BackgroundA pre-battle liturgy sung by the people for the king, period uncertain.
Psalm 20: May the LORD Answer
To the choirmaster. A Psalm of David.
By Bea Zalel
Psalm 20
To the choirmaster. A Psalm of David.
- May the LORD answer you in the day of trouble; may the name of the God of Jacob protect you.
- May He send you help from the sanctuary and sustain you from Zion.
- May He remember all your gifts and look favorably on your burnt offerings. Selah
- May He give you the desires of your heart and make all your plans succeed.
- May we shout for joy at your victory and raise a banner in the name of our God. May the LORD grant all your petitions.
- Now I know that the LORD saves His anointed; He answers him from His holy heaven with the saving power of His right hand.
- Some trust in chariots and others in horses, but we trust in the name of the LORD our God.
- They collapse and fall, but we rise up and stand firm.
- O LORD, save the king. Answer us on the day we call.
Theme
Picture the scene before a Judahite army marched out. The king stood at the sanctuary; the assembly stood around him. Sacrifices had been offered (verse 3 mentions burnt offerings, an 'olah' entirely consumed on the altar) and now the people prayed over their king. The first five verses are spoken in the second person to him: 'May the LORD answer you in the day of trouble.' The Hebrew 'yom tsarah' means a day of narrow, tight constriction, the squeeze of a siege or the press of a battle line. This is liturgy with the dust of mobilization on it.
Then the voice changes. From verse 6 onward someone (probably the king himself, possibly an officiating priest) answers in the first person singular: 'Now I know that the LORD saves his anointed.' The word 'meshicho,' his anointed, is where we get 'messiah.' In the tenth century BC it meant the sitting Davidic king, set apart by oil poured on his head at coronation. The whole psalm hinges on a confidence that the covenant God of a small hill country kingdom will hear when the weapons of empire are about to fall.
Verse 7 names the mismatch directly: 'Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the LORD our God.' In the Iron Age, chariots were the apex military technology, the F-35s of their day. Egypt fielded them by the thousands at Kadesh; Assyria's reliefs show them rolling over conquered peoples. Judah's terrain was hill country where chariots struggled, and Judah's economy could not have built such a force anyway. The psalm does not pretend the gap is small. It looks at the mismatch, names it honestly and then refuses it. Trust attaches to a name, not a fleet.
Discussion questions
- What does it change about this psalm to know the community spoke the first half over the king and the king answered in the second?
- Why might Israelite worship have included a public liturgy before a battle rather than only private prayers?
- What is the difference between trusting in chariots and trusting in the name of the LORD when both armies still had to show up to fight?
- How does the Hebrew 'yom tsarah' (a day of narrowness, of being squeezed) deepen the phrase 'day of trouble'?
- Verse 3 mentions burnt offerings being remembered. What does it mean that worship and warfare were liturgically connected in ancient Israel?
- The word for anointed here is 'meshicho.' How does knowing this is the root of 'messiah' shape your reading of royal psalms?
- When have you seen a community pray over a leader publicly, and what did it do to that leader and to the community?
- What modern technologies or institutions function for us the way chariots functioned for the empires around Judah?
- How do you tell the difference between honest assessment of a threat and faithless fear of it?
- If you had to write a verse 7 for your own context, what would you name as the chariot you are tempted to trust?
Read this psalm in another translation
The inline text above is the Berean Standard Bible (BSB). Open in a new tab to compare with a modern licensed translation: