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Hey, Bible nerds. This is Dr. Manny Arango and I'm your host for the Bible department podcast. Powered by Arma. This podcast follows a Bible reading plan we created to help you read the entire Bible in a year. You can head to the show notes or thebibledepartment.com to download our reading plan and join the journey. Let's be honest, a lot of us are still treating digital ministry like it's a backup plan from 2020. But discipleship isn't just happening on Sundays anymore. People need gospel centered connection every day of the week. And if you're stuck juggling five different platforms, one for giving, another for sermons, something else for events, it's no wonder engagement feels off. That's not ministry. That's a mess. Subsplash changes that one platform. Everything you need, media, giving, events, messaging, your app, your website built specifically for churches. No hacks, no workarounds, just clarity and simplicity. Because every day you wait, families scroll past your sermons, new guests click away from clunky sites, and real people miss real moments with Jesus. Don't waste another summer stuck in digital survival mode. Use it to get ahead, simplify, upgrade, get back to what matters. Head to subsplash.combible-dept and schedule a free no pressure demo. And let this be the summer your church gets focused and fully equipped. Family. Welcome to day 270. We are going to look at three of David's Psalms today here at the Bible Department. I'm super, super excited. Hey, if you haven't done the reading today, how about you stop the video, pause the audio, go do the reading. Today we are reading Psalm 54, 55 and 56, three short Psalms. These would also be like Psalms of lament. And so they're probably not gonna get you fired up, but they're important, they emphasize, and they express the full spectrum of human emotion. We're gonna dive into some of those human feelings today. All right, so if you have done the reading, let's dive in. Let's get into context clues. Like, every day I'm gonna give you context for what we're reading, and then we're gonna dive into some nerdy nuggets, maybe some things that you wouldn't have picked up if you're reading on your own, and then end the episode with a timeless truth. So context clues like you probably are aware of at this point. We've looked at 53 Psalms. There are these headings at the top of the Psalms. Okay, so Psalm 54 is going to have one of these headings. I'll read it straight out of my Bible. It says, for the director of music with stringed instruments, a maskal of David. So we know that this is something written by David. And then it gives this little phrase. When the ziphites had gone to Saul and said, is not David hiding among us? Right. I'll say that one more time. When the ziphites had gone to Saul and said, is not David hiding among us? So that is the context for this psalm, okay? David writes this psalm based on that life scenario. So where is that life scenario found? I'm so glad that you asked. It is found in 1st Samuel, chapter 23, verses 14 to 25. 1st Samuel, chapter 23, Verses 14 to 25. And of course, I've got Psalm 54 pulled up in this Bible, but I've got 1st Samuel, chapter 23 pulled up in this Bible. And so if we go, go. You can go ahead and read. I'll read it straight from my Bible. 1 Samuel, chapter 23, verse. We can start reading at verse 14. David stayed in the wilderness strongholds and in the hills of the desert of Ziph. Here we go. Key word ziph. Okay? And if you go. Day after day, Saul searched for him. But God did not give David into Saul's hands. While David was at Horesh in the desert of Ziph, he learned that Saul had come out to take his life. And, okay, so Saul is adamant about trying to murder David. This is not a game, okay? David is on the run for his life. He is desperately trying to not die at the hands of Saul. And then if you drop all the way down to 19, the Ziphites, okay, went up to Saul at Gibeah and said, is not David hiding among us? So obviously, that is the exact heading that we have at the top of Psalm 54. Is not David hiding among us in the stronghold at Horesh on the hill of Hakalah, south of Jeshamon. Now, your majesty, come down whenever it pleases you to do so, and we will be responsible for giving him into your hands. Talk about, like, not knowing how to mind your business. Okay? The ziphites have nothing to do with this, but they are scared to be on the wrong side of history. Well, unfortunately or ironically, they. They do get on the wrong side of history, okay? They. They did pick the wrong side, okay? But what they don't want is Saul and his raiding army to come into their territory and for them to be disloyal to Saul. The only problem is that God has already selected David. And so in this scenario, loyalty does not look like loyalty to the old king, but it looks like loyalty to the new king that God has anointed and that God has appointed. And so we get a whole psalm now about these ziphites who betray David. And so this how the story ends. This is 1st Samuel, chapter 23, verse 27K. Saul comes down, he's literally pursuing David. They're literally on a mountain. Saul is chasing David around this mountain. And then verse 27, a messenger came to Saul while he's chasing David saying, come quickly, the Philistines are raiding the land. Then Saul broke off his pursuit of David and went to meet the Philistines. That is why they call this place Selah. Okay? And David went up from there and lived in the strongholds of En Gedi. All right, so that is 1st Samuel, chapter 23. Obviously this Psalm, okay? 1 Samuel 23 is what inspires the psalm that we have here today. Psalm 54. Okay, so that's context. David is in distress. David's on the run. This is probably the most stressful, probably top three most stressful experiences of David's life. I just want you to imagine being a commander in the army, being the king's son in law, being the best friend of the crown prince, being a military hero, being the person that has killed the, the famous enemy Goliath. And then all of a sudden your leader is so jealous of you and so full of evil and hatred that he's throwing spears at you at the palace. You eventually have to leave, leave your wife and your friends and your family and everyone that you know to just be chased around the wilderness like a wild animal. I mean, this is just a hard season of David's life in this very hard season produces some gut wrenching psalms. Okay? Psalm 54 starts out, save me, O God, by your name. Vindicate me by your might. Hear my prayer, oh God, listen to the words of my mouth. Arrogant foes are attacking me. Ruthless people are trying to kill me. People without regard for God. Surely God is my help. The Lord is the one who sustains me. That verse right there. Surely the surely God is my help. That word help, here's a nerdy nugget for the day. Is azer. That's the same word that, that the Bible is gonna use to describe Eve as a helper to Adam. And so that word is in no way, shape or form denigrating or like dishonoring. God actually describes himself in that way. David is not saying that God is beneath him. David is saying that God is strong enough to actually help him. And so when the Bible says that women are called to be a help mate to men, that's not like a disrespectful or denigrating term. It's saying you're strong enough to actually be a help. And so that's actually a word that is so esteemed that God uses it for himself. Let evil recoil on those who slander me in your faithfulness. Destroy them. Let it. Let. Let there be backlash. Let. Let it recoil back on them. The evil that they mean for me, God. Let it go ahead and backfire on them. I will sacrifice a free will offering to you. I will praise your name, Lord, for you are good. Here we go. I love this. This is verse seven. It's my favorite. You see how it starts in chapter 54, verse 1, as Save me, O God, by your name. Vindicate me by your might. It's. It's asking God to save, it's asking God to vindicate. But by the time we get to verse seven, you have delivered me. Not you will deliver me. You have delivered me. It's already in past tense. By the time we get to the end of the psalm, David has already moved from please, Lord, deliver me to you have delivered me. I'm already delivered from all my troubles, and my eyes have looked in triumph on my foes. It's funny, when me and my wife are battling through infertility, I just began to say on the cross, Jesus said, it is done, not it will be done. No, it is done. It is paid for. So the healing that we need in our physical body so that we could produce children, it was purchased on Calvary. Like, I'm not waiting for God to actually do anything. I have to walk in the full measure of what has already been done. You can see David doing the same process right here in Psalm 54. He starts out with, save me, oh God, by your name. But then by the end of the psalm, he realized, I'm already saved. I have been delivered. You have delivered me from all my troubles. All right, let's dive into Psalm 55. Let's give context for Psalm 56. Actually, this will be helpful. Okay, so we're going to skip Psalm 55 really quick. We're going to go to Psalm 56, and the context for Psalm 56 is 1st Samuel, chapter 21. So this is a nerdy nugget that I want to throw at you. Okay. The Psalms are not recounting what happened in David's life in chronological order. Okay. So things are not in chronological order. Because remember, the context for Psalm 54 is 1 Samuel, chapter 23, but the context for Psalm 56 is 1st Samuel, chapter 21. Okay? So we're going back two chapters in Samuel, Samuel, and we're gonna read like, well, what. What actually happened. And we can read it right here. In the heading of Psalm 56 says this for the director of music, to the tune of a dove on distant oaks of David, a mictam. Okay, so we. We've got a mictam. Here's a nerdy nugget. We're actually about to get a bunch of mictams. Okay? There are five mtams in book two. Remember, we're in book two of the Psalms right now. And so Psalm 56 all the way to Psalm 60. So 56, 57, 58, 59, and 60 are all going to be mictams. Now, before I even get into the context, I'm going to give you a nerdy nugget. Okay? The word mictam, I may have said this on a previous episode, could mean two things. I'm going to kind of read this from my iPad. There's two Hebrew words that m could be based on, okay? The first is ketem, which means gold, okay? That's the Hebrew word for gold. So a lot of people kind of refer to these miktams as golden psalms, okay, Due to the similarity of the name to the Hebrew word for gold, which is ketem. But this is not thought to be a good translation. Very popular, but I don't think it's a good translation. There's a more likely okay to come from the Hebrew word katemu, katemu, which means to cover. Okay, to cover. This same idea can be found in the covering in the sense of like, atonement, like your sins have been covered. Now, this image is more likely to be about covering the lips, okay? So that this is a secret psalm or a silent prayer uttered to Yahweh in times of distress. So there's not a golden psalm, as some scholars and theologians would maybe, you know, talk about, but this is more of a secret psalm or a silent prayer. And you can see that, like, these are psalms of distress, okay? The things that all three of these Psalms today have in common, Psalm 54, 55, and 56, is that these are psalms that come from a season of David's life where he is literally on the run for his life. He is scared that he is going to die. He is a political refugee. He is being hunted by a very powerful, very, very emotionally unstable and mentally unstable. Tormented, demonically tormented probably actually schizophrenic king named Saul. And Saul has all the power of the nation to throw at hunting David. The fact that David survives is a testament to God's grace and covering on David's life. And so we're going to get these psalms where David is covering his lips to offer up to God these silent prayers while he's in the middle of distress. So, Psalm 56. Okay, I dipped into some nerdy nuggets, and now we're back into context clues. Most of the episode I move from context clues to nerdy nuggets to timeless truth. But today we're kind of going back and forth between context and nerdy nuggets and context clues and nerdy nuggets. But you're a pro. You've been rocking with me for 270 days now, so you're good. It says this for the director of music. To the tune of a dove on distant oaks of David Amictam when the Philistines had seized him in Gath. All right, so let's go to First Samuel, chapter 24. Okay, sorry, First Samuel, chapter 21. First Samuel, chapter 21. I don't know why I said chapter 24, but it's First Samuel, chapter 21. And we are going to start reading. Verse 10 says this. That day David fled from Saul and went to Achish, king of Gath. Now, if you remember, Goliath is from Gath. And so literally, you kind of have to be crazy to go to the very hometown of the hero that you killed. Okay? But the servants of Achish said to him, isn't this David the king of the land? Isn't he the one they sing about in their dances? Saul has slain his thousands, David his tens of thousands. David took these words to heart and was very much afraid of Achish, king of Gath. So he pretended to be insane in their presence. And while he was in their hands, he acted like a madman, making marks on the doors of the gates and letting saliva run down his beard. Achish said to his servants, look at the man, he is insane. Why bring him to me? Am I so short of madmen that you have to bring this fellow here to carry on like this in front of me? Must this man come into my house? Now, why is David even in Gath? Well, he's in Gath because there's no safe place in Israel for him to be. The thing that proceeds or precedes this story is that David is at a place called Nob. And he says to Ahimelech the priest, is there a sword? And he actually gets Goliath's sword, okay? And he gets Goliath's sword. And what's going to happen? There's an Edomite, okay, named Doeg, who is going to go snitch. This whole Psalm 54 to 56 should be just like the psalm for the snitches, okay? Because literally, it's just a bunch of people snitching on David like, he's here, he's here, he's here. And because Doeg the Edomite snitches on David, what ends up happening is that David has to flee, okay? And so that's the reason that he's even in Gath in the first place, okay? And then after Gath, he escapes to the cave of Adullam, and he's just on the run, on the move, no home, no rest, no predictability to his life, just literally on the run, just living day by day, trying to survive, okay? And so out of this we get just song, psalms of anguish, okay? Remember I told you in. In chapter 54, verse 7. So Psalm 54, verse 7 kind of ended with, you have delivered. Well, guess what? We're going to get that again. Look at Psalm 56, verse 13, okay? Psalm 56, verse 13 says this. For you have delivered me from death and my feet from stumbling, that I may walk before God in the light of Life. So chapter 56 or Psalm 56 starts with be merciful to me, my God, for my enemies are in harp pursuit. All day long they press their attack. My adversaries pursue me all day long in their pride, many are attacking me, okay? So it's like, please pursue me, be merciful, or please have mercy on me, please pity me, please rescue me. And then we go from be merciful to me to you have delivered me. From death. We move from present tense to past tense. This is already done. By the time he gets to the end of the Psalm, he's acknowledging, you've already delivered me. You've already done the thing that I started this prayer asking you for. It's already done. And I just want to encourage anyone who prays on a regular basis. Your prayer should follow the same pattern. Lord God, would you please give us kids? You've already given us kids. God, would you please heal us from cancer. The cancer is already healed. You have healed me. I got a good friend whose dad did have cancer, and he felt like their family had a promise from God that his dad would be healed of cancer. And then his dad died, you know, of cancer. And his way of interpreting that was that, well, now he's healed because he's in heaven. And so whether or not someone gets healed while they're alive doesn't mean that they didn't get healed. God, you have healed me. You have. Whether or not I received the physical manifestation of that healing here on earth, or whether I receive the physical manifestation of that healing in the afterlife when I'm with you forever in heaven, I have been healed. And David comes to this conclusion. I have been delivered. You have delivered me. I'm not going to keep asking you to do something that you've already done. I think our timeless truth needs to be that whatever we're asking God for, you have to move into a position of, he's already done it, and I may as well praise him in advance for the thing that he's already done. Whether I see it here on earth or whether I see it in heaven, it's already done. It's funny, I. I was talking to a woman at a church recently, and I was just praying for people in the lobby, and I said, what can I pray for you for? And she said, well, I'm already healed, but my body hasn't gotten the memo yet. Don't you love that? I'm already healed, but my body hasn't caught up with what God has said yet. And can you pray that my body would come into alignment with what the Holy Spirit has said? But I believe I'm healed. And I began to say, yeah, we're going to pray for the symptoms to actually match up to the source of healing you already have. And you have the King of Kings, the Lord of Lords, who's pronounced healing over your life, and your body hasn't gotten the memo yet. Family, the wait is over. My brand new book, Crushing Chaos, is out now and available everywhere. Books are sold, literally. Today I walked into a Barnes and Noble and I signed a bunch of copies at a physical location. So you can grab this book at a physical Barnes and Noble or you can go to a Books A Million or Amazon or anywhere books are sold and grab a copy. If you enjoy reading the Bible from an ancient perspective, if you understand that the beauty of scripture is actually knowing it in context, then you'll love this book. And if there's any chaos in your personal life, I think that reading the Bible from an ancient perspective can actually help to crush the chaos in your life. I think this book is going to be a New York Times bestseller. I really do. I think we wrote A good one. I think you should get a copy today. All right, back to the episode. One other timeless truth that I want to give you for today is that Psalm 54. In Psalm 55, we didn't talk a lot about Psalm 55, but really my big key verse is going to come from Psalm 55 today. Let me just grab it in my Bible. Psalm 54 and Psalm 55 give voice to the personal pain of betrayal by close friends and trusted loved ones. We can all relate to this form of human and emotional pain. So I want you to go to Psalm 55, verses 12 to 14. Psalm 55, verse 12 to 14. Here's what actually makes these psalms really, really sad. Says this. If an enemy were insulting me, I could endure it. If a foe were rising against me, I could hide. But it is you. A man like myself, my companion, my close friend. You see what David is saying? Saying, if it was an enemy, I could endure it. Like it'd be okay. I could hide. But the betrayal of a close friend, of a brother, of a companion, this is unbearable. With whom I once enjoyed sweet fellowship at the house of God. We enjoyed the presence of God together as we walked about among the worshipers. Okay, so that's verses 12 to 14. Now skip over to verse 20. My companion attacks his friends. He violates his covenant. His talk is smooth as butter, yet war is in his heart. His words are more soothing than oil, yet they are drawn swords. One of the things that I think is timelessly true is that we're not only gonna experience betrayal or hurt by those who are sworn enemies, but we're also gonna experience betrayal and hurt by those closest to us, by friends, by people that we would have never seen it coming. And David goes ahead and gives voice to, like, that kind of deep personal pain. The thing that David is lamenting in these psalms in particular is not just that random people are attacking him or that want to see him die or trying to kill him, but that people that he loves and cares for and at one point trusted. And man, that sucks. Like, that's just hard. There are some friends that I've had for decades, and then there are some friends that I've had to mourn the loss of not being that person's friend anymore. And that stuff stings. And that is there's a temptation to just put a wall of defense up. But what we see in the Psalms is David's vulnerable, or David's choice to remain soft hearted and vulnerable, even when there's a temptation to become calloused. When there's personal betrayal in your life. And so I think that's not just relevant for David's life. I think that's relevant for your life. And obviously that was relevant for Jesus's life. I mean, it's not like some random person betrayed him. One of his disciples that he had spent three years with betrayed him. And I think all of us have people in our life who we would have never expected that they would be the person that would betray us. I've got a friend, I won't say his name, who found out that his wife was cheating on him with his best man at their wedding. Like, talk about just personal betrayal. Like, close personal betrayal. And so for people who are walking through those kinds of scenarios, Psalm 55, Psalm 54, 55, and 56 are for you. You're not alone. You're not the only person that's walked through the pain of personal betrayal. And you're in good company because so is David and so is Jesus. And David's words are not as relevant for him or for Jesus. They're relevant for you as well. All right, I'll see you tomorrow. For day 271. We're gonna be in Psalms 57, 58, and 59. It's gonna be good. All of the psalms tomorrow are your favorite. Yep. Mtams. I can't wait to see you. If you're on a streak, I love you. If you're not, come on, it's the Psalms. Dive in. I love you guys so much. See you right here tomorrow. Peace. Thanks so much for joining us on the Bible Department podcast. You can find us online and learn more about the show at thebibledepartment.com and on Instagram hebible department. If you enjoyed this episode and want to dive deeper into the Bible, you can get free access to our library of courses@thebibledepartment.com we'll see you back here tomorrow.