Psalm 007:1-10 Your Court of Appeal

Translation by Nate Wilson

1. A reel belonging to David, which he sang to Yahweh over the words of the Cush Benjamite.
Yahweh, my God, in You I have taken refuge.

Cause to save me from all my pursuers, and cause to deliver me.

2. Otherwise he will tear my soul apart like a lion rips, and there will be no deliverer.

3. Yahweh, my God, if I did this –

4. if there is unfairness in my palms;

if I repaid evil to one who is at peace with me

and delivered my adversaries unreasonably -

5. let an enemy pursue and overtake my soul

and stamp out my life into the ground

and lay my glory into the dirt. Selah.

6. Arise, Yahweh, in Your anger!

Be lifted up by [the] excesses of my adversaries,

and stir up for me [the] judgment You decreed.

7. Then the assembly of peoples will mill about You,

so return over it to the height.

8. Yahweh will adjudicate peoples.

Judge me, Yahweh, according to my righteousness.

9. Please let [the] evil of wicked men end,

then You will establish righteousness for Yourself,

and the God of righteousness will test minds and emotions.

10. My shield is upon God causing to save right-hearted ones.

Word Studies

v1. A reel belonging to David, which he sang to Yahweh over the words of the Cush Benjamite.

שִׁגָּיוֹן Shiggaion (transliteration)

This word is found nowhere else in Bible
2/3 of this word is the same as the word for “meditate,” which we saw in Psalm 1 and 2, so the NKJV translated it “meditation,”
but the Jewish commentators I read believe it comes from a different root meaning “to err” or “go astray”(Talmud, M.K.16b), thus Delitzsch calls it a “reeling… [or dithyrambic] poem… with a rapid change of the strongest emotions.”
Others said it was a certain kind of musical instrument (Cohen, quoting Menacham)
Other scholars throw up their hands and say we just don’t have a way to know what it means. The Septuagint just translates it “Psalm”(and GHW “Lament”)

Whatever it was, it was something David “sang” to the LORD. Do you ever sing to the Lord? When our heads and emotions start to spin over the confusing or threatening words we hear from other people, let the music of psalms, hymns, or spiritual songs flow through your mind and restore your perspective!
This, by the way is a Psalm which has been customarily related to the feast of Purim, where God turned the tables on Haman’s slander against Mordecai and Haman’s plans of genocide against the Jewish people living in the Babylonian empire, as Mordecai and his niece Esther took refuge in God and were delivered.
Who was Cush Ben-yemeenee? (כוּשׁ בֶּן יְמִינִי)

· Literally “a black son of my right hand,” thus Luther: A courtier with a black heart.

· This name “Cush,” as it is spelled here in Hebrew, does not show up anywhere else in the Bible except Noah’s grandson, who was the progenitor of the Ethiopian nation.

· Also, this particular spelling of the word for “Benjamite” with a maqef-hyphen between “Ben” and “Yemeinee” does not show up anywhere else in the Bible.

· There is a somewhat-similar spelling of this word in the Bible where the hyphen is replaced with a space plus the Hebrew letter for “h.” That spelling occurs three times describing Shemei as being from the tribe of Benjamin (2 Sam 16:11, 19:16, 2 Kings 2:8). Thus some Bible scholars say this refers to Shemei, the man from Benjamin who cursed David as he fled from his son Absalom when Absalom tried to take over the kingdom of Israel. (Treasury of Scriptural Knowledge)

· On the other hand, a number of ancient scholars have said that this instead refers to the Cushi who was a counselor for David and sabotaged Absalom’s campaign (Augustine) or the Cushite who announced the death of Absalom to David after David’s army overthrew Absalom’s coup in 2 Sam. 18:21 (BHS-Kittel, cf. Septuagint and Vulgate spellings).

· As James Montgomery Boice pointed out in his commentary on this psalm, there were many people from the tribe of Benjamin who liked it that King Saul was from their tribe and who resisted David taking over the kingship because David was from a different tribe, the tribe of Judah. Shemei and Sheba are presented in the Bible as two examples of Benjamites who rebelled against David, and this Cush guy may have just been another guy from the tribe of Benjamin disgruntled with David. (cf. Del.)

· I think, however, that this name “Cush” is most probably referring elliptically to King Saul himself, the son of Cush (or Kish) from the tribe of Benjamin.

o The closest Hebrew spelling to the word for “Benjamite” here in the Bible is when Saul says that he is from the tribe of Benjamin in 1 Sam. 9:21 (all the letters are the same, only the hyphen is replaced with a space).

o Saul and others were chasing David around the Judean desert trying to hunt him down and kill him, so this would fit David’s concern that he was being pursued and likely to be killed.

o Saul and his cronies kept accusing David of insurrection, such as when Doeg reported that he had seen David eating at the tabernacle at Nob and Saul suspected a conspiracy and sent the army to kill all the priests at Nob. But all David was doing was trying to keep from being unjustly killed.

o Twice, when Saul was on his military campaigns trying to find and kill David and his buddies, David got close enough to touch Saul while he was sleeping in his camp. Both times, David could have easily killed Saul, but he let Saul escape with his life. Both times Saul acted embarrassed that he had falsely accused David, but later changed his mind and tried to kill David again.

o The majority of Bible commentators I read seemed to agree that this Cush is the same as Saul (Cohen, Leuphold, JFB, Matthew Henry). So David prays…

Yahweh, my God , in You I have taken refuge. Cause to save me from all my pursuers, and cause to deliver me.

This word חָסִיתִי trust^KJV/take refuge – is the same word from Psalm 2:13 “Blessed are all who take refuge in Him” and Psalm 5:11 “Let all who take refuge in You be glad…”
רֹדְפַי – those who pursue/chase/harass/hunt down/persecute^KJV

v2. Otherwise he will tear my soul apart like a lion rips, and there will be no deliverer.

This יִטְרֹף tearing and פֹּרֵק rend^KJV/rip^NIV/drag^NAS^{(which does not translate this word as “drag”
anywhere else; it usually translates break/tear)}/ransom^LXX^{,
Syr} present a gruesome image of a cat killing a mouse.

In David’s time, Doeg and Ahithophel were ruthless men (Cohen)
This is very much like Job 16, where Job describes his torment from Satan.
Yet in Hosea 5:14 we see that God also can be like a lion “tearing” His people up in discipline, but unlike a lion, He then “heals” the tears (Hosea 6:1).

I want to consider, for a moment the Messianic implications of this Psalm.

The church father Augustine spends a great deal of time looking at this Psalm from the perspective of Jesus, and I think it is appropriate as part of our study of each psalm to plug Jesus in as the Messianic archtype of the psalmist.
Early on in His ministry, Jesus was tempted by the Devil, whom the Apostle Peter tells us is “like a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour” (1 Pet. 5:8). Can you see how Jesus could have prayed the words of this psalm then in the wilderness? “Lord, ‘deliver’ me from the tempter or else there will be no ‘Deliverer’ for the human race!”
Jesus endured much slander against Himself, and the Pharisees indeed did their best to trap Him and do away with Him. They finally succeeded in capturing Him through the betrayal of his close friend Judas.
But Jesus did not do anything wrong. He had no evil on His hands. He did not deserve to die. He could have called forth a legion of angels to rescue Him from the injustice of being crucified, yet Jesus didn’t call forth justice for Himself. He “placed his shield,” or “hung his hat,” as it were, on God’s plan of salvation and prioritized God “saving” a holy people, so He died on the cross to pay for the sins of those people and save believers from being torn up by the Devil and being condemned by the God of justice who would otherwise find us all guilty of eternal death because of our sins.
Thus Jesus was surrounded by the peoples as they mocked Him on the cross, yet He returned on high when He ascended to heaven to sit at the right hand of God.
In heaven, He intercedes before God for us, saying, “Judge, O Lord, according to my righteousness, not according to their sin, since I have already paid the price of their sin by my death and have given them my perfect righteousness. Judge them by that righteousness!”
And He will come again to judge the nations, at which time He will try the heart and mind of every individual person and put a final end to all evil and secure a final salvation for all those whom He loves!

v3. Yahweh, my God, if I did this – if there is unfairness in my palms;

iniquity^KJV/wrong^ESV/injustice^NASB/unrighteousness^LXX/guilt^NIV בְּכַפָּי in the hollows of my hands - This עָוֶל is defined in the Law as:

Prejudice or unfairness in judgment which might be committed by a leader: Lev. 19:15 You shall do no injustice in judgment; you shall not be partial to the poor nor defer to the great, but you are to judge your neighbor fairly.
Or cheating on measurements of weight or value – which anyone in business might commit: Lev. 19:35 You shall do no wrong in judgment, in measurement of weight, or capacity (Deut. 25:13-16, talks of having a heavier weight and a lighter weight and using the weight that is slightly lighter on the balance scale to weigh the merchandise you are selling, so that the customer gets a little less than they should, and then using the weight that is slightly heavier on the balance scale to weigh the silver the customer pays so that the customer is charged more than is fair.)

In other words, “If I’m in the middle of bilking somebody, then hold me accountable.” How many of us could say that with a clear conscience? How many of us have never been unfair with people under our authority and never made more than we should have on all our business deals?
In David’s case, however, he has been slanderously accused. Rumors were circulating – probably rumors that he was mobilizing an army to overthrow King Saul, although this was never David’s intention. This rumor was no small matter; it could have easily led his death or to another civil war!
In synonymous words, David asked this very question of Saul in 1Sam. 26:18 “Why then is my lord pursuing his servant? For what have I done? Or what evil (רעה) is in my hand (יד) ?”

v4. if I repaid evil to one who is at peace with me and delivered my adversaries unreasonably -

גָּמַלְתִּי rewarded^KJV/repaid^NKJ/retaliated against^LXX שׁוֹלְמִי Him who was at peace with me/my friend^NAS
Saul himself confessed that this was not true of David, using this very word: 1 Samuel 24:17-18 He said to David, "You are more righteous than I; for you have repaid me with good, while I have repaid evil to you…. the LORD delivered me into your hand and yet you did not kill me.
The word for “adversary” (צורר) is the same as the one in Psalm 6:7 and many other Psalms,
but the verb (וָאֲחַלְּצָה) in the second half of this verse, which has as its root meaning “to remove,” gets translated two different ways:

1. negative removal, as in “plundered^NAS/robbed^NIV/spoiled^AJV.” In other words, “If I robbed him until he was empty” (AJV) or “I plundered him for an empty reason” (רֵיקָם “without cause” – NIV, NKJ, ESV) – “if I tried to steal the kingdom from King Saul, then I did wrong and I deserve to be punished.”

2. positive removal as in “deliverance,” which is the way the KJV and the traditional Jewish translators (Kimchi, Cohen) interpreted it, “he had no cause to be my enemy so justice required me to deliver him” (KJV); “I let Saul go scot-free two times, but now it seems like it was all for nothing!”

· Either of these is a reasonable translation, but the negative removal makes more sense in the context. “If I have done all these bad things, then…

· (The LXX has something totally different, apparently because they switched two of the Hebrew letters, so I won’t even get into that.)

v5. let an enemy pursue and overtake my soul and stamp out my life into the ground and lay my glory into the dirt. Selah.

Progression: Chase, Catch up with (וְיַשֵּׂג), Tread down^KJV/trample (וְיִרְמֹס), and then Bury in the dirt.
“The wages of sin is death,” according to Gods law of justice, so David admits that if the charge were true, death – capital punishment – would be fair.
“If I had been unjust in my treatment of this guy, then I wouldn’t be presenting my case before You, LORD, for justice. I would say he was right to keep on pursuing and persecuting me.”
Note that David is not saying he had never done anything wrong; he is just dealing with this one false accusation.
How should we deal with false accusations?

“Should we respond in kind? We can’t do that, because that brings us down to our accuser’s level.
Do we protest openly and widely? That tends only to fan the flame… ‘Methinks he doth protest too much.’
If you are innocent of the fault, you cannot even repent of it and make restoration.
What can you do? There is only one thing to do, and that is to take your problem to God, as David does. We can appeal to God for justice… ‘whereas a [false accusation] may deceive and convince our fellow human beings, it cannot deceive God.’” ~JMB

v6. Arise, Yahweh, in Your anger! Be lifted up by [the] excesses of my adversaries, and stir up for me [the] judgment You decreed.

To “arise” (קוּם) was to play the role of the prosecutor (The judge stayed seated as it still is in our courtrooms today).
Why arise to prosecute? בְּעַבְרוֹת because of (or against) the rage^KJV/fury^ESV of my foes – Literally “in/by the passings-over – the excesses^Hirsch of my adversaries (cf. the boundaries^LXX). In other words, “My enemies have gone too far in their anger against me. They have flipped out over a false rumor and done me wrong in the process. Now I need you to intervene and restore justice. I appeal this case to You, God; awake^KJV/rise up^NKJ/arouse Your justice/call Your court into session!” (וְעוּרָה)
There is some dispute over how to translate the אֵלַי here in this verse:

The Masoretic vowel points – added around 900 AD – clearly indicate the meaning “for me,” but, without the vowels, it could be read “my God,” as the LXX interpreted it 1000 years before the Masoretic vowel pointings.
The NIV sides with the LXX, “Awake, My God.”
Either interpretation works with the rest of the Bible, but since the next two words in Hebrew are the noun for “judgment” and then the verb “commanded,” they appear to me to be the object of what is to be “stirred up/awakened” rather than a separate parallel sentence.

צִוִּיתָ The word for “commanded^KJV/appointed^NAS/decreed” is not spelled like the other Hebrew Imperatives in this verse (arise, be lifted up, awake), but is a plain old Perfect tense verb, “You have commanded.” (While I think it’s possible to construe it as part of the verb chain of imperatives like the NIV did, I think their rendering it as an imperative is too much of a stretch.)
I think this is speaking of the character of God. David is saying, “God, you promised to judge the wicked, and these people have been wicked, so let your anger against their sin motivate you to enter into that judgment which You promised you would instigate against them!”

v7. Then the assembly of peoples will mill about You, so return over it to the height.

This וַעֲדַת“congregation/assembly” can be God’s people, as in “the assembly of the righteous” in Psalm 1:5, or it can be a band of bad guys like the “assembly of evildoers” which “surround (סבב)” the psalmist like “dogs” in Psalm 22:16.
Notice, that this assembly has multiple “peoples” in it – not just Jews but Gentiles as well!
I see this particular assembly as being witnesses to the court trial – or perhaps those in the gallery observing.
I am reminded of the scene in the old movie To Kill A Mockingbird, where a white woman has falsely accused a black man of taking advantage of her, and everybody in the community shows up in the courtroom to see the outcome. All the black folk in town are sitting in the balcony, listening intently to the proceedings, eagerly hoping that their friend will be acquitted of the false charge. If the girl’s false accusation is sustained by the court, the black folk in town will have no confidence in the judicial system.
Similarly, the outcome of God’s justice in David’s particular case will communicate to all the people in the world what is the nature of God’s righteousness and justice. If God shows that He can deliver David and exercise justice, then others will want to take refuge in God’s righteousness. If David doesn’t appeal for justice, there will be no theater for the nations to see God provide salvation for those who take refuge in Him. Like David, we need to set the stage by appropriately appealing for God’s justice so that others will have opportunity to see God’s justice!
The first verb in v.7 (תְּסוֹבְבֶךָּ) can accurately be translated into English as either a Future tense (LXX, KJV – “shall compass/ surround”) or as a Jussive (“Let them encompass^NAS gather around^NIV”). Davidson’s lexicon labels it a Pilel, which indicates reflexiveness to the meaning, so I translated it “mill about.”

· Is this a picture of the nations taking refuge around God or of them rioting and raging against Him? It is not clear to me one way or the other. We know from the rest of the Psalms that both will happen:

· Psalm 82:1 God takes His stand in His own congregation; He judges in the midst of the rulers.

· Psa 22:16 For dogs have surrounded me; A band of evildoers has encompassed me; They pierced my hands and my feet.

The conclusion of v.7 is puzzling: עָלֶיהָ לַמָּרוֹם שׁוּבָה – literally “over her [the assembly] to the height you return.” What does this mean?

· KJV renders the word “over” figuratively, giving the meaning that the Psalmist wants God to return on high in order to offer some benefit to the peoples – “for their sakes.”

· The other standard English translations seem to imply that God in heaven would return to mankind, but retain an exalted status as He judged. (I have no idea where NIV got their verb “rule” from.) Leuphold took this position in his commentary and elaborated thus, after returning for a “brief demonstration of… just judgment” in this earthly context, He would go up to heaven.

· However, as best I can figure, the “on high” does not mean “heaven,” but rather means “up on a high place,” and I think that is the judge’s seat. (Jewish commentators have traditionally followed this meaning, cf. Hirsch, Cohen). In other words, I think David is praying, “God, please return Your visible presence before mankind and exercise your judicial authority over mankind by climbing up into the judge’s seat.” God, whom David called down from the judge’s seat to play the role of prosecuting attorney now says it’s time to return to the role of judge.

· Whatever the case, we see in this picture both the transcendence and the eminence of God. God is “over” and above mankind, able to judge them, but He also “returns” to dwell with His people, just like He did with the cloud in the wilderness (Num. 10:36), and just as He does in the comings of the Lord Jesus, who is always portrayed throughout Scripture as “the one who comes” or “is to come.”

· Cf. Ps 6:5 “return, O Lord,” 68:18 “he ascended on high”; 80:14 “return… look down from heaven,” 90:13-14 “Return, O LORD; how long will it be? And be sorry for Your servants.”)

v8. Yahweh will adjudicate peoples. Judge me, Yahweh, according to my righteousness and according to my perfection over me.

David asks God to judge him (שָׁפְטֵנִי), and David expects to be “vindicated” (NASB) in this judgment.
כְּצִדְקִי וּכְתֻמִּי righteousness and integrity/perfection are character traits of God, yet David claims them as his own! How it that? I think that the last two words of the sentence provide the explanation:
עָלָי Literally: “over me” (LXX got it right with epi)

It is the same word translated “over” or “for their sakes” in verse 7.
Here in verse 8, most English translations render it with the English word “in,” which, I think is unfortunate. (It seems even more unfortunate that the NIV renders this word as “O Most High” which shares the same Hebrew root but doesn’t seem appropriate here.)
But that’s o.k. as long as we recognize that this “righteousness” and “integrity” is not intrinsic to David, it comes from outside of him – from the Most High God, the “Lord who is our righteousness” (Jeremiah 23:6) “upon” him and into him.

v9. Please let [the] evil of wicked men end, then You will establish righteousness for Yourself, and the God of righteousness will test minds and emotions.

יִגְמָר let it end

God proves His righteousness by ending wickedness and establishing righteousness.
Remember from Psalm 1:1 that wickedness is “disconnectedness” regarding a relationship with God and looseness toward His laws.
Most English versions translate this as God establishing the righteous man, and that is consistent with the rest of scripture, but I went with “establish righteousness for Yourself” because of the Pilel reflexive form “establish for Yourself” and the fact that in the Hebrew there is no definite article (“the”) before the word for “righteous,” so it could be “righteousness” rather than “a righteous man.”

God is also בֹחֵן לִבּוֹת וּכְלָיוֹת trying/testing hearts and minds (literally “kidneys” but in Job and Psalms and Jeremiah, it refers to the inmost being or emotions).

Thus by a merismus is signified everything about us –“all men’s thoughts, which are meant by the word heart; and their delights, which are understood by the word reins.” ~Augustine
Jer. 11:20 But, O LORD of hosts, who judges righteously, Who tries the feelings and the heart, Let me see Your vengeance on them, For to You have I committed my cause.
God knows what people are feeling and thinking. This is an advantage no human judge has, and this is part of the reason why God can be so just in His judgments.

10. My shield is upon God causing to save right-hearted ones.

This is the same “shield” we saw in Psalm 3:3, which was small enough to buckle onto your arm and use together with a sword. Here, David has thrown his shield upon God!
KJV translates “shield” (מָגִנִּי) figuratively as “defense.”
The second word in Hebrew after “my shield” is the same word עַל translated “over” in verse 7 and “in” or “over me” at the end of v.8. Again it literally means “over” or “upon.”

The NIV extends that to mean “the One who is High above,” but I think that’s a real stretch.
The other English versions translate this word with a different preposition: “of” or “with.” Now, there are other Hebrew words which standardly mean “of” or “in/ with” so I don’t think that’s the best translation here,
but even if we go with “in” or “with” instead of “over,” the meaning still comes through – that my shield, my defense rests upon God saving the righteous. As the old hymn goes, “My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus blood and righteousness… I need no other argument; I need no other plea…” I rest my case on God saving me.

(I also prefer to translate the word “saving” as a gerund “saving” rather than as a substantive “the one who saves” – partly because there is no definite article before it, and partly because there is no other verb in the sentence, and partly because it makes the “upon” make sense.)
יִשְׁרֵי Note that the word for “upright” is different from the word for “righteous.” Yashar means straight, not crooked, level, not full of holes, and is the same root used in the previous Psalm when David prayed for God to “make straight” the path before him. It means their hearts are “aligned” with God, not that they had some intrinsic goodness that should be rewarded with salvation.
God’s judgment is our salvation! His role of judge is related to His role as our savior. It is only when Jesus has completed the final judgment that we will see the fullness of our salvation.
“while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us, how much more being now justified shall we be kept whole from wrath through Him.” (Rom. 5:8-9, quoted by Augustine)
GHW: “The righteous character of Yahweh… is the psalmist’s basis for confidence… [He] invite[s] us to understand divine righteousness as a source of confidence and comfort rather than of fear and dismay.” If we know we do not measure up to God’s righteousness, we should not run away from God (and the church) in order to avoid looking bad next to the righteousness of God, rather let us run to God and take refuge in His righteousness.