Psalms 28

To you, LORD, I call. My rock, don’t be deaf to me, lest silence leave me like those who go down into the pit. The cry is personal and urgent: rock names dependable refuge; deafness and silence name the dread of unanswered prayer.

Shared piety—call on the LORD alone when help must come from outside yourself. Do not treat silence lightly; the pit image shows how total the need is. Keep crying to the rock, not to substitutes that cannot hear.

Calvin: he betakes himself to the help of God alone—faith and sincerity. Scarcely one in a hundred has recourse to God; most gnaw the bit, fill the air with unavailing complaints, or faint. By calling God his strength he confided not only in peace but under severest temptations. Silent is set against sensible experience of aid. It is as if he said, I am nothing if thou leavest me; if thou succourest me not, I perish.

Renounce self-help and worldly props; betake yourself to God alone. Conviction of inability belongs with the cry. Silence feared is not unbelief's invention; it drives the soul to the rock who alone keeps from the pit.

Hear the voice of my petitions when I cry to you, when I lift up my hands toward your Most Holy Place. Wesley: Towards—Towards the holy of holies, because there the ark was; from whence God gave oracular answers to his people.

Hands lifted toward God's appointed presence, not toward empty gesture. Cry and mercy belong together. Seek answer where God has pledged to meet his people.

Calvin: repetition signs a heart in anguish; voice and cry mark burning, vehement desire, not cold prayer. Hands lifted are a help to devout prayer when without hypocrisy. David lifts hands not merely to heaven but to the sanctuary, that by its help he might ascend more easily—yet not so tied to the outward place as to forget that God must be sought spiritually. The sanctuary was pledge of the covenant; the faithful now direct faith to Christ.

Vehement crying and lifted hands aim at God's promised nearness. Use appointed helps without superstition; let the sanctuary (and now Christ) raise the heart to the Father.

Do not drag me away with the wicked, with the workers of iniquity who speak peace but mischief is in their hearts. Wesley: Draw not—Do not drag me; as thou dost these, to execution and destruction. The plea takes judgment seriously: the wicked are truly headed for destruction; the righteous beg not to share that end.

Hypocrisy of peace-speech with evil hearts is named without soft-pedaling. Ask to be kept from their doom, not from moral clarity about their craft. Integrity still needs mercy not to be swept into their judgment.

Calvin: in dissimilar circumstances God should not mingle the righteous with the wicked in indiscriminate destruction. Indirectly he asserts integrity, yet reasons from God's nature—it is God's prerogative to distinguish and give every one his due. Workers of iniquity means those wholly addicted to wickedness; God's children may fall, but fear stirs repentance. Craft that speaks peace while malice hides is more detestable than open depravity.

Pray not to be dragged off with the double-tongued wicked. Take their doom and their deceit seriously; trust God to sort righteous from wicked without erasing either the plea or the threat.

Give them according to their work, and the wickedness of their doings; according to the operation of their hands. Bring back on them what they deserve. The threefold ask matches piled-up evil: both camps take the imprecation as petition for just recompense, not as a joke or a mere venting.

Due reward for evil deeds is asked under God's justice, not private spite. Do not caricature this verse as bloodlust; hear it as the oppressed crying for God to weigh works truly. Hold the plea beside the mercy still sought for the speaker in v. 3.

Calvin: accumulation shows he had groaned long before breaking forth to desire such vengeance; constant evil doings made audacity intolerable. Yet if flesh moves us to seek revenge, the desire is wicked. David's example must not be alleged by intemperate passion: he is not inflamed by private sorrow; laying aside desire of the flesh, he gives judgment on the matter itself. We must cordially desire the welfare of the whole human race and wish conversion even of those who seem to rush on destruction; he pleads God's cause more than his own.

Imprecation is serious and measured by God's judgment-seat. Free the heart from hatred before asking due reward; labor for neighbors' welfare even while asking God to restrain unrepentant wickedness.

Because they don’t respect the works of the LORD, nor the operation of his hands, he will break them down and not build them up no more. Wesley: Regard not—The providential works of God towards his people. Root of their doom is willful disregard of what God has done.

Judgment answers contempt for God's works, not arbitrary rage. Regard the LORD's providence toward his people; do not harden into the blindness that invites being torn down without rebuilding.

Calvin: root of impiety—they are bold to do mischief because they think they have nothing to do with God; intoxicated with prosperity they flatter themselves, or persuade themselves the world runs by chance. Let him destroy them and not build them up continues the petition that they be overthrown so as not to recover. Learn to awake to God's works, lest an incurable plague strike.

Disregard of the LORD's works is the hinge of their ruin. Faith considers providence even in confusion; refuse the blindness that tramples God's handiwork while doing evil.

Blessed be the LORD, because he has heard the voice of my petitions. Prayer turns to praise: the same voice of pleas (v. 2) is now confessed as heard.

Bless God when mercy's cry is answered. Do not leave thanksgiving unspoken. Hearing received becomes public blessing.

Calvin: second part of the psalm—thanksgiving confirms that prayers were not in vain. He teaches by example that God is ready to help his people whenever they seek him in truth and sincerity.

Answered prayer flowers into blessing the LORD. Let experience of being heard strengthen the next cry; gratitude seals the mercy.

The LORD is my strength and my shield. My heart has trusted in him, and I am helped. Therefore my heart greatly rejoices. With my song I will thank him. Wesley: I am helped—He speaks of it as past, because God assured him by his spirit, that he had heard and accepted his prayers. Trust, help, exultation, and song form one chain.

Strength and shield are God himself; help received moves the heart to thanks. Hear Wesley's accent: assurance of accepted prayer can let the believer speak help as already given. Sing what trust has received.

Calvin: persuaded God had heard him because he had been wonderfully preserved. He adds that he had been helped in respect of his confidence and hope—for callers often come short through unbelief. Wicked men and hypocrites flee to God in trouble, then forget their deliverer and rejoice with frantic mirth; David adds a testimony of gratitude. He trusted not in vain; true joy opens the mouth to sing praises.

Strength, shield, trust, help, exultation, and song. Confidence is the path of being helped; thanksgiving distinguishes true deliverance from the amnesia of hypocrites.

The LORD is their strength. He is a stronghold of salvation to his anointed. Personal help (v. 7) widens: the same LORD strengthens the people and shelters his anointed.

Do not privatize strength; God's people and his anointed share the refuge. Celebrate corporate strength without losing the personal trust of v. 7.

Calvin: by way of explanation he repeats that God had been his strength—because he had blessed his armies. Whatever help from men proceeded from God; he attributes victory to God alone. Anointed: had God not appointed him king, he would not have favored him more than Saul; from the anointing God never ceased to help until grace's work was done.

People and anointed stand under one strength. Means and armies must not obscure God's glory; lawful calling encourages hope that God finishes what he began.

Be their shepherd also, and bear them up forever. The psalm ends in intercession: salvation, blessing, shepherding, and lifelong carrying for the heritage, not for the speaker alone.

Pray beyond private rescue to the people's good. Ask the LORD to shepherd and carry; lasting care is his work. Bless the heritage he claims as his own.

Calvin: not so much his own welfare as the welfare of the whole Church; he lived and reigned for the common good—a type of the Son of God whose salvation diffuses through his members. He assigns the shepherd office to God, confessing he is unfit for it save as God's minister. David is a mirror of the continual course of God's grace; let obedience of faith correspond to fatherly love.

Save, bless, shepherd, and carry are asked for the people forever. Kings and leaders must want preservation for the people's sake; the true Shepherd remains God himself.