Psalm 52 is a course study in trusting God amidst the difficulty that comes with suffering at the hands of an enemy. Where Psalm 51 is a course study of walking in repentance after finding out that you are the abuser, Psalm 52 is a course study of trusting God when you have been horribly abused.
The fact that David was guilty of performing unspeakable abuse in the rape of Bathsheba and the murder of her husband – setting the context for the repentance we see in Psalm 51– while also being the victim of horrific abuse as we will see in our study of Psalm 52today, should give all of us some comfort, knowing that God will forgive us when we fail and that he can also be trusted when other people fail us. Look at the text with me…
To the choirmaster. A Maskil of David, when Doeg, the Edomite, came and told Saul, “David has come to the house of Ahimelech.”
1Why do you boast of evil, O mighty man? The steadfast love of God endures all the day. 2Your tongue plots destruction, like a sharp razor, you worker of deceit. 3You love evil more than good, and lying more than speaking what is right. Selah
4You love all words that devour, O deceitful tongue. 5But God will break you down forever; he will snatch and tear you from your tent; he will uproot you from the land of the living. Selah
6The righteous shall see and fear, and shall laugh at him, saying, 7“See the man who would not make God his refuge, but trusted in the abundance of his riches and sought refuge in his own destruction!”
8But I am like a green olive tree in the house of God. I trust in the steadfast love of God forever and ever. 9I will thank you forever, because you have done it. I will wait for your name, for it is good, in the presence of the godly.
Just like Psalm 51, the superscription of our text today helps to set the context of the rest of the Psalm. In that superscription for Psalm 52 we learn that this Psalm is once again a song for “the choirmaster” and that it is “A Maskil” which informs us that it is a song that is meant to teach. We can also see that David is the author of this song that is meant to teach and that he wrote it “when Doeg, the Edomite, came and told Saul, ‘David has come to the house of Ahimelech.’”
The story of Doeg the Edomite is found in 1 Samuel 22. David is running from town to town from King Saul who is hunting him like a dog to murder him. This is long before David became the king of Israel and King Saul was like a father figure to him but because of his jealousy, Saul is trying to take David out before he can become the rightful king.
In 1 Samuel 22 David finds refuge in a city with some priests in the home of Ahimelech the head priest. Saul finds out and commissions an evil man named Doeg to slaughter all of the priest along with their families. David narrowly escapes but is in anguish not only because he is being hunted to death but because of the senseless slaughter of the priests and their families.
While I am fairly certain that none of us here have ever faced something so horrific, I am also fairly certain that we have all experienced the pain and suffering that comes with being betrayed, deceived, manipulated, and abused by someone we should have been able to trust.
My difficulty is that when I no longer trust someone because of their treachery, I find it simultaneously difficult to trust in God; it is as though I translate human error to God, wrongfully. How do we trust in God when we experienced suffering at the hands of another human being? David begins by trusting in the steadfast love of God.2
#1: TRUST IN THE STEADFAST LOVE OF GOD (VV. 1 – 4)
As David thinks about his enemy, the one who had senselessly murdered the priests and their families, he describes him as a mighty man who boasts of the evil things he has done, who uses the words of his mouth to make destructive plans, whose words cut straight to the heart like a razor as he works out his deceptive plans (vv. 1 – 2).
He is a man who enjoys evil, hates what is good, is full of lies with no truth, gets a kick out of devouring people with his words, and has a deceptive tongue (vv. 3 – 4). David’s enemy is the epitome of evil incarnate; from his thoughts to his words, to his desires, to his behavior, this man is totally corrupt.
Yet despite all of this, David proclaims that “The steadfast love of God endures all the day” (v. 1). In other words, David’s enemy may boast in all the evil he enjoys but David will boast in the God whose love will outlast all the evil atrocities this world throws at us.
David’s enemy is not proof that God’s love has failed. On the contrary, we, like David can cope with the horrors of this world by trusting that God’s steadfast love for his children will outlast evil and ultimately pave the way for God to unleash vengeance and judgement against those who harm his people; this is exactly where David turns next as he works out what it means to trust in God.
#2: TRUST IN THE COMING JUDGEMENT (VV. 5 – 7)
The reason we get so deeply hurt by human betrayal is because of the injustice that takes place. Deep down inside, we not only feel the personal hurt, but we feel that personal hurt so deeply because we intrinsically know that it is wrong; it is unjust. What we long for in the deepest parts of our souls is to see justice served against those who have used and abused us.
David copes with the pain of this horrific season where he witnessed the casual murder of the innocent priests and their wives and their children, by trusting in the coming judgement of God against his enemies. This is why he reminds his listeners that “God will break [Doeg and any other enemy] down forever” when he rips them from their homes and removes them from their life here on earth (v. 5).
After explaining this, David says “Selah” which means that we should pause and think deeply about the coming judgement against God’s enemies – especially against those who have caused us harm. Meditating on that coming judgement is like a healing balm on the wounds we carry inside of us; our enemies, God’s enemies, will get what is coming to them!
David does not stop there. He reminds his listeners that the children of God will see God unleashing his fiery wrath against his enemies and they will be awestruck by what they see (v. 6). Not only will they be awestruck, but they will laugh at their enemies when they see that they will not seek shelter in God’s presence but instead will trust in their own riches to their own demise (vv. 6 – 7). All of life is about trusting in God or trusting in yourself; one will never fail, the other will always fail!
The bottom line here is that we can trust in the coming judgement of God as he unleashes his wrath against his enemies by turning their own self-made devices of comfort and power into devices of destruction and judgment. If you think about it, this is exactly what Jesus did with the cross and the grave, which is exactly what the final portion of David’s song points us to when he proclaims his trust in the finished work of God.
#3: TRUST IN THE ETERNALLY FINISHED WORK OF GOD (VV. 8 – 9)
It is not so easy to immediately think of the finished work of Jesus at the cross and the empty tomb in light of his promise of eternity when we experience betrayal, abuse, or abandonment from people whom we should have been able to trust. But I would ask, where else will we find something to sustain us in the midst of that pain if not at a bloody cross, an empty tomb, and the hope of eternity?
David looked forward to the finished work of Christ just as we look back at it. He recognizes and takes heart in the fact that just like in Psalm 1, the person who trusts in God is like a solid tree with deep roots under the care of our Creator God (v. 8). With that knowledge in mind, knowing that God will never fail to sustain his children through thick and thin, he proclaims that he trusts “in the steadfast love of God forever and ever” (v. 8)which is an indication that he knows that God’s love will surpass all earthly evil throughout eternity; he knows that he has been promised eternity with God.
He believes this so deeply that his gratitude is overflowing in verse 9 when he says “I will thank you forever, because you have done it. I will wait for your name, for it is good, in the presence of the godly”. That phrase “because you have done it” is the same phrase that Jesus uttered from the cross when he proclaimed “it is finished” meaning that Satan, Sin, and Death have been destroyed; it is that knowledge, that God has finished it, that gives David the ability to trust God when all hell was breaking loose and his enemies looked like they were winning.
David knew that God would turn their self-made devices of power and comfort into weapons of mass destruction in the hands of a vengeful God to bring about the justice that is deserved, not only for his children, but also to satisfy his own demand for perfect justice. This is what God does, he takes worldly instruments of power and death like the cross and the grave and he turns them into instruments of victory and judgement over his enemies.
CONCLUSION…
In conclusion, as I thought about this passage this week and how it applies to my life, I was struck with two things: David’s use of the word “Selah” and the contrast between Doeg and David. David uses the word “Selah” at the end of verses 3 and 5 to teach his listeners to stop, pause, and think about the description of Doeg, what he trusts in, and what lies ahead for Doeg because of his evil heart. The contrast that this builds for us between Doeg and David is the contrast between an evil man who trusts in himself and a sinful man who trusts in God.
Evil men who trust in themselves, are arrogant, proud, evil men who believe God owes them something for their hard work. Humble men, understand that they are profoundly sinful – as David recognizes in Psalm 51 – and because of that profound sinfulness, humble men trust in God with these words on their lips “Who am I, O Lord”?
I spoke with a good friend recently who is part of a worldwide organization that has been around since the late forties or early fifties. He has been a part of this organization for maybe a decade or so. I asked him how he was doing, how life was, how his family was, and how his soul was. His response was “Who am I… who am I to be chosen by the Lord to be part of such a great historical work, to be standing on the shoulders of other famous men, to be listed among the names on the wall of historical men who have gone before me”?
Those three words, “Who am I?” really resonated with me because it is the same question each of us should be asking on the daily. If you are a believer, if Christ has saved you, if you have been changed by the power of a bloody cross, and empty tomb, and the promise of heaven, it should humble you right down to your knees. This is the posture of a person who trusts in God: Kneeled in humility at the foot of a bloody cross, in the doorway of an empty tomb, holding onto the hope of the promise of heaven. In this posture, your sins can be dealt with like David did in Psalm 51 and your trust in God can be strengthened when someone sins against you just like Psalm 52.
As I said earlier, the pairing of these two Psalms together gives the believer much hope and much comfort because in both of these Psalms we see that God is faithful to forgive and transform the humble sinner and he is also faithful to crush the evil abuser. Unrepentant abusers will get what is coming to them one day while those who humbly trust God in repentance will see their abusers crushed as they simultaneously experience the power of the finished work of Christ at the cross of Calvary. Trust God my friends! Trust in the steadfast love of God, trust in the coming judgement of God, and trust in the eternally finished work of God! – Amen!!!
1 Unless otherwise specified, all Bible references in this paper are to the English Standard Version Bible, The New Classic Reference Edition (ESV) (Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers, 2001).
2 Richard, D. Phillips, Psalms 42 – 72, Reformed Expository Commentary, (Phillipsburg: P&R Publishing, 2019), 98 – 108. (Much of the content of this sermon can be gleaned from this citation)