Psalm 55
To the Chief Musician on Neginoth, Maschil, A Psalm of David
Give ear to my prayer, O God; and hide not thyself from my supplication.
Attend unto me, and hear me; I mourn in my complaint and make a noise.
Because of the voice of the enemy, because of the oppression of the wicked; for they cast iniquity upon me and in wrath they hate me.
My heart is sore pained within me; and the terrors of death are fallen upon me.
Fearfulness and trembling are come upon me, and horror hath overwhelmed me.
And I said, Oh that I had wings like a dove! For then would I fly away and be at rest.
Lo, then would I wander far off and remain in the wilderness. Selah.
I would hasten my escape from the windy storm an tempest.
Destroy O Lord, and divide their tongues; for I have seen violence and strife in the city.
Day and night they go about it upon the walls thereof; mischief also and sorrow are in the midst of it.
Wickedness is in the midst thereof; deceit and guile depart not from her streets.
For it was not an enemy that reproached me; then I could have borne it; neither was it he that hated me that did magnify himself against me, then I would have hid myself from him.
But it was thou, a man mine equal, my guide and mine acquaintance.
We took sweet counsel together and walked unto the house of God in company.
Let death seize upon them, and let them go down quick unto hell; for wickedness is in their dwellings and among them.
As for me, I will call upon God, and the Lord shall save me.
Evening and morning, and at noon, will I pray and cry aloud and he shall hear my voice.
He hath delivered my soul in peace from the battle that was against me; for there were many with me.
God shall hear, and afflict them, even he that abideth of old. Selah. Because they have no changes, therefore they fear not God.
He hath put forth his hands against such as be at peace with him he hath broken his covenant.
The words of his mouth were smoother than butter, but war was in his heart; his words were softer than oil, yet were they drawn swords.
Cat thy burden upon the Lord, and he shall sustain thee, he shall never suffer the righteous to be moved.
But thou, O God, shalt bring them down into the pit of destruction; bloody and deceitful men shall no live out half their days, but I will trust in thee.
TEACH ME TO FEEL by Courtney Reissig
This is a psalm of lament. They follow a general structure:
Cry to God for help
Complaint of circumstance/trouble
Trust in God’s work and deliverance
Praise for God’s deliverance.
Psalm 55 is David’s lament for a lost friend and over a painful betrayal. He has been let down and badly.
In verse 4 David says he is in anguish – “sore pained”
In verse 5 David says “fear and trembling” have come upon him. He has enemies and oppression on every side. He feels forgotten and betrayed by those who are against him.
In verses 12 and 13 David tells us the primary problem that David is enduring – not a general relational difficulty with general enemies. No, this is personal. This is betrayal, at its core, for his feelings have been caused by one who used to be his dear friend. And it is utterly debilitating. Further explanation is given in verses 20 and 21.
David is experiencing the truth we all know – “sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me.” – and it is utterly false! It’s worse when the hurtful words come from the mouth of a former friend. An enemy might use words to tear their opponent down but if that enemy is a former friend, the daggers pierce deeper and more permanently they get at our psyche in ways that only a friend could.
“None are such real enemies as false friends. Reproaches from those who have been intimate with us, and trusted by us, cut us to the quick; and they are usually so well acquainted with our peculiar weaknesses that they know how to touch us where we are most sensitive, and to speak so as to do us most damage ... We can bear from Shimei what we cannot bear from Ahithophel.” C H Spurgeon
Ahithophel was David’s friend and ally but when the king’s son Absalom betrayed David, Ahithophel went with Absalom – leaving David bereft of both his friend and his son (2 Samuel 15). In the next chapter Shimei hurls curses and stones at David. But Shimei was from the house of Saul (David’s enemy) – coming from him, it was a different type of attack; more expected and less painful.
It is hard to recover from feelings of betrayal. In this psalm, as in other psalms of lament, David is all over the place. He goes from trusting God to crying out to God for what he is enduring and then back to trusting and then back to crying again. And isn’t this how betrayal works? A dear friend turning his or her back on you leads you to serious doubting. It can lead to depression. It can lead to physical ailments. It can lead to an inability to sleep. It can lead to the desire to sleep all the time because the sadness is too much. It can lead to thoughts that bounce between speaking harshly to yourself and believing the worst of everyone else. It can lead to a craving for escapism.
This psalm is telling us: God gets how that feels; and it is ok to feel it.
It’s one thing to be let down by someone you aren’t emotionally invested in, but what about the friend you have had since primary school? What do you do when she suddenly turns against you? What about the husband? What about the sister or brother in Christ? David is telling us that should feel something when someone we are close to betrays us. When you have a repository of memories with this person stored up, betrayal will make you feel something. It should make you feel something.
Psalms 1 and 2 tell us what life should be like and what life will one day be like. We were made for friendship and fellowship. We were made for relationships that last. We were made to treat others with kindness and respect. But here in Psalm 55 there is none of that. Life here is nothing like God intended. It’s all back-stabbing and lies. Life in this post-Genesis 3 world is constantly screaming at us that all is not well. This is what led to David’s anger. It is what leads to ours as well. We know what is true and right. We know what God intended. But we are regularly met with the exact opposite. And we feel that disjointedness deeply.
There are some psalms that you can’t read without seeing Jesus. And when we think of betrayal by a friend, it’s not hard to see how Jesus is the one who faced the worst betrayal of all.
Jesus knew how it felt to be betrayed by someone who had called himself a close friend. First there was Judas selling Jesus to the highest bidder. Then there was every other disciples, who deserted him as he was arrested and his very closest friend Peter, who denied even knowing him. In the hour of his greatest need, Jesus was left utterly alone before his accusers. That is betrayal. If we have been let down badly remember we have a Saviour who faced that – who tasted that bitterness to the greatest degree. He knows intimately what it feels like when someone you used to “take sweet counsel” with turns their back on you and denies you.
So how do you process the feelings that are unleashed when a friend betrays you?
First you allow yourself to feel those things. Psalm 55 gives you permission to.
But then you need to trust – trust that God will hold you fast even in the aftermath of a friend letting you down – verse 22.
And this is where Psalms 1 and 2 also teach us how to cope. The blessings of Psalms 1 and 2 are not only going to be true in eternity, but are true now even in the midst of this fallen world. They show us how to live the blessed life even through suffering. The disorientation that brings laments does cause the psalmist to wonder whether or not they are in the path of blessing – but when they are reoriented on God’s word and his king, they can rest assured that they are walking that path, even when it doesn’t seem like it is. They battle through the angst because of what they know to be true of God and his purposes.
Psalm 55 begins and ends with God. While David is incredibly honest and raw about his feelings throughout it, he knows where he can turn with those feeling as they threaten to overwhelm him. You can cast your burden on the Lord because he will sustain you and preserve you. What do you need when you feel betrayed by a close friend? You need something outside of yourself to bear you up, because there is nothing inside us that will sustain us when a “familiar friend” is gone. Psalm 55 feels the betrayal with you. But it also moves you to hope – to throw your burden on the Lord. You don’t have to carry it alone. Instead you can cast this great betrayal on the one who understands and who sustains. Betrayal can. make you feel like you have nothing keeping you steady – that this will knock you flat and that there’s no getting up or moving on – but verse 22 comforts us by saying that that’s not possible for the believer. God will keep you grounded even when your circumstances don’t.
The psalms call us to trust God again and again. They are calling us to trust God when friends betray us. They are calling us to trust God when we can’t see what he might be doing. Trust is the end goal for all of us – but sometimes it just might take us a while to get there; and sometimes – as in David’s case here in Psalm 55 – it might mean we trust and then go back to crying out, then trust God for a moment, then go back to crying out. But the final goal is that we begin and end with trust – with a lot of feelings all throughout the middle
David endured where we all must end. David knew God, and because he knew God, he knew that God would deliver him eventually. When you are let down by a familiar friend, when the arrows of slander are thrown at you, or when you feel you can’t trust anyone around you anymore, you can trust the one who “redeems (your) soul in safety” (verse 18). Philippians 1 verse 6 says “you can trust the one who will keep you to the end.” In the betrayal of a friend you might feel that it has taken everything earthly from you, but that person can’t take the most important thing – your soul.
But even as you find hope in this, the feelings remain. Of course they do. Betrayal is hard. There is no getting around that. Like the psalmist in Psalms 1 and 2, we must look to what is to come while we wrestle with the feelings of the present. Your familiar friend may be gone, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother – Proverbs 18 verse 24. His name is Jesus, and no amount of betrayal can take him from you
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