Superscription first: “A Shiggaion of David… concerning the words of Cush, a Benjamite.” Shiggaion is rare, a word likely rooted in a verb meaning “to reel.” This is a song that staggers—emotionally uneven, urgent, raw. Habakkuk uses the same label for his prayer (Habakkuk 3:1), and the effect is the same: the soul sways under pressure but moves Godward.
We do not know who Cush was. Being a Benjamite places him in Saul’s orbit. Think slander in a court of honor and shame. In the ancient Near East, a man’s name was social capital; to stain it was to steal his future. Notice how David is willing to call down a curse upon himself if he is guilty (verses 3–5). That self-imprecation echoes treaty oaths from his world. It is not bravado; it is courage born of a clean conscience. The Hebrew for “integrity” (tummah) does not mean sinlessness but wholeness—no double game, no hidden knife.
The psalm moves between courtroom and battlefield. God is both Judge and Warrior. The verbs rise and wake (qumah… ’urah) are liturgy-words for enthronement: “Arise, O LORD… Awake for me.” Not because God sleeps, but because the plaintiff asks the Judge to take the bench. Then, without transition, the Judge reaches for weapons. Pitch-soaked arrows and flaming shafts were real tools of ancient warfare; inscriptions and archaeological finds confirm them. David isn’t being melodramatic; he is saying moral reality is not neutral—God arms Himself against unrepentant malice.
A verse Western readers often glide past is verse 12: “If a man does not turn, [God] will whet His sword.” Judgment is not God’s impatience; it is His patience refusing to be endlessly mocked. The Hebrew says God is a “righteous judge” (English Standard Version)—tsaddiq shofet—whose steady anger (zo’em) burns daily. This is not divine bad temper; it is the universe’s moral health. The same holy heat that warms the penitent scorches cruelty.
The most arresting imagery is obstetric: the wicked grow pregnant with trouble, carry falsehood to term, and give birth to deceit (verses 14–16). Evil is not a flash; it is a gestation. But its child turns and devours its parent. The trapper falls into his own pit (compare Proverbs 26:27). Here a startling gospel contrast glimmers: while the wicked womb labors to deliver lies, a virgin will conceive and bear Truth Himself (Luke 1:31–33). Psalm 7’s world is already leaning toward Advent.
How does this square with Christ’s call to love enemies? Notice David does not draw his own sword; he hands the case to God. That is exactly what the true David did: “When he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly” (1 Peter 2:23). To pray Psalm 7 in Christ is to refuse private vengeance and to beg public righteousness. It is to stand under the light now (“Judge me according to my righteousness in this matter,” verse 8) so we are not surprised by the Light later.
The psalm ends where faith always hopes to end: doxology. “I will give thanks… to the name of the LORD Most High.” Elyon is the title Melchizedek used over Abraham; it signals that the court convened for your small slander is the same court that rules empires. Your case matters in that room.
Suggested cross-references: - 1 Samuel 24; 26 - Psalm 26:1; Psalm 139:23–24 - Proverbs 26:27 - Habakkuk 3:1 - Romans 12:17–21; Deuteronomy 32:35 - 1 Peter 2:23 - Revelation 6:10; 19:11
Hymn for meditation: “Judge Eternal, Throned in Splendor” (Henry Scott Holland).
Prayer: Righteous Judge and faithful Refuge, search me for truth and shield me from lies. Where I am wrong, turn me; where I am slandered, vindicate me in Your time. Arm Yourself against the harms that stalk the weak, and let the pits dug by deceit become empty graves. Teach me to entrust my case to You, to love my enemies, and to end every trial with thanksgiving to the Most High. Through Jesus, the truly Innocent, Amen.