Psalm 59:1-17 NKJV
59 Deliver me from my enemies, O my God;
Defend me from those who rise up against me.
2 Deliver me from the workers of iniquity,
And save me from bloodthirsty men.
3 For look, they lie in wait for my life;
The mighty gather against me,
Not for my transgression nor for my sin, O Lord.
4 They run and prepare themselves through no fault of mine.
Awake to help me, and behold!
5 You therefore, O Lord God of hosts, the God of Israel,
Awake to punish all the nations;
Do not be merciful to any wicked transgressors. Selah
6 At evening they return,
They growl like a dog,
And go all around the city.
7 Indeed, they belch with their mouth;
Swords are in their lips;
For they say, “Who hears?”
8 But You, O Lord, shall laugh at them;
You shall have all the nations in derision.
9 I will wait for You, O You his Strength;
For God is my defense.
10 My God of mercy shall come to meet me;
God shall let me see my desire on my enemies.
11 Do not slay them, lest my people forget;
Scatter them by Your power,
And bring them down,
O Lord our shield.
12 For the sin of their mouth and the words of their lips,
Let them even be taken in their pride,
And for the cursing and lying which they speak.
13 Consume them in wrath, consume them,
That they may not be;
And let them know that God rules in Jacob
To the ends of the earth. Selah
14 And at evening they return,
They growl like a dog,
And go all around the city.
15 They wander up and down for food,
And howl if they are not satisfied.
16 But I will sing of Your power;
Yes, I will sing aloud of Your mercy in the morning;
For You have been my defense
And refuge in the day of my trouble.
17 To You, O my Strength, I will sing praises;
For God is my defense,
My God of mercy.
When studied more thoroughly, the structure of Psalm 59 is divided into halves, each of which contains, near their conclusions, the refrain “For God is my defense.” Each half also speaks of the psalmist’s enemies as a pack of vicious dogs threatening to devour him.
The context of this psalm is that sacred Passion of the Christ, by which redemption came, and the psalm’s voice is that of Christ our Lord, the only One who could make the claim of innocence found near the beginning: “They run and prepare themselves through no fault on mine.” (vs. 4) The innocence of Jesus appears frequently in the Book of Psalms, beginning as early as Psalm 7. It is one of the Christological themes shared by the Psalter and the New Testament.
Just as St. Paul was inspired to write that God, “made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.” (2 Corinthians 5:21) Surely sinlessness, blamelessness, and innocence (as such words apply to Jesus) designate far more than a merely moral trait. God’s making Jesus “to be sin” means that He was God’s chosen “sin offering,” the sacrifice for the atonement. His blamelessness, His freedom from blemish, is a quality of that offering by which we believers have been delivered from the power of sin.
Ultimately, of course, all of those Old Testament sin offerings were but a prefiguring of the truly efficacious sacrifice of Christ Jesus on the cross, “for it is not possible that the blood of bulls and goats could take away sins” (Heb. 10:4) Psalm 58 is a prayerful description of those sufferings of the Lord Jesus, innocent but hounded by His enemies, blameless but pursued unto death, trusting in the righteousness of the righteous God to vindicate His innocence by the acceptance of that unique sacrifice by which, as the unblemished Lamb of God, He makes full satisfaction for the sin of the world.
Let us pray: O Lord, so govern our hearts and minds by Your Holy Spirit that, ever mindful of the end of all things and the day of Your judgement, we flee to Christ in faith. Amen.