Psalm 61:1

The heading names David as the writer and gives the psalm “To the chief Musician”, the director of music, so that a personal prayer could be sung in Israel’s public worship and the whole people could pray it with him. “Upon Neginah” names the music that went with it, most likely stringed instruments.

The psalm leaves the occasion unnamed, and David’s life held many dangers. As a young man he fled from Saul and hid in the wilderness (1 Samuel 23). Years later, as king, he fled Jerusalem when his son Absalom rebelled (2 Samuel 15). The flight from Absalom fits especially well, since the second half of the psalm prays for the king’s life and ends with a vow of daily praise (Psalm 61:5–8), and in these verses David speaks as a man far from the sanctuary. Whichever trouble it was, Psalm 61 belongs to a man in danger and away from home, and God has given it to his people for their own times of trouble.

David opens by asking God to hear and to listen closely. The first verb, shâmaʻ, is the ordinary word for hearing, and it carries the further sense of hearing with understanding and paying heed. The word for cry, rinnâh, is a raised voice. It can be a ringing shout of joy, and here it is a cry in prayer. The second line asks God to “attend”, qâshab, which means to listen attentively, literally to incline the ears. The two lines say the same thing twice, with the second pressing a little harder, a pattern common in Hebrew poetry, and the repetition carries David’s urgency.

He speaks to God directly, “O God”, as a man who trusts him and depends on him, and he asks with full confidence that God hears. In another psalm David says of a day of distress, “he heard my voice out of his temple, and my cry came before him, even into his ears” (Psalm 18:6), and he opens Psalm 4 the same way: “Hear me when I call” (Psalm 4:1). Isaiah assures Israel that the LORD’s hand is still strong to save and his ear still open to hear (Isaiah 59:1). God is near to his people and attentive to them in whatever trouble they are in, so David brings his distress to him in plain words, and we can do the same.

“From the end of the earth” is David’s way of saying how far away he feels, from home, from the sanctuary and from any help. It may describe real distance, such as a flight from Jerusalem, and its force lies in the sense of standing at the very edge of things, as far from safety as a man can be. From there he still says, “will I cry unto thee”. The verb, qârâʼ, means to call out to someone, to address him by name. God hears at every distance, and David’s prayer rests on that. The same longing for God’s presence from far away fills Psalm 42.

He tells God the state he is in: “when my heart is overwhelmed”. The heart, lêb, is the whole inner person, mind, will and feelings together. The verb ʻâṭaph means to shroud or cover over, and from that to faint or grow feeble. David pictures himself wrapped in his trouble until his strength gives out. A king who might have hidden his weakness from everyone says it plainly to God.

“Lead me to the rock that is higher than I” is the heart of David’s request. The word for rock, tsûwr, means a rock or a cliff, and Scripture uses it as a title for God himself, the Rock. In a land of rugged hills a high rock was a natural refuge and a stronghold against enemies, so everyone who sang this psalm knew the picture. David calls the LORD “my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer” in Psalm 18:2, and another psalm says, “I will say of the LORD, He is my refuge and my fortress” (Psalm 91:2).

“Higher than I” comes from rûwm, to be high or lifted up. The rock is out of David’s reach. He is too low and too weak to climb to safety, so he asks God to lead him there. The God he prays to is greater than he is in strength, wisdom and steadiness, and he is able to lift David above the trouble that covers him and set him in a high and safe place. So the prayer asks for God’s leading as well as his protection, because the way up lies beyond the overwhelmed man’s own strength.

Verse 3 gives the reason David can pray this way: “For thou hast been a shelter for me”. The past tense matters. His plea rests on what God has already done for him, again and again, through a life full of danger, and the God who sheltered him before will shelter him now, because God’s character is unchanging. Psalm 90 opens with the same confession, “Lord, thou hast been our dwelling place in all generations” (Psalm 90:1), and Hebrews says of our Lord, “Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever” (Hebrews 13:8).

“Shelter” is machăçeh, a refuge or hiding place, somewhere to flee to and be safe. The Psalms use the word again and again of God himself: “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble” (Psalm 46:1). Moses says the same in his blessing of Israel, “The eternal God is thy refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms” (Deuteronomy 33:27).

“Strong tower” is migdâl-ʻôz. A migdâl is a tower, and ʻôz is strength or might. In Israel towers were fortified structures, built into city walls or standing alone as strongholds, and people under attack fled into them. The two pictures fit together. The shelter is a place to hide and rest, and the tower is a defence that stands up to attack, and God is both to his people. Proverbs uses the same picture: “The name of the LORD is a strong tower: the righteous runneth into it, and is safe” (Proverbs 18:10).

“The enemy” is ʼôyêb, one who is hostile, a foe. For David these were real men who sought his life, and the word reaches to every power that sets itself against God’s people. Because God has been his tower, David can say with another psalm, “the LORD is the strength of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?” (Psalm 27:1).

Verse 4 turns from asking to resolve: “I will abide in thy tabernacle for ever”. The tabernacle, ʼôhel, is a tent, and Strong’s ties the word to a root meaning to be clear or to shine, a tent that stands out plainly from a distance. Israel’s tabernacle was the portable sanctuary where God’s presence dwelt among his people in the wilderness, before the temple was built. For David it stood for the heart of Israel’s worship and the place of God’s covenant presence, and far from it, he longs to live there.

“Abide” is gûwr, which usually means to sojourn, to stay somewhere for a time. With “for ever”, ʻôwlâm, that stay becomes permanent. David wants the nearness of God’s house to last without end, the same desire as in Psalm 27:4: “that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life”. His hope rests on God’s steadfast love, his hesed, which endures through every generation.

“I will trust in the covert of thy wings.” The verb for trust, châçâh, means to flee for protection, to seek refuge, and from there to trust. David’s trust is a running to God for cover. “Covert”, çêther, is a covering or hiding place, a secret place out of the enemy’s reach. “Wings”, kânâph, is the word for a bird’s wing, and it can also mean an edge or extremity. The picture is of a mother bird gathering her young under her wings to shield them from danger and storm, close, warm and wholly covered.

Scripture uses this picture of God more than once. “He shall cover thee with his feathers, and under his wings shalt thou trust” (Psalm 91:4). Boaz blesses Ruth in the name of the LORD God of Israel, “under whose wings thou art come to trust” (Ruth 2:12). In this one verse David joins the tent and the wings, God’s presence and God’s protection, as the two things he wants for ever.

In Jesus we find the fullness of what David asked for. David cried out in his distress, and Jesus cried to his Father in Gethsemane, “O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me: nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt” (Matthew 26:39). Being in an agony, he prayed more earnestly (Luke 22:44), so he knows what it is for a heart to be overwhelmed. On the cross he cried, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46), as he bore the sin of the world. David cried for his own deliverance, and Christ suffered for the redemption of his people. Now risen, “he ever liveth to make intercession” for those who come to God by him (Hebrews 7:25), and our cries reach the Father through him.

He is the rock that is higher than we are. Jesus likens the one who hears and does his sayings to a wise man who built his house upon a rock (Matthew 7:24–25). Paul says of Israel in the wilderness, “that Rock was Christ” (1 Corinthians 10:4), and he calls Jesus the chief corner stone of God’s household (Ephesians 2:20). To all who labour and are heavy laden Jesus says, “Come unto me”, and he gives them rest (Matthew 11:28–30).

He is the shelter and the strong tower. Isaiah calls the LORD a refuge for the needy in their distress (Isaiah 25:4), and in Christ that refuge has come. He has spoiled principalities and powers (Colossians 2:15), he said, “I have overcome the world” (John 16:33), and God “giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Corinthians 15:57). The LORD is our strength and our redeemer (Psalm 19:14).

He is God’s tabernacle among us. “The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us” (John 1:14), and the Greek verb for dwelt, eskēnōsen, means that he tabernacled, or pitched his tent, among us. He used the picture of wings too, lamenting over Jerusalem, “how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not!” (Matthew 23:37). David’s longing to abide in God’s tent for ever has its full answer at the end: “Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them” (Revelation 21:3).

This prayer gives us words for the times when we are far from home and the heart is overwhelmed. It shows a God who hears a cry from the end of the earth and leads his people to a rock higher than they can reach by themselves. David’s “thou hast been” shows that remembering what God has already done is part of praying to him, because the one who sheltered us before is the same today. And the prayer ends where every trouble of God’s people ends, in his presence for ever, under the cover of his wings.