Psalm 59

the Hebrew the difference between the words 

"wait " and "sing," as appearing in this passage, 

is very slight. They are spelt, indeed, alike, 

with the exception of a single letter. The 

parallelism, therefore, between these two verses 

is very marked. 

9. Upon Thee, 0 my strength, I will wait, 

For God is my high tower. 

17. Unto Thee, 0 my strength, I will sing, 

For God is my high tower, 

The inscription indicates the occasion on which this Psalm, 

one of the oldest, was written. "A Psalm of David : when 

Saul sent, and they watched the house to kill him." The. 

allusions of the Psalm substantiate this title, especially that 

of the sixth and fourteenth verses, in which the Psalmist 

compares the troop of soldiers, bitten with their master's 

spleen, who encamped around his house, belching out their 

curses and threats, to the vicious curs of an Eastern city, 

that prowl the streets by day and night, clearing them of their 

offal and refuse, and filling the night with their uproar.

"They return at evening; they make a noise like a dog, 

And go round about the city : 

Behold, they belch out with their mouth." 

But meanwhile David is in his house, waiting upon God, 

and singing aloud of his mercy in the morning. 

I. THE EVENTS WHICH LED UP TO THIS ASSAULT ON 

DAvrn's HousE.-As the victorious army returned home 

from the valley of Elah, the whole land went forth in 

greeting. . The reapers stayed their labours in the field ; 

and the vineyards were depleted of the women that plucked 

the grapes, and the men that trod them in the presses. 

From village to town the contagious enthusiasm spread ; 

and the women came forth out of all the cities of Israel, 

with song and dance, with timbrels and tabrets, to meet 

King Saul. To the song of victory there came this refrain, 

which was strikingly discordant to the soul of the king :-

" Saul hath slain his thousands, 

And David his ten thousands." 

In that hour · the first jealous thought awoke in Saul's 

heart ; the pitted speck became visible in the goodly fruit 

of his character, which was destined to rot and ruin all. 

Happy had he been if he had trodden the hell-spark 

beneath his feet, or extinguished it in seas of prayer. But 

he nursed it till, to change the simile, the trickling stream 

undermined the sea-wall, and became a raging turbid flood. 

" Saul was very wroth, and the saying displeased him ; and 

he eyed David from that day and forward." 

But Saul was more than jealous. He deliberately set 

himself to thwart God's purpose. Samuel had distinctly 

told him that the Lord had rent the kingdom of Israel from 

him, ,and had given it to a neighbour of his that was better 

than himself. And, without doubt, as he saw the stripling 

return with Goliath's head in his hand, and as he heard the 

song of the Israelite women, the dread certainty suggested 

itself to him that this was the Divinely designated king.

"What though he be," said Saul to himself, as Herod in 

after days, " I am king, and will see to it that this prediction 

at least shall not come true. A dead man cannot reign ; 

and there are many ways short of direct murder by which 

a man's life can be taken. But this is what it must 

come to." He supposed that if only he could take David's 

life, God's purpose would miscarry, and Samuel's predictions 

be falsified. He is not the last man that has descended into 

the arena to match himself with God, and been crushed 

ih the attempt. No student of history is likely to forget 

the cry of Julian the Apostate, which mirrors the experience 

of thousands more, "Thou hast conquered, 0 Galilean ! " 

Saul's murderous passion sought to fulfil itself in many 

ways. On the following day, as David essayed to soothe 

him with his harp, he twice hurled his javelin at the 

minstrel, in the hope that if it pinned him to the wall 

the act might be imputed to insanity ; but on each occasion 

the weapon sped harmlessly past, to quiver in the wall 

behind, instead of in that young heart. 

Next, Saul gave him an important military commission, 

and made him his captain over a thousand, in the vain hope 

that this sudden elevation into the slippery place of worldly 

prominence and power might tum his head dizzy, and lead 

him to some traitorous deed, for which death would be the 

obvious penalty. But David behaved himself wisely in 

all his ways, avoiding every pitfall, eluding every snare; 

so that the king, who watched closely for his falling, became 

more than ever convinced that he was God's ward, and 

stood in awe of him. 

Then he offered the young soldier the hand of his eldest 

daughter in marriage, and treacherously withdrew the offer 

as the time of the nuptials approached-the intention being 

to arouse his ardent spirit to retaliate, and so to become 

liable to the charge of treason ; but all his efforts failed 

to arouse even a transient impulse for revenge. 

Again, by the lure of his second daughter, Michal, as

prize to be won by the evidence of one hundred J\hilistines 

having been slain, he sought to involve his rival in frays out 

of which only a miracle could bring him unhurt. But 

, David returned unscathed with double the number required; 

and the love of the people grew. 

Thwarted thus far, the God-forsaken monarch, driven by 

the awful fury of his jealousy, spake to Jonathan and to all 

his servants that they should rid him of David's tormenting 

presence: but of course this plot failed; for Jonathan 

delighted much in David, whilst all Israel and Judah loved 

him,' for he went out and came in before them. Jonathan 

indeed stood in the breach to turn away his father's ang(,!r, 

and elicited ftom him the promise that his friend should not 

be put to death. But his pleadings and reasonings had only 

a temporary effect ; for shortly after, as the young minstrel 

endeavoured to charm away the spirit of melancholy, the 

javelin again quivered past him from the royal hand, and 

would have transfixed him to the wall, but for his lithe 

agility. It was the evening, and David fled to his young 

wife and home. And Saul, intent on murder, " sent 

messengers unto David's house, to watch him, and to 

slay him in the morning." These were the men whom -

he characterised so vividly, as we have seen. 

Michal's quick wit saved her husband's life. She let him. 

down through the window, and he went and escaped ; 

whilst an image, covered with a quilt and placed in the 

bed, led Saul's emissaries to suppose that he was sick. 

There was no real occasion, however, for her to resoi:t to 

either teraphim or deceit, to secure his safety from her 

father's murderous rage; for when, shortly after, the king 

proposed to snatch his prey from the midst of the sacred 

college, and from the very presence of Samuel, three sets of 

messengers were rendered powerless by the Divine afflatus, 

and an arrest was put on Saul himself, who was prostrated 

before the mighty impression of God's Spirit, and lay help· 

less on the earth (1 Sam. xix. 24).

That must have been a marvellous experience for David. 

To the eye of sense there was absolutely nothing to prevent 

the king's messengers, or the king himself, from taking him. 

But by faith he knew that he was being kept within the 

curtains of an impalpable pavilion, and that he was hidden 

beneath an invisible wing. As the air, itself invisible, fills 

the diving bell and saves the inmates from the inrushing 

water ; as a stream of electricity poured over a heap of 

jewels protects them from the hand of the plunderer; as 

the raying forth of Christ's majesty flung his captors to the 

ground-so did the Presence of God environ and protect· 

both Samuel and David. And thus our God will still do 

for each of his persecuted ones. 

" In the secret of his tabernacle shall He hide them, 

He shall set them up upon a rock." 

II. DAVID'S COMPOSURE AMID THE ASSAULTS OF HIS 

FoEs.-This hunted man is a lesson for men and angels. 

Saul is his inveterate foe ; traps and snares are laid for him 

on all sides. Sometimes the sun shines on his golden 

locks, but more often the skies are thick with cloud and 

storm. Now the women of Israel welcome him ; and 

, again he is torn from his wife, and driven forth from his 

home to go whither he may. Yet all the while his heart is 

tranquil and reposeful-yea, it actually breaks forth into 

praise, as the closing verses of this psalm prove. What was 

the secret of his serenity? 

It lay, first, in the conviction of what God was. God 

was his strength-that was God within him ; God was 

his high tower-that was God without and around him. 

He was God-poscsessed and God-encompassed. God dwelt 

in him, and he in God ; there was no demand for which He 

was not sufficient, no peril whkh He could not keep at 

bay. What a blessed conception is here! You are too 

weak for some great task which has C been entrusted to 

your care. In your judgment it would task the energies of the best and wisest you know; but lo ! it has been placed 

in your hands. "0 Lord," you cry, "wherewith shall I 

save Israel ? Behold, my family is the poorest in Manasseh ; 

and I am the least in my father's house." Then the 

Spirit of God reveals God as strength, that He may be 

so received into the heart as to become the principle of a 

new and heaven-born energy, which shall rise superior 

to every difficulty, and breast the mightiest waves that 

would beat the swimmer back. Listen to the laughter of 

the apostle's soul, as he surveys herculean tasks on the one 

hand, and enormous opposing obstacles on the other, and 

says with unhesitating assurance, "I can do all things 

through Christ that strengtheneth me.". 0 weakest of the 

weak, remember Jesus Christ, and take Him to be the 

strength of thy life ; be strong, yea be strong, in the grace 

that is in Christ Jesus. 

Or tum to the other conception. See those fugitive 

soldiers, hotly pursued by their enemies as clouds before 

the Biscay gale ; on yonder cliff is perched a fortress, whose 

mighty walls and towers, if only they can be reached, 

will ensure protection. Breathlessly they scale the ascent, 

rush across the drawbridge, let down the portcullis, and 

fling themselves on the sward, and know that they are safe. 

God is all that to the soul which has learnt to put Him 

between itself and everything. We have not even to flee 

to God, for that implies that we have been allured out of 

Him ; but we are to abide in Him, to stand fast in the 

liberty wherewith He has made us free ; to reckon 

that, whatever Satan may say and however he may 

rage, we are absolutely secure so long as we abide 

in God. 

When we realize these things, and add the further con-

ception with which the Psalm closes, that God is the fount 

of mercy: when we dare to believe that there is mercy in 

Saul's hate, mercy in the difficulties of our lot, mercy in the 

clouds that veil our sky and the flints that line our path, mercy in the sharpest, bitterest experiences~then we can 

sing, we can say with David: 

" I will sing of Thy strength ; 

Yea, I will sing aloud of Thy mercy in the morning, 

For Thou hast been my high tower, and a refuge in the day of my 

distress." 

It lay, next, in his attitude towards God. " 0 my 

strength, I will wait on Thee." The word so translated is 

used in the Hebrew of the shepherd watching his flock, of 

the watchman on the tower, of the sentry passing to and fro 

upon his beat. Is this our habitual attitude? Too many 

direct their prayer, but do not look up the ladder for the 

descending angels, laden with the heavenly answer. Many 

a ship passes in the night, touching at our wharf with the 

precious freight which we have been praying for; but we 

are not there to receive it. Many a relieving fore~ comes 

up the pass with glittering spears and flashing helmets ; but 

our gates are closed. Many a dove comes to our window 

from the weltering waste of waters ; but we are too 

immersed in other things to notice its light tap. We pray, 

but we do not wait ; we ask, but we do not expect to 

receive ; we knock, but we are gone before the door is 

opened. 

This lesson is for us to learn-to reckon Oll' God; to 

tarry for the vision ; to wait till Samuel comes ; to believe 

that He who taught us to trust cannot deceive our trust ; 

to be sure that none of them that wait on Him can be 

ashamed; to appropriate by faith; and to know that we have 

the petitions we desired, nay, to do more, to take them 

and count them ours, though we have no responsive 

emotion, no sense of possession-this is waiting upon God : 

this will keep us calm and still, though dreaded evils frown 

around our homestead ; this will change our waiting into 

song.