I don’t always pay much attention to the Psalm titles, but a couple phrases in the opening of Psalm 57 kindled my imagination. First, “Don’t destroy” (אל־תַּשְׁחֵת) — You don’t often see imperatives in Psalm titles. The phrase immediately brought to mind Genesis 6 and the flood narrative. Second, the psalm is situated in the context of David’s life, when he was hiding in a cave as he fled from Saul. That’s the part that got me thinking and writing — a psalm for days spent in a cave. Where else in Scripture do caves show up?

Caves in the Bible

The word cave (מְעָרָה) first appears in Genesis 19:30, the story of Lot and his daughters living in a cave after the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. It’s a dark story set in a dark place, which is fitting because hopelessness and fear are what compel the daughters to get their father drunk and sleep with him. “How else,” they think, “will we have any sort of good future?”

In the remainder of Genesis, cave takes on deeper connotations. Abraham, Sarah, and Jacob are buried in a cave. The cave of Machpelah serves as a sign or foreshadowing of God’s promises to give Abraham’s descendants the land of Canaan. In these stories, cave is a place of death, but the concept is wrapped in anticipation and hope in God’s special relationship and promises for Abraham’s family. Genesis closes with a beautiful, tragic portrait of Joseph and his family mourning as they proceed from Egypt back to Canaan to bury their father. So noteworthy was this procession to a cave that “When the inhabitants of the land, the Canaanites, saw the mourning on the threshing floor of Atad, they said ‘This is a grievous mourning by the Egyptians” (Gen 50:11).

Lots of other tragic and dramatic things happen in caves. In battle, kings flee to a cave and are subsequently slaughtered there (Joshua 10). Israel makes homes within caves as they flee from Midian (Judges 6; 1 Sam 13). Interestingly, Goliath steps out of the “caves of the Philistines” (1 Sam 17:23) when he mock Israel just before his fight with David. This last instance is typically translated ranks because there is a long, ancient tradition that the Hebrew word should be written slightly differently and understood to come from מַעֲרָכָה, row. Nevertheless, at this point we are getting into the weeds, and the point is clear enough: Caves are dark places often associated with death, hardship, and hiding. They are places of refuge for both the good and the bad. Caves are for hard times.

Cave Days in Psalm 57

All of these images and lines of thought are relevant as David hides from Saul, in the cave of Adullam, in 1 Samuel 22. How will David navigate his cave days? Will Saul march up to the cave entrance and demand David and his men be slaughtered, like the five kings of Joshua 10? Will hopelessness drive David to seek what he thinks is good in some twisted way, as the daughters of Lot did in Genesis 19?

Psalm 57 then provides a script for how to think and talk to God during “cave days.” As a setting for a psalm, I take cave as a metaphor for the hardships of life. The psalm then becomes a script for hard times. It’s striking how this script is marked by an overwhelmingly hopeful tone. The mention of threats and persecution (grey) are surrounded by hopeful resolutions (green) and requests for help (purple).

Noted at the top and bottom of the purple bracket, the core of the script is a transcendent hope, the presence of God rising over heaven and earth (57:6/5, 12/11) to act on behalf of the psalmist. Some observations:

Requests (purple)

• At the center and the end, the psalmist cries, “Rise above the heavens, God, may your glory be over all the earth!” (v. 6/5 and 12/11).
• Two other petitions come in pairs: a plea for mercy (2x in v. 2/1) and a call for the awakening of glory (v. 9/8).
  

Hopeful resolutions (green)

• Despite the presence of destructive forces (v. 2/1), the psalmist will hope in God (2x, v. 2/1).
• The psalmist is determined to cry out to God (2x, v. 3/2).
• He is sure that God will save (2x, v. 4/3).
• He trusts that God’s mercy and faithfulness will be sent to him (v. 4/3).
• He will sleep even in the midst of danger (v. 5/4).
• His heart is fixed (2x, v. 8/7) and so he will sing and make music (v. 8/7–9/8).
• He will offer thanksgiving because God’s mercy and faithfulness are great (v. 11/10).
  

Threats (grey)

• The first threat is “destructive forces” (חַוּוֹת). I appreciate the ambiguity.
• The second threat is “the sons of man,” who are portrayed as lions with teeth sharp like the weapons of warriors. They are hunters that lay traps for psalmist.
  

Conclusion

The older I get the more meaningful the psalms seem to become. My first concluding thought is that I’m thankful to have a script for hard times. I like Garrison Keillor’s Good Poems for Hard Times, but the ancient words of the psalms are better by far. I need reminders to sleep despite danger, to hope in God despite destructive forces. If my words were turned into a green, purple, and grey highlighted script, I’m afraid the grey would dominate. I need help navigating the cave days so yes, חָנֵּנִי אֱלֹהִים, have mercy, O God!

I appreciate how the threats are worded: it’s people (בְּנֵי־אָדָם) and destructive forces (חַוּוֹת). That pretty much sums it up. I don’t, however, mean that the problem is simply on the outside. As I’ve written before, it’s often helpful to take the enemy language in psalms as a reference to the enemy within. You don’t have to self-reflect very long to recognize destructive forces within your own heart and mind.

Finally, the overwhelmingly hopeful tone of Psalm 57 makes sense set within the context of 1 Sam 22–24. During that cave episode in David’s life, he had the chance to strike down his enemy, like Cain, but he chose mercy. That requires a view of justice that rises above heaven and earth. That’s exactly what we find in Psalm 57’s repeated refrain: “Rise above the heavens, God! May your glory be over all the earth!” Whatever glory refers to in that refrain it has to be something fierce.

The portraits of David in Scripture are often far from heroic, but I hope to navigate my “cave days” as well as he did in this particular instance. Mercy triumphs over judgment, and God delights in mercy. I’ll have more to say about that topic soon enough.