Bible · Psalms

Psalms 60

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1O God, thou hast cast us off, thou hast scattered us, thou hast been displeased; O turn thyself to us again.2Thou hast made the earth to tremble; thou hast broken it: heal the breaches thereof; for it shaketh.3Thou hast shewed thy people hard things: thou hast made us to drink the wine of astonishment.4Thou hast given a banner to them that fear thee, that it may be displayed because of the truth. Selah.5That thy beloved may be delivered; save with thy right hand, and hear me.6God hath spoken in his holiness; I will rejoice, I will divide Shechem, and mete out the valley of Succoth.7Gilead is mine, and Manasseh is mine; Ephraim also is the strength of mine head; Judah is my lawgiver;8Moab is my washpot; over Edom will I cast out my shoe: Philistia, triumph thou because of me.9Who will bring me into the strong city? who will lead me into Edom?10Wilt not thou, O God, which hadst cast us off? and thou, O God, which didst not go out with our armies?11Give us help from trouble: for vain is the help of man.12Through God we shall do valiantly: for he it is that shall tread down our enemies.

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Notes for this chapter

Historical Background

Psalm 60 carries a superscription that places it within one of the most turbulent seasons of David's reign. The heading connects it to the military campaigns against Mesopotamia and Syria during which Joab, David's commander, was simultaneously engaged in a fierce battle in the Valley of Salt against the Edomites, a conflict recorded in 2 Samuel 8 and 1 Chronicles 18. It appears that while David's forces were stretched across multiple fronts, Edom had seized the opportunity to strike, and Israel suffered a devastating blow. The psalm emerges from that moment of national crisis, when military defeat felt like more than a military failure.

It felt like divine abandonment. Matthew Henry observes that the occasion teaches believers something enduring, that even those who are in covenant with God are not exempt from seasons of crushing difficulty, and that these seasons are designed not to destroy faith but to deepen it.

The opening verses pour out a lament of unusual honesty. David does not soften the language or cloak the pain in religious formality. He says plainly that God has cast them off, scattered them, and been displeased with them. The earth itself seems to tremble under the weight of divine displeasure, and the image of drinking the wine of astonishment in verse three is particularly striking.

Adam Clarke notes that this phrase describes a bitter, intoxicating cup forced upon a people until they stagger and lose their sense of direction, overwhelmed by what has come upon them. The Hebrew word for astonishment here carries the force of reeling and dizziness. Israel's defeat was not merely a tactical failure but an experience so disorienting that the people could hardly find their footing. This is the language of a soul that has not abandoned God but is crying out to a God who seems to have withdrawn, and there is a difference of enormous importance between those two things. Genuine lament is itself a form of faith, a refusal to accept silence as God's final word.

Core Teaching

Yet even in the lament, a remarkable turn occurs in verse four. God has given a banner to those who fear Him, that it might be displayed because of truth. Commentators have long wrestled with this verse, and Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown suggest that even in the moment of retreat and scattering, God's covenant purpose has not been revoked. A banner in the ancient Near East was both a rallying point for scattered troops and a declaration of authority over a territory.

The image implies that although Israel has been pushed back, the standard of God's promise still stands over them. The prayer in verse five follows directly from this, asking that the beloved of God might be delivered by His right hand. In Scripture the right hand of God consistently represents His active, saving power. The transition from lament to petition happens not because the circumstances have changed but because the character of God, who holds out a banner even in defeat, has not changed.

Commentary Insights

Verses six through eight introduce a dramatic shift in voice and tone. God Himself speaks in His holiness, and the declaration that follows is a sweeping claim of sovereignty over both the territories of Israel and the surrounding nations. Shechem and Succoth represent the breadth of the promised land from west to east of the Jordan. Gilead, Manasseh, Ephraim, and Judah each carry their own covenantal weight, and the naming of them is a reminder that the land belongs to God and was given to Israel not by military conquest alone but by divine decree.

Then the tone shifts again when the foreign nations are addressed. Moab is called a washpot and Edom is the nation over which God casts His sandal, both images of contempt and subordination. Barnes' Notes explains that casting a sandal over a territory was a legal gesture in ancient culture signifying ownership or possession, drawing on imagery familiar from the book of Ruth. The proud nations that surrounded Israel and pressed against her borders are here placed beneath the sovereign authority of the God of Israel.

Philistia is addressed with what many scholars read as cutting irony, as if God is saying, what shout of triumph can you raise now that you know whose world this truly is?

Reflection & Application

The final movement of the psalm, verses nine through twelve, brings the confidence born of divine speech into direct contact with present military reality. The question of who will bring David into the fortified city of Edom is not rhetorical despair but a soldier's honest assessment of difficulty combined with a worshipper's refusal to act without divine leading. Ellen White often emphasized that Israel's strength in battle was never in her armies but in her relationship with God, and David understood this viscerally. He acknowledges that God had not gone out with their armies in this particular engagement, and rather than presuming upon past victories, he returns to prayer.

The declaration in verse eleven that the help of man is vain is not pessimism but theological clarity. Human strength, human strategy, and human alliances will all ultimately fail to accomplish what only God can secure. Verse twelve then gathers the whole psalm into one of the most confident closing affirmations in the Psalter. Through God they shall do valiantly, for it is He who will tread down their enemies.

The word valiantly in Hebrew carries the force of acting with might and courage, and its pairing with the phrase through God is everything. Courage is not the absence of fear or the absence of difficulty.

Go deeper — references Classic commentaries on this chapter

Matthew Henry's Commentary Matthew Henry (1662–1714) Adam Clarke's Commentary Adam Clarke (1760–1832) Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Jamieson, Fausset & Brown (1871) Barnes' Notes on the Bible Albert Barnes (1798–1870) EGW Writings Ellen G. White Blue Letter Bible Study tools and lexicon

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