make to your own innocence, personal character, and moral integrity. Those who work in law enforcement know that the first thing a criminal says when accused is “I didn’t do it.” But what do you do if you truly didn’t do it, if you’re being falsely accused, if your conscience is clear but you’re still suffering? What David does is he appeals to the true Judge who is the only one who can vindicate the innocent and punish the wicked. In this psalm, God’s salvation means God’s justice.

After his personal plea, David asks for the Judge to step into this situation and do something. “Arise, O LORD, in your anger!” Essentially, “Wake up! Act!” In verse 7, David is the bailiff saying, “All rise! The Honorable Yahweh is presiding.” “Let the assembly of the peoples be gathered about you; over it return on high.” Court is now in session. What is David’s defense? He offers two arguments: first, the LORD is a righteous Judge who knows all things. God can even see the inner workings of minds and hearts, or literally “hearts and kidneys,” which were Hebrew idioms for all of our being. David famously develops this idea further in Psalm 139. God is both all-seeing and all-holy. He is not confused or confounded by situations in which, for us human beings, it’s hard to know who is telling the truth – whose story to believe. “The LORD judges the peoples.” He knows the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. David’s second argument is that because God is a righteous Judge, he saves those who are good and punishes those who are evil. Verse 10, “My shield is with God, who saves the upright in heart. God is a righteous judge, and a God who feels indignation every day.” God rights the scales. He doesn’t allow miscarriages of justice. And it’s right about this time that we expect David to swing around and point at his enemies and say, “They did it. They deserve the judgment.” He does go there eventually, but first there’s a little phrase in verse 12 that is easy to miss. He says, “If a man does not repent, God will whet his sword.” If a man does not repent. Even though David is hunted, pursued, persecuted, he offers his enemies a way out. Or rather, he recognizes the heart of God, the God who declared his character to Moses in Exodus 34: “The LORD, the LORD, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty…” God is just, but he is also merciful. If a guilty man repents, changes his mind, and turns back from his destructive ways, the Judge shows forgiveness. Yes, the consequences of their sin remain, but when we confess and fall to our knees in humble penitence, we find in the hands of God not a sword but an embrace.

But what if a man will not repent? This is where David ends the psalm. He uses three metaphors for the consequences of people who pursue injustice and evil and don’t turn back. First, the metaphor of God as a warrior. Verse 12: “If a man does not repent, God will whet his sword; he has bent and readied his bow; he has prepared for him his deadly weapons, making his arrows fiery shafts.” Notice that in each of these images, God is preparing his weapons but not using them yet. He is the Judge and Executioner who will one day take vengeance on those who do wrong and think that they’re getting away with it, but that day hasn’t come yet. There is still time for the conviction to be reversed, for the sentencing to be waived, for the prisoner to be released if (and only if) they appeal to the mercy of the God who forgives. Second, David uses the metaphor of pregnancy to describe the guilty: “Behold, the wicked man conceives evil and is pregnant with mischief and gives birth to lies.” Notice the progression from conception to pregnancy to birth. It’s the fertility of evil, which is a vivid image that is worth pondering. Evil grows and matures if it isn’t checked; it spreads its influence, and it moves from the heart to ideas in the mind to words in our mouths and actions with our hands. Therefore, in order for evil to be rooted out, what we need is not a new set of instructions or behaviors but a new heart, a new core, a new love and reverence for the Lord. Finally, David pictures evil people as incompetent hunters: “He makes a pit, digging it out, and falls into the hole that he has made. His mischief returns upon his own head, and on his own skull his violence descends.” At the beginning of the psalm, David saw his enemies as ferocious lions, but here, he sees them in a new light because he realizes that evil often works against itself. This is the futility of evil. Lies, deceit, and mischief are inherently self-destructive. Either God will intervene and bring justice through direct action or he’ll let the consequences of people’s own selfishness and stupidity fall on their own head. And it’s with this fresh perspective that David ends the psalm in gratitude: “I will give to the LORD the thanks due to his righteousness, and I will sing praise to the name of the LORD, the Most High.” The hunted can now rest in safety and peace under the protection of the Judge.