FOR THE DIRECTOR of music. A psalm of David.
1Hear me, O God, as I voice my complaint;
protect my life from the threat of the enemy.
2Hide me from the conspiracy of the wicked,
from that noisy crowd of evildoers.
3They sharpen their tongues like swords
and aim their words like deadly arrows.
4They shoot from ambush at the innocent man;
they shoot at him suddenly, without fear.
5They encourage each other in evil plans,
they talk about hiding their snares;
they say, “Who will see them?”
6They plot injustice and say,
“We have devised a perfect plan!”
Surely the mind and heart of man are cunning.
7But God will shoot them with arrows;
suddenly they will be struck down.
8He will turn their own tongues against them
and bring them to ruin;
all who see them will shake their heads in scorn.
9All mankind will fear;
they will proclaim the works of God
and ponder what he has done.
10Let the righteous rejoice in the LORD
and take refuge in him;
let all the upright in heart praise him!
Original Meaning
PSALM 64 CONTINUES the common thread of pleading for deliverance from the vocal assaults of the enemy begun in Psalm 63. At the end of that psalm, the psalmist (identified in the closing verses as the king) anticipated that his detractors would be “silenced” (63:11c). Psalm 64 begins with a description of “that noisy crowd of evildoers,” who use their vocal skills (“tongues . . . words”) like weapons (“swords . . . arrows”) to ambush the psalmist (64:2–4).
Psalm 64 is also part of the larger complex of Psalms 56–68, in which God’s mighty acts demonstrate his power over all the earth so that an increasingly expansive group joins in praising him. This increasing crescendo of praise ultimately includes the “whole earth” (66:1, 4, 8; 67:3–5; 68) as the nations are subdued (66:7), acknowledge God’s power, and join in praise for his works (67:3–4, 7).1 Psalm 64, while acknowledging the reality of present suffering and attack, anticipates a future in which all humanity will fear God, proclaim his works, and reflect on what he has done (64:9). Thus, rejoicing is the present and future vocation of the righteous, who find their refuge in God (64:10).
The psalm is divided into four units: an opening plea for deliverance (64:1–2), a description of the arrogance of the wicked (64:3–6), anticipated judgment (64:7–8), and concluding praise and trust (64:9–10).
The Heading (64:0)
NO NEW TERMS appear in the heading of Psalm 64. There is the by now familiar reference to “the director of music,”2 and the composition is described in most general terms as a “psalm [mizmor] of David.”3
Plea for Deliverance (64:1–2)
THE OPENING PLEA calls “God”4 to “hear” the complaint that occupies the psalmist’s concern. The problem is a terrifying (paḥad) and life-threatening attack by his enemies. The attack is characterized as a “conspiracy” (sod [“circle of confidants”]) and the attackers as a “noisy crowd of evildoers.” In the following verses, the enemy attack is described primarily in terms of vocal attack (cf. 64:3, 5, 6, 8), but—like a shouting lynch mob—one with possibly lethal results. The psalmist seeks divine protection and refuge from the enemy attack.
The Arrogance of the Wicked (64:3–6)
THE DEADLY WORDS of the enemies cut and pierce. They are metaphorically described as “swords,” which they “sharpen” for the attack, and “deadly arrows”5 are unleashed toward the unsuspecting psalmist (64:3–4). He is “innocent” (tam)6 and completely unprepared for the “ambush” that comes without warning. The utter arrogance of the wicked is displayed in their sense of impunity. They feel they can attack without “fear”—either of God or human opponents.
The enemy find courage in numbers and plot their attacks in advance. This is no series of scattered individual attacks but a well-orchestrated attempt to bring the psalmist down.7 He describes well the mutual encouragement to evil with a resulting false sense of security that arises in such grumbling plots. The enemy embolden one another, assuming that no one (including God) will observe or hinder their attack. They convince themselves their plan has no possible flaw.8
The section concludes with the ironic comment of the narrator: “Surely the mind and heart of man are cunning” (64:6c). Perhaps a more apt translation that captures his negative assessment of the enemies’ plotting would be: “The inward deliberations of a man and his heart are impenetrable!” You can almost see the psalmist’s head shaking with ironic confusion over how the enemy could come to such a misguided and totally erroneous conclusion.
Judgment Is Coming (64:7–8)
HOW LITTLE UNDERSTANDING the cunning conspirators possess is driven home as the God whom they assume takes no notice of their attack takes unerring aim to strike them down. The weapons he uses in judgment mirror those the enemy deployed in their attack. God shoots them with arrows, and they find themselves cut down just as unexpectedly as they had planned to attack the psalmist (64:7). Even the verbal swords they had honed to razor-sharp edges will be turned to their own destruction (64:8). Far from carrying out their plot in secret, they will be exposed to public ridicule as “all who see them” (cf. 64:5; lit., “Who will see them [our deeds]?” unite in “shaking their heads in scorn” (64:8c).9
Concluding Praise and Trust (64:9–10)
THE CONSEQUENCES OF God’s rebuke of the enemies far exceeds the local context of the psalmist—the whole of humanity (ʾadam) will take note.10 The shift to “all humanity” is somewhat unexpected in the psalm as a whole, but it is fitting in the context of the group of Psalms 56–68, where the theme of universal recognition of God’s authority and power repeatedly surfaces.11 Because God upholds justice and protects those who are unjustly attacked, all humanity will be drawn to proclaim and consider the works of God.
The righteous, the psalmist affirms, need have no fear of such attackers but should take refuge in Yahweh,12 assured of his protective care. Their confidence and trust inspires both the “righteous” (ṣaddiq) and the “upright in heart” (yišre leb) to praise (64:10c).
Bridging Contexts
COURAGE IN NUMBERS. The plotting of the noisy evildoers against the righteous is similar to the scene described in Psalm 2, where nations and kings conspire against God and his anointed (2:1–2). There is a dangerous courage that may result from crowd psychology. Perhaps it is the illusion of being lost in the crowd and thus without accountability. Or perhaps it is the growing sense of invulnerability in a large group surging forward in a common purpose.
There can be good moments of solidarity, as in moments of mass civil disobedience in protest against racial injustice or against unjust wars. The kind of strength to stand our ground against impossible odds has great moral power—as Gandhi’s nonviolent resistance showed in India and the best of the civil-rights protests did in the United States. This kind of solidarity and strength is behind the biblical exhortation for the individual to bind himself or herself to the community of faith. The solidarity of Israel or the church means that individual believers did not stand alone but were empowered by their gathering as the united people of God.
But there is also a negative form of mutual encouragement and solidarity, as when an unruly lynch mob overwhelms the protective authorities and carries its victims to an unjust death. We see the result of such a “conspiracy of the wicked” in our psalm. In such an environment, it is easy to deny responsibility or culpability: “Who will see?” It is possible to be convinced that the only measure of guilt is whether we are discovered or brought to accountability.
In Psalm 64 as well as in Psalm 2, a different standard is applied in the judgment of such human arrogance. God, not human agency, is the judge of right and wrong. The power of the mob fades before the righteous judge of the universe. In Psalm 2, the arrogant confidence of the conspiring nations and kings runs hard against the strong rock of the laughing God enthroned in the heavens. In Psalm 64, the “perfect plan” and “cunning” plot of the evildoers are punctured and dismembered by God, who returns their own implements of destruction upon them.
Yet the psalm ends with a renewed call to solidarity. The destruction of the wicked will bring “all mankind” together in their understanding of the power of God. Then the righteous and upright will together rejoice and praise the God of their refuge.
A just retribution. This psalm envisions another enactment of the principle of retribution: You get what you deserve. In this case there is a slight twist in that the wicked get what they had planned to visit on others. The arrows they shoot off at the righteous boomerang around and attack them unexpectedly from the rear. It is somewhat like the recent tragic event in which a group of military spotters guiding a flight of bombers into a target were, through a series of errors, themselves bombed by the very planes they were guiding, with terrible loss of life.
We do not have much pity when a terrorist bomb-maker blows himself or herself up while creating a bomb. “He got what he deserved,” we might say, thinking it a sort of appropriate justice that the bomb intended for others got the terrorist instead. But these kinds of scenarios in the psalms always carry a hidden price tag. When we rejoice in the destruction of the wicked, when we are glad that they “get what they deserve,” we might want to be cautious. What if we were to receive what we deserve?
That is a scary thought if we are honest. Like the angry mob ready to stone the woman caught in adultery, we can get tripped up by Jesus’ deceptively simple solution: “If any one of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her” (John 8:7). When we rejoice at the destruction of the wicked, we may be joining the teachers of the law and the Pharisees in stone-throwing. In the incident just noted, even the Jewish leaders knew when they were defeated, for they withdrew without carrying out their judgment.
This kind of hope for justice has a double edge. It is in a sense a reverse variation on the Golden Rule: “Do unto others what you would have them do unto you.” We sinners have no complaint when we receive from God the justice we wished on others.
Proclaim and ponder. When God acts to judge the wicked, the whole world is brought up short. The usual assumption that “no one sees or cares,” that “no one can call us to account,” are put to the lie. Recently an Eastern European leader was taken into custody by his own people and, after considerable delay, was delivered to the war crimes tribunal in the Hague to stand trial for his participation and authorization of atrocities during the earlier civil war in his country. While I know that there are all sorts of political and economic manipulations and pressures going on behind the scenes to bring this circumstance to pass, it was almost a shocking moment to realize that the impossible had happened and that at long last, some response was going to be made to the growing evidence of wrong levied against this man.
God’s judgment of the wicked in Psalm 64 is such an event, in which the world watches to see what will happen and “ponders” the significance of what it sees. On a much less universal level, I think we can find the last two verses of this psalm working their way out in the lives of the faithful. We perhaps should spend less time proclaiming God’s works on the “wicked” we see out there and trying to convince others that God is bringing punishment for their sins. Those who like to proclaim the AIDS epidemic as God’s judgment on gay and promiscuous sexuality have to ignore the many innocents who have contracted the disease from blood transfusions or sex within a marriage relationship. To gloat when abortion clinics are blown up or when abortionists are injured or even killed is not to proclaim the works of God, nor will it bring all humankind to fear God.
A better plan—even more cunning and certainly more honest than the plan of the evildoers—is to proclaim the works of God in judgment and grace poured out in our own lives. There we will have far less chance of distorting the unspoken motivations of others. There we will be less likely to be self-serving at the expense of others. When we proclaim what God has done in our own lives, we truly give the world something to ponder.
I am always amazed at how the disciples of Jesus passed on their foibles, their thick-headedness, and even their venality in the biblical record when they could so easily have whitewashed their thoughts and actions after the fact. Their honest vulnerability serves as a challenging example for us. God has done small miraculous things to, with, for, and through us that are far more impressive (and hopeful to common people, who want to believe in the life-changing works of God) than all our dire proclamation against the evil of the world.
When the righteous are able honestly to proclaim the works of God in their own lives, the world can actually see God at work in common lives like their own and to understand why we take refuge in him and sing his praises.