Psalms 64

Look closely at what David asks for first, because it is not what we would expect. A man with conspirators plotting against him might be forgiven for opening, Lord, strike them down. David opens differently: Hear my voice, O God, in my prayer: preserve my life from fear of the enemy. Before he asks God to deal with the enemy, he asks God to deal with the fear of the enemy. And this is wise, because fear is a kind of second attack that the enemy launches inside us, often doing more damage than anything he could do from without. The plot may never succeed; the dread of it can still rob our sleep, sour our days, and make us see threats in every shadow. David knows that the battle is not only out there in the secret counsel of the wicked; it is also in here, in the heart that the fear is trying to colonise. So he brings the fear itself to God and asks to be guarded from it - preserve my life from fear of the enemy. It is the prayer of someone who has learned that to be delivered from your enemies and to be delivered from the fear of them are two different gifts, and that the second is the one the heart needs most while the first is still pending.³

Verse 5 lets us listen in on the inner life of the conspiracy, and it is chilling in its ordinariness: They encourage themselves in an evil matter: they commune of laying snares privily; they say, Who shall see them? Notice three movements. First, they encourage themselves - they strengthen one another's resolve, talk each other into it, make the evil feel reasonable and shared. Wickedness is rarely done alone for long; it gathers a circle and feeds on the group's approval until what one conscience would have flinched at becomes the settled plan of many. Second, they commune of laying snares privily - they plot in private, setting traps where they cannot be observed, taking pains to keep the scheme hidden. And third, underneath it all, the sentence that makes the whole thing possible: they say, Who shall see them? This is the lie at the root of every secret sin - the conviction that no eye is watching, that the dark really does hide, that an act done where no human sees is an act that finally answers to no one. It is the oldest miscalculation in the world. The wicked build their courage on the assumption of God's absence; the whole rest of the psalm exists to overturn it. Who shall see them? The answer is coming, and it is not the answer they expect.

Verse 6 marvels, almost grimly, at the sheer industry of the wicked: They search out iniquities; they accomplish a diligent search: both the inward thought of every one of them, and the heart, is deep. There is a dreadful diligence in evil here. They do not stumble into wrongdoing carelessly; they search out iniquities, they accomplish a diligent search - they put real labour and ingenuity into their scheming, the kind of energy that, turned toward good, would build and heal. And the last phrase opens a window onto something the psalm has been circling all along: the inward thought of every one of them, and the heart, is deep. The human heart is deep - cavernous, hidden, capable of harbouring designs no one outside can fathom. To the plotters this depth feels like safety: surely no one can reach into a heart this hidden and read what is coiled there. But the depth of the heart is no secret to its Maker. I the LORD search the heart, I try the reins (Jer. 17:10). The very inwardness the wicked count on to conceal them is wide open to the God who formed it. They marvel at how deep and unsearchable the heart is; they have forgotten Whose eyes see clear to the bottom of it.

Everything in the psalm pivots on the first word of verse 7: But. For six verses the wicked have held the field - whetting, plotting, shooting, congratulating themselves that no one sees. And then, against the whole apparatus of the conspiracy, the psalm sets one short word and one great Subject: But God. But God shall shoot at them with an arrow; suddenly shall they be wounded. Read it beside what came before and feel the perfect justice of it. They bend their bows to shoot their arrows (v. 3); now God takes up the bow - God shall shoot at them with an arrow. They shoot in secret; God shoots in the open, for all to see. They strike suddenly at the innocent (v. 4); now suddenly they themselves are wounded. The very speed and stealth they relied on is turned back upon them. There is no long argument here, no drawn-out reckoning - just the swift, decisive action of a God who was watching the whole time the plotters assumed He was absent. The arrows fired from the dark do not vanish into it. They have an answer, and the answer is an Archer the conspirators never reckoned on.

When God acts, the secret comes out into the open, and the whole posture of the watching world changes: And all men shall fear, and shall declare the work of God; for they shall wisely consider of his doing. Trace what happens. First, all that see them shall flee away (v. 8) - the very crowd that once admired or feared the plotters now scatters from them, for there is nothing more friendless than a wickedness that has been exposed and judged. Then, all men shall fear - not a cringing terror, but the awe that the visible justice of God rightly stirs in those who witness it. They declare the work of God - they talk about it, they tell what they have seen, they trace the reversal back to its true Author rather than to chance. And most strikingly, they shall wisely consider of his doing - they ponder it, draw the lesson, grow wiser for having seen how the story of the secret plot actually ended. There is a sharp irony in this, set against verse 5. The wicked had said, Who shall see them?, certain their deeds would stay hidden. In the end, all men see - not the plot in its secrecy, but the plot in its undoing, and through it the unmistakable hand of God. What they were sure no one would ever notice becomes the very thing that teaches a watching world to fear and to consider wisely.

The final phrase of the psalm gathers up everyone who belongs to God: all the upright in heart shall glory. The word glory here means to exult, to boast, to find one's pride and joy in something - and the point is where the upright direct it. They do not glory in their own innocence, as though they had won through by their own goodness; they glory in the LORD, in what He has done. And mark the phrase the upright in heart. The whole psalm has been concerned with the heart - the wicked whose inward thought… and the heart, is deep with hidden malice (v. 6), and now, in deliberate contrast, the upright in heart who have nothing to hide. There are, in the end, two kinds of heart in this psalm and in the world: the deep, concealing heart of the plotter, which counts on never being seen, and the upright heart of the faithful, which has no need of the dark. Both are fully known to God. But only one of them ends the psalm in joy. The conspirators trusted the secrecy of their hearts and were exposed; the righteous entrusted their open hearts to God and were glad. It is a fitting close to a psalm about what is hidden and what is seen: the secret counsel is scattered, and the last sound is the unashamed rejoicing of those who never had anything to hide from the eyes of God.³