Commentary - Psalm 55:15

Bird's-eye view

Psalm 55 is the raw cry of a man betrayed. David, likely writing in the context of Absalom's rebellion and the treachery of his trusted counselor Ahithophel, is reeling from the profound wound of having a close friend turn on him. The psalm moves from agonized complaint to a desperate desire for escape, and then climaxes in a series of blistering imprecations against his enemies. Verse 15 is the sharp point of this righteous anger. It is a prayer for God to execute sudden, decisive, and catastrophic judgment upon those who have broken covenant not only with David, but with God Himself. This is not personal vindictiveness; it is a plea for the covenant God to act decisively against covenant-breakers. The prayer is that their end would be as dramatic and public as their sin, a clear sign of divine displeasure that serves as a warning to all who would oppose the Lord's anointed.

This verse, like all imprecatory prayers in Scripture, must be understood within its covenantal framework. David is the king, God's chosen representative, and a rebellion against him is a rebellion against God's established order. The prayer for his enemies to "go down alive to Sheol" is a direct echo of the judgment on Korah, Dathan, and Abiram in Numbers 16, who were swallowed by the earth for their rebellion against Moses. David is asking for a judgment of the same character, a swift and undeniable divine intervention. The reason for this harsh plea is not simply personal pain, but the pervasive nature of their wickedness: "For evil is in their dwelling, in their midst." Their treachery flows from a heart and a community saturated with evil. The ultimate fulfillment of such prayers is found in the cross, where Christ, the true King, absorbed the ultimate curse, and in His final judgment, where all His enemies will be put under His feet.

Outline

Context In Psalms

Psalm 55 sits within the broader category of the Psalms known as laments, and more specifically, imprecatory psalms. These are prayers that call for God to bring judgment, calamity, or curses upon His enemies. Our modern, sentimental age often recoils from such language, but to do so is to misunderstand their function. They are not expressions of petty, personal revenge. Rather, they are expressions of a zeal for God's glory, a desire for His justice to be publicly vindicated, and for His kingdom to be established. They are prayers that take God's covenant promises and curses seriously. When God established His covenant with Israel, He promised blessings for obedience and curses for disobedience (Deut 28). The imprecatory psalms are essentially prayers asking God to be true to His own word, to apply the covenant sanctions where they are due. David, as the anointed king, is praying not just as a private individual, but as the guardian of God's covenant order in Israel. The evil he confronts is not just an offense against him, but an assault on the throne God established.

Key Issues

Praying Against God's Enemies

We live in a squishy age, an age that thinks "love" means a sort of limitless, bland affirmation. And so, when we come to a verse like this, we tend to get the vapors. "How could David pray such a thing? How is this compatible with 'love your enemies'?" But this is to fundamentally misunderstand both the Old Testament and the New. The imprecatory psalms are not the pins for scriptural voodoo dolls. They are not to be directed at the guy who cuts you off in traffic. These are prayers offered up by the righteous, against the implacably wicked, in the context of a holy war.

The enemies in this psalm are not just David's personal adversaries; they are enemies of the covenant, traitors to God's kingdom. To pray for their downfall is to pray for the triumph of God's righteousness. It is to say, "Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done." And the New Testament is filled with the same spirit. Paul says, "If anyone has no love for the Lord, let him be accursed" (1 Cor. 16:22). The saints under the altar in Revelation cry out, "How long, O Lord, holy and true, until You judge and avenge our blood?" (Rev. 6:10). To love righteousness is to hate wickedness. To pray for the success of the Gospel is, by necessity, to pray for the failure of all that opposes it. These prayers are not about personal vengeance; they are about cosmic justice.

Verse by Verse Commentary

15 Let death come deceitfully upon them;

The prayer begins with a petition for a sudden, unexpected end. The Hebrew can be rendered "Let death seize upon them" or "desolations be upon them." The idea is not a peaceful death in old age, surrounded by loved ones. It is a death that comes like a thief, a catastrophic and surprising end. There is a profound justice in this. The enemy, particularly the treacherous friend Ahithophel, operated through deceit, through whispers and plots. David's prayer is that death would visit them in the same way they visited treachery upon him, with a sudden, ruinous surprise. It is a prayer for God to turn their own methods back upon their own heads. The God of justice is a God of irony. He catches the wise in their own craftiness, and He often ordains that the punishment should fit the crime in a very precise and poetic way.

Let them go down alive to Sheol,

This is the heart of the imprecation, and it is a clear historical allusion. When Korah, Dathan, and Abiram rebelled against the leadership of Moses and Aaron, God executed a dramatic and terrifying judgment. The ground opened up and "they went down alive into the pit, with everything they owned; the earth closed over them, and they perished from among the assembly" (Num. 16:33). The word for "the pit" there is Sheol. David is reaching back into Israel's history and asking for a judgment of that same nature. He is saying, "Lord, do it again. Show everyone that rebellion against your anointed is as serious now as it was in the wilderness."

Sheol in the Old Testament is the realm of the dead, the grave, the place where all departed spirits went prior to the resurrection of Christ. It was a place of shadows, distinct from the final hell, Gehenna. To go down to Sheol "alive" is to be cut off in the midst of one's strength and vitality, to be plunged from the land of the living directly into the realm of the dead without warning. It is a prayer for a swift, undeniable, and public display of divine judgment. It is a prayer for God to make an example of them.

For evil is in their dwelling, in their midst.

Here is the legal basis for the sentence requested. This is not a whim. It is not an overreaction to a personal slight. The justification for this terrible prayer is the pervasive and settled nature of their wickedness. Evil is not just something they do; it is something they are. It is in their dwelling, meaning it characterizes their homes, their households, their base of operations. And it is in their midst, deep within them, at the very core of their being. Their treachery is not an aberration; it is the natural fruit of a corrupt heart. David sees that their rebellion is not a momentary lapse but the expression of a deep-seated godlessness. Because the corruption is total, the judgment requested is total. The house that is filled with evil must be pulled down. The heart that is saturated with wickedness must be stopped.

Application

So how does a Christian, living under the New Covenant, pray a prayer like this? First, we must recognize that the ultimate traitor was Judas, and the ultimate betrayed king was Jesus. This psalm is fulfilled most profoundly in Christ. The curses that David called down upon his enemies were ultimately absorbed by Jesus on the cross. He went down to the deepest pit, to Sheol, on our behalf. He took the full force of the divine imprecation against sin so that we, the true rebels and traitors, could be forgiven.

Second, this means we can and should pray against the spiritual forces of wickedness. We pray for God to bring down Satan's kingdom, to throw down strongholds, to confuse the plots of those who work against the church of Jesus Christ. We pray for the gospel to triumph, which means we pray for the defeat of all false gospels and ideologies that hold men captive. When we see evil entrenched in our culture, in our institutions, in our dwellings, we are right to pray, "O Lord, how long? Let your kingdom come and bring this wickedness to an end."

Finally, we must remember that God's ultimate answer to such prayers can be conversion. The greatest way for God to destroy an enemy is to make him a friend. Saul of Tarsus was an enemy of the church, breathing out threats and murder. The church was right to pray against his wicked campaign. And how did God answer? He knocked him off his horse and turned him into the apostle Paul. So we pray for God's justice, and we leave the method to Him. Whether by sudden judgment or by sudden grace, our prayer is that God's name would be hallowed, His kingdom would come, and His will would be done, on earth as it is in heaven. And we pray this knowing that if not for the grace of God, the evil would be in our dwelling, in our midst, and this prayer would be a prayer against us.