5. Pursued

Meditations in David’s Psalms : 5 :  Pursued  – Psa 7

Psa 7:1   O LORD my God, I take refuge in you; save and deliver me from all who pursue me

Two things to note before we get under way: first, the title over this psalm says it is one David “sang to the Lord concerning Cush a Benjamite”. Now of course Saul came from the tribe of Benjamin (1 Sam 9:1,2) and so some suggest Cush was a follower of Saul who was causing David trouble. The second thing: often we fail to associate the things going on in David’s life with our own and thus fail to catch the full significance of what he was feeling. Let’s try to remedy that.

He starts out O LORD my God which the bold letters tell us will mean, “Great I AM, the Eternal One, you are my God”. Always there is this reminder of who the Lord is when He is addressed like this. This Almighty One is the one in whom David finds refuge. He calls on Him to save and deliver him from people who are pursuing him. This suggests it is the time in his life when Saul was chasing him around the country.

He fears the outcome of this pursuit if the Lord does not step in on his behalf: “or they will tear me like a lion and rip me to pieces with no one to rescue me.” (v.2) he’s thinking in the back of his mind, this isn’t much different from the times when I was looking after my father’s sheep and a lion or bear would come after me!

He then does what he often seems to do – seek to check his own righteousness before the Lord and see if there is any cause he needs to deal with that indicates that what is happening is the Lord’s discipline: “O LORD my God, if I have done this and there is guilt on my hands (v.3) — if I have done evil to him who is at peace with me or without cause have robbed my foe (v.4) — then let my enemy pursue and overtake me; let him trample my life to the ground and make me sleep in the dust.” (v.5).  “If there is guilt on my hands” – i.e. if I have done anything wrong. if I have done evil to him who is at peace with me or without cause have robbed my foe  i.e. if I have treated others wrongly. If I have done any such thing then I deserve chastisement, so bring it on!

But deep down David knows that that is not so. He has got unrighteous enemies raging against him for no good reason and so he calls to the Lord to bring justice: “Arise, O LORD, in your anger; rise up against the rage of my enemies. Awake, my God; decree justice.” (v.6) Very well, he continues, gather the onlookers of the world around you as you make judgment, let them all see it (implied): “Let the assembled peoples gather around you. Rule over them from on high,” (v.7) yes, let the court of heaven be open to judge and weigh me, to assess my righteousness and my integrity – “let the LORD judge the peoples. Judge me, O LORD, according to my righteousness, according to my integrity, O Most High.” (v.8) What a confidence in the Lord and in his own righteous relationship with the Lord he has!

He continues: “O righteous God, who searches minds and hearts, bring to an end the violence of the wicked and make the righteous secure.” (v.9) Lord, you see everything and read every heart and mind, come and judge the wicked and make those of us who hold to your righteous ways secure.

He affirms his position in God: “My shield is God Most High, who saves the upright in heart.” (v.10)  He is secure and protected in the Lord because of who the Lord is. First, the Lord is all-powerful and, second, He is concerned for right and wrong and so does come and save those who are ‘upright in heart’.

He pictures the Lord as a judge who not only makes decisions but who also comes to execute the judgment of those decisions: “God is a righteous judge, a God who expresses his wrath every day. If he does not relent, he will sharpen his sword; he will bend and string his bow. He has prepared his deadly weapons; he makes ready his flaming arrows.” (v.11-13)  The Lord decrees what is righteous (it is what conforms to His perfect design for the world He made) and therefore He assesses everything on the basis of His perfect will, His perfect design, and He moves out against what is evil to destroy it.

David ponders on those who do evil and how it comes back on them: “He who is pregnant with evil and conceives trouble gives birth to disillusionment. He who digs a hole and scoops it out falls into the pit he has made. The trouble he causes recoils on himself; his violence comes down on his own head.” (v.14-16) Sometimes the Lord comes with specific judgments on people but more often He simply stands back and lets the trouble they have created come back on them. Paul had this same idea in Romans 1 when three times he says “God gave them over.”  i.e. God stepped back and removed His hand of protection so that the sin of these people would run rife and bound back on them.

He concludes by praising God for all His right dealings: “I will give thanks to the LORD because of his righteousness and will sing praise to the name of the LORD Most High.” (v.17)  He could trust that the Lord would always do what was right – and that therefore included dealing with the unrighteous ones who pursued him – and that left him praising the Lord.

Now let’s apply this to our own lives. When things go wrong – whether it is people against us, or circumstances just going badly – it seems those things pursue us. We cannot escape them, and worry or anxiety because of them, haunts us. But if they are wrong things – people speaking or doing wrong towards us, or things happening because it is a fallen world that goes wrong – when we turn to the Lord, we need to remind ourselves that He is righteous, which means that He ALWAYS is working to do what is right. Thus when we call upon Him we come to see what He feels about the situation and we can wait on Him to deal with it in the way He sees is right. Now, can we rest in that?