Psalm 57
David once had to leave his home for a long time and hide in caves, or woods, or in wild rocky places, because King Saul was envious that the people liked David, and he many times tried to kill him. Whenever anyone told him where David was hiding, he took a large hand of soldiers to hunt for him, and Did had to hurry to another hiding place.
In this psalm David says the men were like lions to hunt him, and made plans to take him, as men fix nets to catch birds, or as they dig pits to take an animal. Sometimes it was hard for David and his friends to get food; and we might think in such great trouble that David would not praise God. But he trusted in God to save him, and speaks many words of praise.
Do you think David was old at this time when he prayed, and spoke for the Lord? No, he was a young man, and he said:
“My heart is fixed, O God ... .I will sing and give praise.” Verse 7.
You see David’s mind was settled to honor the Lord. In another psalm, while hiding in a wild desert place, he said:
“O God Thou art my God, early will I seek Thee, my soul thirsteth for Thee, my flesh longeth for Thee in a dry and thirsty land where no water is.” Ps. 63:1.
The Lord helped and saved David in his troubles, and since he wrote these psalms, many people, more than we could count, have been comforted in their troubles by his earliest, trusting words.
Because David had so much trouble was perhaps the reason God used him to write of the One who had the great sorrow of any, as we find written of in several of the psalms. In David’s troubles he had friends with him, but this is what we read of the Lord Jesus, “I looked for some to take pity, but there was none.” Psalm 69:20.
As we read all these sad words, and then read in the New Testament, we can understand that David wrote the psalms, as a prophet, many years before, to tell of the sorrows of the Son of God, the Lord Jesus. It says of His friends that they all “forsook Him and fled.” Matt. 26:56. “They gave Me also gall (a bitter substance) for My meat; and in My thirst they gave Me vinegar to drink.” Psalms 69:21.
The Roman soldiers did not know the psalms, but mocked Jesus on the cross offering Him vinegar to drink, and it also says,
“They gave Him vinegar to drink mingled with gall.” Matthew 27:34. Luke 23:36. So the words of the psalm came true.
Of whom did the Lord Jesus say there were things written in the psalms? (Luke 24:44).
David in the cave (1 Samuel 22:1;24)
ML 10/20/1940