Psalms 17:8 - Meaning and Application

We can see, in these verses, what David asks for. He is surrounded by enemies who want his life, so he asks God to keep him safe through all their attacks, and to bring him through to the crown he had been anointed for. This prayer also looks ahead to Christ, showing how he would be preserved through the hardships of his humiliation, that is, his lowly suffering before his exaltation. It also gives believers a pattern: they should trust God to keep their souls and bring them safely into his heavenly kingdom.

David first asks to be protected. In Psalm 17:8 he says, “Keep me safe, hide me close, where I cannot be found. Deliver my soul,” meaning not only his physical life from death, but his spiritual life from sin. Those who place themselves under God’s care may confidently ask for that care. He asks God to keep him with the same watchfulness with which a person guards the pupil of the eye, something nature has so carefully protected. If we guard God’s law as carefully as our own eyes (Proverbs 7:2), we may hope that God will guard us, for God says of his people that anyone who touches them touches the apple of his eye (Zechariah 2:8).

David also asks to be kept with the tenderness of a hen gathering her chicks under her wings, as Jesus later pictured in Matthew 23:37. “Hide me under the shadow of your wings,” he says, “where I may be safe and warm.” This may also point to the wings of the cherubim over the mercy seat, suggesting the special protection of God’s gracious presence for his own people. What David asks here was also shown in the Son of David, the Lord Jesus, of whom it is said that God hid him in the shadow of his hand and kept him like a polished arrow in his quiver (Isaiah 49:2).

David further prays, “Lord, keep me from the wicked, from men of this world.” He means, first, “Keep me from being like them or acting like them. Keep me from walking in their counsel, standing in their way, or joining in their pleasures.” He also means, “Keep me from being destroyed by them. Do not let them get their way with me, or triumph over me.”

He asks also that all his enemies’ plans to pull him into sin or trouble would fail (Psalm 17:13). “Arise, O Lord,” he says, “show yourself for me, disappoint him, and cast him down by the failure of his own plan.” While Saul kept chasing David, he often missed him even when he thought David was trapped. In the same way, Christ’s enemies were disappointed by his resurrection, even though they thought they had won when they put him to death.

David then gives reasons that strengthen his faith and support his request. He points to the malice and wickedness of his enemies. They are not the sort of people who should be favored, because if God does not rescue him by his own special care, they will ruin him. He asks the Lord to see what kind of wicked men are oppressing and wearing him down.

He says they are full of bitter hate and violence. They are his deadly enemies, hungry for his blood, his very life. The phrase means enemies against the soul. David’s enemies tried to lead him into sin and draw him away from God. They even told him to go serve other gods (1 Samuel 26:19), so he had reason to pray against them. Those who are enemies of our souls are our worst enemies, and we should treat them that way.

He also says they are proud, secure, and given over to pleasure. They are “enclosed in their own fat,” wrapped up in their own wealth, honor, and power, and so they make light of God and defy his judgments (Psalm 73:7; Job 15:27). They live for pleasure and assume tomorrow will be just like today. So they speak proudly, boast about themselves, blaspheme God, trample on his people, and insult them. Such men are fit to be humbled and brought to know themselves, and it would honor God to bring them low.

David adds that they are relentless. They surround him (Psalm 17:9). They have, in effect, almost got what they want. They track him wherever he goes, follow close behind him like a hound after a hare, and use every chance against him because they are both too many and too quick for him. Yet they act as though they are looking elsewhere, with their eyes bent down toward the earth, as if they were deep in thought. Or, as some think, this means they stay alert and watch for every opportunity to do harm.

He then singles out their leader, Saul, who was especially bloody, cunning, and full of plans (Psalm 17:12). Saul was like a lion that lives by prey and is always hungry for it. For a wicked man, doing harm is as natural as doing good is for a righteous man. Saul was like a young lion hiding in secret places, disguising his cruel plans. This fits Saul well, since he hunted David among the rocks of the wild goats (1 Samuel 24:2) and in the wilderness of Ziph (Psalm 26:2), just where lions would wait for prey.

David also pleads God’s power over these men, to control and restrain them. He says, “Lord, they are your sword, and would a father let his sword be turned against his own children?” This is a reason to bear human harm patiently, because it comes through instruments that are under God’s rule. It is also a comfort, because if their anger serves God’s purpose, then God can also stop it when his work is done. They are God’s sword, which he can use as he wills and sheathe when he chooses.

He says they are God’s hand as well, the means by which God chastens his people and makes them feel his displeasure. Because the trouble came from God’s hand, David expects deliverance from that same hand. The same hand wounds and heals. There is no escape from God’s hand except by running to it. It is a great comfort, when we fear human power, to remember that it is under God’s power and subject to him (Isaiah 10:6, 7, 15).

David then mentions their outward prosperity (Psalm 17:14). He asks God to appear against them because they are completely devoted to this world and do not care for God or his favor. They are men of the world, driven by the spirit of the world, walking according to the ways of this world, loving its wealth and pleasure, and eagerly pursuing it as their work and their joy.

They have their share in this life. They treat the good things of this world as the best things and as enough to make them happy. So they choose them, rest in them, and aim at them as their highest good. They are content with these things, their souls settle into ease in them, and they do not look beyond this life or worry about another.

These things are their comfort (Luke 6:24), their good things (Luke 16:25), their reward (Matthew 6:5), the payment they agreed on (Matthew 20:13). So the psalmist asks, Lord, should people like this be supported and honored against those who honor you by choosing your favor above all the wealth of this world and by taking you as their portion? (Psalm 16:5).

They also have plenty of the world. They have strong appetites and enough to satisfy them, for you fill their bellies with your hidden treasures. The things of this world are called treasures because people count them that way, though to a soul, and compared with eternal blessings, they are only trash. They are hidden in many parts of creation and in God’s wise ordering of providence, that is, his careful rule over all things. They are God’s hidden treasures, for the earth is his and everything in it, even though worldly people act as if it all belongs to them and forget God’s claim on it.

Those who live richly every day have their bellies filled with these hidden treasures. But those treasures only fill the belly (1 Corinthians 6:13), not the soul. They are not bread for the soul, and they cannot satisfy it (Isaiah 55:2). They are husks, ashes, and wind. Yet most people, with no care for their souls and all their care for their bellies, settle for them.

They also have large families and plenty to leave behind. They are full of children, and still their pasture is not overcrowded. They have enough for all, and they leave the rest of their wealth to their children and grandchildren. This is their heaven, their delight, and their all. David says, Lord, deliver me from people like that. Do not let me have my share with them. Deliver me from their plans against me, for since they have so much wealth and power, I cannot stand against them unless the Lord is on my side.

He then pleads his own dependence on God as his portion and happiness. They have their portion in this life, but as for me (Psalm 17:15), I am not one of them. I have little of this world. I neither have it, nor need it, nor care for it. I set my happiness in seeing and enjoying God. That is what I hope for, what comforts me, and what sets me apart from those who have their portion in this life.

Looking on God’s face with joy may be seen as our duty and comfort in this world. We must, in righteousness, that is, clothed with Christ’s righteousness and with a good heart and life, look by faith on God’s face and keep him always before us. We should spend our days thinking on the beauty of the Lord. When we wake each morning, we should be satisfied with his likeness shown to us in his word and stamped on us by his renewing grace, that is, the new life he gives us. Knowing God’s favor toward us and seeing our lives shaped like his should give us more joy than those who have their bellies filled with the pleasures of the senses.

It is also our reward and happiness in the world to come. With that hope he ended the previous psalm, and he does the same here. That happiness is prepared and intended only for the righteous, those who are justified and sanctified, made right with God and made holy. They will receive it when they awake, when the soul wakes at death from its sleep in the body, and when the body wakes at the resurrection from its sleep in the grave.

That blessed state will have three parts. First, we shall see God and his glory face to face, not as in this world, dimly and indirectly. Then the knowledge of God will be made complete, and the enlarged mind will be filled with it. Second, we shall share in his likeness. Our holiness will then be perfect. This follows from the first, as 1 John 3:2 says: when he appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. Third, there will be a full and complete satisfaction from all this: I shall be satisfied, fully satisfied, with it. A soul finds no true satisfaction except in God, in his face and likeness, in his good will toward us, and in his gracious work in us. Even then, that satisfaction will not be complete until we come to heaven.