FOR THE DIRECTOR of music. With stringed instruments. Of David.
1Hear my cry, O God;
listen to my prayer.
2From the ends of the earth I call to you,
I call as my heart grows faint;
lead me to the rock that is higher than I.
3For you have been my refuge,
a strong tower against the foe.
4I long to dwell in your tent forever
and take refuge in the shelter of your wings.
Selah
5For you have heard my vows, O God;
you have given me the heritage of those who fear your name.
6Increase the days of the king’s life,
his years for many generations.
7May he be enthroned in God’s presence forever;
appoint your love and faithfulness to protect him.
8Then will I ever sing praise to your name
and fulfill my vows day after day.
Original Meaning
WHILE NOT USUALLY included in the accepted list of “royal” psalms, Psalm 61 does have the needs of the king in mind at its core (61:6–7). This psalm follows the two complexes of related psalms—four maśkil psalms (52–55) and five miktam psalms (56–60)—and a series of related themes stitch together the seven consecutive Psalms 61–67.
Psalm 61 is an individual plea for deliverance and refuge. The circumstances from which the psalmist seeks deliverance are not clarified beyond a single reference to “the foe” (61:3b). Although the reference to the king suggests a preexilic origin for this psalm, the psalmist’s call “from the ends of the earth” (61:2a) lends itself to continued resonance with the experience of the exilic and postexilic communities. The psalmist draws on past experience of rescue by God (61:3) as grounds of hope for continued rescue (61:2). As in Psalm 23, his desire is to “dwell in [God’s] tent forever” (61:4).
Structurally, the psalm is composed of two stanzas, followed by a concluding vow of praise: opening plea for hearing and refuge (61:1–5), prayer for long life for the king (61:6–7), and concluding vow to praise (61:8).
The Heading (61:0)
THE HEADING IS similar to that of Psalm 4 and offers only variations on terms already encountered there. The psalm is referred to “the director of music” and is to be performed “with stringed instruments.”1 Whereas Psalm 4 is classified as a mizmor, Psalm 61 is left without any genre designation. Both psalms are attributed to David.
Opening Plea for Hearing (61:1–5)
HEAR MY CRY. As in so many of the pleas for deliverance, the psalmist begins by calling God to listen to his plight. The cry is urgent because he is speaking from far outside the traditional boundaries of Israel—“from the ends of the earth.” The psalmist’s sense of isolation and distance from the traditional sources of hope and security (land, family, community, nation) is almost palpable and is heightened by the repeated use in these brief lines of verbs and nouns of calling (“my cry” in 61:1a; “my prayer” in 61:1b; “I call” in 61:2a; “I call” in 61:2b). The phrase “the ends of the earth” is used elsewhere in the Psalter and the rest of the Old Testament to refer to the most removed and isolated areas of the world.
While there is no decisive indication that Psalm 61 is exilic in its composition, the isolation of the psalmist at the “ends of the earth” certainly lends itself to the experience of the exilic and postexilic communities, who found themselves scattered throughout the world in just such a fashion.2 The phrase also provides a thematic thread that links Psalm 61 back to 59:13 and ahead to 65:5; 67:7; 72:8.3 I will return to this point in the Bridging Contexts section.
My heart grows faint. Isolated and distant from the sources of support and hope, the psalmist’s heart “grows faint.” The concept of growing faint most often describes extreme physical weakness when one is in danger of death from hunger or thirst (cf. 77:3; 102:0; 142:3; Isa. 29:8; 40:31; 44:12; 57:16; Jer. 31:25; Lam. 2:11; Amos 8:13; Jonah 4:8), but it can also take on the nuance “lose heart” or “be discouraged” (cf. Ps. 143:4), as in our passage. The psalmist’s sense of distance from God is so extreme that it threatens to erode even confidence in his power to save.
Lead me to the rock. The psalmist is in need of refuge and protection. In this verse, that refuge is envisioned as a remote rocky crag in the wilderness. The word “rock” (ṣur) used here normally describes a rocky outcropping that could provide natural defenses to those on the run from their enemies. The psalmist desires to be whisked away by God to a protective crag that is beyond his own reach (“higher than I”). One can almost see the psalmist—hotly pursued by foes—frantically reaching upward along the rock and seeking the downstretched hand of God to pull him to safety.4
You have been my refuge. The psalmist continues to hope that God will act on his behalf. Past experiences of deliverance and protection foster new hope that God is still his “strong tower against the foe” (61:3).5 Proverbs 18:10 describes Yahweh as a “strong tower” that provides safety to the righteous, who run to him for protection. Such towers were often included in city defenses and formed the final secure place, should the city walls be breached. They were not always, however, a guarantee of safety, as the citizens of Shechem discovered when Abimelech burned down their tower and destroyed all with it (Judg. 9:46–49).
I long to dwell in your tent forever. The psalmist switches metaphors to envision an even more secure life dwelling in the “tent” of God “forever.” The verb “dwell” (gwr [“sojourn, live as a resident alien”]) is a cohortative form, emphasizing the desire of the speaker (NIV “long to dwell”). The resonance with the similar expression in 23:6 is unmistakable. There, however, the verb is a consecutive perfect form, indicating future completion and stability. The verbal root in Psalm 23 (yšb) stresses settled permanence, while in 61:4 gwr denotes a more tentative stance. The psalmist desires the absolute security of the divinely exalted “rock” but will settle for the less permanent status of resident alien in the tent of God.6
The heritage of those who fear your name. The psalmist recalls to mind (God’s mind as well as his own!) the vows he has made to praise God’s name (cf. 61:5). This mention of vows is repeated in the final verse (61:8); together these verses form a sort of inclusio around the final stanza of the psalm. The psalmist’s vow to praise God’s name in the face of such threatening isolation is a measure of his faith—the ability to “fear” God (61:5). Fear of God is no trembling terror. It is instead the appropriate awareness that one is absolutely and completely dependent on God for everything: life, health, protection, and care.
The “heritage” given by God exceeds the gift of land with boundaries described in the division of the land by Joshua and recalled in God’s triumphant words of authority in the preceding psalm (cf. 60:6–8). Although described as yeruššah—land parceled out after conquest—this heritage is one that sustains those who fear God even when they find themselves calling from the “ends of the earth” (61:2).
Long Life for the King (61:6–7)
IN AN UNEXPECTED shift, the psalmist moves from an individual plea for protection to a prayer for long life and enduring reign for the king. It is clear that during the monarchical period, such prayers must have been commonplace, since communal well-being was closely bound up with the stability provided by a king’s enduring just reign. In the postexilic period, however, when the kings were no longer a factor, this section must have taken on eschatological overtones as the desire that the king “be enthroned in God’s presence forever” closely parallels the psalmist’s own desire to “dwell in [God’s] tent forever.” While the psalmist is satisfied to hope for the less permanent security of “resident alien” status associated with the verb gwr (cf. 61:4a), the king is expected to settle more permanently (Heb. yšb [“sit, dwell”]) in the divine presence (61:7a)7 and to be protected by God’s loyal love (ḥesed) and enduring faithfulness (ʾemet).8
Concluding Vow of Praise (61:8)
THE PSALM ENDS with a promise to praise God’s name daily as a fulfillment of the vow mentioned earlier in 61:5. The “fulfillment” (from šlm [“complete/make perfect”]) of a vow was often a public act of declaration in the course of temple worship accompanied with a sacrifice. The poetic structure of the verse parallels “make music to your name”9 with “fulfill my vows,” making it clear that these two acts are different aspects of the same act of public testimony.
Bridging Contexts
THE ENDS OF THE EARTH. The phrase “the ends of the earth” functions prominently in this group of psalms (Pss. 59–72). A variety of Hebrew expressions are translated in this fashion. In 2:8, God promises to make the “ends of the earth” (ʾapse ʾereṣ) the “possession” of his anointed king. The same Hebrew phrase appears in 22:27; 59:13; 67:7; 72:8; 98:3. The phrase used in Psalm 61 is qeṣe haʾareṣ (“end of the earth”), an idiom that also appears in 46:9 and 135:7. A variation of the last is the less common qaṣwe ʾereṣ (“ends of the earth”), found in 48:10 and 65:5.
The idea of an “end, edge, extremity” of the earth may suggest a cosmology of a flat earth as dry land surrounded by seas. All this is topped by an inverted bowl (the “firmament”; raqiaʿ ), so that together earth and firmament hold off the chaotic waters “under and over the earth.” This provides a stable environment for life. In other contexts, the “ends of the earth” seem to denote the farthest reaches of the inhabitable earth,10 since it is from there that God calls human beings to do his will. In all cases, the “end/s of the earth” are employed metaphorically to emphasize the distance from all that is common or familiar to the poet.
God calls foreign peoples to attack Israel as part of his judgment.11 He then calls his exiled people to return from “the ends of the earth.”12 The psalmist in Psalm 61 feels far from God—at the ends of the earth. The image can also be used to stress the completeness of creation under consideration. God sees to the ends of the earth, meaning “everything under the heavens” (Job 28:24). God is the creator of the ends of the earth (Isa. 40:28) and can, therefore, give it to whomever he wills (cf. Ps. 2:8).
God judges the ends of the earth (1 Sam. 2:10) and offers salvation to them as well (Isa. 45:22). In the final restoration of all things, even the “ends of the earth” will acknowledge Yahweh’s sovereignty and will praise him. “From the ends of the earth we hear singing: ‘Glory to the Righteous One’ ” (Isa. 24:16).13
The shelter of your wings. Two phrases compete in the Old Testament to provide this image of birds protected under the wings of their mother. One uses the Hebrew ṣel (“shadow”) while the second refers to seter (“hiding place”; NIV “shelter”). Both terms are used in parallel in 91:1 to describe the confident hope of the psalmist: “He who dwells in the shelter [seter] of the Most High will rest in the shadow (ṣel) of the Almighty.” The image is basically the same in both cases: a mother hen, or eagle, or owl, protectively gathering her chicks under her wing. The extension of the image as a metaphor for divine protection is clearest in Ruth 2:12, where Boaz blesses Ruth for her loyalty to her mother-in-law, Naomi: “May you be richly rewarded by the LORD, the God of Israel, under whose wings you have come to take refuge.”
Some commentators have suggested that the image may have been further associated with the wings of the cherubim that overarched the ark of the covenant in the Most Holy Place of the tabernacle or temple. In this case the protective wings of Yahweh might become effective when one flees to the temple and seeks asylum there14 (cf. also 17:8; 36:7; 57:1; 63:7).
Contemporary Significance
CRYING FROM THE ends of the earth. What is the functional equivalent of living in exile today? I have had the privilege of knowing a number of displaced folk over the last thirty years, including Palestinians driven out of their homeland by the increasing violence in the region, Vietnamese and Hmong refugees from Southeast Asia, the children of Iranian government workers sent to school abroad during the Khomeini revolution, and Indonesian students sent to the United States by parents to avoid the dangers of the current political situation. I can remember their hunger for news about those left behind during any outbreak of violence and their sense of being torn between wanting to see family, friends, and their country and yet hating the fear and uncertainty that ruled life at home.
Few of us in the Western world have experienced that kind of exile. We may have chosen to leave family and home far behind when we joined the general American migration in search of personal freedom, independence, and well-being. We may regret the distance that separates us from parents and siblings. But we are not in exile—most of us—to the “ends of the earth.”
How can these verses speak to us in ways that actually describe our condition? I think we must realize that this phrase was a metaphor for the psalmist who spoke it and those who heard and adopted it as their own. Yes, perhaps the Diaspora community had more experience of exile than we do now. But they too were using this sense of immense distance as a metaphor for their sense of abandonment by a God who seemed removed as far away as the “ends of the earth.” In this condition they are no different from us.
Think of just a few of the ways in which God seems removed and distant from us now. On the world scene, we have only to consider the growing evidence of inhumanity to wonder just where God is in the mass graves of Kosovo, or the AIDS epidemic of Africa, or the desperation of those seeking illegally to enter the United States from Mexico, at the risk of their lives. On a more personal level, where is God in the human agony of our lives? As I write, a mother and father in Northern California are losing hope about their young adult daughter, who disappeared two months ago without a trace. A husband just buried his five children—drowned by their mother. An uncle is lying in a hospital bed at home, waiting for an end that never seems to come.
I don’t think we need to take a trip to visit the “ends of the earth.” More often than not, they come to us unbidden and suck us away from God so that our hearts grow faint (61:2). It may be grief or guilt; disease, depression, or death; poverty, perversion, or pain that confront us. But we find God absent, and our voices speak as if from the bottom of a deep well, with little hope of being heard.
Yet cry we do, and cry we should! The psalmist cries out even with a weak heart because God has been a refuge and a strong tower against the foe in the past. Thus, the psalmist and we look with hope for the “rock that is higher than I”—a place to rise above the sweeping flood until the danger is past. You have seen people perching on housetops, car tops, and treetops, staying above the rushing flood waters until rescue comes. One African woman even gave birth to a child in a tree: new life in the face of death, hope in the face of disaster. May we look to the rock and scramble to the refuge it affords. And from that vantage point let us sing praises to the God who appoints his loyalty and faithfulness to protect us (61:7).
Taking refuge in the shelter of God’s wings. Like young birds that hide under their mother’s wings, we do want to find shelter and divine protection. Like such birds, however, we seem to run for cover only when trouble approaches. That may work for a while, but too many adventuresome chicks have not made it back in time to avoid the coyote. The psalmist of 61:4 gives a few suggestions how to keep our eyes on our refuge and the pathway clear so we will be unhindered in times of trouble.
(1) Note first that there will indeed be times of trouble. That is perhaps the biggest obstacle preventing us from entering the refuge of God. If we assume that the righteous will never experience trouble, we will be unprepared when it comes, and we may be consequently unsure whether a God who allows us to suffer is worthy of our trust.
(2) Another help is to remember the psalmist’s strong desire and longing to dwell in the security of God’s tent—under his protective wings—forever. When that kind of longing desire characterizes our relationship with God, little can block our way to refuge. We keep track of those persons and things we long for. We know where they are and stick close to them. That should also characterize our longing for God.
(3) Finally, the psalmist is committed in his relationship to God. It is not just a matter of longing and desire. He is bound by vows made openly to God. This is not some secret promise made to himself but a commitment made to God in truth. Nor is the psalmist’s vow just a one-time affair; rather, it is a pact or covenant that requires daily renewal and fulfillment (61:8). It is a bit like a marriage. At the wedding, vows are said by both parties. But those vows are not just a wedding ritual; they are commitments that must be renewed every day, day after day, year after year. To leave commitment at the wedding altar is almost invariably to condemn the relationship to failure from the start.
Thus, if we would truly desire to find protection under the wings of God, we must bind ourselves to him in longing and desire and build a relationship of continuing and lasting commitment. As God is a God of loyal love (ḥesed) and enduring faithfulness (ʾemet), we must become people shaped by the same characteristics: commitment and love.