Psalm 11 is an expression of trust that God is our ultimate and true source of safety.¹ It shows how the place where we find our refuge plays a key role in how threatened we will feel by the potential dangers around us. When we are surrounded by sturdy and thick walls, the pouring rainstorm is at worst an inconvenience. If we reside in a flimsy tent, a mild rainstorm can be a massive problem.

Psalm 11 teaches us that God’s people have refuge in the Lord, which is the safest place to be. When we have God as our shelter, even the largest-scale dangers seem inconsequential. The exposition of Psalm 11 in this article outlines how we have the same reasons to have explicable courage as David had when he rejected the advice to be afraid of all that was happening around him.

The Original Setting

The whole of this psalm revolves around a quote that came as advice to David. We should grab hold of that quote at the outset because it drives the thought of this whole psalm. The quote begins halfway through verse 1 and ends in verse 3:

Flee like a bird to your mountain,

for behold, the wicked bend the bow;

they have fitted their arrow to the string

to shoot in the dark at the upright in heart;

if the foundations are destroyed,

what can the righteous do?

This is advice to David about how to respond to apparent threats. The wicked have bent their bow and strung an arrow, ready to snipe the righteous. If that were not enough, the foundations seem destroyed. In other words, the very pillars of society seemed to be coming undone.² In the face of all these dangers, someone advised David that his response should be to run away.

Amid all this chaos, this advice suggests there is nothing the righteous can do about it. The righteous should flee like a bird, flying off to a mountain perch away from the danger. That is the counsel David received. As we examine the scope of the psalm, we see that David found it to be terrible advice.

We see how and why David thought it was bad advice if we look at how he introduced that quote. He opened this psalm: “In the Lord I take refuge; how can you say to my soul, [that I need to flee from my troubles]?” David’s opening statement that he takes refuge in the Lord explains his whole rationale in the psalm. It reveals what sort of walls were around him during this storm. David knew the Lord well, so he knew that he was not in a flimsy tent, but in a fortress more impenetrable than any that could be found on earth.

The location of David’s refuge motivates his mindset toward this instruction: “How can you say that?” He did not even understand how someone could tell him that he needed to run away. After all, his refuge is in God. What real risk could these threats pose?

The second half of this psalm explains why taking refuge in the Lord makes it foolish to heed this call to fear. God is high above earthly affairs, inhabiting the heavenly temple. From heaven, God reigns. As he reigns, he is assessing the world and sides with the righteous and against the wicked.

To summarize verses 4–7, three things give David confidence to shoulder aside this counsel to fear. First, God’s role as the heavenly judge over all the earth assures David that God is not blind to any of the things playing out on earth, including potential threats to his people. Second, David knew the Lord always brings justice against those who stand in wickedness. God will test the righteous but hate the wicked, raining hot coals down upon them. Finally, the Lord is righteous and will show his face to those who follow him. God’s kingly reign is of great comfort to console our fears.

Application for Our Approach to Prayer

How does this psalm relate to our lives today? It seems like one of the blasting messages coming at us from all sides in recent days is that the issues before us in the US likely mean the end of culture as we know it. The media and all our potential future leaders (regardless of which side of the partisan line they fall) are constantly sounding the same note, that we are on the precipice of some real threat to our way of life . . . especially if we do not agree with them—whoever it is speaking.

To put the fine point on it, the world sounds a lot like the advice that David rejected and criticized. Does not that bad advice end, “if the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do?” That point is easy to transpose into modern language as: “If things don’t go my way, it must mean the genuine end of the world.” David reminds us that even if those things come to an end, our true safety lies elsewhere.

Psalm 11 puts in front of us a choice: Will we, as God’s people, listen to fearmongering about how bad things will be if we do not side with whomever scares us the most. Psalm 11 asks us to consider whether our trust is ultimately in the things of our society or in the sovereign God who reigns from his heavenly temple.

We could all panic about what life might be like in days to come. David, however, tells us to listen to other insights rather than fear-inducing advice. David knew that while we fiddle about with the things of this world, unable to see how things can go the right way in our strength, God is ruling and working for the sake of righteousness.

We need a strong dose of David, not dirge, in our prayer lives. David looks at the truth of who God is and at his relationship to God, and he says, “How foolish it would be to fear this world.” Martin Luther got at this truth in his famous hymn based on Psalm 46:

That Word above all earthly powers
no thanks to them abideth;
the Spirit and the gifts are ours
through him who with us sideth.
Let goods and kindred go,
this mortal life also;
the body they may kill:
God’s truth abideth still;
his kingdom is forever!³

Where is our real security? Is it in the foundations of this culture? Well, if it is, then I suppose we all should be very afraid. For no matter what is in store in the near future, the society in which we live will not last forever. It will end at least at Christ’s coming. If our confidence and sense of safety is in politics, infrastructure, worldly comforts, acceptance among the cultural elite, then we have every reason to fly like a bird to find a safe mountain top—if one exists.

Nevertheless, if our confidence is the Lord, then we can laugh at advice that would move us to fear. My refuge is in the Lord! How in the world could we listen to something that would make us afraid if we have hidden ourselves in the Lord?

There may be more than a rainstorm brewing, but we are not in a tent. We are protected within the hands of almighty God who always reigns on behalf of his people, always sees righteousness, always loves those who belong to him, and will always be the safest place we could ever find ourselves. The rains may come. In a tent you can be freezing, wet, and frightened. In a house, you remain dry and even comfortable, barely caring that the storm has risen. We have refuge in the God of heaven, so we have no need to fear.

Notes

1. Bruce K. Waltke and Fred G. Zaspel, How to Read and Understand the Psalms (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2023), 347–48; John Goldingay, Psalms, 3 vols. (Baker Commentary on the Old Testament Wisdom and Psalms; Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2006–8), 1:188; Allen P. Ross, A Commentary on the Psalms, 3 vol. (Grand Rapids, MI: Kregel Academic Press, 2011–16), 1:338–39.
2. Goldingay, Psalms, 1:191; Ross, Psalms, 1:339–40.
3. Martin Luther, “A Mighty Fortress is Our God,” 1529.

© Harrison Perkins. All Rights Reserved.

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Post authored by:

• Harrison Perkins

  

  Harrison Perkins (PhD, Queen’s University Belfast; MDiv, Westminster Seminary California) is pastor of Oakland Hills Community Church (OPC), a member of the of the Heidelberg Reformation Association, a Senior Research Fellow at the Craig Center for the Study of the Westminster Standards, associate online instructor in church history at Westminster Theological Seminary, a visiting lecturer in systematic theology at Edinburgh Theological Seminary, and author of Reformed Covenant Theology: A Systematic Introduction.

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