Psalm 17—Hear a Just Cause!

Psalm 17:1, 6-11, 13-15

1 Hear a just cause, O Lord; attend to my cry!...

⁶ I call upon you, for you will answer me, O God;
    incline your ear to me; hear my words.
⁷ Wondrously show your steadfast love,
    O Savior of those who seek refuge
    from their adversaries at your right hand.

⁸ Keep me as the apple of your eye;
    hide me in the shadow of your wings,
⁹ from the wicked who do me violence,
    my deadly enemies who surround me.

¹⁰ They close their hearts to pity;
    with their mouths they speak arrogantly.
¹¹ They have now surrounded our steps;
    they set their eyes to cast us to the ground...

¹³ Arise, O Lord! Confront him, subdue him!
    Deliver my soul from the wicked by your sword,
¹⁴ from men by your hand, O Lord,
    from men of the world whose portion is in this life...
¹⁵ As for me, I shall behold your face in righteousness;     when I awake, I shall be satisfied with your likeness.

 

Comments:

These are difficult days for those who would remain faithful in the face of brutal persecution, as they were at different times in the past. David spent years fleeing from Saul’s unjust campaign to kill him out of jealousy. The early church faced dreadful persecution at the hands of the Roman Empire. 20^th Century Christians suffered and died by the millions at the hands of Communist and totalitarian regimes.

 

Today, the sword again comes against God’s people from a murderous group of Sunni radicals called ISIS. I wonder if they get the irony of the name they have chosen, that of an ancient Egyptian goddess of magic, healing, and motherhood. While they brutally torture and kill any that will not convert to Islam, and within Islam any that stand in their way. For Christians, they mark their houses with the Arabic letter that is the first in the word for Christians, reminiscent of the Nazi treatment of the Jews in the Holocaust.

 

David's response is instructive for me. In the face of great injustice, he cries out in faith to the Lord for help. He actually believed that the Lord would answer, deliver and save. His language (v. 8 “the apple of your eye” and “the shadow of your wings) deliberately looked back to the great national deliverance from Egyptian slavery as sung about by Moses in Deuteronomy 32:10-12

¹⁰ “He found him in a desert land,
    and in the howling waste of the wilderness;
he encircled him, he cared for him,
    he kept him as the apple of his eye.
¹¹ Like an eagle that stirs up its nest,
    that flutters over its young,
spreading out its wings, catching them,
    bearing them on its pinions,
¹² the Lord alone guided him,
    no foreign god was with him.

 

He not only remembered the past faithfulness of God, in the midst of the acute situation in which he found himself, but he connected with the larger community of God’s people down through history. I love the way the late Peter C. Craigie captures this idea.

That which makes hope, and therefore confidence, possible is an awareness of the nature of the covenant God. The psalmist was not the first to be in trouble, nor would he be the last, but he believed in a God of covenant, whose most fundamental characteristic was lovingkindness (v.7)…

Though the psalm is written in the language of individuality, it does not contain the words of a lonely and bold pioneer of crisis; it contains rather the words of one sharing in the past and present experience of a community that has known God as a deliverer. The psalmist thus draws upon the strengths of both history and community in reaching his confidence. (Psalms 1-50, p.165)

 

Yazidis fleeing ISIS in Iraq

Out of David’s covenant-based confidence, there is yet a very human urging, even a deeply pleading tone for the Lord to confront the enemy. Today, as we are once again made aware of man’s capability to objectify, abuse, and destroy the innocent and the weak, we cry out to the Lord with Davidic fervency for the deliverance of hurting people—be they religious minority Christians, Yazidis, Sunnis, or Kurds in Northern Iraq. In other areas of the world, it may be other minorities that are being tracked down, surrounded, and slaughtered by power-hungry men.

 

Do we cry out with the psalmist, “Arise, O Lord! Confront him, subdue him!” Using strongly military-sounding metaphors of desperation? Or do we close our eyes to the suffering with excuses de jour and/or limit our responses to government-designated expediencies? I was talking with someone recently who thought that the media was only covering the violence in Iraq today because it was targeting Christians. While I disagree with this assessment as much has been said first about the moderate Sunnis, and more recently about the Yazidis (neither of which are Christian) it does force me to assess my own definition of “neighbor.” Do I only get upset when Christians, or Americans, are being victimized, or do I see how God is concerned for all peoples?

 

Whether we take v. 15 to refer solely to the immediate physical deliverance sought today that enables us to actually wake up tomorrow, or as containing assurance that reaches beyond this life into eternity in the presence of God we should see that the prayer first uttered in v. 1 will be answered in v. 15, one way or the other.

 

In times of trouble, injustice, and persecution we pray for deliverance the like of which is recorded in Hebrews 11:32-35.

And what more shall I say? For time would fail me to tell of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, of David and Samuel and the prophets—who through faith conquered kingdoms, enforced justice, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the power of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, were made strong out of weakness, became mighty in war, put foreign armies to flight. Women received back their dead by resurrection. Some were tortured, refusing to accept release, so that they might rise again to a better life.

 

Every day there are plenty of testimonies of God’s power to miraculously deliver, heal, and restore all over the world today. But it is not always the case that his followers are spared torture and death. The very same text (v. 36-38) goes on to say,

Others suffered mocking and flogging, and even chains and imprisonment. They were stoned, they were sawn in two, they were killed with the sword. They went about in skins of sheep and goats, destitute, afflicted, mistreated— of whom the world was not worthy—wandering about in deserts and mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth.

 

Are we willing to follow Christ if the deliverance doesn’t come today the way we desire? The last book in the Bible encourages followers of Christ to “overcome” the urge to save our own lives by compromising with the idolatries of the world. Those who overcome do so “by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they loved not their lives even unto death.” (Rev. 12:11)

 

If our portion is merely in this life we will close our hearts to pity (v.10) and abuse others in order to expand and prolong it. However, if we trust that our portion is ultimately in the presence of a God who is wondrous in showing his steadfast love (v.7) we will seek to care for the oppressed wherever we find them.

 

I am moved by the story of the Danes, who when the Nazis ordered Danish Jews arrested in 1943, stopped what they were doing and did whatever they could to hide Jews and ferry them to safety in Sweden. What can we do for the powerless today?