Psalm 56

It’s unclear what the Hebrew phrase means, as evidenced by the different ways various Bible versions translate it. Scholars say that a literal meaning could be something like “according to a dove of speechlessness of distant ones.” Some scholars talk like that when they’re on the job, but not eating a hotdog at a ballgame. An ancient Jewish interpretation of the Hebrew Bible, the Targum, interprets the dove as the people of Israel when they are far from their promised homeland, yet praising God from a distance.

“An enlightening psalm” is a guess. The original Hebrew word is maskil (mass-KEEL). Scholars say they aren’t sure what it means. They say they don’t even know if the word refers to the lyrics or the music. Maskil sounds a bit like another Hebrew word, askilkha, which means “let me enlighten you.” Some scholars associate maskil with a root word, sakal, which generates a lot of words with various meanings such as: thoughtful, instructive, wise, and proper. One theory is that the word relates to both lyrics and music. It could, for example, describe the lyrics as “thoughtful” and the music as a harmony fit for that theme.

The subtitle wasn’t part of the original psalm. And the possible byline “of David,” isn’t necessarily a byline. The vague phrase could mean the song was written by David, about David, or was inspired by David. Almost half of the psalms are attributed to David in this way, 73 of 150. Ancient Jewish history tells of David playing a lyre and writing songs. For one, he wrote a song of mourning at the battlefield death of King Saul and his sons: “How have the mighty fallen!” (2 Samuel 1:19-27 New American Standard Bible). An ancient Jewish scroll from about the time of Jesus, discovered among the famous Dead Sea Scrolls, reports that David wrote 3,600 songs.

When David was on the run from King Saul, he fled to Saul’s enemies, the Philistines. Gath wasn’t just one of the Philistine cities. It was the hometown of Goliath, champion warrior David had killed.

It could be easy to understand the pride of someone taking on a giant killer like David, who defeated the Philistine champion Goliath in mortal combat (1 Samuel 17:49-51).

Thanksgiving offerings were partially eaten by the worshipper, at a meal with family and friends. Burnt offerings were different. They atoned for sin, and were entirely burned in the fire.