Daily Word

Arise, O Lord, in your anger; lift yourself up against the fury of my enemies; awake for me; you have appointed a judgment. Let the assemblies of the people be gathered about you; over it return on high. Oh, let the evil of the wicked come to an end, and may you establish the righteous—you who test the minds and hearts, O righteous God! My shield is with God, who saves the upright in heart. God is a righteous judge, and a God who feels indignation every day. Psalm 7:6-11. These verses of the Psalm are a call to God to arise as judge. The singers see their requests as a part of the larger picture: God is a righteous judge, to whom all the peoples of mankind, and not just Israel, are accountable; thus His anger and indignation are directed against those who threaten His faithful ones (the righteous, and the upright in heart). In the Psalms, judging is more often than not a saving action, God intervening on behalf of the innocent and oppressed. (In English the word “judge” tends to focus more on condemning than on rescuing.) The particular deliverance, then, is part of God’s larger project of putting the whole world back to its right order. Meditate on the point shown here that the psalmist recognizes and understands the importance of his righteousness before God, and therefore in faith confidently goes before God knowing His heart and mind will be tested.