Psalm 20:4

The heading reads “To the chief Musician, A Psalm of David.” David is its author, and it was handed to the leader of music so that it could be sung in public worship. Every “thee” and “thy” in these five verses is the king, and the “we” of verse 5 is the people who pray for him. The king is about to face “the day of trouble”, and the banners of verse 5 and the chariots and horses of Psalm 20:7 point to a battle. Before such a day the king and the people came together before God with sacrifices and prayer, and this psalm gives us the words of that prayer.

The psalm moves in three steps. The people ask in verses 1 to 5, then comes a declaration of confidence that the LORD saves his anointed (Psalm 20:6), and the psalm closes with one more plea for the king to be saved (Psalm 20:9). The psalm that follows it, Psalm 21, gives thanks for a victory God has granted, so the two belong together as the prayer before the battle and the thanksgiving after it.

The prayer opens with God’s covenant name. “The LORD” in capitals is how the KJV writes Yᵉhôvâh, the personal name God made known to Moses. It comes from the root meaning “to be” and speaks of the God who exists of himself and who keeps the promises he makes to his people.

The word translated “hear” is ʻânâh, which means to answer or respond. The people are asking that God would reply to the king’s cry, and a reply from God in a day of battle is help that arrives. God himself invites this prayer: “call upon me in the day of trouble” (Psalm 50:15). The psalm takes it for granted that such days come, even to a king who serves God, and it shows what to do with them.

“Defend” translates sâgab, to be lofty or, when God does it to someone, to make him lofty and so out of reach. The picture is of a man lifted to a high, strong place where his enemies cannot get at him. Scripture draws the same picture elsewhere: “The name of the LORD is a strong tower: the righteous runneth into it, and is safe” (Proverbs 18:10). “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble” (Psalm 46:1), and Nahum says, “The LORD is good, a strong hold in the day of trouble” (Nahum 1:7).

Verse 2 says where the help is to come from. “Help” is ʻêzer, aid or assistance, and “sanctuary” is qôdesh, a word for what is holy, used here for the holy place where God was worshipped and where his presence dwelt among his people. “Zion” (Tsîyôwn) is the hill in Jerusalem tied to that worship, and the name came to stand for Jerusalem itself as the city of God. The two lines say one thing in two ways, as Hebrew poetry often does: the help the king needs comes from God’s own presence.

“Strengthen” is çâʻad, to support, uphold or sustain. It is the word for holding someone up so that he stays on his feet, which is a lasting kind of help for a long and hard day. Another psalm sings of the city of God, “God is in the midst of her; she shall not be moved” (Psalm 46:4–5), and another answers the question of where help comes from by saying that it comes from the LORD, who made heaven and earth (Psalm 121:1–2). God makes the same promise in his own voice through Isaiah, that he will strengthen, help and uphold his people (Isaiah 41:10), and Paul says that he can do all things through Christ who strengthens him (Philippians 4:13).

Before the battle the king has brought his worship to God, and the people ask God to take notice of it. “Remember” is zâkar, the ordinary word for remembering. When Scripture speaks of God remembering, it means that he acts on what he keeps in mind, so the request is that the king’s long devotion would count with God now.

Two kinds of sacrifice are named. “Offerings” is minchâh, a gift or tribute, and in Israel’s worship it was usually the offering without blood, the grain offering of flour, oil and frankincense described in Leviticus 2. Here, with the word “all”, it gathers up the king’s gifts to God over the years. The “burnt sacrifice” is ʻôlâh, the offering in which the whole animal apart from its hide was burned on the altar and went up to God in smoke, a sign of complete dedication to him. Together they stand for the whole of the king’s worship.

“Accept” is an unusual word, dâshên. Its basic sense is to be fat or to make fat, and it is related to the word for the fat ashes left on the altar. The people are asking God to count the king’s sacrifice rich and pleasing, and so to look with favour on him and his cause.

This is a humble appeal to a faithful God. He himself appointed worship as the way to come before him, and the people trust him to honour it. Scripture is clear that the sacrifice must come from an obedient heart, for “to obey is better than sacrifice” (1 Samuel 15:22). Animal sacrifice has since given way to the one sacrifice of Christ, and what we bring now is ourselves, presented as living sacrifices (Romans 12:1), a devotion that God still sees and remembers.

Verse 4 turns from the king’s worship to his desires and plans. “Grant” is nâthan, the common Hebrew verb “to give”, so whatever the king gains will be a gift from God’s hand. “Heart” is lêbâb, which in Hebrew covers the whole inner person: mind, will, reason and moral character as well as feeling. “Counsel” is ʻêtsâh, advice or a plan, and here it means the king’s purposes and strategy for the day ahead. “Fulfil” is mâlêʼ, to fill, and so to accomplish or bring to completion. The first line prays for what the king wants within, and the second for the plans that come out of it.

The prayer honours both God’s rule and the king’s part. The king still thinks, desires and plans, and God is the one who grants and completes. Proverbs holds the two together: “A man’s heart deviseth his way: but the LORD directeth his steps” (Proverbs 16:9). We are told to commit our works to the LORD so that our thoughts may be established (Proverbs 16:3), and Paul says that God himself works in us both to will and to do what pleases him (Philippians 2:13). The God who is asked to fulfil the king’s counsel has counsels of his own for his people, thoughts of peace and an expected end (Jeremiah 29:11).

In verse 5 the people speak about themselves, and their asking turns into a promise. “Rejoice” is rânan, to give a ringing cry or shout, usually for joy. They are promising loud, open gladness, and they promise it before the battle has been fought, which is an act of faith in the God they have just prayed to. Paul calls for the same settled joy when he writes, “Rejoice in the Lord alway” (Philippians 4:4).

What they will rejoice in is “thy salvation”. The word is yᵉshûwʻâh, deliverance or rescue, and it reaches as wide as victory, help and welfare. Here it is the victory God will give the king. Isaiah sings of it in the same spirit: “Behold, God is my salvation” (Isaiah 12:2).

The banners come from the life of an army. Standards identified the troops and rallied them, and raising them after a battle announced the triumph. The Hebrew here is a verb, dâgal, to raise a flag, so the line could be put “in the name of our God we will lift the banner”. Israel takes a soldier’s custom and turns it into a confession. When the banners go up, they will go up in God’s name, and everyone who sees them will know whose victory it is. Moses did the same after a victory, when he built an altar and called it Jehovah-nissi, “The LORD is my banner” (Exodus 17:15).

Every line of this prayer comes true in Jesus, the Son of David and the true Anointed One. His day of trouble was his suffering and his cross, where he bore our griefs and was wounded for our transgressions (Isaiah 53:4–6). God answered him by raising him from the dead and setting him on high, at his own right hand (Acts 2:32–36), and by giving him the name above every name (Philippians 2:9–11). The prayer “the name of the God of Jacob defend thee” was answered there in full.

Jesus is also the sanctuary the psalm looks to. He said, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up” (John 2:19), speaking of himself, and at his death the veil of the temple was torn (Matthew 27:51). The Zion we have come to through him is the heavenly Jerusalem, the city of the living God (Hebrews 12:22–24). Because he is our great high priest, we come boldly to the throne of grace and find help in time of need (Hebrews 4:14–16).

The king’s offerings pointed ahead to his. Jesus is “the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world” (John 1:29), and his one offering did what the repeated sacrifices of the law could only foreshadow (Hebrews 10:1–10). God accepted that sacrifice completely, and through Christ he now accepts the spiritual sacrifices of his people (1 Peter 2:5).

His was the one heart perfectly at one with the Father. “My meat is to do the will of him that sent me, and to finish his work” (John 4:34), he said, and he came down from heaven to do the will of the one who sent him (John 6:38). The Father granted him according to his heart and fulfilled all his counsel, which was our redemption. As for us, the Spirit helps our weakness and intercedes for us according to God’s will (Romans 8:26–27), so that our hearts come to want what God wants, with “Christ in you, the hope of glory” (Colossians 1:27).

The salvation we rejoice in is his victory over sin and death. At the cross he disarmed the powers and triumphed over them openly (Colossians 2:15), so the cross is the banner we raise, and through him who loved us we are more than conquerors (Romans 8:37). He is the way to the Father (John 14:6), and he tells us to ask in his name (John 14:13–14). He lives for ever to make intercession for us (Hebrews 7:25), and in him all the promises of God are Yes and Amen (2 Corinthians 1:20).

This psalm puts words in our mouths for another person’s trouble. Israel stood behind their king and asked God for five things on his behalf: an answer, safety, help, favour and success. Those are things we can ask for anyone we love who is facing a hard day, and for those who lead us in the church and in the nation. The psalm shows a people who carried their leader to God before they followed him anywhere else.

It also shows where the confidence of such a prayer comes from. Israel leaned on the name of God, on who he had already shown himself to be to Jacob, and on the worship he had appointed. We lean on the same God, and we have the name of Jesus and his finished sacrifice to plead. The God who answered his own Son in the day of trouble hears those who come to him through that Son.

And the psalm teaches a joy that looks ahead. The people chose their song and readied their banners while the battle was still to come, because they knew whom they had asked. When help does come, in a great matter or a small one, the banner belongs to him. The credit for every rescue is God’s, and saying so openly is part of our worship.