Psalms 7

Shared opening—refuge in the LORD my God, and a live plea to be saved and delivered from all pursuers. Wesley frames the psalm as prayer for deliverance under false report. Take refuge by entrusting the case to God; the ask for save and deliver still rises from the pursued.

Calvin: great emphasis falls on O Jehovah my God, in thee do I trust—continued confidence in affliction, not a faith already fallen. The gate of mercy is shut against prayers if the key of faith does not open it. Calling Jehovah his own God is a bulwark against waves of temptation.

Refuge and deliverance asked of God. Faith persevering under pursuit is the proof; “my God” fences the heart from being overwhelmed.

Wesley: Lest—mine enemy. Tear—out of my body.

Shared dread—lion-tearing with none to deliver. Name the danger plainly before God; the plea for a Deliverer answers violence, not imaginary fright.

Calvin: by the figure of a lion he heightens the cruelty of the persecutor, to move God to grant aid—ascribing to him the peculiar province of rescuing his poor sheep from the jaws of wolves.

Mortal threat with no human deliverer. The argument of the prayer is God’s office to save, not the lion’s right to feast.

Wesley: Hands—which Cush and others falsely lay to my charge. Iniquity—in my actions.

Shared protest—if this charge is true, if wrong is in the hands. Bring the slandered conscience before God; innocence under false accusation is not boasting when it is simply denying what was never done.

Calvin: to induce God to show favor, he protests he is molested unjustly. By entreating help on no other condition than that integrity be found untarnished, he teaches that we must be well assured in conscience of the righteousness of our cause—we do God wrong if we engage him as advocate of a bad cause.

Conditional self-imprecation under known charge. First care is a good conscience before the heavenly Judge when earthly reports condemn.

Wesley: Deliver—when it was in my power to destroy him, as 1 Sam. 24:2–6.

Shared self-check—evil repaid to a friend, or plundering an enemy without cause. Wesley hears the opposite history: sparing when destruction was in reach. Measure the charge against actual conduct toward friend and foe.

Calvin: two particulars—he had done no wrong to any, and had rather endeavored to do good to enemies who injured him without cause. When a man not only refrains from revenge but endeavors to overcome evil by doing good, he manifests a grace of a renewed nature.

Innocence proven in dealing with friend and enemy. Meekness that succorsthe unworthy persecutor is fruit of adoption, not mere self-defense rhetoric.

Shared solemn stake—if guilty, let pursuit, trampling, and glory in the dust follow. The Selah pauses on a conscience willing to bear the worst if the charge is true. Do not ask God to shield a bad cause.

Calvin: striking proof of confidence in integrity—willing to endure the severest punishment if guilty. He is prepared to be seized, thrown down, and after death spoken of with reproach so that his name lies in the dust. Impatience and desire of revenge shut the gate against prayer; a good conscience opens it.

Life and glory staked on innocence in this matter. God is not hired to cover guilt; help is sought under honest terms.

Wesley: Lift up—glorify thyself, and shew thyself to be above them. Commanded—to execute that righteous sentence which thou hast commanded, appointed, and declared by thy prophet Samuel.

Shared cry—arise in anger against the fury of enemies; awake for appointed judgment. Ask God to glorify himself by doing what he has already appointed, not by inventing a private vendetta.

Calvin: set God’s anger against the rage of enemies. Arise and awake mark how delay makes God seem asleep to the afflicted. He asks nothing but what is according to God’s appointment—prayer must conform to the divine will; faith reposes on the word and promise, not on fleshly ambition.

Appointed judgment, not rash desire. The call and promise of God bound the request; desire beyond his word is not faith.

Wesley: Compass—they will come from all parts to worship thee, and offer to thee praises and sacrifices. High—to thy tribunal, to sit there and judge my cause. An allusion to earthly tribunals set up on high above the people.

Shared hope—peoples gathered, God returning on high to judge. Public worship and public judgment meet; ask for the high seat where the cause is heard.

Calvin: rather language respecting many nations—deliverance will be a common lesson teaching them to acknowledge God’s just judgment. Return on high: God who for a time kept silence raises himself that nations may behold his glory.

God on high over an assembly. The aim is God’s glory in judgment seen abroad, not a private settling only.

Shared confession—the LORD administers judgment to the peoples; therefore ask to be judged according to righteousness and integrity in this cause. Wesley’s line through the psalm is appeal for innocence and prayer to judge the cause. Integrity here is uprightness under the charge—lived innocence God may try and vindicate, not a fiction. The hearer still brings a clean conscience and refuses to plead a bad case.

Calvin: Jehovah shall judge the nations is a continued act—governor of the world who cannot abdicate. From this, David concludes God will maintain his cause. He brings forward his integrity that he may not, like hypocrites, make God’s name a pretext. How boast of integrity when elsewhere he deprecates God entering into judgment? The subject is not answering for his whole life, but comparing himself with his enemies—in respect of them he was righteous. When each saint is tried on his own merits, the only sanctuary is the mercy of God.

Ask judgment according to righteousness in the dispute. Relative innocence vs calumniators is no illusion; absolute standing before God still flees to mercy alone.

Wesley: O—put a stop to their wicked practices.

Shared twin plea—end the wicked’s evil; establish the righteous. The righteous God who tests minds and hearts is asked to stop practices and uphold uprightness. Bring both the heart and the cause under that search.

Calvin: pray that God would restrain malice and bring affliction to an end, and re-establish the righteous who are wrongfully oppressed—continued in their estate by God’s power. For God searcheth the hearts: not only external innocence but purity in secret affection. Before God’s judgment-seat the question is purity of heart, not titles or splendor of actions.

End wicked evil; establish the righteous under heart-searching. Appearance before the crowd is not the final court; God upholds the oppressed by his own power.

Shared confidence—shield with God, who saves the upright in heart. Uprightness of heart is the path of those God saves; keep the inward life true, and take refuge under that shield rather than under reputation alone.

Calvin: meditations mingled with prayers foster faith. As God saves the upright in heart, David is safe under his protection—and so has the testimony of an approving conscience. Not simply “the righteous,” but upright in heart, eyes the inward searching of hearts and reins.

God’s shield saving the upright in heart. Safety rests in God’s saving of those whose inward life matches the protest, not in self-made armor.

Wesley: Every day—even then, when his providence seems to favour them, and they are most secure and confident.

Do not read delay as approval; security of the wicked is not safety. Repent while the day of patience still calls.

Calvin: whatever the confusion of things, God discerns righteous and wicked. He appeals from false judgments of men to him who cannot be deceived. How judge every day when punishment is often delayed? No day passes without clearest evidence that he discerns between them; his patience is very different from approbation or connivance.

Daily righteous judgment and indignation. Long-suffering is not wink; the faithful betake themselves to him every day.

Wesley: He will—God will hasten, and speedily execute his judgments upon him.

Shared warning—if a man doesn’t repent, he whets the sword and readies the bow. Repentance is a turning the hearer must take; delay of judgment is not a promise that the sword stays dull forever.

Calvin notes the common reading: if the enemy does not repent, he will sharpen his sword—armed to maintain the righteous. He also shows how God’s armed readiness magnifies the grace that delivers when destroyers seem sure of their prey. Either way, unrepentant malice meets a God who is not idle.

Unrepentance under a whetted sword. Judgment is God’s prepared act; grace is magnified when the armed threat does not finally consume the innocent.

Wesley: Him—for the wicked. Ordaineth—designs or fits for this very use. Of all sinners, persecutors are set up as the fairest marks of Divine wrath. They set God at defiance but cannot set themselves out of the reach of his judgments.

Shared—deadly weapons and fiery arrows prepared. Persecutors are not beyond reach; defiance does not invent a shelter.

Calvin: instruments of death and arrows fitted for persecutors mark no ordinary wound but intent to destroy—yet the greatness of the danger magnifies the grace of the deliverance God gave.

The enemy has prepared deadly weapons. The arsenal shows how complete the threat was, and how entirely rescue must be credited to God.

Wesley: Travelleth—this metaphor denotes his deep design, and vigorous endeavours for doing mischief, and his restlessness and pain till he have accomplished it.

Shared exposure—conceive, be pregnant, give birth to lies. Wickedness is laborious and restless; its fruit is falsehood. Do not envy the travail that only bears deceit.

Calvin: Behold enhances the wonder—after travailing to bring forth wickedness and conceiving mischief, there comes forth empty wind and vanity, because God frustrated the expectation. The ungodly speak falsehood to themselves; they shall fail in what they devise.

Conception of evil ending in lies. Providence turns the labor to futility; wait patiently if the birth of the plot is not yet seen to fail.

Shared proverb made personal—dig the pit, fall into the hole. Schemes against the innocent rebound; refuse to dig pits for others, and trust God when pits are dug for you.

Calvin: not only unsuccessful devices, but by wonderful providence the opposite result. Wicked and crafty men are caught in snares set for others. God, by the secret direction of his hand, causes the evil intended for the innocent to return on the devisers.

Pit-maker falls in. Retribution is providence’s turn, not bare luck; therefore restrain yourself from injuring a neighbor.

Shared outcome—mischief home to the head, violence on the skull. The moral order is not optional poetry; what was aimed at another lands on the sender. Leave vengeance to that return rather than seizing it yourself.

Calvin: the same truth without figure—mischief returns upon his own head, violence upon his own crown. Two uses: however skilled the enemy, look for this issue; and if passion instigates injury, remember those who prepare a pit are cast into it.

Violence descending on its author. Divine retributive justice both comforts the oppressed and warns the tempted.

Shared close—thanks due to his righteousness, praise to the name of the LORD Most High. Answer deliverance with gratitude and song; righteousness here is God’s faithful right that vindicated the cause. Keep praising the name that sheltered you.

Calvin: design of deliverances is that servants return sacrifices of praise. He could not ascribe preservation to God unless persuaded he was kept otherwise than by man’s power. The righteousness of God is his faithfulness made good in defending and preserving his servants—manifested when he delivers from wrongful violence.

Preservation is confessed as God’s undoubted work; praise answers grace, not self-rescue.