Psalms For Life
Looking for content on a specific topic?
Yahveh Elohim hear our prayers

Psalm 28

Faithful judge, faithful shepherd  

However different our story’s plot line from that of David, we too live in a world rife with evil and betrayal. Thankfully, our God is both judge and shepherd and hears us when we call.

A David psalm.

1 I cry out to you
YHWH, my rock.
Don’t be deaf to me!
Because if you stay silent on me
I’ll be like those who descend into the grave.
2 Listen to the sound of my pleading
as I cry to you for help
lifting up my hands
toward your holy sanctuary.
3 Don’t drag me off with the wicked
practitioners of evil
who speak peace to their neighbors
while evil is in their hearts.
4 Repay them for what they’ve done—
in proportion to the evil of their deeds.
Pay them back for what they’ve made—
give them what they deserve.
5 Because they disregard
the things YHWH has done
the things he’s made
he will tear them down
and never rebuild them.

6 Blessed be YHWH
because he’s heard the sound of my pleading!
7 YHWH is my strength and my shield:
my heart trusts in him
and he helps me.
So, my heart is full of joy
and I praise him in song.
8 YHWH is the strength of his people
a fortress of deliverance for his anointed.
9 Rescue your people
and bless your inheritance.
Shepherd them and carry them forever.


Like Psalm 27, this is a psalm of contrasting moods, but David reverses the order here, putting his plea first, his praise last. In mortal danger, he’s received no response to the urgent pleas he’s directed toward God’s sanctuary and fears God may mix him up with those deserving judgment. Verses 4-5 contrast his enemies’ work with God’s work—respectively, doing evil and doing good. Though David’s enemies pretend to be peaceable, their actions tell a different story. Their evil stems from their disregard for God’s work—such things as giving sunshine and rain, redeeming and blessing his people, and judging evildoers.

Some Christians blanch when David asks God to judge evildoers, as if he should just forgive the unrepentant. But a moral universe doesn’t work like that. God is committed to judging those who viciously attack the innocent, and sometimes we need to ask him to do so.

Here we must distinguish between personal and absolute forgiveness. God alone forgives the guilty absolutely, though that may not exempt them from punishment in this life. But when we forgive our enemies—as Dietrich Bonhoeffer forgave his Nazi oppressors—we needn’t ask God to exempt them from punishment. The same Bonhoeffer who forgave the Nazis personally was right to pray that God would judge them for all their evils.

Verse 6 is pivotal. Assured that God will ring down the curtain on evil, David knows he’s been heard: YHWH will spare his life. So, his confidence overflows in joyful praise. Then, commending YHWH to his people, David ends by commending his people to God. The image of shepherd in the ancient Middle East was kingly, but not kindly, emphasizing the shepherd’s ruthlessness in warding off danger. Having just seen the other side of his good shepherd—his tenderness and gentle care—David asks YHWH to carry his people in his arms whenever their strength fails.

Prayer:

Many today live without regard for you or your laws, God. Thank you that you hold evildoers to account. Please bring evil’s reign of terror to its swift and timely end. Thank you that you also shelter and shepherd your people. Help me to trust you always to bless and care for me. Amen.

In your free moments today, pray these words:

Rescue your people
and bless your inheritance.
Shepherd them and carry them forever.

Why YHWH?

Every translator of the Psalms must decide how to handle God’s personal name, YHWH or YHVH, which occurs repeatedly in its Hebrew text. Translators of the King James Version usually translated it “LORD” (all caps) and sometimes transliterated it (badly) as “Jehovah.” Likewise, all modern translations either translate or transliterate it. Some other options for translating it are “the Eternal,” “the Almighty,” or “the Sovereign Lord.”

While translating it aims to make it more accessible to readers, transliterating it seems to me more faithful to the text since it’s not a word at all, but rather God’s uniquely personal name. This roots it more firmly in the biblical story as the name God revealed to Moses on Mount Sinai. Meaning “the self-existent One who answers to no one,” the name YHWH set Israel’s God apart from all the gods of Israel’s neighbors.

Personal names are, well, very personal. Even the sound of a name can evoke strong emotion. I’ve chosen to transliterate only YHWH’s consonants since the earliest Hebrew manuscripts contain only consonants, the vowels being added much later. My aim in doing so is to honor God’s name and set it apart, as unique.

One problem with YHWH is that we aren’t sure how it was pronounced since Jews long ago stopped saying it out of reverence. (They read Adonai instead whenever they come to YHWH in the text.) I take the advice of my esteemed Hebrew professor, Raymond Dillard, who advocated pronouncing it as Yahveh (Yah·vay). He favored that over the standard Yahweh since the modern Hebrew pronunciation of its third consonant makes the name sound more robustly Jewish. It also makes it sound more robust, period.

Finding strength in the ancient psalms
May these psalms be a light to you in dark times. You can read more of Mark Anderson's writings on Christianity, culture, and inter-faith dialogue at Understanding Christianity Today.