Psalms
Chapter 7
Lord, Save Me From My Persecutors
O Lord, my God, in you I take shelter; deliver me, and save me from all my pursuers,
lest lions tear me to pieces, with no one to rescue me.
O Lord, my God, if my hands are stained with guilt—
if with evil, I have repaid good, if I have plundered unjustly my opponent,
let the enemy hound me; let him crush me to the ground and lay down my liver in the dust.
Arise, O Lord, in your wrath; rise up against the fury of my foes. Awake, O my God, and judge the nations, for the time of judgment has come.
Let the nations gather around you, and you take your seat high above them.
Proclaim, O Lord, my righteousness; you see, that I am blameless.
Bring to an end the power of the wicked, but affirm the just, O righteous God, the searcher of mind and heart.
You cover me as a shield, Oh God, for you protect the upright.
A righteous judge is God, his anger ever awaiting those who refuse to repent.
God has his sword ready and sharpened; his bow bent and arrows aimed.
He has in hand, always ready, his deadly weapons and fiery darts.
Look at the one who conceived iniquity and is pregnant with mischief: miscarriage will result.
He digs a pit and makes it deep; he will fall into the trap he made.
His evil intent recoils upon his head; his wicked design comes back in his face.
I will rejoice in the Lord for his justice, and sing to the Most High in gratitude and praise.
Commentaries
7
We encounter no issues with the beginning of this psalm, but the confident assertion of innocence that follows is unsettling. We tend to seek God’s mercy rather than invite his strict judgment. However, perhaps we have no reason to worry. A Christian can confidently claim they are ‘just’ because the righteousness belonging solely to God is genuinely and internally imparted to the Christian. In Christ Himself, God’s righteousness is revealed and made accessible to those who connect, through faith and baptism, to the power of Christ’s resurrection. This is the ‘justness’ we can celebrate when we sing this psalm: ‘Let those who boast, boast in the Lord.’
When we dream about a more just society, while deathly violence surrounds us, we can pray with this psalm, aware that justice will prevail, and in gratitude, we sing praises to the Lord.