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Psalm 55 · a question people ask

"Let death come suddenly on them. Let them go down alive into Sheol" (55:15). How can a prayer ask for that?

In the text

First, what the verse says. It is a prayer, and it gives its reason in its own words: "For wickedness is among them, in their dwelling" (55:15). It comes straight after the psalmist speaks of the friend who turned (55:12-14), and before he says what he himself will do: "As for me, I will call on God. The LORD will save me" (55:16). At the end of the psalm he says what God will do: "But you, God, will bring them down into the pit of destruction" (55:23). The psalmist doesn't say he will act against them himself. Numbers uses the same words of Korah's company: "they go down alive into Sheol" (Numbers 16:30), and then they "went down alive into Sheol" (Numbers 16:33) (tap Sheol). Psalm 55 is not the only psalm that prays against enemies, and Christians read these prayers in more than one way. The chapter on Psalm 109 sets out the main readings, each resting on its verses, and chooses none. These notes don't choose either.

The verses

“For it was not an enemy who insulted me, then I could have endured it. Neither was it he who hated me who raised himself up against me, then I would have hidden myself from him. But it was you, a man like me, my companion, and my familiar friend. We took sweet fellowship together. We walked in God’s house with company. Let death come suddenly on them. Let them go down alive into Sheol. For wickedness is among them, in their dwelling. As for me, I will call on God. The LORD will save me.”
Psalm 55:12-16 · World English Bible
“But you, God, will bring them down into the pit of destruction. Bloodthirsty and deceitful men shall not live out half their days, but I will trust in you.”
Psalm 55:23 · World English Bible
“But if the LORD makes a new thing, and the ground opens its mouth, and swallows them up with all that belong to them, and they go down alive into Sheol, then you shall understand that these men have despised the LORD.””
Numbers 16:30 · World English Bible
“So they, and all that belonged to them went down alive into Sheol. The earth closed on them, and they perished from among the assembly.”
Numbers 16:33 · World English Bible

From Favor's study of Psalm 55

Psalm 55: 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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Scripture quotations are from the World English Bible, which is in the public domain. Every answer cites the verses it rests on. What we believe · All Bible questions