The Impotent Howl and the Sovereign Laugh
Introduction: The Noise of the Damned
We live in a world that is full of noise. Not the good kind of noise, like a congregation singing a robust psalm, or the laughter of children in the yard, or the sound of a craftsman's saw. No, our world is full of a different kind of noise. It is the angry, resentful, impotent noise of men who hate God and therefore hate the world He has made. It is the sound of snarling, of threats, of slander, of endless, bitter complaint. It is the soundtrack of rebellion.
This psalm, a Michtam of David, is set in a time of great personal peril. Saul, the rejected king, has sent assassins to David's house to kill him. David is surrounded by bloodthirsty men, and he describes their malice with unflinching accuracy. But this is not simply a historical record of one man's close call. It is a timeless portrait of the conflict between the righteous and the wicked, between the city of God and the city of man. And in the verses before us today, we are given a picture of the wicked that is both terrifying and, from a heavenly perspective, utterly pathetic. We see their animalistic fury, their arrogant blasphemy, and God's sovereign, joyful contempt for it all.
We must learn to see the world as David saw it, and as God sees it. We are surrounded by howling dogs. They prowl the city, they pour forth venomous speech, and they do so with the arrogant assumption that no one can hear them, that there is no one to call them to account. But David knew better. He knew there was a Watcher, a Defender, a King who was not impressed by all the ruckus. Our task is to tune our ears to the right frequency. We must learn to hear the pathetic whine underneath the roar of the wicked, and above it all, to hear the sound of God's laughter.
The Text
They return at evening, they howl like a dog,
And go around the city.
Behold, they pour forth speech with their mouth;
Swords are in their lips,
For, they say, “Who hears?”
But You, O Yahweh, laugh at them;
You mock all the nations.
(Psalm 59:6-8 LSB)
The Uncivilized City (v. 6)
David begins by describing the relentless, bestial nature of his enemies.
"They return at evening, they howl like a dog, And go around the city." (Psalm 59:6)
The picture here is of a pack of feral dogs. In the ancient world, dogs were not the pampered pets we see today. They were unclean scavengers, running in packs, dangerous and ravenous. David says his enemies are just like them. They are not noble lions; they are mangy curs.
Notice their timing: "they return at evening." The evening is the time for shadows, for mischief, for evil deeds. Honest men are at home with their families, but these men come out in the dark. Their work cannot stand the light of day. This is the nature of all rebellion against God. It thrives in obscurity and hates the light, "for their deeds were evil" (John 3:19).
And what do they do? They "howl like a dog." This is not reasoned debate or principled opposition. It is an animalistic, guttural noise. It is the sound of pure, unthinking malice. Think of the mobs we see today, whipped into a frenzy by social media, chanting mindless slogans, their faces contorted with rage. This is the howling of the pack. It is meant to intimidate, to terrorize, to create the illusion of overwhelming strength. It is the sound of men who have abandoned reason and given themselves over to their base passions.
They "go around the city." This is not a random wandering. They are patrolling, encircling, hunting. David's house is their target. The city, which should be a place of order, law, and peace under God, has become a hunting ground for these predators. When men reject the rule of God, the civitas descends into a jungle. The wicked prowl, seeking whom they may devour. This is what happens when a society abandons its foundations. The guard dogs become wolves.
Arrogant Blasphemy (v. 7)
In the next verse, David moves from the sound they make to the content of their speech, which is just as venomous.
"Behold, they pour forth speech with their mouth; Swords are in their lips, For, they say, 'Who hears?'" (Psalm 59:7)
They "pour forth speech." The image is of a fountain of filth, an uncontrolled gushing of words. This is the verbal equivalent of their howling. It is not careful or measured; it is a torrent of slander, lies, and threats. James warns us about the untamable tongue, how it is a fire, a world of iniquity (James 3:6). These men have mouths that are wide-open sewers.
And their words are weapons: "Swords are in their lips." Words can cut, they can wound, they can kill. Slander can destroy a man's reputation. A lie can lead to a man's execution. These men are not just making noise; they are engaged in verbal warfare. Their goal is destruction. They want to cut David down with their accusations and threats. We should not be naive about this. The war we are in is largely a war of words, a war of narratives. And our enemies come armed for bear, with swords in their lips.
But here we get to the root of it all, the foundational assumption that fuels their wickedness. Why do they do it? "For, they say, 'Who hears?'" This is the creed of the practical atheist. They may not deny God's existence in a formal, philosophical sense, but they live as though He does not matter. He is deaf, or distant, or disinterested. There is no supreme accountability. The heavens are empty. We can say what we want, do what we want, because no one is listening. This is the height of folly. It is the arrogance of the creature who thinks he can hide from the Creator in a corner of the Creator's own living room. They whisper their blasphemies, forgetting that the one they mock is the very one who designed the ear and created the air that carries the sound.
The Divine Response: Sovereign Laughter (v. 8)
David has painted a grim picture. A man surrounded by a pack of howling, sword-wielding atheists. What is the answer? The answer is to lift his eyes, to see the situation from God's perspective. And what he sees is not panic, or concern, or even anger. What he sees is laughter.
"But You, O Yahweh, laugh at them; You mock all the nations." (Psalm 59:8)
That "But You" is one of the great hinges of the Psalms. It is the pivot from earthly terror to heavenly reality. Down here, the dogs are howling. But up there, God is laughing. This is not the laughter of lighthearted mirth. It is the laughter of derision. It is the laughter of a sovereign king who looks upon a pathetic, ridiculous rebellion and finds it utterly contemptible.
This echoes Psalm 2, where the kings of the earth set themselves against the Lord and His Anointed. What is the divine response? "He who sits in the heavens laughs; the Lord holds them in derision" (Psalm 2:4). God's laughter is a weapon. It reveals the utter impotence of His enemies. Their most fearsome threats, their most cunning plots, their loudest howls are, from the perspective of the throne of the universe, a joke. They are toddlers shaking their fists at a battleship. They are ants trying to halt the sunrise.
And notice the scope of this mockery: "You mock all the nations." This is not just about Saul's goon squad. This is God's settled disposition toward all organized rebellion against His rule. Every proud empire, every godless ideology, every Christ-hating movement that struts and frets its hour upon the stage is an object of divine ridicule. Their pomposity is laughable. Their claims to autonomy are absurd. Their defiance is pathetic.
This is a profound comfort and a necessary corrective for the church. We are often intimidated by the howling of the dogs. We see the swords in their lips, we read their headlines, we watch their media, and we can begin to think they are winning. We can begin to take their threats seriously. But we must learn to hear the laughter of God. We must cultivate a sanctified sense of the absurd. When we see men trying to redefine marriage, or mutilate their bodies to spite their Creator, or shake their fists at heaven, our first response should not be fear, but rather a share in God's derisive laughter. They are fighting a battle they have already lost. The outcome is not in doubt.
Conclusion: From Howling to Hallelujahs
The contrast could not be more stark. The wicked are characterized by the noise of the beast: howling, pouring forth venom. The righteous, as David will go on to say, are characterized by the noise of faith: singing. David will sing of God's power and steadfast love in the morning (v. 16). The destiny of the wicked is to prowl and growl, forever unsatisfied. The destiny of the righteous is to be satisfied in God and to sing His praises.
This pattern holds true for us. The world around us is full of howling. The enemies of Christ are loud, and they are vicious. They prowl around the city of God, which is the Church, looking for ways to attack, to slander, to intimidate. They operate under the delusion that no one hears.
But God does hear. And He is not impressed. He is laughing. He is laughing because He has already set His King on His holy hill of Zion. He is laughing because the cross, which looked like the ultimate victory for the howling dogs, was in fact the very place where their fangs were pulled and their backs were broken. Jesus, the Son of David, was surrounded by the dogs. They bayed for His blood, they spat on Him, they pierced Him. But on the third day, He rose from the dead, and the laughter of God echoed from the empty tomb.
Therefore, we do not have to be afraid of the noise. Our job is not to howl back. Our job is to trust in our fortress, our refuge, our God of mercy. And as we trust, our fear will give way to faith, and our trembling will give way to song. We look at the snarling faces of a hostile world, and we see them for what they are: a cosmic joke. And then we look up, past the noise, and we hear the sound of our Father's laughter. And in that laughter, we find our strength and our peace, and we wait for the morning, when all the howling will be silenced forever, and the only sound will be the joyful singing of the redeemed.