Psalm 52 – How To Fight Fear With Faith

Translation & Sermon by Nate Wilson for Christ The Redeemer Church, Manhattan, KS, 12 Nov. 2023

v.1 Introduction: The Mighty Man’s Threat vs. The Love Of God

• This is the first of 4 Maskill Psalms in a row by David, although there was an earlier one by him at Psalm 32, and there were a few of them by the sons of Korah back at Psalms 42-45, and there will be more to come.

  • But this is a wisdom-literature category of Psalm, intended to be “thought-provoking” and to share deep “insight.”

• The setting in v.1 is “when Doeg the Edomite came and conferred with Saul and said to him, ‘David has entered into the house of Ahimelek.’” This refers to 1 Samuel 22:6-23 “Now Saul was sitting at Gibeah under the tamarisk-tree at the high place, with his spear in his hand and all his servants attending upon him. Then Doeg the Edomite (who was attending upon the servants of Saul) answered and said, “I saw the son of Jesse going to Nob to Ahimelek, son of Achitub {the priest}, who inquired with {God} for him, and gave carry-out-food to him and gave the sword of Goliath the Philistine to him.” So the king sent someone to call Ahimelek the priest, son of Ahitub, and all his father’s household (the priests which were at Nob), and all of them came to the king. Then Saul said, “Give heed now, son of Achitub!” And he replied, “I am here, my Lord.” And Saul said to him, “Why did y’all conspire against me – you and the son of Jesse – when you gave bread and a sword to him and you inquired with God for him, to set him up against me in an ambush as it is this day?” Then Ahimelek answered the king and said, “And who among all your servants is as faithful as David, even the king’s in-law, and the one who takes off at your bidding, and the one who is honored in your house? Was it today that I began to inquire with God for him? What a disgrace to me! Let not the king register a case against his servant {or} against any of the house of my father, for your servant doesn’t know about any of this stuff – little or much!” But the king said, “Ahimelek, you shall surely die, you and all the house of your father!” Then the king said to the errand-runners who attended upon him, “Turn around and put the priests of Yahweh to death, because their hands are with David and because they knew that he was fleeing but they did not reveal it to {my} ear!” But the king’s servants were not willing to venture to strike with their hands against the priests of Yahweh. So the king said to Doeg, “You, turn around and strike against the priests!” So Doeg the Edomite turned around and he struck against the priests, and he put to death on that day 85 men who bore linen shoulder-gear. Then he made a strike with swordsmen against Nob, the city of the priests. From man even to woman, child, and even infant, also ox and donkey and sheep, [he struck them down] with the edge of the sword.” (NAW)

• In the first verse,

  • Most English Bibles follow the Masoretic Hebrew text, which has been in Bibles for at least a thousand years, but has not been found in manuscripts any older than the 900’s.

  • However, the older Greek and Latin Bibles which have been around for about two thousand years read something like, “Why do you boast in evil, you mighty-man, in iniquity all day long?” (with no mention of the “lovingkindness of God”)

  • The Syriac Peshitta, which has been around in Bibles for almost two thousand years has a similar reading, “Why do you boast in evil, you mighty man, and against the innocent all day long?” (again, no mention of the “lovingkindness of God”)

  • If you’re reading an NIV Bible, it seems to conflate some of these textual traditions with a paraphrase of its own, “Why do you boast all day long, you who are a disgrace in the eyes of God?” (There are, however no manuscripts which actually use the words “disgrace” or “eyes.”)

  • Hundreds of years before the NIV, the Aramaic Targums did a similar thing, ostensibly stitching together multiple ancient Hebrew oral traditions of the Bible, and they came up with, “Why do you boast with your tongue of evil, O mighty-man, to pour out the blood of the innocent? The grace of God is all day long.”

  • In this case, where it’s hard to decide among the ancient variants, I’m inclined to mention them all, like the Targums did.

• Doeg, one of King Saul’s heartless, bloodthirsty, power-hungry officers, is apparently the mighty-man addressed in this Psalm.

  • According to Jewish tradition Doeg was head of the Sanhedrin - the Supreme Court of Israel (Cohen).

  • But he stands for anyone who perpetrates evil and injustice against innocent persons, whether it be a modern magistrate who harasses Christians, or a family member who spews out lies and slander against you, or somebody at your office who seems out to get you. They boast about the power they can wield against you, and you feel helpless to counteract them.

  • This Psalm is about how to arm yourself against the temptation to fear these people by adopting a holy defiance based upon trust in God’s justice and God’s salvation¹.

• V. 1 reminds us that there is another actor in this drama, namely God, who is not merely a “mighty-man” but omnipotent, not merely present but eternally omnipresent, and not evil but loving and good toward His people. We easily forget that God is there because we can’t see Him, but David starts us out with the right perspective. God is there, He is there all the time, and He loves us, no matter what the evil mighty-men are doing.

  • The same phrase “all day long” in the Greek translation of Psalm 52:1 is also in the Greek New Testament in Romans 8:35-39 which also teaches that, although there is wickedness which is at enmity with us “all day long,” God’s love is always with us: “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written: ‘For Your sake we are killed all day long; We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.’ Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (NKJV)

  • “God cannot become weary in helping his people, or alleviating their miseries; and although he may suffer them again and again to fall into affliction, he is always equally ready to extend them the deliverance which they need.” ~J. Calvin, 1554 AD

  • James 4:11-16 also reminds us of these two players, the boastful, temporally-rich vs. the God who is able to save and destroy: “Stop talking derogatorily about one another, brothers... The Lawgiver and Judge is the One who is able to save and to destroy. So who are you who condemn your neighbor? Get with-it now, you who are saying, ‘Today or tomorrow we shall go into this town here and manufacture for one year there, then market and profit!’ – who yourselves have no certainty of what will be tomorrow. (For what is your life? Indeed, it is smoke which is made to appear for a little while and then is made to disappear.) Instead y'all should say, ‘If the Lord wills, then we will live and do this or that.’ But now y'all are boasting in your pretensions; all such boasting is evil.” (NAW)

• So the first battle in overcoming fear of man is to remember God. Then we need to realize it’s all about what we love.

vs. 2-4 What the Destructive, Deceitful Man Loves

• v.2 creates two word-pictures, both of which describe an ominous danger.

  • First is a “tongue” that is always “devising” wanton “destruction/mischief.”

  • Second is a “razor” blade that has been freshly “stropped” in preparation to shave everything off and leave nothing behind.

  • This is what the ungodly love; they love instilling fear into other people. They love to think about how to deceive and intimidate and defraud others in order to increase their power and possessions.

  • “[T]he information itself which [Doeg] gave in against Ahimelech; for the matter of fact was, in substance, true, yet it was misrepresented, and false colours were put upon it, and therefore he might well be said to ‘love lying,’ and to have a ‘deceitful tongue.’ He told the truth, but not all the truth, as a witness ought to do; had he told that David made Ahimelech believe he was then going upon Saul's errand, the kindness he showed him would have appeared to be not only not traitorous against Saul, but respectful to him.” ~M. Henry, 1714 AD

  • James 4:5-6 “So also the tongue is a little member, yet it boasts of big things. See how a small fire ignites so great a forest! And the tongue is a fire; it is the world of the unrighteous... and is set ablaze by hell.” (NAW)

  • What is your tongue like?

    • Do you sharpen it too much?

    • Does it boast too much?

    • Does it tend toward falsehood or toward righteousness?

  • Proverbs 12:17-20 “He who speaks truth declares righteousness, But a false witness, deceit. There is one who speaks like the piercings of a sword, But the tongue of the wise promotes health. The truthful lip shall be established forever, But a lying tongue is but for a moment. Deceit is in the heart of those who devise evil, But counselors of peace have joy.” (NKJV)

• Notice where the the wickedness of the evil person comes from – it comes out of what they “love” (v.3), “desire,” and “devise” (v.2) in their hearts and minds, then makes its way through their mouth in the “deceit,” “falsehood,” and “boast”ful things they say, and so “destruction” lies in their wake.

  • Jesus said in Luke 6:45 “The good man brings good things out of the good stored up in his heart, and the evil man brings evil things out of the evil stored up in his heart. For out of the overflow of his heart his mouth speaks.” (NIV, cf. Mark 7:21ff, Rom. 1:29)

  • What do you love most? Does your heart need to be redirected in its loves? God, in His lovingkindness, can “create in you a clean heart and renew a right spirit in you” (Psalm 51:10) if you ask Him to in Jesus’ name!

  • Oh brothers and sisters, “Keep your heart with all diligence, For out of it spring the issues of life.” (Proverbs 4:23, NKJV)

  • 2 Timothy 3:2-16 “For men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, unloving, unforgiving, slanderers, without self-control, brutal, despisers of good, traitors, headstrong, haughty, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God... but they will progress no further, for their folly will be manifest to all... But you must continue in the things which you have learned and been assured of... All Scripture is given by inspiration of God…” (NKJV)

  • “Before thee is equity, before thee is iniquity: one tongue thou hast, whither thou wilt thou turnest it: wherefore then rather to iniquity and not to equity? You wouldn’t put something bitter in your belly, so why put food of iniquity to thy malignant tongue? As thou choosest whereon to live, so choose what thou mayest speak.” ~Augustine

• v.4 brings another word-picture based on an onomatopoeia-word that sounds like gulping or swallowing - and is used in Jeremiah to describe an army conquering a foreign nation. It is the self-directed, self-feeding use of the tongue that takes advantage of others and builds itself up at the expense of others.

  • Again, this is connected to what the heart loves, which is essentially, they love themselves.

  • What kind of words to you love to hear and love to share? Do you love to talk about yourself? Do you love to hear others cut down and made fun of? Do you love violence and destruction? Do you like to trick people? Those are all very dangerous. They are like clinging to lead weights while trying to swim in the ocean; they will bring you down quick!

  • Jesus’ call upon the love of our heart is instead, “...‘You shall love the Lord your God with your whole heart and with your whole soul and with your whole mind.' This is the first and great commandment. And a second is similar to it: 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.'” (Matthew 22:37-39, NAW)

• “David is not to be considered as here venting a flood of reproaches against his adversary, as many who have been unjustly injured are in the habit of doing, merely to gratify a feeling of revenge. He brings these charges against him in the sight of God, with a view to encourage himself in the hopefulness of his own cause: for it is plain that the farther our enemies proceed in the practice of iniquity, they proportionally provoke the anger of the Lord, and are nearer to that destruction which must issue in our deliverance.” ~J. Calvin

v. 5 Consider God’s Impending Punishment On The Wicked

• The verbs now switch tense with a string of 4 imperfects all ending with an objective “you,” indicating a switch from past evil action to future consequences of judgment.

• The first verb יִתָּצְךָ is translated into Greek as καθειλεν, which shows up in the NT three times²:

  • Luke 1:52 He has put down the mighty from their thrones, And exalted the lowly.” (NKJV)

  • Acts 13:19 "And when He had destroyed [put down] seven nations in the land of Canaan, He distributed their land to them by allotment.” (NKJV)

  • 2 Corinthians 10:4-5 “For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ” (NKJV)

  • God will pull down their false ideologies, depose them from their positions of influence, and bring them to destruction. That is the future of all who love evil.

• The second of the four verbs [יַחְתְּךָ] is only found 3 other places in the Hebrew O.T., all having to do with transporting hot coals:

  • Prov. 6:27 (“Can a man take^KJV/scoop^NIV/carry^ESV fire in his bosom and not be burned?”);

  • Prov. 25:22 (“heap burning coals upon his head”),

  • and Isa. 30:14 (“a shard to take fire from the hearth”).

  • It’s hard to say what this implies particularly about God’s judgment of the wicked:

    • perhaps that there’s nothing too hot for God to handle,

    • or maybe just the simple idea of God scooping them up and removing them.

• The third verb [וְיִסָּחֲךָ from נסח] also occurs only 3 other times in the Hebrew O.T.,

  • first in the covenant curses in Deut. 28:63 (“...because you would not obey the voice of the LORD your God... you shall be plucked^KJV/torn^NASB/uprooted^NIV from off the land which you go to possess.”),

  • then in the Proverbs 2:22 (“...the wicked will be cut off from the land, and the unfaithful will be uprooted/torn^NIV from it”)

  • and 15:25 (“The LORD will destroy/tear down^KJV the house of the proud…”).

  • In the case of Psalm 52, it is an ohel/tent that he will be “torn away” from.

    • Most English translators have interpreted this as Doeg’s residence and added the word “your” (which is not in the Greek or Hebrew original, although can be added if context warrants it),

    • but here I side with a minority³ of commentators who think it is more likely talking about THE Tent - the “Tent of Meeting”/the tabernacle of God. In other words, Doeg will be excommunicated from the religious community because of His unrepentant wickedness.

• And the fourth verb וְשֵׁרֶשְׁךָ pictures “uprooting.”⁴

  • Deut. 29:28 “And the LORD uprooted⁵ them from their land in anger, in wrath, and in great indignation, and cast them into another land, as it is this day.” (NKJV)

  • Matthew 15:13 Jesus said, “Every plant which my Heavenly Father did not plant will be rooted⁶ out.” (NAW)

  • God will indeed destroy the wicked. That judgment is coming when Jesus will say, “You who have been cursed, conduct yourselves away from me into the eternal fire prepared for the Devil and his angels” (Matt. 25:41, NAW)

• David finds comfort in remembering that the people being mean to him will be punished by God. Perhaps David also is communicating this a message of warning to them in hopes they might repent. Both are valid things for a Christian to do after experiencing harm from someone’s wrongdoing.

  • Sometimes Christians fail to do the former: they see evil and injustice in the world and they don’t see it getting punish properly, so they go off the rails and stop believing in God. To counteract that crisis of faith we need to read those horrible passages in the Bible about God punishing the wicked and trust that God will bring justice and righteousness to this world in time, even if we don’t see it yet.

  • Other Christians - who may have the faith to believe in God’s justice - instead fail on the other front: They experience some kind of evil and injustice and they go into Imprecatory mode. “Break the teeth of the wicked, O God! Show them no mercy! Destroy them for what they did to me.” And they forget that the reason God hasn’t destroyed all the wicked yet is that this is the time for salvation – God is currently converting more wicked persons into godly persons (2 Pet. 3:9), and we need to get with His agenda and offer warnings like Psalm 52 to wicked people in hopes that they might be saved too.

• The rest of the Psalm focuses on what David will feel in the future once he has seen God bring the wicked to justice.

vs. 6-7 Future Sentiments of the Righteous Concerning God’s Judgment

• In verse 6, the Hebrew word for “righteous” is plural, so David is saying that there will be a remnant of righteous persons who survive the persecution of this wicked strong-man and they will see him brought to a shameful end⁷.

• Although we must be careful about not being cruel toward people to whom we should be compassionate, there are nevertheless times when it is Godly to “rub it in,” as it were, and make fun of ungodliness. This same word for “making fun/laughing” in Psalm 52:6 is also in:

  • Psalm 2:2-4 “Kings of the earth set themselves up, and distinguished men establish unity against Yahweh and against His Anointed One... The one sitting in the heavens laughs, the master mocks at them.” (NAW)

  • Psalm 37:12-13 “Gnashing his teeth over him, a wicked man also makes schemes concerning the righteous man. The Master will laugh at him because he sees that his day will come.” (NAW, cf. 59:8)

  • This is reminiscent of the words of wisdom personified in Proverbs 1:25-26 “Because you disdained all my counsel, And would have none of my rebuke, I also will laugh at your calamity; I will mock when your terror comes” (NKJV)

  • One thinks also of Elijah on Mt. Carmel mocking⁸ the priests of Baal who, with full knowledge that this was a competition between Yahweh and Baal, cut themselves and prayed in a frenzy to their false God in hopes of demonstrating Baal to be more powerful than Yahweh and thus eliminating once and for all the worship of the true God. With folks that hardened against God and the truth, Elijah judged it appropriate to resort to jeering. This was an act of faith for him.

• This idea of thinking about how you will feel in the future is also in the teachings of Jesus. In Luke 6:20-23 “...He lifted up His eyes toward His disciples, and said: ‘Blessed are you poor, For yours is the kingdom of God. Blessed are you who hunger now, For you shall be filled. Blessed are you who weep now, For you shall laugh [and this is the same Greek word for “laugh” that is in the Greek translation of Psalm 52:6]. Blessed are you when men hate you, And when they exclude you, And revile you, and cast out your name as evil, For the Son of Man's sake. Rejoice in that day and leap for joy! For indeed your reward is great in heaven…” (NKJV) Do you see? Jesus also instructs us when things are hard to separate the “now” from the “then” and think about how much happier He will make you in the future!

  • This, by the way, is very different from the “positive thinking” exercises of humanists who do this apart from faith in God. For them, they are trusting in themselves or in fate to make them happier in the future, which is worshiping false gods, for Christians it is trusting that Jesus will bring justice and joy in the future, which is a form of worshiping Jesus, it is part of that “fear” mentioned in Psalm 52:6 which describes reverent awe of God.

• v.7 – the humanistic strong-man did not look to God for his strength, but David did:

  • Psalm 27:1 “Yahweh is my light and my salvation. Of whom shall I be afraid? Yahweh is the strength of my life; Of whom shall I be in dread?”

  • Psalm 28:7-8 “Yahweh is my strength and my shield; it is in Him that my heart has trusted, so I will be helped out, and my heart will rejoice, and through my song I will respond to Him. Yahweh is the strength of His people, and He is the source of strength behind the salvations of His anointed one.”

  • Psalm 37:39 “Verily the salvation of righteous men is from Yahweh; He is their strength in a time of crisis.” (NAW)

  • And, for what it’s worth, in Psalm 52:7, the Hebrew verb governing the tense is not past tense, so this humanistic mighty-man is still trusting in himself and not in God, and David is giving him a hard time for it!

  • Proverbs 21:29 “The wicked put up a bold front, but the upright give thought to their ways.” (NIV)

  • Psalm 78:7 explains what it means to make God your strength: “That they might set their hope in God, and not forget the works of God, but keep his commandments.” (KJV)

• But instead of remembering God, keeping His commandments, and trusting in God, the worldly strong-man is trusting in how much wealth he has.

  • “[W]hat more vain, than he that thinketh coin more to avail than God?” ~Augustine

  • Psalm 49:5-6 described the same situation when the Sons of Korah wrote, “...The iniquity of those at my heels surrounds me – those who are confident based on their wealth and boast in the amount of their riches.”

  • Proverbs 11:28 tells us, “He who trusts in his riches will fall, But the righteous will flourish like foliage.” (NKJV)

  • Jeremiah 17:5 Thus says the LORD: “Cursed is the man who trusts in man And makes flesh his strength, Whose heart departs from the LORD.” (NKJV)

  • Calvin commented that, “just in proportion as we arrogate to ourselves do we derogate from Him; and it is not only wealth, but any other earthly possession, which, by engrossing our confidence, may prevent us from inquiring after the Lord.”

  • That’s why the Apostle Paul wrote in 1 Tim. 6:17 “Command those who are rich in this present age not to be haughty, nor to trust in uncertain riches but in the living God, who gives us richly all things to enjoy.” (NKJV)⁹

• Now after remembering God, considering that it is all about what our hearts love, meditating on God’s justice against the wicked and how we will feel about that, the Psalm closes with four statements about...

vs. 8-9 How To Continue in Relationship With God

• The first is that, in contrast to the wicked who will be uprooted, “I will be like a green/fruitful/flourishing olive-tree in the house of God...”

  • “Green,” not in the sense of “immature/unripe,” and not in the sense of Spanish green olives vs. Mexican black olives, but “green” as the opposite of dry and brown; sap is coursing through it, and it is producing leaves and good fruit.

  • This image of a thriving tree is used throughout scripture concerning God’s people, for instance,

    • Psalm 1:2-3 – Those who love God’s word will be like a fruitful tree planted by a river¹⁰,

    • Psalm 92:12-13 “The righteous shall flourish like a palm tree, He shall grow like a cedar in Lebanon. Those who are planted in the house of the LORD Shall flourish in the courts of our God.” (NKJV)

    • Jeremiah 11:16 “The LORD called your name, Green Olive Tree, Lovely and of Good Fruit…” (NKJV, cf. Psalm 128:3, Hosea 14:5-6, Zech. 4:11-14 & Rev. 11:4)

    • and then there’s Jesus’ parable of the kingdom of God being like a the mustard tree that grows so large that all the birds nest in it (Luke 13:19)

    • and Paul’s imagery of Gentiles being wild olive branches grafted by faith in Jesus into a fruitful olive tree in Romans 11:17-20.¹¹

  • It’s thriving because it is connected to God in trust, and God is supplying it with vitality. Remember what Jesus said in John 15:5, “I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing.” (NKJV)

  • This tree is also pictured as being “in the house of God,” which, in the Old Testament means the earthly tabernacle or temple of God. That’s where David liked to go and sing his psalms to worship God.

  • Whatever the current circumstances – perhaps David is running for his life to get away from Saul’s murderous men, living among strange Philistines who worship fish gods – David looks forward to the time when he will be thriving again under God’s blessing and singing his Psalms with others who love God at the tabernacle.

  • The Hebrew text doesn’t tell us whether David is saying “I am” or “I will be;” I have envisioned it as future tense, but many English translations put it in present tense, in which case David, despite the opposition he is experiencing, sees Himself in a very stable and prosperous condition, not because it appears that way outwardly, but because he trusts in the promises of God and believes that God will bring him back out of exile to worship at the tabernacle again and lead Israel as their next king. It’s a matter of faith in God who cannot lie.

• Why will he be like a green tree in God’s house? On the one hand, it is because God will bless him with life and fruitfulness, but from the perspective of our human action, David says it is Because he has “trusted” in God’s “lovingkindness/mercy/steadfast love.” This is the second statement about continuing in relationship with God. And not only has he been trusting, but he will keep on trusting “for ever.”

  • Psalm 13:5 “But as for me, it is in Your lovingkindness that I have trusted. My heart will rejoice in Your salvation.” (NAW, cf. Psalm 21:7, 143:8)

  • Are you abiding in the vine? Do you trust that God will share His lovingkindness with you?

• The third statement about continuing in relationship with God is in v.9 I will thank/praise you forever for what you did [or ‘because you have done it’],

  • “Thanks/praise” characterize the godly because, like David, they recognize that only God can bring the wicked to justice and only God can keep the godly safe, so when we see justice come to the wicked and salvation come to the godly, we praise God because He is the one who does this, and we are so thankful that he does these things!

  • How many times throughout the Psalms do we see David setting the example of praising God? (e.g. Ps. 7:17, 22:22, 30:12, 35:18, 54:6)

  • We who believe that God does these things are willing to wait for Him to achieve the justice and salvation He promised, hoping confidently in Him, because we know He is good and He will do what is good.

• The last statement about continuing relationship with God is, and I will hope in/wait on Your name because it is good in the presence of Your godly ones/saints/chesedaim.

  • The Psalms define the Chesedaim of God as those who:

    • “ratify His covenant on the basis of sacrifice” (Psalm 50:5),

    • who “make music for the Lord” and “respond to the remembrance of His holiness” (Psalm 30:4) and “sing” (Psalm 132:9),

    • who “love the Lord” and are “faithful” (Psalm 31:23),

    • who “pray to [Him]” (Psalm 32:6), “trust in [Him]” (Psalm 86:2), and “praise,” “bless” and “give thanks to [Him]” (Psalms 145:10 & 149:1).

    • These are all the ways that the Psalms¹² describe these “godly/devout/saints.”

  • And here in Psalm 52 it says they “hope in/wait on” God. And Christians still do this. The Greek word that translates “hope in/wait on” in v.9 is found in several places in the New Testament, where it is often rendered “persevere:”

    • Matthew 10:22 “you will be hated by all on account of my name, but the one who has persevered into the end, this one will be saved.” (NAW)

    • Matthew 24:12-13 “and on account of the proliferation of the lawlessness, the love of the many will evaporate. But the one who has persevered into the end, this one will be saved.” (NAW, cf. 2 Tim. 2:12, Jas. 1:12)

    • Romans 12:12 “Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer.” (ESV)

  • And note that David is not waiting/hoping/enduring/persevering alone, no he is doing it with others who are also faithful and devout. It is “in the presence of these godly ones/saints” who believe that God is “good,” that David will keep waiting on the Lord and hoping for the fulfillment of God’s promises.

Conclusion

• Evil men like Saul and Doeg will rage, and you may feel “under attack by those who [know] well how to control and manipulate language with destructive effectiveness.” (G. Wilson)

• So engage your fear of them with faith,

  • remembering that God is there all the time,

  • and that what you love in your heart is the key.

  • Envision what the future will be like when God fulfills His promise to punish the wicked and save the godly,

  • and then nourish your relationship with God by

    • Abiding in Jesus, the true vine,

    • Trusting always in God’s lovingkindness,

    • Thanking God always for what He has done,

    • And waiting on Him confidently (with other believers) because God is good!

Psalm 52 – Side-by side comparison of versions^A