Psalms 57:1-6

Psalm 57 ¹ 

For the music director; according to the al-tashcheth style; ²  a prayer ³  of David, written when he fled from Saul into the cave. ⁴ 

57:1 Have mercy on me, O God! Have mercy on me!

For in you I have taken shelter. ⁵ 

In the shadow of your wings ⁶  I take shelter

until trouble passes.

57:2 I cry out for help to the sovereign God, ⁷ 

to the God who vindicates ⁸  me.

57:3 May he send help from heaven and deliver me ⁹ 

from my enemies who hurl insults! ¹⁰  (Selah)

May God send his loyal love and faithfulness!

57:4 I am surrounded by lions;

I lie down ¹¹  among those who want to devour me; ¹² 

men whose teeth are spears and arrows,

whose tongues are a sharp sword. ¹³ 

57:5 Rise up ¹⁴  above the sky, O God!

May your splendor cover the whole earth! ¹⁵ 

57:6 They have prepared a net to trap me; ¹⁶ 

I am discouraged. ¹⁷ 

They have dug a pit for me. ¹⁸ 

They will fall ¹⁹  into it! (Selah)

[57:1]  ¹ sn Psalm 57. The psalmist asks for God’s protection and expresses his confidence that his ferocious enemies will be destroyed by their own schemes.

[57:1]  ² tn Heb “do not destroy.” Perhaps this refers to a particular style of music, a tune title, or a musical instrument. These words also appear in the heading to Pss 58-59, 75.

[57:1]  ³ tn The precise meaning of the Hebrew word מִכְתָּם (miktam), which also appears in the heading to Pss 16, 56, 58-60 is uncertain. HALOT 582-83 s.v. defines it as “inscription.”

[57:1]  ⁴ sn According to the superscription, David wrote this psalm on the occasion when he fled from Saul and hid in “the cave.” This probably refers to either the incident recorded in 1 Sam 22:1 or to the one recorded in 1 Sam 24:3.

[57:1]  ⁵ tn Heb “my life has taken shelter.” The Hebrew perfect verbal form probably refers here to a completed action with continuing results.

[57:1]  ⁶ sn In the shadow of your wings. The metaphor likens God to a protective mother bird (see also Pss 17:8; 36:7).

[57:2]  ⁷ tn Heb “to God Most High.” The divine title “Most High” (עֶלְיוֹן, ’elyon) pictures God as the exalted ruler of the universe who vindicates the innocent and judges the wicked. See especially Ps 47:2.

[57:2]  ⁸ tn Or “avenges in favor of.”

[57:3]  ⁹ tn Heb “may he send from heaven and deliver me.” The prefixed verbal forms are understood as jussives expressing the psalmist’s prayer. The second verb, which has a vav (ו) conjunctive prefixed to it, probably indicates purpose. Another option is to take the forms as imperfects expressing confidence, “he will send from heaven and deliver me” (cf. NRSV).

[57:3]  ¹⁰ tn Heb “he hurls insults, one who crushes me.” The translation assumes that this line identifies those from whom the psalmist seeks deliverance. (The singular is representative; the psalmist is surrounded by enemies, see v. 4.) Another option is to understand God as the subject of the verb חָרַף (kharaf), which could then be taken as a homonym of the more common root חָרַף (“insult”) meaning “confuse.” In this case “one who crushes me” is the object of the verb. One might translate, “he [God] confuses my enemies.”

[57:4]  ¹¹ tn The cohortative form אֶשְׁכְּבָה (’eshkÿvah, “I lie down”) is problematic, for it does not seem to carry one of the normal functions of the cohortative (resolve or request). One possibility is that the form here is a “pseudo-cohortative” used here in a gnomic sense (IBHS 576-77 §34.5.3b).

[57:4]  ¹² tn The Hebrew verb לָהַט (lahat) is here understood as a hapax legomenon meaning “devour” (see HALOT 521 s.v. II להט), a homonym of the more common verb meaning “to burn.” A more traditional interpretation takes the verb from this latter root and translates, “those who are aflame” (see BDB 529 s.v.; cf. NASB “those who breathe forth fire”).

[57:4]  ¹³ tn Heb “my life, in the midst of lions, I lie down, devouring ones, sons of mankind, their teeth a spear and arrows and their tongue a sharp sword.” The syntax of the verse is difficult. Another option is to take “my life” with the preceding verse. For this to make sense, one must add a verb, perhaps “and may he deliver” (cf. the LXX), before the phrase. One might then translate, “May God send his loyal love and faithfulness and deliver my life.” If one does take “my life” with v. 4, then the parallelism of v. 5 is altered and one might translate: “in the midst of lions I lie down, [among] men who want to devour me, whose teeth….”

[57:5]  ¹⁴ tn Or “be exalted.”

[57:5]  ¹⁵ tn Heb “over all the earth [be] your splendor.” Though no verb appears, the tone of the statement is a prayer or wish. (Note the imperative form in the preceding line.)

[57:6]  ¹⁶ tn Heb “for my feet.”

[57:6]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “my life bends low.” The Hebrew term נֶפֶשׁ (nefesh) with a pronominal suffix is often equivalent to a pronoun, especially in poetry (see BDB 660 s.v. נֶפֶשׁ 4.a).

[57:6]  ¹⁸ tn Heb “before me.”

[57:6]  ¹⁹ tn The perfect form is used rhetorically here to express the psalmist’s certitude. The demise of the enemies is so certain that he can speak of it as already accomplished.