Psalm 56 - God is for me

Psalm 56 - God is for me

Read: Psalm 56 vs 1-13

The title to today’s Psalm, Psalm 56, tells us that it was written by David ‘When the Philistines had seized him in Gath.’ The stories of David, found primarily in 1 and 2 Samuel, are foundational stories for the Christian faith. The sheer detail in which the Bible works through the biography of his life alerts to how incredibly useful (2 Timothy 3:16) it can be for the follower of Jesus to have these David stories ingrained within their imagination.

People familiar with David’s story know the name of Gath well. Do you remember Goliath? How could anybody forget! The terrifying and boastful Philistine giant who a young David defeated with a stone and a sling shot. Do you know where Goliath came from? Goliath came from Gath (1 Samuel 17:4), and when David defeated him the men of Israel and Judah surged forward with shouts of victory pursuing the Philistines ‘to the entrance of Gath’ where they struck many of them down. David’s name would have lived on in Gath. I don’t think it’s a stretch to imagine that the people in Gath feared David and hated David.

Now fast forward to 1 Samuel 21. In this phase of David’s life, as we have seen David is not victorious, David is hunted. Saul is pursuing David and David ends up fleeing … into Gath (1 Samuel 21:10). This a very high risk strategy. David is at his most vulnerable, one wrong move and he will be finished. David realises that he has been outed and that the king of Gath realises who he is. ‘Very much afraid’ (1 Samuel 21:12) David pretends to be insane and starts acting like a madman. His ruse works and David escapes, for now, with his life. 

So what’s going through David’s mind in the middle of all of this? Psalm 56 gives us a glimpse of God centred threat in the midst of this kind of chaos and peril.

‘When I am afraid, I put my trust in you.

In God, whose word I praise –

In God I trust and am not afraid.
What can mere mortals do to me?’ 
(vs 3-4)

‘Record my misery; list my tears on your scroll –

Are they not in your record?’ (vs 8)

‘… you have delivered me from death

And my feet from stumbling,

That I may walk before God 

In the light of life.’ (vs 13)

There are so many things real faith isn’t. It isn’t neat and tidy. It isn’t without fear. It doesn’t know what is going to happen next, it doesn’t know how when or how ‘this all ends’. But what real faith does know, is it knows God. Even in Gath David find time and space to write and sing … Psalm 56.