BackgroundA lament over betrayal by a close companion, traditionally read against the Absalom revolt and the defection of Ahithophel, David's chief counselor, around 975 BC.
Psalm 55: If Only I Had Wings Like A Dove
For the choirmaster. With stringed instruments. A Maskil of David.
By Bea Zalel
Psalm 55
For the choirmaster. With stringed instruments. A Maskil of David.
- Listen to my prayer, O God, and do not ignore my plea.
- Attend to me and answer me. I am restless in my complaint, and distraught
- at the voice of the enemy, at the pressure of the wicked. For they bring down disaster upon me and resent me in their anger.
- My heart pounds within me, and the terrors of death assail me.
- Fear and trembling grip me, and horror has overwhelmed me.
- I said, “Oh, that I had wings like a dove! I would fly away and find rest.
- How far away I would flee! In the wilderness I would remain. Selah
- I would hurry to my shelter, far from this raging tempest.”
- O Lord, confuse and confound their speech, for I see violence and strife in the city.
- Day and night they encircle the walls, while malice and trouble lie within.
- Destruction is within; oppression and deceit never leave the streets.
- For it is not an enemy who insults me; that I could endure. It is not a foe who rises against me; from him I could hide.
- But it is you, a man like myself, my companion and close friend.
- We shared sweet fellowship together; we walked with the crowd into the house of God.
- Let death seize them by surprise; let them go down to Sheol alive, for evil is with them in their homes.
- But I call to God, and the LORD saves me.
- Morning, noon, and night, I cry out in distress, and He hears my voice.
- He redeems my soul in peace from the battle waged against me, even though many oppose me.
- God will hear and humiliate them— the One enthroned for the ages— Selah because they do not change and they have no fear of God.
- My companion attacks his friends; he violates his covenant.
- His speech is smooth as butter, but war is in his heart. His words are softer than oil, yet they are swords unsheathed.
- Cast your burden upon the LORD and He will sustain you; He will never let the righteous be shaken.
- But You, O God, will bring them down to the Pit of destruction; men of bloodshed and deceit will not live out half their days. But I will trust in You.
Theme
Psalm 55 is one of the most personally wounded psalms in the entire collection. The pain is not from an enemy on a distant battlefield. It is from a friend, an equal, someone with whom David had walked to the temple in fellowship (verse 14). Hebrew tradition has long read this psalm against the backdrop of the Absalom revolt in 2 Samuel 15-17. When Absalom mounted his coup, David's most trusted counselor Ahithophel switched sides. Ahithophel had been Bathsheba's grandfather (compare 2 Samuel 11:3 with 23:34), and some scholars suggest his betrayal had old roots. When his counsel was finally rejected, he went home, set his house in order, and hanged himself (2 Samuel 17:23). The closing imagery of broken bones and the grave (verses 15, 23) carries an unsettling resonance with that ending.
The most famous line of the psalm is the cry, "Oh, that I had wings like a dove! I would fly away and be at rest" (verse 6). The dove was a familiar bird in ancient Israel, kept in dovecotes, used in sacrifices, sent as a messenger. To wish for wings was to wish for an escape that no human body could give. David is not pretending to be brave. He is saying out loud what most of us only think in private: I want to flee. I want a place that does not hurt. The Hebrew Bible does not shame this longing. It allows the king to feel it, name it, and pray through it.
The psalm holds together a remarkable theological tension. David asks God to confound the wicked (verses 9 and 15), an imprecation as harsh as anything in the Psalter, and in the very next breath he counsels his own heart with one of the gentlest verses in scripture: "Cast your burden on the LORD, and He shall sustain you. He shall never permit the righteous to be moved" (verse 22). The Hebrew word translated "burden" is "yehab," a rare word that may mean "what He has given you," suggesting the psalmist is invited to hand back to God whatever load God's providence has placed on him. A first-temple worshiper would have heard both the cry for justice and the call to surrender as parts of a single, honest prayer. They are not opposites. They are the breathing-in and breathing-out of a heart that refuses to lie about the weight or the trust.
Discussion questions
- Read 2 Samuel 15-17 to follow the Absalom revolt. How does the figure of Ahithophel illuminate the betrayal in this psalm?
- Why is the wound of a close friend's betrayal (verses 12-14) often deeper than open opposition?
- The Hebrew Bible includes the wish to fly away (verse 6) without rebuking it. What does that say about how God receives our most desperate longings?
- How do the imprecatory verses (9, 15) sit alongside the gentle counsel of verse 22 in the same psalm?
- What does the rare Hebrew word "yehab" (often translated "burden") add to verse 22 if it means "what He has given you"?
- When have you wished for "wings like a dove"? What did you do with that longing?
- Verse 14 says, "We took sweet counsel together and walked to the house of God in the throng." What practices of shared worship make later betrayal so painful?
- How does this psalm equip a believer to bring both honest grief and honest anger into prayer?
- Compare verse 22 with 1 Peter 5:7. How does the New Testament writer pick up the Hebrew posture of casting?
- If this psalm is set during the Absalom revolt, it is the prayer of a king who is also being judged for his own past sins (2 Samuel 12). How does that history complicate the prayer for justice?
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: