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Psalm 55 Bible study: Cast your burden
The Hebrew word for burden in "Cast your burden on the LORD" (55:22) comes nowhere else in the Hebrew Bible, and the lexicons give it as what is given, a lot. And moved in "He will never allow the righteous to be moved" (55:22) is the verb the psalm first used for what the enemies "bring" on him (55:3).
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“Cast your burden on the LORD and he will sustain you. He will never allow the righteous to be moved.”
Try it · Did you catch it?
“Psalm 55:15's words "go down alive into Sheol" are also in Numbers 16.”
Is that in Psalm 55, or not? Make your call.
What's really going on
Not an enemy: it was you
The title is "For the Chief Musician. On stringed instruments. A contemplation by David." (55:1), and it says no more than that. The psalmist has enemies, and he names them first: "the voice of the enemy" and "the oppression of the wicked" (55:3). But the wound the psalm keeps coming back to is someone else. "For it was not an enemy who insulted me, then I could have endured it" (55:12). "But it was you, a man like me, my companion, and my familiar friend" (55:13) (tap companion, familiar). "We took sweet fellowship together. We walked in God’s house with company" (55:14) (tap fellowship). The psalmist turns from speaking about his troubles to speaking to this man: you. He says what they shared, and that it was in God's house. The psalm never gives his name.
Where it leads to Jesus
Casting all your worries on him
Psalms 55:22leads to1 Peter 5:10
Peter, "an apostle of Jesus Christ" (1 Peter 1:1), writes, "Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in due time" (1 Peter 5:6), "casting all your worries on him, because he cares for you" (1 Peter 5:7). The psalm says, "Cast your burden on the LORD and he will sustain you" (Psalm 55:22). 1 Peter doesn't name the psalm, and the WEB words the two differently (your burden in the psalm, all your worries in 1 Peter), so setting them side by side is a reading. It rests on a shared subject: handing what weighs on you over to God. Peter goes on to his readers' sufferings (1 Peter 5:8-9), and closes the same charge with a prayer that names Jesus: "But may the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory by Christ Jesus, after you have suffered a little while, perfect, establish, strengthen, and settle you" (1 Peter 5:10). One reading hears the psalm's call given again in 1 Peter, to people God "called you to his eternal glory by Christ Jesus" (1 Peter 5:10), while they suffer. Another reads 1 Peter 5:7 as Peter's own words, an echo at most, and draws no line from the psalm, since 1 Peter doesn't cite it. Neither reading makes the psalmist Jesus, or says the psalm speaks of him.
Honest questions
Questions people ask about Psalm 55
That was a taste
The rest of Psalm 55 is waiting in Favor
- The psalm keeps coming back
- A burden, and what is given
- "Oh that I had": wings, and the wilderness
- Smoother than oil, sharper than swords
- 9 questions as you read
- 13 more Hebrew words
- A short check at the end
- Your notes, saved as you go
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The Hebrew word behind it
יְהָבyehavsay ye-HAV
Brown-Driver-Briggs: "lot (as that which is given)". Strong's: "properly, what is given (by Providence), i.e. a lot", and "from 3051", the verb give, which the WEB has as "Ascribe to the LORD" in Psalm 29:1. "Cast your burden on the LORD and he will sustain you" (55:22). In Hebrew your burden is one word, yehavkha. The word comes only here in the Hebrew Bible.
For your group
Psalm 55 Bible study questions
- 1"For it was not an enemy who insulted me, then I could have endured it" (55:12). Why do you think hurt from someone close cuts deeper, and how does this psalm bring that hurt to God?
- 2"Oh that I had wings like a dove! Then I would fly away, and be at rest" (55:6). When have you wanted to fly away from something, and what did you do instead?
- 3"Cast your burden on the LORD and he will sustain you" (55:22). What is one burden you could hand to the LORD this week, and what would that look like in practice?
Leading a group? In Favor, everyone reads Psalm 55 during the week and answers these questions privately. Answers stay sealed until you meet, then appear together, and you can print the week's sheet.
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Questions
What is Favor?
Favor is a Bible study app that explains every chapter as you read: the Hebrew and Greek behind the words, the details most readers miss, and how each part of the Bible leads to Jesus. Read on your own, or start a Bible study with friends, family or your church.
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Scripture quotations are from the World English Bible, which is in the public domain. Hebrew and Greek words are checked against the original-language texts and public-domain lexicons. What we believe · Favor home