Psalms 55:22,23

David Now Exhorts All Who Hear These Words To Do What He Does, By Casting Their Burden On YHWH, With The Assurance That He Can Be Trusted And Will Certainly Sustain The Righteous (Psalms 55:22)

As so often happens in the Psalms, there is a change of theme at the end of the Psalm which has the worshippers who are using the Psalm primarily in view.

Psalms 55:22

‘Cast your burden on YHWH,

And he will sustain you,

He will never allow the righteous to be moved.'

He calls on all who are righteous (those who seek genuinely to walk in accordance the covenant) to learn from his experience and to cast any burden that they have on YHWH (note again the use of the covenant Name), with the assurance that if they do so He will sustain them as He has the Psalmist. He assures them that YHWH will never allow the righteous to be moved. Once again we note the emphasis on ‘the righteous', the remnant of Israel. The assurance is to those who truly follow YHWH, not to the whole of Israel. And God will not be deceived by someone giving the title of ‘the righteous' to the whole of Israel. Man looks at the outwards appearance, but God looks at the heart. It is only true for the truly righteous. which is the continual emphasis of Scripture.

Psalms 55:23

‘But you, O God, will bring them down into the pit of destruction,

Bloodthirsty and deceitful men will not live out half their days,

But I will trust in you.'

In contrast to the truly righteous, he assures God that he knows that He will bring the violent and deceitful down into the pit of destruction. Rather than having a full length of life they will die younger. They will not be sustained. They will not remain ‘unmoved'. And he completes the Psalm on a positive note when he says, ‘But as for me, I will trust in you.' Whatever happens this is his one mainstay. As one of the righteous he knows that God will sustain him to the end with the consequence that he knows that he can trust Him under all circumstances, even of his friends betray him.