I. (7:1–2) Cry for Safety. The psalm opens with words expressing trust: “My God, in you do I take refuge.” Then it moves on to explain the kind of crisis in view: “pursuers” whose goal is to “tear my soul apart.”

The expressions in verses 2 (“tear my soul apart, rending it in pieces”) form an image for slander and its damaging effects. This follows from the protestations of innocence (vv. 3–4, 8) and the references to the enemies’ “mischief,” “lies,” and “violence” (vv. 14, 16), as well as the similar image found in Daniel 3:8, where the Aramaic behind “maliciously accused” is literally “ate the pieces.”

II. (7:3–5) Claim of Innocence. The first movement of the psalm professes the singer’s innocence: the person singing this in good faith claims not to have betrayed the trust that should bind the people of God together.

Observe how the general expression in 7:3 (“wrong in my hands”) finds closer clarification in verse 4 (“repaid my friend with evil,” “plundered my enemy without cause”). That is, the specific wrongdoing in view concerns the social connections between the fellow members of God’s people. The Sinai covenant established Israel as (ideally, anyhow) God’s new humanity, whose relationships are to show forth true humanness for all the Gentiles to see. Hence often in both the Psalms and the Prophets the sins denounced are “social,” for the ethic assumed throughout the Bible prizes a peaceful and loving community.

This psalm is suited only for those cases in which the danger stems from the malice of the persecutors, not from the wrongdoing of the person in trouble. Thus verse 5 offers a prayer of self-malediction: “If I am guilty of the things of which I am accused, then let my enemy succeed.” A person who cannot make the claim of verses 3–4 in good faith ought not sing this! Hence this serves as an implicit warning that those who commit the evils listed here ought, rather than using this psalm to ask for God’s help, to begin with confession of sin (i.e., a different song, such as Psalm 6).

III. (7:6–11) Call to God to Arise as Judge. This section sets the singers’ requests into their larger picture, with the notion of God’s judging activity and his righteous anger bracketing the stanza (vv. 6, 11).

The prayer begins (v. 6) with asking God to “arise” (as in 3:7) and then to “awake” (as in 35:23). These words portray the situation in which the enemies seem to get away with their attacks, as if God were inactive.

But this inactivity is only (1) seeming and (2) temporary. God has “appointed a judgment,” a time in which he will vindicate his righteous rule over his creatures. That judgment will apply even to the “assembly of the peoples” (vv. 7, 8), not only Israel.

The song appeals to God for judgment, which may strike us as odd. In English the word “judge” tends to focus more on condemning than on rescuing, but in the Psalms judging is more often than not a saving action, God’s intervening on behalf of the innocent and oppressed; such is the case here (vv. 9–10). Since God is a “righteous judge” (v. 11), his “anger” (v. 6) and “indignation” (v. 11) are directed against those who threaten his faithful ones (“the righteous,” v. 9; “the upright in heart,” v. 10). Hence the particular deliverance in view is part of God’s larger project of putting the whole world back to its right order (v. 9).

IV. (7:12–16) Evil Returns upon the Evildoers. This stanza follows directly from the previous stanza: if God is a righteous judge, then the faithful may live with the assurance that he will turn the persecutors’ own schemes against them.

“If a man does not repent” (v. 12) makes it clear that there is a way out for the persecutors: they can seek the Lord. This phrase warns the wicked and invites them to repentance; it also helps the faithful to prefer and wish that their oppressors would turn to God rather than suffer punishment.

The punishment that befalls the persecutors is fitting as the reversal of their schemes: the “wicked” (those who take the lead in oppressing the faithful; v. 14) might be “pregnant with mischief,” but that “mischief returns upon his own head” (vv. 14, 16).

V. (7:17) Closing Confidence. For the faithful the Lord’s “righteousness” and his status as the “Most High” (expounded in vv. 6–11) lead to giving thanks and singing praise, for God’s purpose of justice will prevail.

This is the first passage in the Psalms to use the title “Most High” (Hb. ʿElyon) for God (cf. 9:2; 18:13 [2 Sam. 22:14]; Ps. 21:7; 46:4; 47:2; 50:14; 57:2; 73:11; 77:10; 78:17, 35, 56; 82:6; 83:18; 87:5; 91:1, 9; 92:1; 97:9; 107:11). These go back to Genesis 14:18–22, where Melchizedek is a priest of “God Most High” (ʾEl ʿElyon), a deity Abram identifies with the Lord, Yahweh (cf. Num. 24:16; Deut. 32:8; Isa. 14:14; Lam. 3:35, 38; and, using Aramaic cognates, Dan. 3:26; 4:24, 34; 7:22, 25, 27; Hos. 11:7 uses a related word). The NT uses the Greek equivalent (hypsistos) in Mark 5:7; Luke 1:32, 35, 76; 6:35; 8:28; Acts 7:48; 16:17; Hebrews 7:1 (referring to Gen. 14:18).101 Although there is some evidence that polytheistic peoples used these terms for the chief deity who was head of the pantheon,102 it would be a mistake to say that this concept came into the Bible through simple borrowing. In the Bible there is one Supreme God, who is uncreated, and he has a heavenly council, the members of which were themselves created by the one God (Christians might call them “the angelic host”; sometimes these may be the “gods” in the Bible, as perhaps in Ps. 8:5, on which cf. comment on 8:3–8).