Psalm 52:9

The heading of the psalm ties it to Doeg the Edomite, King Saul’s chief herdsman. Doeg saw Ahimelech the priest give help to David at Nob and reported it to Saul. When Saul ordered the priests put to death, Doeg carried it out himself. Eighty-five priests were killed, and their town, with its families and livestock, was struck down with them (1 Samuel 22:9–19). His words did as much harm as his sword, and the psalm grieves over that treachery and is rightly angry at it.

The psalm is a Maskil, a psalm of instruction, and it sets two men and their ends side by side. Its opening verses expose the boasting and the deceitful tongue of the “mighty man” (Psalm 52:1–4). God will root him out of the land of the living (52:5), and the righteous will see it, fear, and laugh at the man who made his wealth his strength (52:6–7). Then come the words “But I”, and the psalm turns from the wicked man to David and the God he trusts.

The picture answers the judgment that has just been pronounced. The wicked man of Psalm 52:1–7 is uprooted, and David is a tree that stays planted and goes on growing. The word for green, ra’ănân, means fresh, vigorous and flourishing, a tree in full and lasting health. The olive tree, zayith, is simply the olive tree or its fruit, and it was among the most valued trees in Israel. It is evergreen, it can live for centuries, it thrives in dry ground, and year after year it yields the oil that Israel used for food, for light and for anointing. So the simile pictures a life that lasts, holds firm through hard seasons and bears fruit.

Scripture uses a flourishing tree for the righteous elsewhere too. The blessed man of the first psalm is like a tree planted by the rivers of water (Psalm 1:3), Jeremiah says that the one who trusts in the LORD is blessed like a tree planted by the waters (Jeremiah 17:7–8), and a later psalm says that the righteous flourish in the courts of God (Psalm 92:12–14).

The second half of the verse gives the root of the tree. “Mercy” is cheçed, from the root ḥāsaḏ, one of the richest words in the Old Testament. It means kindness, and it is used again and again for God’s steadfast love, his loyal kindness and his faithfulness to his covenant. The same word can also mean piety, the loyal love that his people return to him. God’s cheçed rests on his own unchanging character and promises, and so it reaches people who have earned nothing from him.

To trust, bâṭach, is to rely on someone with confidence, to lean on him and rest your hope there. The wicked man leaned on his riches and his own power, and David leans on the mercy of God. “For ever and ever” says that this mercy never runs out, and so the one who trusts in it is safe for as long as it lasts. The Psalms come back to this often, most famously in the psalm that gives thanks to God because his mercy endures for ever (Psalm 136:1).

Verse 9 is the end of the psalm, and David answers God with praise. The verb yâdâh means to praise, to give thanks or to confess, and Strong’s ties it to the hand held out in worship. It is open, spoken acknowledgment of who God is and what he has done. “For ever” in verse 9 picks up the “for ever and ever” of verse 8: the mercy David trusts lasts for ever, and so will his thanks for it.

“I will wait on thy name” uses qâvâh, which means to wait for, look for, or hope for. It is hopeful, expectant looking to God, kept up through a time when he has yet to act. The name, shêm, is a person’s mark of who he is, and so it carries his honour, his authority and his character. God’s name stands for all he has shown himself to be: his power, his holiness, his justice, his mercy and his faithfulness. Israel called on it in oaths, in worship and in courts of law. To wait on his name is to rest your hope on who he has shown himself to be, and to leave the timing of his justice with him.

Other Scriptures speak in the same way. A psalm of David tells us to rest in the LORD and wait patiently for him (Psalm 37:7), Isaiah says that those who wait upon the LORD will renew their strength (Isaiah 40:31), and the letter to the Hebrews urges believers to hold fast the profession of their hope, because the one who promised is faithful (Hebrews 10:23).

The last clause says why David waits on God’s name: “it is good before thy saints.” The “it” is God’s name, his character and the righteous things he does. The word for good, ṭôwb, is good in the widest sense, covering what is beautiful, kind, pleasant, generous and for the welfare of others. God’s name is good by his own perfect standard, and his people find it good too.

The saints are the châçîyd, the kind, the godly, the faithful. The word describes people who have received God’s cheçed and who answer it with devotion and faithfulness of their own. So the mercy David trusts in verse 8 marks out the people among whom he praises in verse 9. God’s goodness is shown openly before them. When he judges the wicked and vindicates the righteous, his whole people see it, and their faith and hope are strengthened. The humble hear such praise and are glad (Psalm 34:2), and in another psalm the sufferer who is delivered says to God, “I will declare thy name unto my brethren” (Psalm 22:22).

The New Testament gives these pictures their fullest meaning in Jesus Christ. He calls himself the true vine (John 15:1), and those who abide in him bear much fruit, which is what the green olive tree pictures. The house of God is now the people built on him, for believers are living stones built up into a spiritual house and a holy priesthood (1 Peter 2:5). Paul speaks of believers grafted into the olive tree to share its life (Romans 11:17). The mercy David trusted was shown most fully at the cross, where God commended his love toward us in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us (Romans 5:8).

Verse 9 looks the same way. Through the cross Christ triumphed over principalities and powers (Colossians 2:15), and our praise goes to the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world (John 1:29), because he has done it. We still wait on his name as we look for his return, praying with the last chapter of the Bible, “Come, Lord Jesus” (Revelation 22:20). His goodness is declared before his saints, the church, a chosen people called to show forth the praises of the one who called them out of darkness into his light (1 Peter 2:9).

These verses were written in grief, after a massacre carried out by a liar who answered to no one. David meets that with a picture of quiet strength: a tree in God’s house, green in a dry land, fed by a mercy that lasts for ever and ever. The safety they describe belongs to the one who trusts God, while the man who trusted his wealth was uprooted.

They also show us the God who is trusted. His mercy is loyal and never ends, his name is good, and what he sets out to do he does, so surely that David can thank him for it beforehand. He shows his goodness among his people, so praise and waiting are both done in company with the saints. When the wicked prosper for a while, Psalm 52 gives us the green olive tree, the open hand of thanks, and a name that is worth waiting on.