Psalms 28
Big idea: The fear here is specific and unusual: not that God will refuse, but that he will say nothing. My rock, don't be deaf to me — lest, if you are silent to me, I would become like those who go down into the pit. Silence is treated as a verdict. The psalm turns at verse 6, and the turn is one word long: blessed be Yahweh, because he has heard. Nothing else in the situation is reported to have changed.
Psalm 28 ends asking God to shepherd his people. Psalm 29 answers with a voice that shakes the wilderness.
28:1–9 — Don't be deaf to me
The fear here is specific and unusual: not that God will refuse, but that he will say nothing. Silence is treated as equivalent to death — if you are silent, I become like those in the pit — which makes the psalm's turn at verse 6 an answer to a request for sound rather than for rescue. And it ends by handing everything to the nation, with the one image the psalm has not used yet: a shepherd.
1 By David. To you, Yahweh, I call. My rock, don’t be deaf to me, lest, if you are silent to me, I would become like those who go down into the pit. 2 Hear the voice of my petitions, when I cry to you, when I lift up my hands toward your Most Holy Place. 3 Don’t draw me away with the wicked, with the workers of iniquity who speak peace with their neighbors, but mischief is in their hearts. 4 Give them according to their work, and according to the wickedness of their doings. Give them according to the operation of their hands. Bring back on them what they deserve. 5 Because they don’t respect the works of Yahweh, nor the operation of his hands, he will break them down and not build them up. 6 Blessed be Yahweh, because he has heard the voice of my petitions. 7 Yahweh is my strength and my shield. My heart has trusted in him, and I am helped. Therefore my heart greatly rejoices. With my song I will thank him. 8 Yahweh is their strength. He is a stronghold of salvation to his anointed. 9 Save your people, and bless your inheritance. Be their shepherd also, and bear them up forever.
Scripture text: World English Bible (public domain).