Psalm 54--The Lord Upholds My Life

Psalm 54
English Standard Version

The Lord Upholds My Life
​
To the choirmaster: with stringed instruments. A Maskil of David, when the Ziphites went and told Saul, “Is not David hiding among us?”
54 O God, save me by your name,
    and vindicate me by your might.
2 O God, hear my prayer;
    give ear to the words of my mouth.

3 For strangers have risen against me;
    ruthless men seek my life;
    they do not set God before themselves. Selah

4 Behold, God is my helper;
    the Lord is the upholder of my life.
5 He will return the evil to my enemies;
    in your faithfulness put an end to them.

​6 With a freewill offering I will sacrifice to you;
    I will give thanks to your name, O LORD, for it is good.
7 For he has delivered me from every trouble,
    and my eye has looked in triumph on my enemies.

---

The context of the psalm is given in the heading.  This psalm of David is from the time that he was running and hiding form King Saul.  The people whom David had been hiding near--the Ziphites--betrayed David to King Saul saying that David and his men were hiding near them, and they would be happy to turn David over to Saul.

David's in a situation that looks unwinnable.  The Ziphites are against him and soon Saul and the army of Israel will be there in force.  David and his band of misfits would appear to be no match for them.  In desperation, David cries out to the LORD to save him and the LORD saves him and his men.  David asks first for salvation from these "strangers," which is odd because they are all Jewish people--the Ziphites are descendants of Calab who should be loyal to David as he is king over Judah, but they betrayed him.  David says that he wishes they sought for God like they are seeking for him, because all these men hunting for him seem to be godless men.

David rests in the fact that God is his Helper and his life rests totally in God's hands.  How can God's promises to David be fulfilled if God lets David die?  They can't.  Now the full Davidic Covenant hasn't happened yet--that's years later, but Davd has been anointed king by Samuel already, so David knows that he is the rightful king of Israel.  He is just waiting for the LORD to cause Saul to die because Saul was also anointed by the LORD to be king of Israel and David would not lay a hand on the LORD's anointed.  Getting rid of Saul was God's problem.  That is why David says, "He will return the evil of my enemies; in your faithfulness, put an end to them."  David entrusts the timing and means to the LORD, but that doesn't mean that David doesn't want something to happen right now to bring about his salvation in the moment.

David promises to make a freewill offering to the LORD when the LORD saves him (notice I didn't say if the LORD saves him, because David is sure he will be saved).  David knows the LORD has saved him from every trouble and given him victory over all of his enemies, and he is trusting the LORD to do this once again.