Psalms Chapter 12

Psalm 12: Pure Words in a Noisy World

According to the superscription, Psalm 12 is “for the director of music. According to the Sheminith.” Sheminith likely signals a lower register—eight-stringed accompaniment or bass voices. The music leans dark. That matters. Worship here is not triumphant fanfare; it is the grave key of a community whose speech-world has collapsed.

  1. When language breaks, the poor bleed David opens with social extinction: the faithful have vanished. The crisis he names is not war or famine but speech: flattering lips, double hearts, swaggering tongues. “With our tongues we will prevail; our lips are with us—who is lord over us?” In Hebrew, the phrase “double heart” (lev va-lev) pictures split interiority—two centers, two allegiances. “Flattering” (chelaqot) can mean smooth, slippery—words used like polished blades.

A western reader may miss how, in the ancient Near East, oaths and truthful speech were the bones of civil order. Archaeology gives us archives of treaties sealed by divine names; to break one was to unravel a city. When vows become vapor, the weak are first to suffer. Psalm 12 is not merely about manners; it is about power.

  1. God interrupts the propaganda The psalm contains a rare and startling divine oracle. “Because the poor are plundered and the needy groan, ‘I will now arise,’ says the LORD. ‘I will protect them from those who malign them’” (New International Version). The verb “groan” carries the sense of panting; the oppressed are out of breath. The Lord stands up to breathe for them. The line echoes God’s rise in the Exodus and in Isaiah 33:10—the Judge who does not outsource justice to public opinion.

  2. The furnace of earth “The words of the LORD are pure words, like silver refined in a furnace of clay, purified seven times” (New International Version). Excavations across the southern Levant have uncovered earthen crucibles and litharge cakes from ancient cupellation—the slow, repeated firing of metal to draw out dross. David gives us an image of revelation that is both earthy and exacting: God’s speech is not speculative vapor but weight tested in the hot grit of history.

Verse 7’s pronouns are famously ambiguous in Hebrew: “You, O LORD, will keep them; you will guard us/him from this generation forever.” Is God keeping the poor or His words? Calvin heard both, and so should we: the kept Word keeps the poor. In biblical theology, promise is protection (see 1 Peter 1:23–25); ultimately the Word becomes flesh to stand in for the crushed (John 1:14; Luke 4:18).

  1. Sanctifying the tongue Augustine warned that every lie wounds the soul; James likens the tongue to a flame. Psalm 12 adds this: corrupted speech is a claim of sovereignty—“Who is lord over us?”—while sanctified speech bows to Another. Pentecost answers Babel as God returns clean speech to a fractured world. The church must therefore practice a Sheminith discipline—lower-voiced humility, truthful vows, speech that shelters the poor. Resist the outrage economy where “vileness is exalted among the children of man.” Let your yes be yes; let your words be a refuge.

Suggested hymn: O Word of God Incarnate (William Walsham How)

For deeper study and prayer - Exodus 2:23–25; Isaiah 33:10; Psalm 86:11; James 3:1–12; Ephesians 4:25; Luke 4:16–21; 1 Peter 1:22–25; Acts 2:1–11 - Note the Hebrew: lev va-lev (“double heart”); chelaqot (“smooth”/flattering lips); “furnace of clay” evokes ancient earthen crucibles used in silver refining.

Prayer Arise, O Lord. Set the poor in the safety for which they pant. Put a coal from Your altar to our lips; burn away our double hearts. Make our speech a refuge, our promises like silver well-fired, our voices low with humility and loud with truth. Keep Your people—and keep Your Word among us—through this and every generation, for Jesus’ sake. Amen.

Narrated version of this devotional on Psalms Chapter 12