Psalm 59: A Prophecy of the Demise and Dispersion Of Israel
David, the divinely inspired author of Psalm 59, titled it “a Michtam” signifying a subject of prayer and meditation. There are sixteen Michtams in the Book of Psalms, of which this is the fifth. Nineteenth century Hebrew-Christian scholar F.B. Meyer styled them as “golden psalms,” surely not to be neglected! This is one of only thirteen historical psalms, and it relates to King Saul’s attempts to slay David. The psalm title includes the inscription, “Michtam of David; when Saul sent, and they watched the house to kill him.” This story is told in 1 Samuel 19:11-12, “Saul also sent messengers unto David’s house, to watch him, and to slay him in the morning: and Michal David’s wife told him, saying, If thou save not thy life to night, to morrow thou shalt be slain. So Michal let David down through a window: and he went, and fled, and escaped.”
The Bible Knowledge Commentary explains, “The setting of the psalm is identified as Saul’s siege of David’s house.” Yet David’s struggle was not with Saul alone. Lutheran scholar E.W. Hengstenberg [1802-1869] says, “he [David] was not pressed by four or five wicked persons, but by a great multitude.” Who were they? The psalm expands on David’s thoughts and fears concerning his personal ordeal, which was only a microcosm of the ongoing conflict between the House of Israel’s ten tribes led by King Saul, and the House of Judah’s two tribes led by David. These two houses of Israel were long in contention; in fact, the first mention of the Jews appears in 2 Kings 16:5-6 when they were at war with Israel!
In the midst of his anguish and despair, David under inspiration issued a prophecy directed not only at Saul individually, but at Saul’s kingdom the House of Israel. The heart of the prophecy states in verses 11 to 13 “Slay them not, lest my people forget: scatter them by thy power; and bring them down, O Lord our shield. For the sin of their mouth and the words of their lips let them even be taken in their pride: and for cursing and lying which they speak. Consume them in wrath, consume them, that they may not be: and let them know that God ruleth in Jacob unto the ends of the earth. Selah. (i.e. pause and consider!)”
The Complete Jewish Bible translates, “Don’t kill them, or my people will forget; instead, by your power, make them wander to and fro; but bring them down…”
David’s words in verse 11 turned out to be exactly fulfilled as he predicted. “Slay them not!” is an English translation of the Hebrew command, “Al tahargem.” The ten-tribe kingdom would not be killed off in divine judgement. “Lest my people forget…” is an interpretation of the Hebrew, “pen yeshekechu ‘ammi.” The Syriac version renders it, “lest they should forget my people”; or my people should be forgotten. If the House of Israel suffered extermination they would fall out of historical remembrance. “Bring them down!” The Hebrew “vehoridemo” means “to descend, demise, bring downwards, fall.” “O Assyrian, the rod of mine anger…I will send him against an hypocritical nation, and against the people of my wrath will I give him a charge, to take the spoil, and to take the prey, and to tread them down like the mire of the streets.” (Isa 10:5-6). “Scatter them!” The Hebrew expression “hani’emo” means “gone away, remove, wander, disperse.” This took place when the Assyrians conquered the capital of the ten-tribes, Samaria, which fell in 721 B.C., “and carried Israel away into Assyria, and placed them in Halah and in Habor by the river of Gozan, and in the cities of the Medes.” (2 Ki. 17:6; 1 Chron. 5:26) from which places they then dispersed. The Prophet Jeremiah reported, “My people hath been lost sheep: their shepherds have caused them to go astray, they have turned them away on the mountains: they have gone from mountain to hill, they have forgotten their restingplace.” (Jer. 50:6).
Similarly, the prophecy in verse 13 came about exactly as stated. “Utter destruction,” (KJV, “consume them”) is a translation of the Hebrew “kalleh,” meaning “end, be finished, destroy, make clean riddance.” In a sense, God indeed made clean riddance of the ten tribes, for the exiled tribes never returned again. As the Jewish newspaper, “The Truth” stated in 1894, “But what has become of the Ten Tribes? Of their return no prophet or Jewish historian makes any mention. The later historians, as, for instance, Josephus, and the pious Christian Jerome, who lived after the destruction of the second temple, tell us positively that the Ten Tribes remained in captivity. From this we must infer that we, the Jews of the present day, [a quote] who are the descendants of the Tribes of Judah and Levi, are not the children of Israel of the Ten Tribes.”
Finally, the prophecy indicated that they “may not be.” The Hebrew “v’enemo” means “be nothing, not exist.” In the thinking of most ministers and theologians today the House of Israel has simply ceased to exist!
Some are perhaps confused by David’s statement in verse 5, “Awake to visit all the heathen.” Could this be referring to Saul and the ten-tribe House of Israel? The word used, “goyim” is a label sometimes applied in Scripture to Israelites; Abraham was promised that he would be the father of many “goyim,” many nations. (Gen. 17:4, 5) Barnes Commentary further explains, “The word here rendered “heathen” – גוים gôyim is understood as denoting people who had the usual character of pagans, who were fierce, bloody, savage, cruel. In this sense the word might be employed with reference to those who were engaged in seeking the life of David. David, using the common word “heathen” or “nations,” as denoting those who are wicked, cruel, harsh, prays that God would awake to visit them; that is, to visit them for purposes of punishment, or so to visit them as to prevent their carrying out their designs.”
Since the prophecy assured that God would “slay them not” (59:11), the prophetic statement closes with the assurance that “God ruleth in Jacob unto the ends of the earth. Selah!” (59:13) This is not mere rhetoric, as the unconditional Abrahamic Covenant promised that Jacob would be a blessing to all nations to the ends of the earth: “And thy seed shall be as the dust of the earth, and thou shalt spread abroad to the west, and to the east, and to the north, and to the south: and in thee and in thy seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed.” (Gen 28:14) The House of Israel was promised many other wonderful blessings, including a great increase in numbers, in wealth and in power. (Jer. 33:22; Isa. 60:9; Mic. 4:13) The newly-reprinted book, “Story of Celto-Saxon Israel” by W.H. Bennett documents a hundred prophecies that have been fulfilled!
Psalm 59 is a much-neglected historical record, and according to the Kyle and Delitzsch Commentary, it “is perhaps the oldest of the Davidic Psalms that have come down to us.” Yet it has an important prophetic message as current as our own time.
