Psalms 57 KJV
Praise Amid Peril
About This Psalm
Hiding in a cave from Saul, David still praises. Be exalted, O God, above the heavens. Worship from the lowest point.
1e merciful unto me, O God, be merciful unto me: for my soul trusteth in thee: yea, in the shadow of thy wings will I make my refuge, until these calamities be overpast.
2 I will cry unto God most high; unto God that performeth all things for me.
3 He shall send from heaven, and save me from the reproach of him that would swallow me up. Selah. God shall send forth his mercy and his truth.
4 My soul is among lions: and I lie even among them that are set on fire, even the sons of men, whose teeth are spears and arrows, and their tongue a sharp sword.
5 Be thou exalted, O God, above the heavens; let thy glory be above all the earth.
6 They have prepared a net for my steps; my soul is bowed down: they have digged a pit before me, into the midst whereof they are fallen themselves. Selah.
7 My heart is fixed, O God, my heart is fixed: I will sing and give praise.
8 Awake up, my glory; awake, psaltery and harp: I myself will awake early.
9 I will praise thee, O Lord, among the people: I will sing unto thee among the nations.
10 For thy mercy is great unto the heavens, and thy truth unto the clouds.
11 Be thou exalted, O God, above the heavens: let thy glory be above all the earth.
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Did You Know?
Psalm 57 reuses its final verses almost verbatim in Psalm 108, creating a composite psalm that deliberately splices this chapterโs praise section with material from Psalm 60 to address both personal deliverance and national victory.
The refrain โBe thou exalted, O God, above the heavensโ functions as a deliberate theological pivot, shifting attention from Davidโs cave-bound peril to Godโs cosmic rule and thereby modeling how individual lament can be reframed by doxology.
Verse 8โs command to โawake the dawnโ employs a rare poetic reversal in which the psalmist, rather than waiting for daylight, summons the morning itself to join his praise. An image paralleled only in a few Ugaritic and Joban dawn-personification texts.
The superscriptionโs reference to โthe caveโ subtly evokes both Adullam (1 Sam 22) and En-Gedi (1 Sam 24), allowing the psalm to overlay two distinct Saul episodes and thereby generalize Davidโs experience of mercy amid opportunity for vengeance.
The phrase โmy heart is fixedโ (v. 7) uses the Hebrew root ืึผืึผื in the perfect tense to signal a settled resolve that anticipates the later Pauline theme of being โsteadfast, unmoveableโ even before outward deliverance arrives.