The due punishment for our sin

O Yahweh my God, in You I have taken refuge;
Save me from all those who pursue me, and deliver me,
Lest he tear my soul like a lion,
Rending me in pieces, while there is none to deliver.
O Yahweh my God, if I have done this,
If there is injustice in my hands,
If I have rewarded evil to him who is at peace with me,
Or have plundered my adversary without cause,
Let the enemy pursue my soul and overtake it;
And let him trample my life down to the ground
And cause my glory to dwell in the dust. Selah.
Arise, O Yahweh, in Your anger;
Lift up Yourself against the fury of my adversaries,
And arouse Yourself for me; You have appointed judgment.
Let the congregation of the peoples encompass You,
And over them return on high.
Yahweh judges the peoples;
Give justice to me, O Yahweh, according to my righteousness and my integrity that is in me.
O let the evil of the wicked come to an end, but establish the righteous;
For the righteous God tests the hearts and minds.
My shield is with God,
Who saves the upright in heart.
God is a righteous judge,
And a God who has indignation every day.
If a man does not repent, He will sharpen His sword;
He has bent His bow and prepared it.
He has also prepared for Himself deadly weapons;
He makes His arrows fiery shafts.
Behold, he travails with wickedness,
And he conceives mischief and gives birth to falsehood.
He has dug a pit and hollowed it out,
And has fallen into the hole which he made.
His mischief will return upon his own head,
And his violence will descend upon his own skull.
I will give thanks to Yahweh according to His righteousness
And will sing praise to the name of Yahweh Most High.

Psalm 7

Introduction

In the inspired introduction to this Psalm, it is called a Shiggaion. We do not quite know what that word means, and it only appears in one other place: Habakkuk chapter 3. The best guess I have seen for what that means is a somewhat disjointed or rambling poem. There is a lot of passion behind David’s plea in this song, and we can learn a lot from the fact that he chose to turn his anguish into song.

There is a very specific opponent named in the introduction here: Cush the Benjamite. This Cush is from the same tribe as Saul, and is presumably slandering David against the King.

Righteousness

Verses 3 through 5 are intense. David asserts his innocence of the crime for which he is accused before God in heaven, declaring the proper punishment from God against him if he were guilty to be a turning over of his soul to his enemy, being trampled down, and his glory turning to dust. Here, David points the wrath of God against himself under the condition that he is actually guilty. He has the confidence to do this because he is not guilty.

We can be assured of David’s innocence of any plotting against Saul because of their interaction in the cave of 1 Samuel 24. Saul, in his pursuit of David to kill him, finds a cave to “relieve himself.” David’s men declare that God has delivered Saul into his hand to kill him first, before Saul can even find David. But David responds most aptly by declaring, “Far be it from me because of Yahweh that I should do this thing to my lord, the anointed of Yahweh.” He is given the clear opportunity to destroy his enemy who pursues him, himself. But instead of taking that apparent gift, David leaves room for the judgment of God (Deuteronomy 32:35). And in particular, he respects the high anointing God directly gave to King Saul through the prophet Samuel.

But while David was innocent of the specific charge Cush the Benjamite likely leveled against him, he and all of us are guilty of sin (Psalm 14:1-2). None of us have escaped the grasp of sin which seeks to enslave us, and that is where the righteousness of Jesus comes into play (Romans 6:17).

Judgment

As David pleads with God for deliverance, it is not the kind that simply returns everyone to the status quo. He begs God to “lift Yourself against the fury of my adversaries.” He asks God to be his advocate and his defender. He begs for God to bring an end to the wicked and unrepentant, declaring God will “sharpen His sword” against them to cut them down.

This is the right and good end of the evildoer. But we are all evildoers. All of us deserve to fall into the pit which has been dug and hollowed out. All of us deserve to be ground into dust. But God in His mercy has righteousness in abundance. The Psalm concludes by praising God “according to His righteousness.” And it is His righteousness which now saves us through the blood shed on Calvary. It was there that He became sin and bore the right punishment for it. He was crushed by the wrath of God, satisfying the justice of the Lord (Isaiah 53:10). That is why He can properly be called our shield. Like that defensive tool, He braced up and received the fullness of God’s sharpened sword, deadly weapons, and fiery arrows meant for us.

And so you can rejoice in the righteousness received from Christ that cleanses you of any obligation to sin if you believe and trust in His mighty works. Praise His wondrous name, and declare it wherever you go.

May the Lord bless you and conform you into the image of His Son.