Psalm 9:13-20 “God has been here!”

Translation By NAW

1. For the concert-master, Alamoth for the son, a Psalm belonging to David.

I will respond to Yahweh with all my heart;

I will recount all of Your wonders.

2. I will be happy and exuberant in You.

I will play music about Your preeminent Name -

3. While my enemies turn back.

They will stumble and perish before Your face,

4. For You effected my justice and my adjudication;

You sat on the bench, judging righteously.

5. You repulsed nations;

You destroyed the wicked – You obliterated their name forever and ever!

6. As for the enemy, [his] swords were finished off indefinitely;

You even uprooted [his] cities.

The memory of them perished noisily,

7. But as for Yahweh, He will be in office forever; He has prepared His bench for the judgment.

8. And He Himself will judge the world with righteousness;

He will adjudicate for peoples with things that are right.

9. And Yahweh will be a stronghold for the one who is beaten down, a stronghold for times that include trouble.

10. Then those who know Your name will trust in You,

for You did not forsake those who were seeking You, Yahweh!

 

11. Y’all, play music for Yahweh (the One who inhabits Zion).

Declare among the peoples His exploits,

12. For the One who is out for blood has remembered them;

He did not forget a [single] cry of lowly ones.

13. “Yahweh, see my misery [caused by] those who hate me.

Be gracious to me by raising me up away from the gates of death,

14. In order that

I may recount all Your praises within the gates of the daughter of Zion,

[and] rejoice in Your salvation.”

15. Nations have sunk into a pit they made;

their foot has been caught in a net which they hid!

16. Yahweh is known; He did justice, snaring a wicked man by work of his hands.

Meditative Selah.

 

17. Wicked men will turn in the direction of the grave – all nations which forget God,

18. For it will not be that the needy is forgotten indefinitely

[or that] the hope of lowly ones will perish for ever.

 

19. Arise, Yahweh, don’t let mortal man be strongest;

let the nations be judged before Your face.

20. Pin rebellion on them, Yahweh;

let the nations know that they are mortal men.

Selah.

Introduction

  • During World War Two, drawings of a little man’s face started showing up everywhere with the curious slogan, “Kilroy Was here.” It showed up scribbled on walls and signs throughout Europe, Africa and Japan. The Germans thought it must represent some great military plan that the Allies had concocted. Stalin allegedly emerged from the bathroom at the Potsdam conference asking, “So, who is Kilroy, anyway?” To some extent, it was a joke, but it nevertheless had a very real meaning. It meant that an Allied soldier had already been that way and had begun to secure freedom. It was an encouragement to every solder who came behind that the enemy was already being conquered there. God doesn’t leave graffiti like that, but he does leave signs of His presence, and when we see rebels against God humbled and humble Christians delivered from danger, we can say, “God was here! The enemy is already being conquered!”
  • Last week, we looked at the first half of Psalm 9, which seems to have been written on the heels of one of David’s military victories.
  • We noted in v.1 the whole-hearted and unabridged nature of David’s praise in song.
  • We noted the ties to historical events where God did marvelous things, from creation to childbearing to delivering his people from slavery in Egypt to crossing the Jordan into the Promised Land to the triumph over the Canaanite nations and over Goliath,
  • and we saw the value of remembering God’s great acts throughout history. God indeed is a “stronghold for the oppressed… in times of trouble.” (v.9)
  • And God is a judge who intervenes in the affairs of mankind, and verses 7-8 remind us that there is coming a day when Jesus will appear and judge the entire world in righteousness.
  • Is there still corruption and oppression? Yes – like the secret waiting lists at the Veteran’s Administration hospitals, and the women and men murdered by the governments of Saudi Arabia and North Korea and Sudan and Pakistan for converting to Christianity. The injustices we face may or may not be immediately set to rights, but whatever injustice is not dealt with now will certainly be dealt with when Jesus returns.
  • We also saw in v.11 how should we respond to such a great God who punishes the wicked while not forsaking those who seek Him: Through worshipping Him in song and through the proclamation of His salvation in world missions!
  • We left off last week at v.12 where David says that God did not forget a single cry from the lowly. Later on in Psalm 56:8, there is a powerful word picture of God storing all of our tears in a bottle.
  • This introduces what I think is a quote from one of these poor, oppressed persons bowed low with griefs, crying out to God in verses 13-14. The things contained in this prayer are already spoken of as fulfilled before and after vs.13-14, so this may well be a look backward at what they prayed before their deliverance (Del.):

 

13. “Yahweh, see my misery [caused by] those who hate me. Be gracious to me by raising me up away from the gates of death, 14. In order that I may recount all Your praises within the gates of the daughter of Zion, [and] rejoice in Your salvation.”

  • Psalm 4:1-3 God of my righteousness, answer me while I am calling. During this stress You opened up margin for me. Be gracious to me and heed my prayer! Sons of man, how long – will my glory be turned to shame? will you love vanity? will you seek falsehood? Selah. But y’all should know that Yahweh caused to separate a godly man for Himself. Yahweh will heed when I call to Him.”
  • It was apparently Leah, Jacob’s first wife, who was unloved and neglected who first prayed to God, “see my affliction/consider my trouble” (Gen 29:32), then Jacob himself said that God had seen all the trouble that his dishonest father-in-law Laban had caused him (Gen. 31:42). Later, Hannah would use it in her famous prayer at the beginning of 1 Samuel, and then David would pray “consider my trouble,” while Shemei was calling down curses on him (2 Sam. 16:12).
    • When we are experiencing problems, we should not forget about God, and we should not lash out at God; instead, we should invite Him into the situation: “Lord, look at my misery and have mercy on me!”
  • Although the NIV mixes up the object of the verb with the object of the preposition[1], I do think that their rendering of the participle for “lift” is a better translation than that of the other English versions which render it as a name for God. Although it is legitimate to translate Hebrew participles as “the one who does such-and-such,[2]” in this case, I think that the participle “lifting” explains the manner in which David wants mercy shown to him, namely, “by lifting me up” and away from the gates of death[3].
    • The gates of the city were where God told the Jews to execute criminals (Deut. 17:5, 22:24), but this may be more of a picture of death being like a castle, where those who have died are inside the gates of the castle, and David is feeling like he is about to die and thus is getting frighteningly close to entering the gates of that castle of death (cf. Ps. 107:18). Maybe the occasion of this Psalm was when David was looking up at that giant Goliath and thinking, “What am I doing? One thrust of his spear and I’m a goner!”
    • Have you ever felt that way? Charles Spurgeon wrote, In sickness, in sin, in despair, in temptation, we have been brought very low, and the gloomy portal has seemed as if it would open to imprison us, but, underneath us were the everlasting arms, and, therefore, we have been uplifted even to the gates of heaven.”
  • “The gates of the daughter of Zion[4] in v.14 are set in contrast to “the gates of death” from v.13.
    • “The Daughter of Zion” is a description of Jerusalem and its inhabitants, especially those who were born there.
    • Inside the gates is safety from outside enemies.  
    • This reminds me of how the Apostle Paul put it in Coloss. 1:13-14 “[God the Father] … rescued us from the domain of darkness, and transferred us to the kingdom of His beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.”
  • Now why does David want to be delivered? What does David promise he will do inside the gates of the daughter of Zion when his prayer is answered? Verse 14 says, lema’an – “In order that” I may shew forth/tell/recount/declare Your praises and that I may rejoice in Your salvation!  
    • This Hebrew word for “rejoice” (Geel) has to do with things that are round (You can hear the same letter sequence of “g” + vowel + “l” in words like Gilgal, which had rounded hills and Golgotha, which was shaped round like a skull), so some scholars think that this verb geel means being so ecstatic that you’re dancing around in circles! Do you want to be that happy about God saving you? Ask for it!
    • David is asking that the debacle of a public execution within the gates be transformed to a celebration of victory in the public forum of the gates in order that everybody in his hometown can hear about how great God is for saving him!
    • And David made good on his promise to recount God’s mercy toward him by writing this Psalm – verse 1 opens with this same Hebrew verb that opens verse 14, “I will shew forth/tell/recount your marvelous/wonderful deeds!”
    • David does this not only among the nations, but also among his own people inside the gates of Jerusalem. We likewise need to evangelize not only the nations, but also the next generation of churchgoers through modeling praise to God and telling our testimonies to our children and grandchildren!
    • “[M]an’s chief end is not to enjoy this life or even to escape the punishment due us for our many sins,” wrote James Boice in his commentary on the Psalms, “but to praise God… To glorify God is to enjoy Him, and the enjoyment of God always results in the praise of His people. We never come closer to our true and ultimate destiny as redeemed persons than when we do that… So… praise the Lord always and with your whole heart!”
  • Now we come to verses 15 and 16, where we see the answer to the prayer:

 

15. Nations have sunk into a pit they made; their foot has been caught in a net which they hid! 16. Yahweh is known; He did justice, snaring a wicked man by work of his hands.

  • This is like Psalm 7: 15.” He dug out a hole and scoured it, but he fell into a pit he worked on.” It actually comes from Bildad’s speech in the book of Job: “Indeed, the light of the wicked goes out… His vigorous stride is shortened, And his own scheme brings him down. For he is thrown into the net by his own feet, And he steps on the webbing. A snare seizes him by the heel, And a trap snaps shut on him. A noose for him is hidden in the ground, And a trap for him on the path. All around terrors frighten him, And harry him at every step. His strength is famished, And calamity is ready at his side… Brimstone is scattered on his habitation… Memory of him perishes from the earth… He is driven from light into darkness… Surely such are the dwellings of the wicked, And this is the place of him who does not know God." (Job 18:5-21, NASB, cf. Job. 5:13)
  • I think it is no accident that David chose the verb (tab’u) “sunk down” here in v.15, because that is the very verb used by Moses to describe the Egyptian army sinking under the Red Sea in its failed attempt to destroy and re-enslave the nation of Israel (Ex. 15:4). “The nations have sunk into the pit they made!”
  • How does the LORD become known? Verse 10 said that His name became known to those who took refuge in Him. What does He do to make Himself known[5]? He executes justice! When you see righteousness and justice in the earth, you can say, “Hey, God has been here! Here’s a sign that the enemy has already begun to be conquered!”
  • Take Haman, for instance, in the book of Esther, hanged on the very gallows he had constructed for Mordecai, while Mordecai took his place as prime minister of Persia!
  • By the way, do you know what a snare is? It’s basically a sturdy string with one end tied in a slip-knot and the other end tied to something firm. The loop at the end with the slip knot is left open in a circle and laid on the ground and covered up with dust or leaves, and the other end of the string is tied to a tree branch which has been bent down and held in place by a prop of some kind. When an unsuspecting animal (or person) walks by and steps into the loop on the ground, the string gets caught around the victim’s foot, and, as they continue to walk forward, the slip-knot pulls tight like a noose around their ankle. This movement causes the prop to fall away from the tree limb that’s been bent down, and the tree limb springs back up to its normal position, pulling the victim up into the air, so that he is dangling by a leg, and his own weight keeps the slip knot tight around his ankle so that he can’t get loose.
  • I have puzzled over the fact that almost every English translation and commentary  renders the verb “snaring” as a passive verb (except for that of Franz Delitzsch, which should give any good scholar pause for thought), when it could just as legitimately be translated as an active verb.
    • Furthermore, the Hebrew words do not distinguish whether the “work of his hands” refers to work done by God’s hands or work done by the wicked man’s hands.
    • The only explanation I can come up with is that it is unsettling to think of God’s intervention in our world to bring down the wicked being that direct,
    • but it would be a mistake to think God is not active in curbing evil. God is immenently working in our world, even though it’s easy to forget that He is.
  • Now, this verse ends with the Hebrew words, Higgaion-Selah. Lots of ink has been spilled over what these words mean. Although Higgaion is not used anywhere else in the Bible as a musical notation, it does appear to be related to the Hebrew word for “meditate[6],” which we already encountered in Psalms 1 & 2.
  • What kind of meditating is this telling us to do?
    • In Psalm 19:14, this meditating is done within a person’s “heart,”
    • but in Lamentations 3:62, it is done out loud with the “lips,”
    • and then again, in Psalm 92:3, this meditating is done on the “harp.”
    • As I suggested when we first encountered the word “Selah” in Psalm 3, I think the “Selah” is referring to a musical interlude in which we are to think about the words of the Psalm. The Higgaion, then, appears to give extra emphasis on the importance of “meditating” during this Selah – meditating on the past works of God in which He punished evil and delivered His people.
  • Now, vs. 17-18 introduce a change in verb tense, from the past tense to the future tense:

 

17. Wicked men will turn in the direction of the grave [Sheol/Hades/Hell] – all nations which forget God, 18. For it will not[7] be that the needy is forgotten indefinitely [or that] the hope [expectation] of lowly ones will perish for ever.

  • This is a good example to us of faith in God. The LORD has already executed justice in the past, and we can confidently say with David that God will continue to execute justice into the future! Are you willing to transform past tense victories into future tense? Are you willing to assert that the injustices you are witnessing now will be punished by Jesus in the future and that your future is glory, not shame, because Jesus suffered your shame for you on the cross?
  • In verses 17-18, we also see contrasts:
    • The wicked who are on that broad path which leads to destruction (Matthew 7:13)
      are contrasted with the poor and needy[8] who will not perish.
    • The wicked are finished off forever (lenatsach),
      but the needy will not be forgotten forever (lenatsach)! (cf. vs. 12 & 18)
      (In fact, as Jesus informs us in Matthew 5:5, “the meek… will inherit the earth”!)
    • Then there’s the contrast of the nations that forget God
      compared to the God who does not forget His people.
  • Paul picks up in the book of Romans where David left off: Rom. 1:21&28 “For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened… And just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God any longer, God gave them over to a depraved mind, to do those things which are not proper…” (NASB)
    • Forgetting God may be the order of the day now, but it is still horrifyingly deadly.
    • “The moral who are not devout, the honest who are not prayerful, the benevolent who are not believing, the amiable who are not converted, these must all have their portion with the openly wicked... Forgetfulness seems a small sin, but it brings eternal wrath upon the man who lives and dies in it.” ~Charles Spurgeon
  • So one application from these verses is that we must remember God – keep thinking about Jesus. But another application is that we should never allow ourselves to believe that He has utterly forsaken us. To give up hope is an abandonment of the Christian faith and a step into hell.
  • Now David closes with a prayer – five requests he lays before God:

 

19. Arise, Yahweh, don’t let mortal man [prevail/triumph/lit. be strong]; let the nations be judged before Your face. 20. Pin rebellion on them, Yahweh; let the nations know that they are mortal men.

  • Back in Psalm 7, we saw David calling upon God to rise as prosecuting attorney, then sit as a judge over the wicked. He adds two or three more requests here, saying in effect, “show them that You, LORD are the boss – and that they are not the boss!”
  • Darwin indicated that world history is about the “survival of the fittest,” but the Bible says that God’s will for history is not survival of the fittest but rather divine salvation for those who acknowledge their weakness before God and call upon Him to save them.
    • God does not want us to feel so self-sufficient that we don’t need His help. He busted up the coalition of man’s strength at the tower of Babel. He sent Jesus into Jerusalem “humble and riding on a donkey” to teach us that “it is "the meek who will inherit  the earth,” and it is the “weak” through whom God demonstrates strength (1 Cor. 1:27, 2 Cor. 12:9, cf. Judges 6:2, Ps. 68:28).
  • There are some differences of opinion in how to translate the prayer request which opens verse 20. The participle morah could be derived from one of two Hebrew root words:
    • Either it comes from the root “marah” which means to be “bitter” and figuratively “sharp,” as in a “razor” (Judges 13:5, 16:17, and 1 Sam. 1:11) or figuratively bitter as in a “rebellious” attitude.
    • Or it could come from the Hebrew root word yarah, which means to “shoot forth” – whether physically shooting an arrow (1 Sam 20:36) or sending forth rain (Psalm 84:6 and Joel 2:23), or verbally sending forth information, as in “teaching” (2 Ki 17:28, 2 Ch. 15:3, Job 36:22, Isa 9:15, Hab. 2:18).
    • There is no other place in the Bible where this participle is used to mean “fear/terror,” but a couple of Greek manuscripts from the first three centuries AD render it that way anyway (Theodotion, Chrysostom) , and that seems to be the consensus of modern Jewish scholarship (Cohen, Delitzsch), and most English, French, and Spanish translations: “Put them in fear.”
    • However, most of the ancient Greek (LXX, Aquill, Symm.) and Chaldee translations of this Psalm, as well as the Latin Vulgate and Luther’s German translation favor the meaning of teaching – “put a teacher over them.” Wycliffe’s English translation (as well as Young’s and Douay-Rheims) went with that meaning of “teacher.”
    • But, the meaning that makes the most sense to me is one that this participle is used for a couple of other times in the Bible, and that is “rebellion” (Deut 12:18, Jer. 5:23). In other words, I think David is asking God to “pin the label of ‘rebel’ on his enemies so that they realize they can’t act like they’re the boss but that they are accountable to God. They are rebels because God is already legitimately in authority over them and they are not cooperating with His laws.
    • However, any way you interpret this word, the same result comes out:
      • If God can “teach” them something they don’t know,
      • If God can “strike terror” in their hearts, or
      • If God can make the charge of “insurrection” against Him stick,
      • Then man is not supreme; God is, and, if God is the boss, then we can safely put out trust in God to deliver us when humans gang up against us.
  • I like the way Spurgeon put it: “Prayers are the believer's weapons of war. When the battle is too hard for us, we call in our great ally, who, as it were, lies in ambush until faith gives the signal by crying out, ‘Arise, O Lord.’”
  • I want to close with a story from our country’s history which illustrates this point powerfully. In October 1746, the mighty French Navy mobilized to “lay [Boston] in ashes and destroy [the coast of America].” The people of Boston heard about it and were afraid. They gathered in the Old South Congregational Church, and there Rev. Thomas Prince began to pray. He prayed the imprecations of Psalm 83 against the French Navy, and as he prayed, the sky turned black and a terrific wind began to blow so strongly that it caused the big church bell to start clanging! That day the mighty French navy was scattered so badly that they couldn’t attack. Thousands of French sailors died on the seas, but the Bostonians were left completely unharmed. The proud French Admiral and Vice Admiral were so ashamed that they committed suicide[9]. That day the lowly Christians of Boston experienced God’s mercy and salvation while the unbelieving French soldiers came to know they were but men. They could say with Rev. Prince[10], “God has been here! The wicked have felt their mortality while the humble have been delivered! This is the fingerprint of God!”



[1] The NIV chose to follow the Septuagint (exthrwn enemies) here rather than the Hebrew sonay - “those who hate me,” which is fine, but it should read “see me being persecuted by my enemies” rather than “see my enemies persecuting me.” It doesn’t significantly change the meaning though.

[2] The participle is usually rendered as a substantive like that when it is preceded by a definite article, but there is no definite article (“the”) in this verse. Furthermore, if it is a name for God, it seems odd that it occurs nowhere else in the Bible and that, of the 12 times that this word occurs in the Masoretic Text as a participle, it is never used as a name unless this is the exception. Delitzsch believed it was a vocative, though, so I admit this is a debatable point.

[3] This is a quote from Job 38:17.

[4] The “gates of Zion” are only mentioned here and Ps. 87:2 and Lam. 1:4.

[5] This reflexive translation found in the ESV and NAS is permissible with a verb in the Niphal stem, as occurs here, but a Niphal is more standardly translated as a passive verb, the way the KJV and NIV and I have rendered it.

[6] Thus Cohen, Jamieson Faussett & Brown, Charles Spurgeon, and the lexicographers Strong and Brown Driver & Briggs. The Greek translations are particularly interesting: Symm. = melos (cf. other Greek translations in Origen’s hexapla on the Psalms: melodema, meletwn), Theodot. = phthonge, LXX = Ode. Delitzsch called it a “stringed instrument,” and Gerald H. Wilson called it a “musical interlude.”

[7] The Hebrew negative only occurs once in this verse, so I tried to make a construction in English which would parallel that instead of supplying a second negative by ellipsis like most other English versions do.

[8] Hebrew and Greek manuscripts seem to be divided over whether this is the word for “poor” or the word for “needy.” The difference in Hebrew is merely over how long the stem of the third letter in the word extends, so it’s easy to explain the difference from that perspective, and the difference in meaning is not all that great. See Deut. 15 on how to treat needy people. See 1 Cor. 1:27 and 2 Cor. 12:9 on God’s strength manifested through our weakness!

[9] Details of this story from Dr. Paul Barkey’s book, 40 Prayers That Changed America, p.51ff. There is also a poem about this event by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, “The Ballad of the French Fleet.”

[10]  After whom Princeton was named.