“Slay them not, lest my people forget: scatter them by thy power; and bring them down, O Lord our shield.”
The petition that God would not slay enemies but scatter them establishes a particular theological concern: rather than complete annihilation, the psalmist requests that enemies be dispersed and their threat dissolved. The reference to God as a shield suggests that the divine protection will simply absorb the enemies' attacks and render them ineffective. The final clause that the psalmist might not forget the lesson indicates that the experience of persecution and divine protection serves a pedagogical purpose: it teaches the truth about God's faithfulness. This verse reveals that suffering, while painful, has the potential to deepen faith.
Church Fathers on Psalms 59:11
The First Part. 1. As the Scripture is wont to set mysteries of the Psalms on the titles, and to deck the brow of a Psalm with the high announcement of a Mystery, in order that we that are about to go in may know (when as it were upon the door-post we have read what within is doing) either of whom the house is, or who is the owner of that estate: so also in this Psalm there has been written a title, of a title. For it has, “At the end, corrupt not for David himself unto the…
Nicene & Post-Nicene / Ante-Nicene Fathers translations · public domain
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