1For the lead player, on jonath elem rehokim, a David michtam, when the Philistines seized him in Gath.
2Grant me grace, O God,
for a man tramples me,
all day long the assailant does press me.
3My attackers trample me all day long,
for many assail me, O High One.
4When I fear, I trust in You,
5in God, Whose word I praise,
in God I trust, I shall not fear.
What can flesh do to me?
6All day long they put pain in my words,
against me all their plots for evil.
7They scheme, they lie low,
they keep at my heels
as they hope for my life.
8For their mischief free me from them.
In wrath bring down peoples, O God.
9My flagrant fate You Yourself have counted out—
Are they not in Your counting?
10Then shall my enemies turn back
on the day I call.
This I know, that God is for me.
11In God, Whose word I praise,
in the LORD Whose word I praise,
12in God I trust, I shall not fear.
What can man do to me?
13I take upon me, O God, my vows to You.
I shall pay thanksgiving offerings to You.
14For You saved me from death,
yes, my foot from slipping,
to walk in God’s presence
in the light of life.
PSALM 56 NOTES
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1. on jonath elem rehokim. This is one of the most mysterious of the musical terms in Psalms. The literal sense of the three Hebrew words is haunting: “the mute dove of distant places.” The great medieval poet Judah HaLevi responded to the evocativeness of the phrase in his poetry by turning it into a concrete image of Israel’s exile.
a David michtam. This is another unknown category of psalm. In later Hebrew, it comes to mean “aphorism,” but that is scarcely its biblical sense.
when the Philistines seized him in Gath. As usual, the connection is tenuous between this specific identification of an episode in David’s life and the content of the psalm.
2. Grant me grace. The speaker now launches on a set opening formula for the psalm of supplication.
3. O High One. The translation here is only a guess, and perhaps a strained one. The Hebrew marom means “height” and is not a general designation for God. An alternative would be to read mimarom, “from the height,” “from above.”
5. in God, Whose word I praise. The syntax here (and in the refrainlike recurrence in verse 11) is a little crabbed. The Hebrew has no equivalent of “whose” (ʾasher), but in poetic grammar ʾasher is often elided.
6. they put pain in my words. The Hebrew sounds at least as odd as this. Evidence of early struggling with the text is provided by the sundry ancient versions, which variously substitute a different verb for the enigmatic one that appears in the received text.
8. For their mischief free me from them. The Hebrew here is obscure. Literally, it says: “For mischief free [from? for?] them.” Efforts to interpret the verb palet as “cast out” are dubious, because it always means to free or extricate from distress.
9. My flagrant fate. The most likely meaning of nod here is pain or sorrow, although the same root can also refer to wandering. The alliterative translation, moving from “flagrant” to “flask,” is a distant approximation of the Hebrew sound-play, in which nod is played against noʾd, “flask,” at the end of the next verset.
put my tears in Your flask. In the midst of a psalm chiefly made up of familiar formulas, we see a striking image—one that the Midrash duly elaborated—of a compassionate God gathering the tears of the sufferer in a celestial flask and counting every one.
11. In God, Whose word I praise. The poem now uses an extended refrain that occupies two whole verses.
13. my vows to You. The literal sense of the more compact Hebrew is “Your vows.”