Psalm 56 appears in a string of psalms that affirm trust in God. This string begins in Psalm 53, or maybe even 51, and continues for awhile (where it stops is a bit unclear, or rather, is a subjective decision). These psalms seem to belong together somehow, and even the ancient compilers of the Psalter thought so, because they added to many of them a superscription linking the sentiments of the poems to episodes in the life of David. They thus sought to show how a given psalm could play a role in the spirituality of a real person under real duress. That is, the superscriptions offer a window onto the oldest easily recoverable layer of interpretation of these psalms, according to which they were deeply personal pleas to God for help in times of trouble, as well as offers of thanksgiving to God for that help, once provided.
Psalm 56 seems to consist of four basic units: vv. 1-4 express deep trust in God; vv. 5-7 reflect on the lamentable conditions the psalmist has faced and may face again (because hymns of praise always have lament in their background, and vice versa); vv. 8-11 returns to praise to God, though with a bit of an edge (v. 8’s “You have kept track of my trouble; my tears you placed on your parchment” [not bottle, as in RSV and older translations] — God has remembered the psalmist’s difficulties, recorded them for future reference, and thus honored them as meaningful and real); and vv. 12-13 end as many hymns and laments do, with a promise to give to God some token of thankfulness.
I am especially interested in the statements of trust in God because such an attitude seems far harder than simply a straightforward acknowledgement of life’s difficulties would be. We all know that life is full of uncertainties and outright evil. Only people in breathtaking levels of denial could argue otherwise. Is there hope? Can we trust God? That’s the question.
The psalmist thinks so, and says so, in a series of a affirmations beginning in 9b (Hebrew 10b):
This I know, that God is for me (or mine)/In God I will praise a word (or thing)/in Yhwh I will praise a word./In God I trust/I will not fear.
To live without fear and to believe that the infinite creator of the universe cares about me in my tininess and my radical individuality are astonishing commitments. They are very difficult to pull off, made all the more so because everything in our existence seems calculated to inspire fear. How many of us expect our employers to provide us meaning in life? How many of us vote our fears and prejudices? Most of us, and most of us most of the time. That’s the tragedy.
Yet the psalmist, for a brief moment, imagines an alternative world without fear. It is without fear because God has that person’s — and every person’s — best interests at heart. (This is not the same as saying that God agrees with me, by the way!)
What are the implications of such a belief? For Israel, and thus for Jews and Christians, the implication has been that we can believe that life has meaning and purpose, if not in every little detail, then at least in its broad outlines. We may not be superstitious enough to think that God has planned out every relationship and experience we have — that would be silly — but we do believe that God has in mind the ends of human existence and invites us to live into them. We are not simply animals drifting from one experience to the next. We are embodied souls, a little lower than angels, who have a greater destiny. We do not need to live with the despair that seems to dominate our materialistic, power-hungry culture. Nor do we need to escape the world through New Age puffery about how wonderful we already are (even when we know we’re not). Both approaches are fear-driven fantasies. No, we can live in ways that bit by bit remove fear as a motivator so that we can be truly free to live into the ends that God has foreseen for us. This I know, that God is for me….