The Treachery of Buttered Daggers Text: Psalm 55:20-21
Introduction: The War in the Heart
We live in a soft age, an age that loves soft words. Our generation has mistaken sentimentalism for kindness and flattery for love. We want our preachers to be therapists, our churches to be support groups, and our God to be a celestial affirmation machine. We want to be told, "Peace, peace," when there is no peace. But as Jeremiah tells us, this is how the hurt of God's people is healed slightly, superficially. It is a feather duster applied to a slab of concrete, all the while pretending that the concrete is a tender heart.
But the Word of God is not a feather duster. It is a hammer that breaks the rock in pieces. It is a sword that divides soul and spirit, joints and marrow. The Bible knows nothing of a treacly, saccharine faith that avoids all conflict and hard edges. On the contrary, the Bible is a book about war. It describes the great war between God and Satan, between the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent. And it describes the smaller, but no less intense, wars that rage within cities, within churches, and within the human heart.
This psalm, Psalm 55, is a war report from the front lines of one of the most painful battles a man can face: the battle against betrayal. David is not fighting a foreign enemy here. He is not facing Goliath or the Philistine armies. The arrow in his side was not fired from a distant battlement, but from the chair next to him at dinner. It was an equal, a familiar friend, a man he took sweet counsel with. This is the peculiar agony of treachery. It is a unique kind of wound, one that festers with a particular venom. And in these verses, David dissects the anatomy of that treachery with surgical precision.
We must understand that this is not just David's story. This psalm is messianic. David had his Ahithophel, but David's greater Son had His Judas. The Lord Jesus knew the bitter sting of this same betrayal, when the one who dipped his hand in the dish with Him would lift up his heel against Him. And so, this passage is given to us not simply as a historical account, but as a diagnostic tool for our own hearts and a field manual for navigating the inevitable betrayals of this life. It teaches us to recognize the enemy who comes disguised as a friend, the one whose words are as smooth as butter, but whose heart is a declaration of war.
The Text
My companion has put forth his hands against those who were at peace with him;
He has violated his covenant.
His speech was smoother than butter, But his heart was war; His words were softer than oil, Yet they were drawn swords.
(Psalm 55:20-21 LSB)
The Covenant-Breaker (v. 20)
David begins by identifying the central crime of his former friend. It is not a simple disagreement or a personal slight. It is a foundational violation of the created order.
"My companion has put forth his hands against those who were at peace with him; He has violated his covenant." (Psalm 55:20 LSB)
The first clause describes the action: he "put forth his hands against those who were at peace with him." The Hebrew for peace here is shalom. This is not merely the absence of conflict. Shalom is a positive state of wholeness, flourishing, and right-relatedness. It is the way things are supposed to be. The traitor did not just disrupt a ceasefire; he attacked a state of blessing. He brought violence into a place of peace. This is the essence of wickedness; it is parasitic. It cannot create, it can only corrupt. It feeds on the good. The traitor saw a relationship characterized by shalom and decided to make war on it.
Why is this so heinous? The second clause gives us the bedrock reason: "He has violated his covenant." All of human society is built on the foundation of covenant, of sworn promises. Marriage is a covenant. Church membership is a covenant. Citizenship is a covenant. God has structured reality covenantally because He Himself is a covenantal God, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit existing in an eternal bond of love and faithfulness. To break a covenant is therefore to attack the very grammar of reality. It is to take a sledgehammer to the load-bearing walls of the social order.
Notice the progression. The traitor was "at peace with him," which implies a relationship of trust and mutual obligation. This was not a stranger. This was someone inside the walls, someone who had shared the salt. He was bound by an oath, a promise, a solemn bond. And he profaned it. In the ancient world, this was the height of villainy. To violate your covenant was to declare yourself an outlaw, a man without honor, one who could not be trusted. In our modern world, we have reduced covenants to contracts, and contracts are things to be wriggled out of with the help of a clever lawyer. We have forgotten that our words create worlds, and that when we break our word, we shatter those worlds. This is what David's companion did. He was a covenant-breaker, and in doing so, he declared war not just on David, but on the God who ordained covenant.
This is precisely what Judas did. He was one of the twelve, a companion of the Lord, a man who shared the covenant meal. He was at shalom with Jesus. And he put forth his hands against Him. He violated the covenant for thirty pieces of silver, profaning the most sacred relationship for the price of a slave. Every act of treachery is a faint echo of that ultimate betrayal.
The Arsenal of the Hypocrite (v. 21)
In verse 21, David describes the traitor's primary weapon. It is not a physical sword, but something far more insidious.
"His speech was smoother than butter, But his heart was war; His words were softer than oil, Yet they were drawn swords." (Psalm 55:21 LSB)
Here we see the fundamental disconnect of the hypocrite. There is a total contradiction between the outside and the inside, between the words and the heart. The speech is "smoother than butter" and "softer than oil." This is the language of flattery, of pleasantries, of effusive compliments. It is speech designed to disarm, to soothe, to make the target feel safe and secure. Butter and oil are emblems of richness, comfort, and healing. That is what the words felt like. They were slick. They went down easy. There was no grit, no friction, no challenge.
Our age is addicted to this kind of speech. We call it "being nice." We want communication that is frictionless. We want to be affirmed, not corrected. We want words that are soft, easy, and buttery. But David warns us that this kind of speech can be a mask for the most profound malice. "But his heart was war." While the mouth was dispensing pleasantries, the heart was strategizing, planning the attack, and maneuvering for the kill. The smooth words were not an expression of love; they were a tactic of warfare. They were camouflage.
The final line reveals the true nature of these words: "Yet they were drawn swords." The soft, oily words were not just deceptive; they were lethal. They were weapons. A drawn sword is not a sword in its sheath. It is a sword that is out, ready for use, glinting in the sun. The traitor's words were not idle chatter. They had a purpose. They were intended to wound, to cut, to kill. Flattery is the assassin's blade. It is the verbal equivalent of Judas's kiss. The kiss was the sign of friendship, the ultimate gesture of intimacy and affection. And it was the very signal for the arrest and murder of the Son of God.
This is why we must be a people who love the hard words of Scripture. We must love the jackhammer of God's law that breaks our stony hearts. When we cultivate a love for only smooth words, we make ourselves vulnerable to every kind of deception. We train our palates for poison. A church that will only tolerate buttery sermons will inevitably find that its heart is at war with God. They will praise a Jesus of their own imagination while despising the true Christ of Scripture. They will speak of love and inclusion while their hearts are filled with the drawn swords of rebellion against God's holy law.
Casting Your Burden on the Lord
So what is the remedy for this kind of treachery? How do we respond when we are on the receiving end of these buttered daggers? The very next verse gives us the answer. "Cast your burden upon the LORD, and He will sustain you; He will never allow the righteous to be shaken" (Psalm 55:22).
The answer to human treachery is divine faithfulness. The answer to broken covenants is the unbreakable covenant of God. When men prove to be shifting sand, we must build our house on the Rock. David does not tell us to retaliate in kind. He does not tell us to learn the art of buttery words and drawn-sword hearts. He tells us to take the entire, heavy, crushing burden of the betrayal and hand it over to God.
This is an act of profound faith. It is to say, "God, this wound is too deep for me. This injustice is too heavy for me. Vengeance is Yours; I will repay, says the Lord. I trust You to be the judge. I trust You to sustain me." And God promises that He will. He will not let the righteous be ultimately shaken. Friends may fail, covenants may be broken, and buttery words may conceal drawn swords, but the Lord is faithful. His words are not butter; they are bread. His promises are not oil; they are an anchor for the soul.
Conclusion: The Word Made Flesh
This psalm pushes us inexorably to the cross. The ultimate victim of the covenant-breaker with buttery words was the Lord Jesus Christ. Judas Iscariot was the man whose words were softer than oil, yet were drawn swords. The religious leaders of Israel spoke of peace with Rome while their hearts were at war with God's anointed King. They spoke of righteousness while they plotted murder.
And how did Jesus respond? He did not listen to Himself; He talked to Himself, quoting the Word of His Father. He cast His burden upon the Lord in the Garden of Gethsemane. He entrusted His spirit into the hands of His Father. He did not retaliate. He did not return flattery for flattery or threat for threat. Instead, He absorbed the full, lethal thrust of all the drawn swords of human treachery into His own body on the tree.
Because He did this, we who are in Him are safe. We will face betrayals. We will be wounded by those we trust. But we have a refuge. We have a faithful High Priest who was tempted in all points as we are, yet without sin. He knows the sting of the buttered dagger. And He has conquered. He has taken the broken covenant and established a new and better covenant in His own blood. In this covenant, there is no hypocrisy, no deception, no smooth words concealing a heart of war.
Therefore, let us be a people who speak the truth in love. Let our "yes" be "yes" and our "no" be "no." Let us reject the flattering, buttery speech of the world and cling to the rugged, faithful Word of our God. And when we are betrayed, let us cast our burden upon the only one who can bear it, the one who turned the ultimate act of treachery into the ultimate act of salvation. Let us trust in the Lord Jesus, whose heart is not war, but love, and whose words are not drawn swords, but the very words of eternal life.