Psalm 7 Bible study: A righteous judge

The title gives the occasion: "A meditation by David, which he sang to the LORD, concerning the words of Cush, the Benjamite" (7:1) (tap meditation). Then the psalm begins: "LORD, my God, I take refuge in you. Save me from all those who pursue me, and deliver me" (7:1) (tap take refuge), "lest they tear apart my soul like a lion, ripping it in pieces, while there is no one to deliver" (7:2). Then the psalmist puts himself under an oath: "LORD, my God, if I have done this, if there is iniquity in my hands, if I have rewarded evil to him who was at peace with me" (7:3-4), "let the enemy pursue my soul, and overtake it" (7:5). Here is what almost everyone misses: in Hebrew that pursue is the verb of "all those who pursue me" (7:1), radaf. He asks to be saved from those who pursue him, and says that if he is guilty, let the enemy pursue him. The psalm never says what this is (7:3), or what Cush said.

Psalms 7:8→leads toJohn 5:22

Psalm 7 speaks of God as judge: "The LORD administers judgment to the peoples" (Psalm 7:8), and "God is a righteous judge" (Psalm 7:11). Jesus, speaking of the Father and the Son (John 5:19-23), said, "For the Father judges no one, but he has given all judgment to the Son" (John 5:22), and "He also gave him authority to execute judgment, because he is a son of man" (John 5:27). Jesus doesn't cite Psalm 7, so setting them together is a reading. It rests on a shared subject, who judges the peoples, not on a shared English word. One reading hears in Jesus's words who holds the judgment the psalm gives to God: the Father has given it all to the Son. Another reads each in its own setting: John 5 speaks of the hour when "all who are in the tombs will hear his voice" (John 5:28) and doesn't point to this psalm, and the psalm asks for judgment in the psalmist's own case (Psalm 7:8), against "the rage of my adversaries" (Psalm 7:6). Neither reading makes the psalmist Jesus, or makes Jesus's words an answer to the psalmist's prayer.

שָׁפַטshafatsay sha-FAT

Brown-Driver-Briggs: "judge, govern". Strong's: "to judge, i.e. pronounce sentence (for or against); by implication, to vindicate or punish". The psalm has it twice. The psalmist asks, "Judge me, LORD, according to my righteousness" (7:8), and says, "God is a righteous judge" (7:11), with the same verb. Abraham asked the LORD, "Shouldn’t the Judge of all the earth do right?" (Genesis 18:25), with this verb for Judge. And Jeremiah called on the LORD "who judges righteously" (Jeremiah 11:20), with this verb and the word of 7:8's righteousness.