Psalm 64
Ambushed by killer words
A gang stalks me
Note to the music leader: A psalm of David.[1]
1Please God, listen to me.I’m in deep trouble.
I need your protection.
Enemies are terrorizing me.
2Hide me from those bad people.
There’s a gang of them plotting to get me.
3They sharpen their tongues like swords.
They fire words like arrows.
4Fearlessly, they ambush innocent people.
They show up out of nowhere
And they fire razor-sharp words.
5They stick to a wicked plan
Of secretly setting traps.
They think, “Who’s going to find out?”
6They dig deep as they hunt for injustice.
They say, “We’ve got a solid plan.”
They found it deep in their own hearts.[2]
God returns fire
7But God has arrows, too.He’ll shoot people and they’ll go down.
8In the end, their own words will destroy them.
People will be horrified when they see what happens.
9They’ll stand in awe of God.
They’ll credit him with what happened.
And they’ll think hard about what they saw.
10Good and godly folks will be happy about this.
They’ll turn to the LORD for protection.
And they’ll celebrate.
Footnotes
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.
Bible scholars say this verse is impossible to translate with much confidence. Every translation out there is an educated guess.
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