The Bible Study Podcast, episode 394. Today, the Bible Study podcast continues the study of Psalms with Psalm 57.

Welcome to the Bible Study podcast. I'm your host, Chris Christensen. I am interested as we go through

this study of Psalms again and again to think about these Psalms as the hymns that were sung

by the people of God, because so many of them don't seem like the kind of hymns that I'm used to.

They don't seem like the kind of praise songs.

And this one in Psalm 57 is one of those that starts that way for me.

And it starts like this.

It's a Psalm again of David to the tune of Do Not Destroy, which we don't know what that tune means, and it's written at the time when he had fled from Saul into the cave.

Have mercy on me, my God. Have mercy on me. For in you, I take refuge. I will take refuge in the shadow of your wings until the disaster has passed. I cry out to God

most high, to God who vindicates me. He sends me from heaven and saves me, rebuking those who hotly pursue me.

God sends forth his love and his faithfulness. I am in the midst of lions. I am forced to dwell

among ravenous beasts, men whose teeth are spears and arrows, whose tongues are sharp swords.

Now, the other thing I have to wonder is why in the midst of this fleeing, David takes time to stop and write a song.

But that is what David does.

David is writing in the midst of his very real problem.

And his very real problem is the king is trying to kill him.

Saul is trying to kill him.

He hasn't done anything wrong,

and yet he calls out for mercy. Now, often when we have a Psalm of David and he's calling for mercy, it's written in a time period in his life when he has really screwed up. But this is a time

period where he's being faithful to God, and yet he's calling for help. He's calling for

mercy to not get the bad thing that he feels he deserves. And he's calling for God to shelter

him, to shelter him under the shadow of his wings. This is not to say that God has wings,

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