Sun, 11 September, 2005: Today’s Bible readings.
1 Give ear to my prayer, O God,
and hide not yourself from my plea for mercy!
2 Attend to me, and answer me;
I am restless in my complaint and I moan,
3 because of the noise of the enemy,
because of the oppression of the wicked.
For they drop trouble upon me,
and in anger they bear a grudge against me.4 My heart is in anguish within me;
the terrors of death have fallen upon me.
5 Fear and trembling come upon me,
and horror overwhelms me.
6 And I say, “Oh, that I had wings like a dove!
I would fly away and be at rest;
7 yes, I would wander far away;
I would lodge in the wilderness; Selah
8 I would hurry to find a shelter
from the raging wind and tempest.”9 Destroy, O Lord, divide their tongues;
for I see violence and strife in the city.
10 Day and night they go around it on its walls,
and iniquity and trouble are within it;
11 ruin is in its midst;
oppression and fraud do not depart from its marketplace.12 For it is not an enemy who taunts me–
then I could bear it;
it is not an adversary who deals insolently with me–
then I could hide from him.
13 But it is you, a man, my equal,
my companion, my familiar friend.
14 We used to take sweet counsel together;
within God’s house we walked in the throng.
In today’s Psalm, David is facing an attack, but this time the attack is not coming from an openly declared enemy. The attack is coming from someone who had been a close friend, and so the attack is that much more devastating to David.
What do we learn from this?
David is in the depths of despair, to the extent that he tells us he wants to run away to escape. I know I find it encouraging to see that people in the scriptures have these feelings also. It is natural to want to run away, and it isn’t a sign of spiritual immaturity to want to be released from the troubles.
We also see that sometimes we are betrayed by friends, and the pain of this betrayal is worse than that which we receive from an enemy. We might not face this ourselves, but this Psalm help us to deal with others who have. And it can also encourages us to be true to our friends and not abandon them.
And finally, although we didn’t include the end of the Psalm in our quote above, we see that David ends the Psalm with the appropriate response to such betrayal: 22 Cast your burden on the LORD, and he will sustain you; he will never permit the righteous to be moved.
Where is Christ in this passage?
David, in decrying the betrayal of his close friend, prefigures Jesus Christ, as He was betrayed by Judas. David’s description perfectly fits Judas: 13 But it is you, a man, my equal, my companion, my familiar friend. 14 We used to take sweet counsel together….
