BackgroundDavid's wife Michal lowers him through a window to escape Saul's assassins who have surrounded the house at night (1 Sam 19:11-17).
Psalm 59: Prowling Dogs Around the House
For the choirmaster. To the tune of "Do Not Destroy." A Miktam of David, when Saul sent men to watch his house in order to kill him.
By Bea Zalel
Psalm 59
For the choirmaster. To the tune of "Do Not Destroy." A Miktam of David, when Saul sent men to watch his house in order to kill him.
- Deliver me from my enemies, O my God; protect me from those who rise against me.
- Deliver me from workers of iniquity, and save me from men of bloodshed.
- See how they lie in wait for me. Fierce men conspire against me for no transgression or sin of my own, O LORD.
- For no fault of my own, they move swiftly to attack me. Arise to help me, and take notice.
- O LORD God of Hosts, the God of Israel, rouse Yourself to punish all the nations; show no mercy to the wicked traitors. Selah
- They return in the evening, snarling like dogs and prowling around the city.
- See what they spew from their mouths— sharp words from their lips: “For who can hear us?”
- But You, O LORD, laugh at them; You scoff at all the nations.
- I will keep watch for You, O my strength, because You, O God, are my fortress.
- My God of loving devotion will come to meet me; God will let me stare down my foes.
- Do not kill them, or my people will forget. Scatter them by Your power, and bring them down, O Lord, our shield.
- By the sins of their mouths and the words of their lips, let them be trapped in their pride, in the curses and lies they utter.
- Consume them in wrath; consume them till they are no more, so it may be known to the ends of the earth that God rules over Jacob. Selah
- They return in the evening, snarling like dogs and prowling around the city.
- They scavenge for food, and growl if they are not satisfied.
- But I will sing of Your strength and proclaim Your loving devotion in the morning. For You are my fortress, my refuge in times of trouble.
- To You, O my strength, I sing praises, for You, O God, are my fortress, my God of loving devotion.
Theme
The narrative behind this psalm is one of the most dramatic in 1 Samuel. Saul's hatred of David has ripened into an order to kill, and assassins are posted around David's house at nightfall, planning to take him at dawn. Michal, Saul's daughter and David's wife, lowers him through a window with a rope and stages a household idol ("teraphim") in the bed to fool the killers (1 Sam 19:13). This last detail is striking: idols apparently of human size and shape were present even in the household of Israel's anointed king-in-waiting. The seventh-century reformers and the prophets had centuries of work ahead of them to rid Israel of such objects.
The dominant image of the psalm is dogs. "Each evening they return, howling like dogs and prowling about the city" (vv. 6, 14). In the ancient Near East, dogs were not pets in the modern sense. They were the half-wild scavengers of the city dump, traveling in packs at twilight, eating the carcasses of dead animals and the unburied corpses of executed criminals. To call Saul's assassins "dogs" was to compare them to the lowest, most ritually unclean creatures in the urban food chain. The image is also acoustically rich: anyone who has slept in a Middle Eastern village knows the chorus of barking that begins after dark.
Notice how David refuses to characterize his enemies as merely his personal problem. He casts them as enemies of God's covenant order: "they bellow with their mouths, with swords in their lips, for who, they think, will hear?" (v. 7). The assumption that no one is listening is the moral failure of the wicked in the Hebrew Bible. They live as practical atheists even when surrounded by Israelite religion. David's prayer is, in part, that God become loud enough that this assumption is shattered.
Twice David sings, "O my Strength, I will watch for you, for you, O God, are my fortress" (vv. 9, 17). The Hebrew word for "watch" ("shamar") is the same word used of the assassins watching the house. David turns the verb back on God: while they watch for me, I will watch for you. The word "fortress" ("misgab") names the high inaccessible rock, the place a fugitive could neither be reached nor surprised. In a house surrounded by enemies, David relocates spiritually to a height they cannot scale.
Discussion questions
- What does it tell us about household religion in the time of Saul that Michal had a "teraphim" (household idol) the size of a man in her bedroom (1 Sam 19:13)?
- How does the image of urban scavenger dogs prowling at twilight shape your reading of verses 6, 14, and 15?
- The wicked say "who will hear?" (v. 7). Where in our own culture is that the working assumption, even among people who profess belief?
- How does David turn the verb "watch" against his watchers, and what does that reframe do for him spiritually?
- The Hebrew word "misgab" (fortress) names the unreachable high rock. What modern equivalents help you picture this kind of refuge?
- Where have you experienced the feeling of being surrounded, even if by lower-stakes pressures than assassins?
- Why do you think David twice asks God not to destroy his enemies entirely (v. 11), but instead to make them a public lesson?
- What is the relationship between Michal's quick-thinking deception and David's prayer in this psalm? Do practical action and prayer compete or cooperate?
- How does this psalm compare with Peter's escape from Herod's prison in Acts 12, where the church is praying through the night?
- If you charted the emotional arc of this psalm from verse 1 to verse 17, where does it pivot, and what triggers the pivot?
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: