Psalms 59

Wesley frames the psalm as David praying for deliverance from enemies (vv. 1–7) then foretelling their ruin. Deliver and protect name the house-watchers of 1 Samuel 19:11—enemies rising up demand urgent asking.

Deliverance is begged because need is true and prayer is the appointed means. Grace that can protect still summons the hunted to cry “My God”; rising foes do not cancel the duty to seek refuge.

Calvin: he insists on enemies’ strength and violence to excite greater fervency in prayer; they rise up with eminent superiority of power, yet he asks to be lifted up above the inundation. We should believe God’s ability to deliver even when enemies have overwhelming advantage.

Deliver and protect are cries of helplessness, not self-rescue. Providence’s reach outranks the rising up.

Wesley’s arc keeps the plea specific: workers of evil and bloodthirsty men, not vague trouble. Double deliver/save matches double danger.

Naming bloodthirsty men lets prayer be concrete. Grace does not require pretending the watchers meant only scare; the asker seeks salvation from murderous intent.

Calvin: while expressing extremity he adverts to injustice and cruelty of persecutors—workers of iniquity and bloody men. Helplessness and undeserved assault are joined as grounds of complaint before the throne.

Evil-workers and bloodthirsty men are actual threats under God’s eye. Save me rests on God’s character, not the saint’s leverage.

Wesley’s setting: Saul’s men watching the house all night. Lie in wait and fierce strife frame the plea of innocence—no transgression of mine toward these hunters.

Integrity before enemies strengthens liberty in prayer without denying sin before God. Shared seriousness—ambush for life is sin; the sufferer may plead blamelessness toward the plotters.

Calvin: confidence in prayer is proportional to consciousness of integrity; he founds one plea on destitution, another on innocency. So far as Saul was concerned David could exonerate himself; he appeals to God against base calumnies.

Behold names the ambush honestly. Affliction may chastise saints, yet groundless hostility still ranks oppressors among God’s enemies.

Wesley: Run—to and fro, to receive Saul’s commands, and to execute them with all speed. No fault of mine; awake to help and behold.

Runners making ready summon matching haste in prayer. Awake and see is faith’s urgency under pressure, not a claim that God was ignorant—grace invites specific asking when malice is swift.

Calvin: they run unremittingly to ruin their victim; awake to hasten for my help glances at their eagerness—he desires God to show the same haste in help. And behold savours of faith and infirmity: language of sense, yet virtually acknowledging nothing is hid from providence.

No fault and awake are earnest petition. God meets the runner; the saint does not outpace him.

Wesley: The God—in covenant with true Israelites, promised to protect and bless. The heathen—Israelites by birth yet heathens in disposition. Be not merciful—thou canst not according to thy word be merciful to such incorrigible offenders.

Covenant titles fund the plea against treacherous plotters. Sparing none of the incorrigible is judicial petition, not private spite; Selah marks the weight.

Calvin: Jehovah, God of Hosts, God of Israel—immensity of power and special care of the Church. And Thou is emphatic: God cannot lay aside the office of judge. Visit all nations so that enemies within the pale cannot escape; he deprecates mercy to reprobate transgressors of desperate character under pure zeal, pleading the Church’s cause.

Hosts and Israel name the Judge. Treacherous evil-plotters meet covenant justice, not sentimental exemption.

Wesley: Return—watching for me all the night long, 1 Sam. xix, 11. A dog—when pursuing prey. Go round—when they found him not at home they sought him in other parts of the city.

Evening howl and city prowl are honest complaint. Naming the dogs lets prayer track the night watch; grace does not require pretending the circle of the city was harmless.

Calvin: compares enemies to famished furious dogs hunger drives in endless circuits; evening return intimates indefatigable evil—if no speed by day, night finds them at work. Barking expresses formidable assault.

Dogs prowling are cruelty under judgment’s eye. Complaint to God is the weak man’s warfare.

Wesley: Pour out—sharp bitter words abundantly as a fountain. Swords—words as keen and mischievous as swords. For who—David hears not, and God either hears not or regards not.

Sword-lips and the sneer Who will hear are named so petition can answer blasphemy. Shared seriousness—verbal cruelty is not banter; the mockers bank on divine deafness.

Calvin: prating/belching—they proclaim infamous counsels openly; swords in lips mean they breathe slaughter. Cause of excess: they apprehended no disgrace, long possessing power to injure; the people deceived, none dared defend David.

Who will hear is practical atheism. God hears the bellow; sword-words invite his reply.

Wesley’s turn: from dogs and sword-lips to the Lord’s laugh. Enemies’ schemes meet divine derision; nations in the aggregate cannot outvote God.

But you redirects fear to worship. Laugh and derision are God’s answer to Who will hear—grace invites the sufferer to reckon with that laughter before panic reclaims the night.

Calvin: in face of opposition David rises to greater confidence. God laughs—when the wicked perfect schemes he can without effort, as in sport, dissipate them. Connivance breeds pride; yet God needs but nod. All nations—though they equal the world in numbers they are mockery; David ridicules their boasting.

The Lord laughs; nations are derision. Faith answers numbers with God’s ease.

Wesley’s arc moves to trust: Strength and fortress name God while watchers surround the house. Watching for God answers watching for the kill.

I watch for you is living posture—grace that is fortress still summons waiting. Strength is confessed so the hunted keeps looking to God, not to self-armor.

Calvin on the hard line: Saul’s strength is with God / I will wait—enemy under secret restraint, unable to move a finger without consent; David waits the issue with composure. He opposes to Saul’s house-guard a different watch: looking out for the divine issue quietly.

Strength and fortress are God’s titles. Watching for God is faith’s guard-post under siege.

Wesley: Prevent—Thou wilt help me sooner than I expect. Steadfast love meets the need; triumph is God’s gift, not self-made revenge.

Love that meets still invites expectant trust. Help sooner than expected is mercy’s timing received by faith that keeps asking.

Calvin: God of my mercy will prevent me—kidem means come forward seasonably; divine assistance promptly and opportunely extended. Our precipitance imagines him dilatory. He calls him God of his mercy from past proof; experience funds hope. God shall let him see desire upon enemies.

Steadfast love meets; triumph is given. Mercy’s name, not merit, times the help.

Wesley: My people—over whom thou appointed me governor in due time. Forget—former danger and glorious mercy. Scatter—wander place to place carrying tokens of justice and their shame.

Kill-them-not is pedagogical mercy toward the watching people. Totter and bring down as lasting warning; our shield frames corporate plea, not private vendetta.

Calvin: checks desire for instant annihilation—sudden judgments fade from memory; he desires the spectacle constantly renewed so knowledge of God’s judgments be graven on hearts. Make them wander in misery; cast them down from honor. By thy power against those who trusted worldly resources. Our shield—plural; he pleads the Church’s cause, his safety bound to the people’s.

Forgetfulness of judgment is the danger. Slow tottering under the Shield teaches longer than a single stroke.

Wesley: Pride—proud insolent speeches against thee. Lying—execrations and lying reports spread concerning me. Mouth-sin asks mouth-judgment.

Trapped in pride matches the boast. Cursing and lies are named so justice can be specific; shared seriousness—verbal sin is guilt, not mere rhetoric.

Calvin: no long proof needed—wickedness proceeded from their mouth; they vomited pride and cruelty. Let them be taken in their pride—source of insolent oppression. Cursing and falsehood filled their lips; deceit and calumny.

Sin of mouth traps the proud. God may catch hunters in their own speech.

Wesley: Not be—in the land of the living any more. Double consume aims at final clearing so knowledge spreads: God rules in Jacob to earth’s ends.

Judicial consummation serves revelation—nations and Jacob alike must know God’s rule. Selah weights the doxological aim of the imprecation.

Calvin: apparent tension with slay-them-not removed by time—reserve them as example, then devote to destruction, as captives led in triumph then executed. That they may know to the ends of the earth that God rules in Jacob—report of condign judgment strikes even remote inhabitants; especially anxious that God be recognized as ruling in the Church.

Consume serves knowledge of God’s rule. Wrath teaches Jacob and the ends of the earth together.

Wesley’s dog image returns: evening howl and city circuit again. The refrain after consume shows malice may still circle while faith narrates a different end.

Repeating the prowlers keeps prayer honest. Grace that foresaw destruction still lets the saint name the nightly round without despair.

Calvin: after closing requests he anticipates the happy issue; repeats the dog noise with different application—ironically they are ravenous otherwise than they looked for; he congratulates himself on abortive issue of their activity. Let them do what they may; I am safe under God’s protection.

The enemies howl the same as before, but now he answers with confidence. The circle of the city cannot cancel the fortress.

Wesley’s scatter/wander theme meets unsatisfied hunger: dogs seeking fill, growling empty. Malice without prey becomes its own misery.

Unfilled growl is warning and comfort—hunters may miss their meal. Shared seriousness—predatory hunger is not comic; empty prowling is judgment tasted.

Calvin: wander up and down to eat; if not satisfied they lodge all night—hunger aggravated by fruitless day, lying down empty, wearied, unsatisfied. Malicious effort returns disappointed.

No fill for the howling pack. Providence can starve the chase without the saint lifting a sword.

Wesley’s close: from dogs to morning song of strength and mercy. Fortress and refuge in distress fund loud praise at dawn—answer to the evening howl.

But I will sing is chosen response. Strength and steadfast love must be sung aloud; grace that was refuge still summons morning praise as living duty.

Calvin: prepares presently for thanksgiving—deliverance an effect of power and mere grace. Even escape by Michal’s artifice was God disappointing Saul’s forces. Morning praise relates to watchers seeking him at dawn; then he would be safe and bless God. Looks back over various interpositions.

Morning song answers night dogs. Fortress and refuge are God’s past tense that funds present praise.

Wesley’s psalm ends in praise: Strength, fortress, God of mercy. Singing praises seals the night of watching with confessed love.

I will sing praises is ongoing posture. The God who shows steadfast love still invites the delivered to keep singing; fortress is relationship named in worship, not a one-time escape.

Calvin: My strength is with thee—he owed safety entirely to God. Formerly Saul’s strength with God to curb it; now his own strength from God to support him. Weak in himself, strength sufficient in the Lord; good reason to praise as James exhorts the merry to sing psalms.

Strength, fortress, steadfast love close the psalm. Praise ascribes safety to God alone; the singer’s emptiness was the argument.