Psalms 55–57 provide a helpful encouragement for the believer. Each one finds David under pressure, surrounded by trouble, and learning again where his refuge is found, a lesson he learns over and over again. In Psalm 55 the pressure comes especially through betrayal and the desire to escape. In Psalm 56 it comes through fear. In Psalm 57 David takes refuge under the shadow of God’s wings. Taken together, these psalms show us what faith does when trouble closes in. Psalm 55 begins with a very human response to suffering: Sometimes we do not want an explanation. We just want out.
We want the conversation to be over. We want the pressure to stop. We want to get away from the people involved, put some distance between us and the problem, and find somewhere quiet where nobody can reach us. This desire can come from many kinds of trouble, but it is especially strong when the hurt is personal. An enemy can wound us, but betrayal wounds differently. There is something uniquely painful about discovering that a person we trusted cannot be trusted, that words we believed were sincere were not, or that someone with whom we once shared fellowship has turned against us.
Psalm 55 is written out of that kind of experience. We do not know with certainty the historical occasion behind the psalm. Many have connected it with Absalom’s rebellion and the betrayal of Ahithophel, David’s counselor who defected to Absalom in 2 Samuel 15. That setting would certainly fit much of the psalm, but David does not tell us enough to identify the occasion beyond doubt. What he does tell us is what the experience felt like. His heart is in anguish. Fear has taken hold of him. A trusted friend has betrayed him. The city itself is filled with violence, strife, oppression, and deceit. And David wants to leave.
“Oh, that I had wings like a dove! I would fly away and be at rest” (v. 6). Psalm 55 answers a question that believers still ask: What do I do with a burden I cannot escape and cannot carry?
David begins where believers must begin. He prays:
Give ear to my prayer, O God,
and hide not yourself from my plea for mercy!
Attend to me, and answer me. (vv. 1–2).
There is nothing polished about this prayer. David is not calmly reporting a theological problem. He says, “I am restless in my complaint and I moan” (v. 2). “Restless” is a difficult Hebrew word here. Its precise meaning is uncertain, but the general picture is clear. David is agitated, tossed about, distracted. He cannot settle himself.
We know the feeling. Sometimes we imagine that mature faith should produce emotional calm almost immediately. We know that God is sovereign. We know that he is good. We know the promises. Therefore, we think, we should not be so troubled. David knew those things too. Yet he says, “My heart is in anguish within me” (v. 4). He speaks of “the terrors of death,” “fear and trembling,” and “horror” overwhelming him (vv. 4–5).
This is David. He had stood before Goliath when an entire army was afraid. He had repeatedly faced Saul. He knew what danger was. Yet here his heart nearly fails him. Faith does not make us incapable of fear, nor does faith require us to pretend before God. There is a difference between complaining to God and complaining about God. David does the first. He opens his case before the Lord. He tells God what has happened and what it has done to him. This is one of the great privileges of prayer. We do not have to make ourselves composed before approaching God. We come because we are not composed. David asks God not to hide himself because he is laying himself open before God.
Then comes one of the most human statements in the entire psalm: “Oh, that I had wings like a dove! I would fly away and be at rest” (v. 6). If only I could leave. “I would wander far away; I would lodge in the wilderness” (v. 7). If only I could go where nobody knew me. “I would hurry to find a shelter from the raging wind and tempest” (v. 8). If only this would stop.
There is no shame in acknowledging that suffering hurts or that our circumstances are truly trying our faith. God’s people do not have to pretend they enjoy suffering simply because we know that God can use it for our good and his glory. Our Savior did not welcome suffering as though pain itself was good. In Gethsemane he prayed, “If it be possible, let this cup pass from me.” Yet he submitted himself to the will of his Father. David wants the storm removed. Psalm 55 will eventually teach him something even deeper: Sometimes God does not immediately remove us from the storm. He sustains us in it.
David’s prayer then turns outward. “Destroy, O Lord, divide their tongues” (v. 9). His concern is larger than his own pain. Before he even describes the betrayal of his friend, David describes what wickedness is doing to the city. “I see violence and strife in the city” (v. 9). “Iniquity and trouble are within it” (v. 10). “Oppression and fraud do not depart from its marketplace” (v. 11).
There is something important here. David has been personally wounded, but his concern is not merely personal. Sin destroys communities. Violence and strife do not stay private. Deceit spreads. Treachery corrodes trust. Wickedness eventually affects homes, churches, cities, and nations because sin never remains neatly confined to the sinner.
Only then does David tell us what has happened to him personally. “For it is not an enemy who taunts me—then I could bear it” (v. 12). This is a remarkable statement. An enemy is easier to understand. We know where we stand with an enemy. “It is not an adversary who deals insolently with me—then I could hide from him” (v. 12). David could have protected himself from an obvious opponent. “But it is you, a man, my equal, my companion, my familiar friend” (v. 13). This is different.
“We used to take sweet counsel together; within God’s house we walked in the throng” (v. 14). They had talked together, worshiped together, walked together. Later David returns to the same wound:
My companion stretched out his hand against his friends;
he violated his covenant.
His speech was smooth as butter,
yet war was in his heart;
his words were softer than oil,
yet they were drawn swords. (vv. 20–21)
This may be the most painful kind of betrayal: The words still sound gentle while the heart has already gone to war. If the historical background is Ahithophel’s betrayal during Absalom’s rebellion, the resemblance to the betrayal of Christ is difficult to miss. Jesus too was betrayed by one who had walked with him, eaten with him, and shared in the fellowship of his disciples.
But David does not answer betrayal by taking judgment into his own hands. He asks God to judge. “Let death steal over them; let them go down to Sheol alive” (v. 15). Those words sound jarring. Calvin rightly cautions us against treating them as permission to curse anyone who irritates us: “In imprecating this curse he was not influenced by any bad feeling towards them, and must be understood as speaking not in his own cause but in that of God, and under the immediate guidance of his Spirit. This was no wish uttered in a moment of resentment or of reckless and ill-considered zeal, and which would justify us in launching maledictions against our enemies upon every trivial provocation.”1
David does not indulge in private revenge. He is calling on God, the righteous Judge, to act against entrenched and destructive wickedness. The Christian response to evil is not to deny that evil deserves judgment. Neither is it to seize the judge’s seat for ourselves. We may ask God to defend his people, restrain wickedness, expose deceit, and execute justice while leaving the time and manner of that judgment in his hands. This is exactly where the psalm eventually leads David.
“But I call to God, and the LORD will save me” (v. 16). This sentence changes the direction of the psalm. The enemies have not disappeared. The betrayal has not been undone. The city has not suddenly been restored. But David knows where to turn. “Evening and morning and at noon I utter my complaint and moan, and he hears my voice” (v. 17).
There is persistence here. David prays in the evening. He prays in the morning. At noon he is still praying. Sometimes we think about prayer as though faith should make one request and then move on. David keeps bringing the matter before God. Perhaps this is because the answer has not yet come. He is like the persistent widow who will not let the judge alone (Luke 18:1–8).
Yet David can already say, “He redeems my soul in safety from the battle that I wage” (v. 18). Why? Because God is “enthroned from of old” (v. 19). David’s circumstances are unstable. God is not. Friends change. God does not. Human promises are broken. God remains enthroned.
This brings David to the great pastoral word of the psalm:
Cast your burden on the LORD,
and he will sustain you;
he will never permit
the righteous to be moved. (v. 22)
The Hebrew word translated “burden” occurs only here in the Old Testament. Its precise sense is difficult to capture in a single English word, but it seems to carry the idea of what has been given or allotted to someone—what has been laid on him.
This helps us hear David’s words. Whatever has been laid on you, cast it on the Lord—the betrayal you did not choose, the trouble you cannot fix, the situation you cannot control, the burden you cannot carry. Cast it on him.
And notice carefully what the promise says. David does not say, “Cast your burden on the LORD, and he will immediately take the situation away.” He says, “He will sustain you.” Earlier, David wanted wings. If only I could fly away. By verse 22 he has learned that what he needs most is not escape. He needs God to hold him up. This is often the way the Lord deals with his people. We ask him to remove the burden, and sometimes he does. But sometimes the burden remains while we discover that beneath us are everlasting arms.
The psalm closes with David speaking directly to God: “But you, O God, will cast them down into the pit of destruction” (v. 23). There is an interesting contrast. David casts his burden on God, and God will cast the wicked down. These are not David’s responsibilities to confuse. He gives his burden to God and leaves judgment with him. And then he says, “But I will trust in you” (v. 23).
This is the answer to Psalm 55: not that betrayal ceases to hurt, not that fear is imaginary, not that the believer should never wish he could fly away from it all. The answer is that there is somewhere to put the burden.
Christ himself shows us this perfectly. “In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears” (Heb 5:7). Jesus knew anguish, betrayal, and abandonment. Yet Peter tells us that “when he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly” (1 Pet 2:23).
This is Psalm 55 brought to its fullest expression. Jesus entrusted himself to his Father. He trusted God’s justice. He trusted God’s timing. He trusted even when obedience meant suffering rather than immediate escape. And the Father did not abandon his Son to the grave. This is why those who belong to Christ can say with David, even when the burden remains heavy, “I will trust in you.”
Sometimes we would still prefer wings. We would rather fly away and find some place quiet. But God promises something better than escape: “Cast your burden on the LORD, and he will sustain you.” Psalm 55 begins this series by teaching us what faith does with the burdens we cannot carry. Psalm 56 will take us into another familiar experience—fear—and ask what faith does when we are afraid. Psalm 57 will then bring us to the language of refuge, where David learns to rest beneath the shadow of God’s wings until the storm has passed. Even after all these generations, God provides us with a steadfast anchor for the storms in our lives, his promise and his Son, our Savior, Jesus Christ (Heb 6:17–20).
Note
- John Calvin, Commentary on the Psalms, Christian Classics Ethereal Library, https://www.ccel.org/study/Psalm_55:15–17.
©Everett Henes. All Rights Reserved.
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Everett Henes
Everett Henes (MDiv, ThM, DMin) is pastor of Hillsdale Orthodox Presbyterian Church, where he has served since 2008. He is husband to Kimberly and father of five children and grandfather of five (and counting!). He teaches US History and Philosophy of History for Jackson College in Michigan. He is currently working towards a PhD in Humanities with a focus in US Religious History from Faulkner University. In his spare time, he enjoys competing in powerlifting and strongman and teaching homeschoolers Taekwondo.
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