Give ear to my prayer, O God; and hide not Thyself from my supplication.
The compassionable, the commendable, and the censurable in life
I. The compassionable. David appears here an object for pity and compassion, as the victim of--
1. Malignant oppression.
2. Overwhelming terror.
3. Foul treachery.
II. The commendable.
1. He lays all his troubles before Him who alone could help him. The fact that men in great trouble and danger, whatever be their theoretical beliefs, instinctively appeal to God for help, argues man’s intuitive belief--
(1) In the existence of a personal God;
(2) In the accessibility of a personal God;
(3) In the compassion of a personal God.
2. Under all his troubles he strives to maintain his confidence in God.
(1) Men have burdens. What anxieties press upon the human soul, making the very frame to stoop, and the heart to break.
(2) Men’s burdens may be transferred to God. “Cast thy burden upon the Lord.” How? By an unbounded confidence in His character and procedure.
(3) Those who transfer their burdens on the Lord will be sustained. “He shall sustain thee.” God gives men power to bear their burden, and will ultimately remove their burden from them.
III. The censurable--his imprecations. Revenge is a moral wrong; and what is morally wrong in the individual can never be right in any relationship or office that the individual may assume, or in any combination into which he may enter. (Homilist.)
The outcry of a soul in distress
I. The vivid complaint (Psalms 55:1-11). The singer’s case is a sad one. His mind is restlessly tossed to and fro. Full of cares and anxieties he nowhere finds solid foothold, but continues distracted, and hence he must pour out his heart in groans and complaints. The reason is the voice of the enemy, that is, the reproaches and calumnies to which he is subjected. But word is accompanied by deed, for there is persecution as well as slander. Overwhelmed with horror, the one thought of the sufferer is escape. He longs for the pinions of a dove--itself the emblem of peace and quiet--that he may fly away and find repose.
II. The treacherous friend (Psalms 55:12-15). The slanders of an avowed antagonist are seldom so mean and cutting as those of a false friend, and the absence of the elements of ingratitude and treachery renders them less hard to bear. “We can bear from Shimei what we cannot endure from Ahithophel.” So, too, we can escape from open foes, but where can one find a hiding-place from treachery? Hence the faithlessness of a professed friend is a form of sin for which there is not even the pretence of excuse. No one defends it or apologizes for it. Yet it occurs, and sometimes, like the case in the psalm, under the sanctions of a religious profession, so that the very altar of God is defiled with hypocrisy. It is right, therefore, that such atrocious wickedness should receive its appropriate recompense.
III. The anticipated result (Psalms 55:16-23). By a fine antithesis the speaker turns to describe his own course in opposition to that of others. They pursue wickedness and reach its fearful end. He, on the contrary, calls upon God, who is his one refuge in times of distress and anxiety. He lives in an atmosphere of prayer, which is expressed by his mention of the three principal divisions of the natural day. “Complain” and “moan” are the same words that occur in Psalms 55:2; only here they are accompanies by the assurance of being heard. God will assuredly redeem him from the heat of the conflict; and the interposition of His arm will be needed, for his adversaries are not few but many, too many for him to deal with alone. God therefore will hear and answer them just as He does to His own servant, but with a serious difference. His own He regards in mercy, others in judgment. God Himself so orders His providence that they are overtaken in their evil ways and plunged into the abyss. On the other hand, the sacred poet closes his lyric with a renewed asseveration of the only ground of his hope. As for me, whatever others may say or think, as for me, I trust in Thee. (T. W. Chambers, D. D.)