Psalms 7 KJV
A Prayer for Justice
About This Psalm
Falsely accused, David asks God to judge between him and his accusers. When you've been wronged and can't defend yourself, you hand it to the ultimate Judge.
1 LORD my God, in thee do I put my trust: save me from all them that persecute me, and deliver me:
2 Lest he tear my soul like a lion, rending it in pieces, while there is none to deliver.
3 O LORD my God, if I have done this; if there be iniquity in my hands;
4 If I have rewarded evil unto him that was at peace with me; (yea, I have delivered him that without cause is mine enemy:)
5 Let the enemy persecute my soul, and take it; yea, let him tread down my life upon the earth, and lay mine honour in the dust. Selah.
6 Arise, O LORD, in thine anger, lift up thyself because of the rage of mine enemies: and awake for me to the judgment that thou hast commanded.
7 So shall the congregation of the people compass thee about: for their sakes therefore return thou on high.
8 The LORD shall judge the people: judge me, O LORD, according to my righteousness, and according to mine integrity that is in me.
9 Oh let the wickedness of the wicked come to an end; but establish the just: for the righteous God trieth the hearts and reins.
10 My defence is of God, which saveth the upright in heart.
11 God judgeth the righteous, and God is angry with the wicked every day.
12 If he turn not, he will whet his sword; he hath bent his bow, and made it ready.
13 He hath also prepared for him the instruments of death; he ordaineth his arrows against the persecutors.
14 Behold, he travaileth with iniquity, and hath conceived mischief, and brought forth falsehood.
15 He made a pit, and digged it, and is fallen into the ditch which he made.
16 His mischief shall return upon his own head, and his violent dealing shall come down upon his own pate.
17 I will praise the LORD according to his righteousness: and will sing praise to the name of the LORD most high.
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Did You Know?
The superscription's unique designation of the psalm as a 'Shiggaion' (appearing elsewhere in the Bible only in Habakkuk 3) likely denotes an impassioned, rhythmically irregular lament whose erratic structure enacts the psychological disorientation of one falsely accused.
David's appeal concerning 'Cush the Benjamite' subtly situates the prayer amid Saulide court intrigues, transforming a personal protest of innocence into a theological claim that intra-tribal betrayal must be adjudicated by God rather than by retaliatory violence.
Verse 6's imperative for YHWH to 'awake' for judgment reverses the usual ancient Near Eastern portrayal of slumbering deities, presenting divine justice instead as deliberately responsive to covenantal cries rather than mechanically automatic.
The psalm's use of 'reins' (kidneys) alongside 'heart' in verse 9 draws on ancient Israelite anthropology in which the kidneys were regarded as the hidden seat of moral intuition, so that the request for divine testing probes the petitioner's conscience at its most inaccessible level.
The final vow to 'sing praise to the name of the Lord most high' (verse 17) links vindication directly to liturgical response, implying that the resolution of injustice is incomplete until it issues in public magnification of God's character rather than private satisfaction.