Title.—(RV) 'For the Chief Musician; set to Jonath elem rehokim. A Psalm of David: Michtam: when the Philistines took him in Gath.' For Michtam see on Psalms 16. Jonath elem rehokim ('the dove of the distant terebinths') indicates the song to the melody of whicb the Ps. was to be sung. As in the case of Psalms 34 the title hardly describes accurately the occasion which it mentions (1 Samuel 21:10), and consequently too much weight must not be attached to it. The Psalmist, with many enemies around him, casts himself on God's mercy, and his confidence utters itself in a twice-repeated refrain (Psalms 56:4; Psalms 56:10).

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